Contemporary psychology may be overlooking an important mode of inquiry by insisting that our primary mode of communication should take the form of scientific articles rather than that of literary essays. The essay was first practiced and then refined by Michel de Montaigne in the late Renaissance and constitutes a unique literary form that incorporates both Renaissance humanism and the then-emerging spirit of scientific discovery. The aim of the present essay is to explore the uses psychotherapists might make of Montaigne’s Essays, both as a fruitful model for writing about and for reflecting on the human condition. The essay was born at a time of great intellectual and spiritual upheaval and renewal. It is freewheeling, unorthodox, forever inventive, and at the same time learned, disciplined, and profoundly respectful of the past. The author looks to the humanist essay as developed by Montaigne as a useful literary and disciplinary device that can help in understanding the gap between purely theoretical or academic psychology and the actual practice of therapeutic psychology.
BakewellS. (2010). How to live: Or, a life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer. London, England: Chatto & Windus.
2.
BernsteinR. J. (1983). Beyond objectivism and relativism: Science, hermeneutics, and praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
3.
BloomH. (2002). Genius: A mosaic of one hundred exemplary creative minds. New York, NY: Warner Books.
4.
BragueR. (2002). Eccentric culture: A theory of Western civilization (LesterS., Trans.). South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press.
5.
BrushC. (1994). From the perspective of the self: Montaigne’s self-portrait. New York, NY: Fordham University Press.
6.
ButrymA. J. (1989). Introduction. In ButrymA. J. (Ed.), Essays on the essay: Redefining the genre (pp. 1-8). Athens: University of Georgia Press.
7.
DefauxG. (1994). The Essays: An overall view. In HenryP. (Ed.), Approaches to teaching Montaigne’s essays (pp. 48-55). New York, NY: Modern Language Association of America.
8.
DillonJ. J. (2008). Reclaiming humanistic psychology from modernity: Problems and solutions. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 48, 221-242.
EmersonR. W. (1926). The heart of Emerson’s journals. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press.
11.
GassW. H. (1985). Habitations of the word: Essays. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
12.
GoodG. (1988). The observing self: Rediscovering the essay. New York, NY: Routledge.
13.
GraumannC. F. (1981). Psychology: Humanistic or human? In RoyceJ. R.MosL. P. (Eds.), Humanistic psychology (pp. 19-47). New York, NY: Plenum.
14.
HallM. L. (1989). The emergence of the essay and the idea of discovery. In ButrymA. J. (Ed.), Essays on the essay: Redefining the genre (pp. 73-91). Athens: University of Georgia Press.
15.
HansenD. T. (2002). Well-formed, not well-filled: Montaigne and the paths of personhood. Educational Theory, 52, 127-154.
16.
HardisonO. B. J. (1989). Binding Proteus. In ButrymA. J. (Ed.), Essays on the essay: Redefining the genre (pp. 11-28). Athens: University of Georgia Press.
17.
HartleA. (2002). The essay as self-knowledge: Montaigne’s philosophical appropriation of history and poetry. In MageeG. A. (Ed.), Philosophy and culture: Essays in honor of Donald Phillip Verene (pp. 63-83). Charlottesville, VA: Philosophy Documentation Center. Retrieved from http://www.pdcnet.org/pages/Products/electronic/pdf/hartle.pdf
18.
HartleA. (2003). Michel de Montaigne: Accidental philosopher. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
19.
HenryP. (1987). Montaigne in dialogue: Censorship and defensive writing, architecture and friendship, the self and the other. Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri.
20.
HumeD. (1977). Inquiry concerning human understanding. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
21.
JagerB. (1991). Psychology in a postmodern era. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 22(1), 60-71.
22.
JagerB. (2009). About doing science and contemplating the human condition: Address to the International Human Science Research Conference at Molde, Norway, June 2009. The Humanistic Psychologist, 38(1), 67-94.
23.
JaureguiI. (2001). Towards a phenomenology of writing: A reading of Marie Cardinal’s Les grands desordres (Disorderly Conduct). Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 32, 170-187.
24.
KauffmannR. L. (1989). The skewed path: Essaying as un-methodical method. In ButrymA. J. (Ed.), Essays on the essay: Redefining the genre (pp. 221-240). Athens: University of Georgia Press.
25.
KierkegaardS. (1964). Repetition: An essay in experimental psychology (W. Lowrie, Trans.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.
26.
LevineA. (1999). Early modern skepticism and the origins of toleration. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
27.
McLuhanM.McLuhanE.SzklarekJ. (1999). The medium and the light. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Stoddart.
28.
MendelowitzE. (2006). Meditations on Oedipus: Becker’s Kafka, Nietzsche’s metamorphoses. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 46, 385-431.
29.
Merleau-PontyM. (1964). Reading Montaigne. In McClearyR. C. (Trans.), Signs (pp. 198-210). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
30.
MontaigneM. (1711). Essays of Michael seigneur de Montaigne: In three books with marginal notes and quotations. And an account of the author’s life. With a short character of the author and translator (CottonC., Trans., Vol. 3). London, England: Printed for Daniel Brown, J. Nicholson, R. Wellington, B. Tooke, B. Barker, G. Strahan, R. Smith, and G. Harris.
31.
MontaigneM. (2003). The complete works: Essays, travel journal, letters (D. Frame, Trans.). New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
32.
MozdzierzG. J.PelusoP. R.LisieckiJ. (2010). Evidence-based psychological practices and therapist training: At the crossroads. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 1-26. doi:10.1177/002216781038695910.1177/0022167810386959
33.
O’NeillJ. (2001). Essaying Montaigne: A study of the Renaissance institution of writing and reading. Liverpool, England: Liverpool University Press.
34.
OakeshottM. (1962). Rationalism in politics and other essays. London, England: Methuen.
35.
OakeshottM. (1991). On human conduct. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
36.
PelusoD. L.CarletonR. N.AsmundsonG. J. G. (2010). Clinical psychology graduate students’ perceptions of their scientific and practical training: A Canadian perspective. Canadian Psychology, 51, 133-139.
SandersS. R. (1989). The singular first person. In ButrymA. J. (Ed.), Essays on the essay: Redefining the genre (pp. 31-42). Athens: University of Georgia Press.
39.
SpellmeyerK. (1989). The essay in the academy. In ButrymA. J. (Ed.), Essays on the essay: Redefining the genre (pp. 253-270). Athens: University of Georgia Press.
40.
TanguayD. (1999). Parler de soi avec Montaigne [Talking about yourself with Montaigne]. Horizons philosophiques, 10(1), 15-25.
41.
TaylorC. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
42.
ToulminS. (1992). Cosmopolis: The hidden agenda of modernity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
43.
WoolfV. (1984). The common reader. London, England: Hogarth.
