Human Potential Movement

[4] During the course of his research, Leonard met Michael Murphy, a co-founder of the nascent Esalen Institute (established in 1962) that at the time was running educational programs for adults on the topic of "human potentialities".

[6] According to author Andrew Grant Jackson, George Harrison's adoption of Hindu philosophy and Indian instrumentation in his songs with the Beatles in the mid 1960s, together with the band's highly publicised study of Transcendental Meditation, "truly kick-started" the Human Potential Movement.

[11] George Leonard, a magazine writer and editor who conducted research for an article on human potential, became an important early influence on Esalen.

Leonard claims that he coined the phrase "Human Potential Movement" during a brainstorming session with Michael Murphy, and popularized it in his 1972 book The Transformation: A Guide to the Inevitable Changes in Humankind.

For the "Anglo" cultural area, the work of John Whitmore[17] contains a harsh critique of mainstream approaches to human potential as fast cures for self-improvement: "Contrary to the appealing claims of The One Minute Manager, there are no quick fixes in business".

Montessori's theory and philosophy of education were influenced by the work of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, Édouard Séguin, Friedrich Fröbel, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.

Her model emphasized autonomous learning, sensory exploration and training children in physical activities, empowering their senses and thoughts by exposure to sights, smells, and tactile experiences, and later included, problem solving.