SHP Virtual Conference Series
Due to the pandemic, in lieu of an in-person conference during 2021, Society for Humanistic Psychology (SHP) is providing safe, distanced engagements on a monthly basis in a virtual conference series via Zoom. We are offering a mixture of continuing education,* didactic presentations, and social engagements.
SHP and its Conference Coordination Team thank everyone who has registered, supported, and attended thus far. We also would like to express appreciation to Brent Robbins, Louis Hoffman and colleagues, Kirk Schneider, Orah Krug, and Nathaniel Granger for delivering outstanding, thought-provoking presentations during the first half of the year, as well as to Richard Bargdill for organizing a student research highlight in April. If you were unable to attend these presentations, or would like to see them again, recordings of the presentations are available on our SHP-TV channelopens in new window.
Please visit our event websiteopens in new window for more info about the virtual conference and to register for our upcoming programming, which includes an experiential workshop processing experiences of hate through creating poetry, hosted by SHP's Task Force on Hate Incidents (July 21). This will be followed by presentations by Shawn Rubin (August 21), Theopia Jackson (September 23), Todd DuBose (October 22), and David Cain (November 19). Then the year will close out with an open mic night social emceed by Derrick Sebree (December 17). The year-long conference series package is available for $30 for SHP members and $75 for non-members. À la carte access to individual sessions is also available ($20 per session).
*CEs for speaker presentations are available pending their approvals, and disability accommodations can be accessed by contacting Betz King, PhD. APA Div. 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology, is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. APA Division 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology maintains responsibility for this program and its content. For more information on CE offerings, please contact Vanessa Brown, PhD.
APA 2021 Virtual Convention
Please see our APA 2021 Virtual convention page, which includes a listing of symposia and posters sponsored by Div. 32 as well as our virtual hospitality suite program.
SHP Virtual Hospitality Suite
During the APA 2021 virtual convention in August, Div, 32 is planning to hold a live time virtual Hospitality Suite using Gather.townopens in new window, an online platform that will allow attendees to move about a virtual Hospitality Suite space, providing opportunities for both individual and group interactions—including video chat, screen share, and watching videos/viewing presentations.
We plan to host posters and other live events in the suite, including a social hour celebrating this year’s award winners and a presidential address session.
Several of us, including Hospitality Suite Co-chairs Zenobia Morrill and Anthony Gonzalez, have beta-tested the virtual suite, and it is a lot of fun. We plan to have programming in the suite spread across 8 hours on Saturday, August 14 during the convention, although the suite will be open before that for small groups to get together, get oriented, and use during the rest of the convention.
The virtual Div. 32 suite will provide us all the opportunity for a more engaged and interactive conference experience. We hope you decide to join us in the suite.
Further details coming soon.
The Humanistic Psychologist
The first issue for 2021 is in press and is expected to be mailed to the membership in mid-July 2021. It is a special double-sized issue on mindfulness in dialogue with the teachings of the Buddha, guest edited by Belinda Siew Luan Khong and Seth Zuihō Segall.
We hope you found the last issue of 2020 to be enlightening, as it dealt with the pandemic as presented through the eyes (and from the hearts) of many authors representing many different nationalities. We began with a featured article written by our British colleague and consulting editor, Linda Finlay, describing her own encounter with COVID-19. This was followed by a large special section consisting of 11 brief reports, based upon a webinar produced by the Gestalt Institute of Italy, on coping with the pandemic. We ended the issue and the volume with a “Student Spotlight” on the pursuit of the I-Thou relationship. Nancy McWilliams, a major author herself in contemporary psychoanalysis (and developer of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual) wrote a very complimentary letter commending the guest editor of the special pandemic section, Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, for her own contribution.
You may have noticed in recent years an increase in the number and quality of our international contributions. Twenty-two percent of our downloads in 2019 were international. This represents an uptick from previous years, partially attributable to our reaching out to more international authors by featuring their work under a banner within the journal called “international contributions.” Ever since we began using that banner, we have had a plethora of international submissions, and with them, an increase in downloads of our published articles.
Further, our revenue share of royalties has more than doubled since 2018. It would appear that we are doing very well as a result of the hard work of our review editors as well as the excellent contributions from our authors, which in turn have generated increasing numbers of downloads.
To accommodate the recent surge in accepted articles, we have increased our print page budget for 2021 by an additional 200 pages to accommodate some of the backlog we have generated by producing significantly more than the contracted number of pages for each of the previous three years. We hope that the increased visibility of a larger page budget for this year’s volume will also result in more revenues. The Society is benefiting from all the extra work done on the editorial side of the journal by my team of review editors who work tirelessly with our esteemed authors to keep the journal standards high.
Moving into the summer, we have just finalized the table of contents for our second 2021 issue and are currently at work on the third issue.
Best Regards,
Scott Churchill, editor-in-chief
2020-21 Heritage Awards
Congratulations to the recipients of our 2020-21 SHP Heritage Awards: Arthur Bohart, Constance Fisher, Eugene Gendlin, Steen Halling and the Seattle University Department of Psychology, Louis Hoffman, and Sarah Kamens!
International Whole Person Approaches Work Group
Co-chaired by Ilene Serlin and Rita M. Rivera, this workgroup is a subset of the APA Interdivisional Task Force on COVID-19. Representatives of arts organizations that provide a creative and active way for people to address trauma include the International Arts + Mind Lab, Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Arts Medicine program at the University of Florida, and the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya in Israel. Ongoing projects from this workgroup include arts-based and written materials, participation in collaborative projects such as the weekly roundtables, and training webinars to disseminate resources for building resilience and creativity in the face of trauma. Read the full report for more information about the activities and initiatives of the work group.
Psychotherapy and the Arts
Dear Friends,
Please enjoy our latest issue of Psychotherapy and the Arts, co-sponsored by Div. 32 and 10 of the American Psychological Association.
Warmly,
Ilene Serlin, Pam McCrory, and Allyn Enderlyn, co-editors

SHP endorses Kirk Schneider, PhD, as 2021 candidate for president of the American Psychological Association. Schneider says: