Adelbert H. Jenkins is an African American clinical psychologist who is known for his humanistic approach to Black psychology at the start of the field in the early 1970s.
His humanistic philosophy has influenced his personal life as well, inspiring him and his wife to become more active churchgoers to provide their son with a spiritual, religious education.
He was inspired by the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and was particularly interested in his philosophy on human potential and independent thinking.
In his graduate years, Jenkins became interested in ego psychology, which held that humans are born with basic mental capabilities that are inherently functional before trying to adapt to reality.
Influenced by Joseph Rychlak's "logical learning theory," Jenkins is best known for his humanistic philosophy which emphasizes the agency and cultural integrity of ethnic minorities, particularly that of African Americans.
His teleological approach challenges the idea that humans are passive, powerless actors whose behavior solely depend on external forces.
In counseling relationships, exhibiting this kind of cultural competency and understanding the power dynamic when seeing an African American patient is crucial for effective therapy.
He has also done private and public human relations consulting work for mental institutions, schools, and organizations such as the Veterans Administration.
Jenkins and other Black psychologists not only critiqued the Eurocentric methodologies of psychology, but also its underlying constructs for negatively framing African American behavior as maladaptive and inferior.
Historically, it was thought that due to oppression, African Americans developed negative self-concepts that inhibited their own achievements.
[8] Jenkins's work marks an important shift in this understanding of Black self-concept towards a positive, self-affirming framework that celebrated the resilience of African Americans.
Though it is now mostly disregarded as pseudoscience, the melanin theory stated that darker skinned people produced higher concentrations of adrenaline, causing increased emotionality, sensitivity to the environment, spirituality, and connectedness with nature.
In psychology's early attempts to replicate the natural sciences, it was believed that outside observation would adequately describe behavior.
Mechanism also affords people to find unipolar understanding, meaning they seek unambiguous, singular explanations.
Finally, Jenkins argues that mechanism inaccurately portrays individual mentality as Lockean "blank slates," such that human development is contingent on the external stimuli shaping it.
Rather, he believes that the Kantian view of an active mentality that constructs meaning from the environment is more accurate of how humans actually develop.
He argues that intelligence tests poorly capture students' true abilities, much less their potential for future achievement.
From a humanist lens, all groups have equal potential for achievement, and there are multiple facets to intelligence aside from a singular cognitive ability.
African Americans may use less verbal communication, may be more suspicious of mental health institutions, and may view their relationship with their therapist as more interpersonal than instrumental.
To mitigate this, Jenkins recommends Schwaber's work on empathy as a way to use humanistic introspection to strengthen the client-therapist relationship.
However, they warn against using this distinction as a universal framework, that is, it would be inappropriate to assume individual characteristics on the basis of their membership to a certain ethnic group.
Jenkins and his co-authors conclude by encouraging academic settings to acknowledge the diversity within the Black community and to tailor their curriculum to the different cultural models that students bring.
[12] • President, Division 24, Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, American Psychological Association, 2003-2004 • "Golden Dozen" Award for excellence in teaching, New York University Faculty of Arts and Science, 1988 • Martin Luther King, Jr./Rosa Parks Visiting professor in psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1987 • "Scholar of the Year" Award, National Association of Black Psychologists, 1983 • "Psychologist of the Year", National Association of Black Psychologists, 1976 • Jenkins, A.H. (2005).