Transpersonal Psychology: An Emerging Force

Abstract

A FOURTH Force is emerging in psychology Transpersonial Psychology. It is appearing at a time when the Third Force, Humanistic Psychology, is beginning its second decade and developing at an accelerating rate as a vital part of the general field of psychology. Although overlappingt in part, the Third and Fourth Force do not conflict with each other. Each complements the other. There are many indications that humanistic and transpersonal psychology arc integrally related to each other. Each seems to clarify the respective areas of the other, thereby serving to delineate more accurately the expanding scope of proper scientific psychological inquiry.This announcement is directed to the readers of JHP. It seems fitting, therefore, to present some background material in order to give them an early opportunity to become acquainted with what has only recently become a logical extension of the incalculable promise of the Humanistic (Third Force) development. A more comprehensive statement of the emergence of the Fourth Force in psychology will be included in the first issue of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, which is now in preparation.Definitions are understood to be formulations subject to change as required by the development of the objective, living conditions, relationships, forces, etc., that they may represent. The definition presented below, therefore, is assumed to represent conditions and developments at the present date. Moreover, as a definition, this formulation is to be understood as subject to optional individual or group interpretations, either wholly or in part, with regard to the acceptance of its content as essentially naturalistic, supernaturalistic, supra-naturalistic, or any other designated classification. developments at the present date. DefinitionTranspersonal (or Fourth Force) Psychology is the title given to an emerging force in the psychology field by a group of psychologists and professional men and women from other fields who are interested in those ultimate human capacities and potentialities that have no * Chairman, Committee on Organization. The other members of the committee are:

What can the ‘Transpersonal’ Contribute to Transformative Research?

“…However in 1967, a small group of people interested in humanistic psychology including Maslow (1969), Sutich (1968) and Grof (1972), came together in California, with the express aim of creating a new psychology that would honour the full range of human experience, including different states of consciousness. They agreed to call this new discipline 'transpersonal psychology', and started the Association of Transpersonal Psychology (Exploring the Transpersonal, 2014) and the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology (ibid), both of which are still flourishing.…”

Forms and facets of constructivist psychology.

“…Emerging as the "fourth force" in psychology during the late 1960s (Sutich, 1968), transpersonal psychology has at its core a developmental conception of human potential and consciousness. As Washburn (1988) noted:…”

Beyond Four Forces: The Evolution of Psychotherapy

“…iii-iv;1969a) proclaimed that the third force in psychology was "transitional, a preparation for a still 'higher' Fourth Psychology, transpersonal, transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness, identity, self-actualization, and the like." In the same year, Sutich (1968), a founding member of humanistic psychology, pioneered that transpersonal psychology was the "emerging" fourth force in psychology, a field interested in "ultimate human capacities," unlike the other three forces (pp. 77-78).…”

“…Within the same decade that a third force was popularized, a fourth was identified: transpersonal psychology (Assagioli, 1969;Maslow, 1968Maslow, , 1969aMaslow, , 1969bMaslow, , 1971Sutich, 1968Sutich, , 1969. This new force or psychological perspective of human nature and psychotherapy gave rise to a new professional identity and strengthened an area of psychological research, including the study of consciousness and transcendence.…”