An Interview with Max Pages

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Abstract
Max Pages, 47, grew up in Paris, where he studied philosophy and mathematics at the Sorbonne, and then turned to psychology. He obtained a one-year scholarship to work and study in the U.S. The main event of that year was a summer trimester working at the University of Chicago with Carl Rogers, who had a lasting influence on his further thinking and work-in spite of many differences. Back to France in 1951, he worked for six years with CEGOS, a large consulting firm, where he tried to adapt nondirective methods to training and started social change experiments within firms (notably a 5-year program within a department store chain). In 1958 he left CEGOS and founded ARIP, an independent group of social scientists, out of a desire for a clearer professional identity and more freedom. Simultaneously he joined the University, climbed up the University hierarchy, passed his Ph.D., and published two books, L'orientation non-directive en psychothédrapie et en psychologie sociale and La vie affective des groupes. From there on he has divided his time with difficulty in three parts: teaching, active experiences in training and social intervention, and writing. His constant preoccupation has been to link his own personal and professional development with theoretical reflection, where he tries to integrate various influences, European and American, psychoanalysis, Marxism, existentialism.... He believes social scientists must overcome the tragedy of an internal split within their field, to be more able to understand and act upon the complexity of social phenomena. After the 1968 "May Revolution" in France, he underwent a deep personal and ideological crisis, out of which he left ARIP, no longer believing in a noncommitted professional role. He is now Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Paris-Dauphine and President of the Laboratoire de Changement Social. He is working on a volume entitled "Contradictions and change" and has contributed a number of articles to various books and journals in France, U.S.A., England, Italy, and Germany.

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