“On a dry African plain, in the silence of the early morning, one can still imagine technology as vocation, as the earth's call to become its agent and instrument of awakening. But in the shadows imagination falters and technology seems less the earth's way of coming to know itself and more the earth's way of coming to cleanse itself of us.”
-Robert Romanyshyn, Technology as Symptom and Dream (1989, p. 3)

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Human society is undergoing unprecedented transformations driven by sociocultural, political, and environmental upheaval. Some of these changes have emerged from rapid and seemingly untamed technological advancements that are fundamentally altering human communication, work, and experience. We live in a world in which the language produced by machines is increasingly indistinguishable from that of humans, and in which humans increasingly treat each other –and ourselves– like machines. 

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Humanistic psychologists are called to address these seismic changes in our world by understanding the broader experiential and existential meanings that ripple under, with, and through them. In doing so, we must establish new approaches to defining and safeguarding what it means to be human – as well as to confronting the forces that are eroding extant understandings of our humanness in previously unfathomable ways.  

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Since its founding in the mid-20th century, humanistic psychology (HP) has emphasized that science and practice concerned with persons must explore and honor our subject matter: human beings. Historically, HP has centered research and praxis that emphasize human dignity, worth, capacity, and potential, as well as creativity, love, responsibility, and self-actualization (e.g., Maslow, 1968; Sutich, 1961, 1962; see also Wertz, 2026). Humanistic psychologists have long emphasized that humans participate as agents and experience freedom of choice in a world among others – a world that is nevertheless replete with social and material constraints. 

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Today, the broader field of psychology and the general public are grappling with questions about intelligences that are not human and, more specifically, with rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI) systems, including large language models (LLMs) that process, analyze, and produce text in ways that are similar to our own. Of particular concern is the experience of AI output as increasingly human-like, such that conversations with AI are often viewed as resembling and, when decontextualized, strikingly indistinguishable from those with humans (C. R. Jones & Bergen, 2026). AI systems are also increasingly experienced as faster, more available, and at times more capable of rapidly synthesizing and presenting information than human beings themselves (see Jones, 2024). Clients and the general public report interacting with AI chatbots in ways that can parallel human relationships, and there is growing concern about the mental and public health implications of humans replacing rather than supplementing human relationships with chatbots (APA, 2025, 2026).

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Psychologists have not only been examining the psychosocial and public health implications of AI; they have also been using it in their own work. Psychology’s embrace of AI has been enthusiastic and sweeping just as it has evinced caution. At the 2026 APA convention in Washington, DC, three of the eight main- or feature-stage presentations on the first day addressed AI-related topics. Convention goers were provided a copy of the newest Monitor on Psychology (Abrams, 2026) with its feature article titled “How AI is Reshaping Human Skills and Thinking.” This year, APA launched a new Center for Behavioral Science and AI, and a Monitor announcement about the center by APA CEO Arthur Evans (2026) was titled “Psychology’s Moment in the AI Revolution.” At the same time, APA (2025, 2026) has also published a health advisory and guidelines for safe and ethical use of AI by the general public, researchers, and clinicians.

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As a result of these developments, psychologists and interdisciplinary researchers have posed questions about what human-AI interactions might mean for communication, relationships, and experience – as well as for the discipline of psychology as such. These questions include topics that have traditionally been central to HP, such as creativity, empathy, and critical thinking (Hoffman & Hoffman, 2026). They have also included caution about social justice concerns, centered especially on AI’s recognized tendencies to replicate and even amplify biased ways of responding and social pathologies (see Robbins et al., 2015), including racist, homophobic, transphobic, and xenophobic tendencies (e.g., Jindal, 2022; Noble, 2018). For example, in research on the integration of AI into schools, Tiera Tanksley and Brian Cabral (2026) wrote that “many of the AI technologies used in schools are rife with algorithmic biases that exacerbate, rather than remediate, educational inequity for historically marginalized students” (p. 12). 

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The word ‘artificial’ comes from the Latin artificialis (Harper, n.d.; Oxford University Press, n.d.). Built from the roots ars (‘art’ or ‘skill’) and facere (‘to make’ or ‘to do’), artificial was adopted into English in the 14th century and initially designated human skill and artistry, or that which is not natural or spontaneous. The term denoted the ability and craft necessary to create tools and objects, gradually coming to signify those tools and objects that mirrored the natural world. Starting in the 16th century, the term underwent what linguists call pejoration, or the taking on of negative connotations – in this case, connotations of falsehood, deception, or trickery. The word ‘artificial’ today carries meanings of imitation, a substitute, something manufactured or produced and thus the opposite of what is natural, organic, and (increasingly) human. But it is –and always was– humans who create artificial tools, objects, and experiences; in this way, the artificial is by definition also human-made. 

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Starting long before the advent of modern artificial intelligence as we know it today, humanistic psychologists have been concerned with reductionistic, mechanistic, and artificial approaches that cast human beings as shaped by experiences outside of their agentic or conscious awareness. In the mid-20th century, the limitations of treating humans in machine-like ways were also evident from within behavioral psychology.  For example, in 1948, comparative psychologist and learning theorist Rolland Waters imported the theological term “mechanomorphism” into psychology to describe “the ascription of mechanical characteristics to the human individual, and the interpretation of human behavior in terms of concepts and processes characteristic of machines” (p. 139). Waters feared that “[t]o follow the mechanomorphists would confine our efforts as psychologists to the relatively barren study of reflex action and leave the more important problems to others” (p. 142). One of HP’s founding voices, Bugental (1962), expressed concern that the profession might become “a fossil” in its narrowness. Over half a century later, the fears expressed by Bugental and Waters are eerily echoed in Justin Karter’s (2025) observation that “psychology—the very discipline that ought to serve as a bulwark against the mechanization of consciousness—has instead made itself a willing instrument of that mechanization” (p. 2). Illustrating this trajectory is the evolution of the term “mechanomorphism” to describe the orientation of late-20th-century cognitive science (Caporael, 1986), then human views about animals (Karlsson, 2012; see also Aarnio & Aaltola, 2024), and eventually –ironically—reductionistic views of machines themselves (Perez, 2025). 

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It seems that everywhere humans look, we see the likeness of machines. 

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Humanistic psychologists and interdisciplinary scholars have offered valuable insights about human views of and relationships with machines. In 2024, Dueck and Sundararajan suggested that indigenous psychology perspectives, as alternative systems of thought, can provide a framework for interrogating the role of technology in the evolution of society. Kirk Schneider (2019), in The Spirituality of Awe: Challenges to the Robotic Revolution, wrote that “the gap between the spirituality of awe and the machine model for living is an ever-widening morass” (p. 4) and that “[t]he more we court machines, the more machine-like we become” (p. 52). Schneider calls upon us to elevate awe above our fascination with technology, such that our relationship to machines serves human discovery, creativity, and wonder rather than usurping them. Three decades earlier, Romanyshyn (1989) described technology as the symptom of a cultural dream in which the body and nature are left behind, rendered inanimate by a scientific gaze that also views the body as a mechanistic thing (see also Brien, 2000/2013). And decades before that, Erich Fromm (1968) expressed concern that “[w]hen the majority of men are like robots, then indeed there will be no problem in building robots who are like men”  (pp. 43-44).

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The theme of this year’s Midwinter conference encourages presenters and attendees to explore the humanistic-existential meanings of the human and the artificial today. We invite proposals that address these themes as broadly defined, using pluralistic and interdisciplinary ways of knowing. Topics and questions that presenters might address include:  

• Defining the human: How can we explore and harness what is distinctly human in the lived experience of human beings? How can we safeguard and elevate the diversity, sacredness, and singularity of our being-in-the-world as and with humans? 

• Artificiality as human-made: How do we understand artificial tools and creations as human-made?  What, if anything, is distinctly human about technological innovation and the experience of interacting with technology? 

• Artificial approaches to behavior: Why do humans tend to treat ourselves, other living beings, and even machines themselves in artificial ways? How does the use of AI in psychological research and practice reflect or amplify the historical trends that gave birth to HP in the first place?

• Human-technology relationships: What happens when humans develop relationships with AI that are experienced as meaningful and/or important to them?  How do we understand the concepts of anthropomorphism and mechanomorphism from humanistic and existential perspectives? 

• AI and humanistic psychotherapy: How should therapists address client reports of interactions with AI? When used in clinical research and practice, does AI amplify medical-model approaches to human suffering?

• Social justice and AI: What are the social justice and environmental implications of AI for our society and our world? How do we address ways that AI amplifies social pathologies, including racism, homophobia, and transphobia? 

• AI and psychology: What are the ethical and empirical implications when psychologists adopt AI in research, scholarship, and/or practice? What are the potential impacts on the identity of psychology as a profession?

• Interdisciplinary intersections: How can HP engage with and understand the work of psychoanalytic and philosophical colleagues who have addressed AI and LLMs (e.g., Gutiérrez, 2026; Magnani, 2026)? How might HP respond to affirmative philosophies of technology that are aligned with humanistic themes of flourishing and self-actualization (see Cabell, 2024; Schirmacher, 1987)?

• The future of humans and machines: Does humanistic scholarship, past or present, allow us to grasp and integrate technology into our lives without risking our own presence as human beings? How do we understand collective fantasies and fears about its surpassing, controlling, or even enslaving us?

 

We are honored to feature the work of keynote and invited speakers who are at the forefront of research and scholarship addressing these questions.

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• Robert McInerney, PhD (Keynote Speaker), Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Point Park University, whose work spans hermeneutic phenomenology, critical pedagogy, and community psychology. As the founder of Zombie Psychology as a pedagogical approach, McInerney has long attended to what becomes of human experience when it is rendered artificial by mechanization. 

• A memorial Keynote Panel honoring Brent Dean Robbins, PhD, whose wide-ranging work addressed the uniqueness of human experiences such as joy, dignity, and love. In his 2018 book, The Medicalized Body and Anesthetic Culture, Robbins described the social pathology of anesthetic consciousness, which he defined as the tendency to objectify ourselves, others, and the world. Outlining the historical development of this social pathology, Robbins’s work highlights its dominance in various scientific and medical frameworks, including our diagnostic frameworks in the mental health professions.

• Nev Jones, PhD (Invited Speaker), Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh, whose psychological and interdisciplinary research has been fundamental to centering peer support and lived expertise in mental health services, early intervention in psychosis, and structural disparities in approaches to serious mental health challenges. Jones’s recent work has focused on addressing structural inequity and coercion in the psy disciplines, including the carceral state's expansion within public mental health services. 

• Elizabeth Nickrenz, PhD (Invited Speaker), Associate Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University, whose work addresses how diagnostic and neurodevelopmental categories are inhabited and (re)shaped by the people who carry them –including how selves come to be understood in mechanical and neurostructural terms. Nickrenz is the author of Living on the Spectrum: Autism and Youth in Community (NYU Press, 2020) and will be holding a book signing at the conference. 

 

This year marks the 20th year of Society for Humanistic Psychology (SHP) annual conferences. As we celebrate this anniversary, we are called upon to utilize the wisdom of HP to understand why humans have invented and accelerated tools that might surpass us in a faculty that distinguishes humankind and inscribes us into the world of others –namely, language. The stakes could not be higher. As Romanyshyn once prognosticated:

 

“On some future morning the sun will rise and there may be no human eyes to bear witness to it.”
-Technology as Symptom and Dream (1989, p. 3)

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