Discover the Best Books Written by Rollo May

Rollo May (April 21, 1909 – October 22, 1994) was an American existential psychologist. He authored the influential book Love and Will in 1969. Although he is often associated with humanistic psychology, his philosophy was influenced strongly by existentialist philosophy. May was a close friend of the theologian Paul Tillich. His works include Love and Will and The Courage to Create, the latter title honoring Tillich's The Courage to Be.

May was born in Ada, Ohio, in 1909. He experienced a difficult childhood, with his parents divorcing and his sister becoming schizophrenic. His educational career took him to Michigan State College, majoring in English and Oberlin College for a bachelor's degree, teaching for a time in Greece, to Union Theological Seminary for a BD in 1938, and finally to Teachers College, Columbia University for a Ph.D. in clinical psychology during 1949. May was a founder and faculty member of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco.

He spent the final years of his life in Tiburon on San Francisco Bay, where he died in October 1994. May was influenced by American humanism and interested in reconciling existential psychology with other philosophies, especially Freud's. May considered Otto Rank (1884-1939) to be the most important precursor of existential therapy. Shortly before his death, May wrote the foreword to Robert Kramer's edited collection of Rank’s American lectures. “I have long considered Otto Rank to be the great unacknowledged genius in Freud’s circle,” wrote May (Rank, 1996, p. xi).

May used some traditional existential terms in a slightly different fashion than others, and he invented new words for traditional existentialist concepts. Destiny, for example, could be "thrownness" combined with "fallenness" — the part of our lives that is determined for us for the purpose of creating our lives. He also used the word "courage" to signify resisting anxiety.

May perceived the sexual mores of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the commercialization of sex and pornography, as having influenced society such that people believed that love and sex are no longer associated directly. According to May, emotion has become separated from reason, making it acceptable socially to seek sexual relationships and avoid the natural drive to relate to another person and create new life. May believed that sexual freedom could cause modern society to neglect more important psychological developments. May suggests that the only way to remedy the cynical ideas that characterize our times is to rediscover the importance of caring for another, which May describes as the opposite of apathy.