| Transpersonal Psychology
Transpersonal psychology is a school of psychology that studies
the spiritual and transpersonal dimensions of humanity, and the
possibilty of development beyond traditional ego-boundaries. The
transpersonal dimensions of human psychology are connected to such
issues as self-development, peak experiences and mystical experiences.
The field is considered - by proponents - to be the 'fourth force'
in the field of psychology, the three other fields being psychoanalysis,
behaviorism, and humanism.
According to its proponents, the traditional schools of psychology
— behaviorism, psychoanalysis and humanism — have failed
to include these 'transegoic' elements of human existence, such
as religious conversion, altered states of consciousness and spirituality.
Thus, transpersonal psychology strives to combine insights from
modern psychology with insights from the worlds contemplative traditions,
both east and west. The transpersonal and spiritual dimensions of
the psyche has traditionally not been a focus of interest for Western
psychology, which has mainly focused on the prepersonal and personal
aspects of the human psyche (Miller, 1998).
The development of the field
A major motivating factor behind the initiative to establish this
school of psychology was Abraham Maslow's already published work
regarding human peak experiences. The term "Transpersonal"
had already been in use for a while but it was Grof who connected
the term to a concrete school of psychology, refering to the psychological
study of experiences which transcend the traditional boundaries
of the ego (i.e. which are 'trans-personal,' or 'transegoic.') Among
the thinkers who are considered to have set the stage for transpersonal
studies we find such historical names as William James, Sigmund
Freud, Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow, and Roberto Assagioli (Miller,
1998).
Abraham Maslow, Stanislav Grof and Anthony Sutich were the initiators
behind the publication of the first issue of the Journal of Transpersonal
Psychology in 1969, the leading academic journal in the field. This
was soon to be followed by the founding of the Association for Transpersonal
Psychology (ATP) in 1972. In the 1970's and the 1980's the field
developed through the works of such authors as Stanislav Grof, Ken
Wilber, Michael Washburn, Daniel Goleman and Frances Vaughan. While
Wilber has been considered an influential writer and theoretician
in the field, he has since personally dissociated himself from the
movement in favor of what he calls an integral approach.
Today transpersonal psychology also includes approaches to health,
social sciences and practical arts. Transpersonal perspectives are
also being applied to such diverse fields as psychology, psychiatry,
anthropology, sociology, pharmacology and cross-cultural studies
(Scotton, Chinen and Battista, 1996). Currently, transpersonal psychology
(especially archetypal psychology of Carl Jung and his followers)
is integrated, at least to some extent, into many psychology departments
in US and European Universities; also, transpersonal therapies are
included in many therapeutic practices.
Among the institutions of higher learning that has adapted insights
from Transpersonal Psychology we find California Institute of Integral
Studies and Saybrook Institute in California and Naropa University
in Colorado. The Transpersonal approach is also a part of such organizations
as The Association for Humanistic Psychology and The British Psychological
Society, who both maintains separate sections, or subdivisions,
addressing the Transpersonal approach.
One must not confuse transpersonal psychology with Parapsychology,
a mistake frequently made due to the overlapping and unconventional
research interests of both fields. While Parapsychology leans more
towards traditional scientific epistemology (laboratory experiments,
statistics, research on cognitive states) Transpersonal Psychology
are more related to the epistemology of the humanities and the hermeneutic
disciplines (humanism, existentialism, phenomenology, anthropology).
It is also important no to confuse Transpersonal Psychology with
the New Age. Although the discipline grew out of the human potential
movement, which many commentators associate with a broad conception
of the New Age, it is still problematic to place it within this
context. Transpersonal Psychology is an academic discipline, not
a religious or spiritual movement, and many of the fields leading
authors, among those Sovatsky (1998), have clearly adressed the
problematical aspects of New Age hermeneutics.
Research Interests
The transpersonal perspective includes such research interests
as: psychology and psychotherapy, meditation, pharmacology, spiritual
paths and practices, personal transformation and change, consciousness
research, addiction and recovery, psychedelic and altered states
of consciousness research, dying and near death experience (NDE),
self-realization and higher values, and the mind-body connection
(Rowan, 1993; Scotton, Chinen and Battista, 1996).
Although there are many disagreements with regard to transpersonal
psychology, one could succinctly lay out a few basic traits of the
field:
- transpersonal psychology extends its field of investigation
to religious, philosophical, psychological and contemplative concepts
expounded in: Buddhism, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Sufism, Vedanta,
Taoism, Shamanism Christian contemplative traditions, and Neoplatonism.
- by common consent, the following branches are considered to
be transpersonal psychological schools: Jungian depth psychology
(more recently rephrased as archetypal psychology by James Hillman),
psychosynthesis founded by Roberto Assagioli, and the theories
of Abraham Maslow, Stanislav Grof, Ken Wilber and Charles Tart.
Contributions to the academic field
Allthough any model of consciousness can only be understood as
an intellectual abstraction of reality, Transpersonal psychology
has made significant contributions to the field of Consciousness
Studies. While authors like Wilber and Battista tend to emphasize
the understanding of consciousness in the form of levels, where
each superior level includes and integrates its junior dimensions,
theorists like Washburn and Grof tend to emphasize the regressive
nature of consciousness. Regressive in the the sense that the
individual has to integrate the deeper and prerational aspects
of the psyche before it can re-enter the stream of development
in a healthy fashion (Scotton, Chinen & Battista, 1996).
Transpersonal psychology has also made contributions to the field
of mainstream psychiatry. Among these contributions we find the
proposal for a new diagnostic category entitled "religious
or spiritual problem" which was later included in the fourth
edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM-IV) under the heading "Other Conditions That May Be a
Focus of Clinical Attention" (American Psychiatric Association,
1994). The inclusion is - according to Transpersonal theorists -
part of the greater cultural sensitivity of the manual and could
help promote enhanced understanding between the fields of psychiatry
and religion and spirituality (Turner, Lukoff, Barnhouse & Lu,
1995; Sovatsky, 1998).
Criticisms of Transpersonal Psychology
Criticisms of Transpersonal Psychology has come from several commentators,
among those Ellis (1989) who has questioned Transpersonal Psychologys
scientific status and its relationship to religion and mysticism.
This criticism has been answered by Wilber (1989) and Walsh (1989).
Doctrines or ideas of many colorful personalities who were or are
spiritual teachers in the Western world are often assimilated in
the transpersonal psychology mainstream scene: Gurdjieff or Alice
Bailey. This development is, generally, seen as detrimental to the
aspiration of transpersonal psychologists to gain firm and respectable
academic status.
It could be argued that most psychologists do not hold strictly
to traditional schools of psychology; most psychologists take an
eclectic approach. Furthermore, the transpersonal categories listed
are considered by standard subdisciplines of psychology, religious
conversion falling within the ambit of social psychology, altered
states of consciousness within physiological psychology, and spiritual
life within the psychology of religion. Transpersonal psychologists,
however, disagree with the approach to such phenomena taken by traditional
psychology, and claim that they have typically been dismissed either
as signs of various kinds of mental illnesses or regression to infantile
stages of psychosomatic development.
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