Gay Barfield, PhD, formerly licensed MFT, was in private practice in Hawaii for nearly thirty years and taught the person-centered approach at the University of Hawaii until her retirement. Over the decades Gay has published extensively on person-centered education, feminism, politics, peace and social change as integrated within and from the person-centered approach.

Along with many other women in the early 1970s, as a former long time fellow of the Center for Studies of the Person (CSP), she established the first person-centered women’s center in the San Diego area. She also created the “Living Now” Summer Institutes in La Jolla, California which run for 22 years until 1998. In 1984, alongside with Carl R. Rogers, she co-founded and co-directed the Carl Rogers Institute for Peace at CSP, applying person-centered principles to several then current international crises, leading to Dr. Rogers’ Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 1987.

Gay has received numerous honors recognizing her contributions to different fields. In 1992 she received an award from the County of San Diego for ‘improving human relations’, particularly for a series of cross-cultural ‘Living Room Dialogues’ on inflammatory US/Mexican border issues. In 2010, on her retirement from the University of Hawaii at Hilo (UHH), she was awarded with a Certificate of Appreciation for her many contributions to the MA in Counseling and Psychology Department. In 2024, the statewide Hawaiian Islands Association for Marriage and Family Therapy created a perpetual annually rotating award named the ‘Dr Gay Barfield Distinguished Service Award’, honoring her as the initial recipient. In 2024 she also received an Award of Outstanding Service to the Department of Communication from UHH.

In retirement, she continues to periodically mentor/mentress MA graduate students at the University of Hawaii in Hilo and other therapists in practice. During the last five years through ongoing zoom gatherings, began during COVID, Gay together with other person-centered elders and colleagues from several younger generations has been the principal initial catalyst of the Peace Project in the 21 st Century; a continuing ongoing effort to apply person-centered principles to today’s multiple challenges and changes worldwide.