Recommended Principles and Practices For The Provision of Humanistic Psychosocial Services: Alternative To Mandated Practice and Treatment Guidelines Task Force for the Development of Practice Recommendations For The Provision of Humanistic

The following document is a statement of recommended principles for the provision of humanistic psychological services, particularly psychotherapy, although the principles elucidated apply to the provision of other psychological services as well. It was prepared under the directive of the Executive Board of the Division of Humanistic Psychology, by a task force appointed by the Executive Board for that purpose. The members of this Task Force are: Arthur C. Bohart, Chair (California State University, Dominguez Hills and Saybrook Graduate School); Maureen M. O'Hara, Co-Chair, (Saybrook Graduate School and past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology); Larry M. Leitner (Miami University, Ohio and past president of Division 32); Fred Wertz (Fordham University and editor Journal of Phenomenological Psychology); E. Mark Stern (Iona College, editor, The Psychotherapy Patient and past president of Division 32); Kirk Schneider (Saybrook Graduate School); Ilene Serlin (Union Street Health Associates, San Francisco, and past president of Division 32); Robert Elliott (University of Toledo and past president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research); and Tom Greening (Saybrook Graduate School and editor, Journal of Humanistic Psychology). Robert Elliott, University of Toledo, and President-Elect of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, has recently joined the Task Force, but did not play a role in the development of these recommendations. An initial draft of the major portion of this document was approved by the Board of Division 32 and subsequently published in The Humanistic Psychologist, 25(1), Spring, 1997, as “Guidelines for the Provision of Humanistic Psychosocial Services." This was done to solicit feedback from Division 32 members. The additional draft section on Training and Ethics was published in The Humanistic Psychologist, 25(3), Autumn, 1997, also to solicit feedback. The final version was approved by the Division 32 Board in 1999. The document was then submitted to the American Psychological Association to undergo its guidelines review process. Initial steps of this process were successfully completed, including review by APA’s Legal Counsel and submission to all APA divisions for feedback. Ultimately, however, because of APA’s specific definitions of what constitutes guidelines, it was decided by the Division 32 Board in 2001 to reconstrue the document as “Recommended Principles and Practices For The Provision of Humanistic Psychosocial Services: Alternative To Mandated Practice and Treatment Guidelines.” Minor changes in wording were mandated due to this alteration, and have now been completed, along with minor updating of research citations.