The Psychological Humanities Manifesto: An Interview with Mark Freeman

Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health

Mark Freeman is a renowned author and a pioneering voice in the emerging field of the psychological humanities. He serves as Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Department of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross. His body of work, including the critically acclaimed Toward the Psychological Humanities: A Modest Manifesto for the Future of Psychology (Routledge, 2023), offers a profound reimagining of psychology, interweaving it with the arts and humanities to better understand the human condition.

He is the author of numerous additional works, virtually all of which, in one way or another, speak to the emerging field of the psychological humanities. These include Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative (Routledge, 1993); Finding the Muse: A Sociopsychological Inquiry into the Conditions of Artistic Creativity (Cambridge, 1994); Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward (Oxford, 2010); The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Living Beyond the Self (Oxford, 2014); and Do I Look at You with Love? Reimagining the Story of Dementia (Brill | Sense). Along with David Goodman, he has also co-edited Psychology and the Other (Oxford, 2015) and, with Hanna Meretoja, has co-edited the recently published The Use and Abuse of Stories: New Directions in Narrative Hermeneutics (Oxford, 2023). He also serves as Editor for the Oxford University Press series “Explorations in Narrative Psychology.”

In this interview, we'll explore his personal journey toward the psychological humanities, delve into his work in narrative psychology, and discuss his approach to the concepts of 'self' and the 'Other.' We'll also touch upon how his perspectives guided him as he navigated his mother's journey through dementia, a deeply personal narrative shared in his book.

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