Everett Leo Shostrom was an American psychotherapist. His approach to psychotherapy was eclectic, integrating a wide range of theory, practice, and research. He was perhaps most well known for his film ''Three Approaches to Psychotherapy'' and his famous book ''Man, the Manipulator''. He also produced well known tests and inventories including the Personal Orientation Inventory, Personal Orientation Dimensions, the Pair Attraction Inventory, and the Caring Relationship Inventory.Brammer, Lawrence M (1996) Everett L. Shostrom (1921-1992): Obituary.''American Psychologist'', Issue: Volume 51(1), January

Three Approaches to Psychotherapy

Shostrom in 1965 produced a series of videoed therapy sessions between "Gloria", one of his patients, and three of the leading psychotherapists of that time;

Carl Rogers Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of humanistic psychology and was known especially for his person-centered psychotherapy. Rogers is widely considered one of the f ...

Fritz Perls Friedrich Salomon Perls (July 8, 1893 – March 14, 1970), better known as Fritz Perls, was a German-born psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist. Perls coined the term "Gestalt therapy" to identify the form of psychotherapy that he devel ...

and

Albert Ellis Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was cer ...

. Each therapist took a different approach to help Gloria with her problems - in particular discussing her difficulty with being honest to her daughter Pam while dating men again since her divorce. The approaches taken by the three therapists were respectively

Person-centered therapy Person-centered therapy (PCT), also known as person-centered psychotherapy, person-centered counseling, client-centered therapy and Rogerian psychotherapy, is a humanistic approach psychotherapy developed by psychologist Carl Rogers and collea ...

Gestalt therapy Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes Responsibility assumption, personal responsibility and focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist–client relationship, the environmental and social c ...

, and

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), previously called rational therapy and rational emotive therapy, is an active-directive, philosophically and empirically based psychotherapy, the aim of which is to resolve emotional and behavioral pr ...

. The film has been widely used as a training aid for counselors and therapists. Shostrom subsequently produced Three Approaches to Psychotherapy II in 1977 featuring himself as a therapist, Carl Rogers, and

Arnold Lazarus Arnold Allan Lazarus (27 January 1932 – 1 October 2013) was a South African-born clinical psychologist and researcher who specialized in cognitive therapy and is best known for developing multimodal therapy (MMT). A 1955 graduate of South Afric ...

with a client named Kathy. Shostrom then produced a third iteration of the training program with a focus on cognitive therapies with psychologists Hans Strupp,

Donald Meichenbaum Donald H. Meichenbaum (born June 10, 1940) is an American psychologist and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. He is also a research director of the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and ...

, and psychiatrist

Aaron T. Beck Aaron Temkin Beck (July 18, 1921November 1, 2021) was an American psychiatrist who was a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.

with a client named Richard in 1986.

Personal Orientation Inventory

The Personal Orientation Inventory is a system developed by Shostrom (1963) to measure factors related to

self-actualisation Self-actualization, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is the highest personal aspirational human need in the hierarchy. It represents where one's potential is fully realized after more basic needs, such as for the body and the ego, have been fulfill ...

. It uses 120 pairs of choice items to make up ten sub-scales. With these scales being designed to address various aspects of the systems of personal values being held by the subject. The instruments were chosen on the basis of value concepts which he saw as having wide personal and social relevance. His claim was that it is suitable for, and it has been used in, a wide range of different areas. These include colleges, businesses, clinics as well as with counselors.

Selected publications

* Shostrom, E. L. (1967). Man, the manipulator: the inner journey from manipulation to actualization. Nashville, Abingdon Press.Wigger, Orval L. (1968) Book Review: Everett L. Shostrom. Man, the Manipulator. Nashville and New York: Abingdon Press, 1967. 256 pp. $4.95 ''Journal of Humanistic Psychology Spring'', vol. 8 no. 1 87-88 * Brammer, L. M., & Shostrom, E. L. (1968). Therapeutic psychology; fundamentals of actualization counseling and psychotherapy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shostrom, Everett L. 20th-century American psychologists