ABSTRACT
Growth-promoting relationships are necessary for self-actualization processes in a humanistic psychology paradigm. This chapter looks into the essences of growth-promoting culturally diverse relationships as a means to explore the phenomenon, while building a multicultural humanistic psychology praxis. The author describes how he set up a multicultural humanistic psychological after-school program called Kidz n’ Coaches-El Paso, in which college student volunteers plan and run prosocial group activities for culturally diverse emerging children. The author justifies the importance of investigating this program as he explores issues of cultural discrimination against Latinx youth on the U.S. Mexico border, neurobiological effects of stress and anxiety, social and emotional learning, and empathy. These are central issues in multicultural humanistic psychology and this chapter utilizes them to frame the phenomenological study of growth-promoting relationships in Kidz n’ Coaches-El Paso.
