Eugene M. DeRobertis, Ph.D.
Brookdale Social Sciences, MAN 126c
765 Newman Springs Road
Lincroft, New Jersey 07738

Welcome to my home page. My name is Eugene M. DeRobertis. I have a B.A. in philosophy from St. Peter’s College and a Ph.D. in psychology from Duquesne University. I have worked as a guidance counselor, a psychotherapist, and an addictions counselor. However, I have found teaching and writing to be more personally fulfilling.

As an author in their field of psychology, I think of myself as existential-phenomenological, humanistic, hermeneutic, personalistic, dialogal, and somewhat neo-Thomistic. All of these terms ring of anthropological holism to me and that is why I favor them. My work is inspired by an array of philosophers and psychologists. Here are just a few of the individuals whose intellectual accomplishments I admire: Charlotte M. Bühler, Edward L. Murray, Emmanuel Levinas, Gabriel Marcel, Gordon Allport, J.H. van den Berg, Jacques Maritain, M.J. Langeveld, Karen Horney, Martin Heidegger, William Stern, Alfred Adler, Mary Whiton Calkins, Max van Manen, Medard Boss, Paul Ricoeur, Paul Tillich, Rollo May, Søren Kierkegaard, St. Edith Stein, St. Thomas Aquinas, Stephen Strasser, Adrian van Kaam, Viktor Frankl, and William James.

The decision to devote my graduate studies to psychology was in large part due to what I perceived to be a widespread preference for reductionism in the field. Too much time is wasted looking for how the brain “creates” mental processes or worse, where the mind resides in the brain, despite the fact that these kinds of ideas disintegrate under the scrutiny of philosophic analysis. It seems to me that human beings are increasingly interpreting their lives in reductionistic terms as psychology grows in popularity. I frequently find that my students tend not to take the risk of speaking of their own minds in favor of speaking about “the” brain. I find that psychology has repeatedly fallen prey to a case of mistaken identity when it comes to human beings. As a result, it unwittingly hurts mankind in spite of all it does to assist in the development of our species. Questions of truth are answered with skepticism. Questions of life’s meaning or purpose are answered with nihilism. Questions of ethics are answered with moral subjectivism.

I believe that psychology ought to be conscientious and mindful of the consequences of its assertions. I am suspicious of the popularity of reductionism (partially due to it being a product of mind/body dualism) though I am aware of its value as an interpretive device. I hope that my writings reflect this. Highly reductionistic perspectives such as strict behaviorism or biological psychology have made enormous contributions to the betterment of mankind. What I oppose is the refusal to acknowledge that there is more to being human than what is accounted for in these kinds of interpretive frameworks. Moreover, acknowledging that human existence is too multifarious and intricate to be “explained away” via the methods of natural science does not mean that psychology cannot be a science at all. It can become a truly human science if we are brave enough to face the sheer complexity of human reality.

Some of my writing reflects a global concern for the dehumanization of human beings. In other writings I search for a more humanistic approach to issues pertaining to child maltreatment and child developmental theory. Eventually, I hope to address the manner in which we interact with animal life and the environment via a dialogue with ecopsychology. All in all, my academic concern is for the increasing legitimization of holistic perspectives in psychology.