The Existential-Humanistic Institute: Formalizing Training for Hungering Professionals of Today and Tomorrow

This article describes the formation, history, and current mission of the Existential-Humanistic Institute (EHI) located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Created at the behest of pioneering existential-humanistic psychologist James F.T. Bugental to provide a “home” for trainees specializing in the existential-humanistic approach to psychotherapy, EHI is now a flagship center for that domain of practice. It was also recently granted the Karl and Charlotte Buhler Award for organizations that have made an outstanding contribution to humanistic psychology by the Society for Humanistic Psychology of the American Psychological Association, and it is a beacon for the increasing number of students and professionals who hunger for a deeper and more intimate perspective than that typically offered by conventional training institutions.