A Tribute To Frank Barron: He Helped Bend A Century

Abstract

This is a tribute to the late Frank X. Barron, whose research and writings were a personal stimulation to the author and countless other colleagues and students. His contribution to the field of psychology-specifically, creativity and personality theory-is reviewed in light of the academic and social mindset of the era that it helped to radically alter: He achieved this by identifying vital, complex, contradictory, and eccentric forces not outside but within the order of both the science and the society of his day. His explorations and insights helped mark creativity research as an insurgency within its field, whose insights, merging with those of humanistic psychology, provided scholarly grounds of support for a vastly expanded vision of psychology (i.e., method, subject, and psychological health) as well as for the society-wide new consciousness revolution that marked the 1960s.