The Future of Humanistic/Existential Psychology: A Commentary on David Elkins’s (2009a) Critique of the Medical Model

In the increasingly competitive market place of mental health providers, where do we, the humanistic/existential psychologists (HEP), position ourselves? With positive psychotherapists and happiness coaches gaining grounds in the domain of personal growth, and neuroscientists and mindful meditation dom-inating the field of spirituality, in what areas can we stake out a claim of being a major player? What are the compelling characteristics of our brand of psychotherapy?These questions swirled in my head as I pondered over David Elkins’s (2009a) provocative article. Basically, I agree with Elkins’s case against the medical model and his critique of the restrictive and biased nature of evidence-supported treatment (Elkins, 2007, 2008). I can also fully under-stand his displeasure toward the health insurance industry. But here is our conundrum: We may be right on psychological, therapeutic, methodological, ethical, and moral grounds, but we still fail to gain wide acceptance by main-stream psychology. The challenge confronting us is how to overcome this barrier without compromising our core convictions.I differ from David more on matters of strategy and stance than substantive issues. For both pragmatic and theoretical reasons, I prefer a more open and inte-grative stance in the spirit of Kirk Schneider’s (2008) existential-integrative psychotherapy. We also need to develop a new coordinated strategy to fulfill