University Professors Press (UPP) is a publisher of scholarly and academic books in the humanistic psychology tradition, including existential psychology, transpersonal psychology, and creativity studies.
Who We Are
University Professors Press was founded by established authors, editors, and academics to create an alternative publishing outlet in psychology within the humanistic tradition. We are an academic press run by academics, scholars, and writers, which makes us distinct from large publishing companies.
The History of University Professors Press
In 2010, after Dr. Louis Hoffman left his role as editor-in-chief of a university press, several humanistic academics and clinicians independently approached him about establishing a new publishing company. After numerous conversations over the span of a couple of years, Dr. Hoffman brought these scholars together to establish University Professors Press. The partners sought to include individuals with various expertise relevant to humanistic psychology and publishing.
The primary emphasis in establishing the executive board/partners was to recruit established authors and academic editors. The founding board comprised over 40-years of experience editing journals and running academic presses. Our partners, too, were accomplished authors who have been published by many of the top academic presses and psychology journals. The quality of UPP’s editorial board attained quick credibility in the field. Dr. Shawn Rubin, past editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, was appointed by the board as co-head-editor with Louis Hoffman. Dr. Jim Ungvarsky, who also had experience working with a university press, took on the financial oversight.
In 2012, UPP published its first book, The Polarized Mind, by the leading author in existential-humanistic psychology, Kirk Schneider. Building on the success of the first book, UPP published several other books over the next couple of years, including Bare: Psychotherapy Stripped and Stanley Krippner: A Life of Dreams, Myths, and Visions.
In 2015, UPP expanded into publishing its first poetry book: Stay Awhile: Poetic Narratives on Multiculturalism and Diversity. The creative arts have always been an essential part of the humanistic tradition. With the publication of UPP’s first poetry book, it embraced the expressive arts as an essential element of humanistic psychology. The success of Stay Awhile along with UPP’s second poetry book, Capturing Shadows, led to the establishment of its first book series: The Poetry, Healing, and Growth Series.
UPP also established the Humanistic Textbook Series in 2015 and published Humanistic Contributions for Psychology 101. This book was designed as a supplementary textbook for Introduction to Psychology and General Psychology courses and has been adopted at several universities.
Following the success of UPP’s early books, in 2016 and 2017 UPP began to expand its editorial board to expand its publications. Several new accomplished and rising academics were added to the board. In 2017, UPP also launched its own online bookstore and author pages.
The year 2020 featured the establishment of our third book series: Roots and Visions. The books series was designed to honor and highlight the work of eminent humanistic psychologists—past and present—who helped transform the field. The first book in this series was The New-Old: Recollections, Reflections, and Reconnoiterings of Mike Arons.
In 2022, University Professors Press celebrated its 10-year anniversary, including holding an online conference featuring many of its authors: Advancing Humanistic, Existential, and Transpersonal Psychology and Scholarship: 10-Years of University Professors Press. The conference was highly successful, attracting attendees from around the globe.
University Professors Press Today
UPP is now widely recognized as a leading publisher in humanistic psychology. Many top humanistic psychology scholars now seek to be published with UPP. Our books are used in many classrooms as primary and supplemental textbooks. Within 10-years of the publication of our first book, our books regularly compromise at least 10% of the top 100 books on Amazon’s categories of humanistic psychology and existential psychology.
We are proud of our history and legacy at UPP and continue to seek innovative ways to develop and advance our publishing company. To follow our developments, bookmark our website and follow us on social media:
