Transpersonal psychology: Its several virtues.

Abstract

A history of humanistic and transpersonal psychology is presented as a backdrop to examining both the weak and the strong points of transpersonal psychology proper. On the negative side, transpersonal psychology can be faulted for being philosophically naive, poorly financed, at times almost anti-intellectual, and frequently overrated as far as its influences. On the plus side, it presents an integrated approach to understanding 1)the phenomenology of scientific method, 2) the centrality of qualitative research for the future of the discipline, and 3) the importance of interdisciplinary communication. In the final analysis, its virtues outweigh its defects, and they prophecize new trends beyond the current revolution in the neurosciences.Transpersonal psychology, if known to mainstream psychologists at all, is most often associated with New Age crystal gazers, astrologers, believers in witchcraft, drug users, meditators, occultists, spiritual healers, martial artists, and other purveyors of pop psychology, in short; everything mat a truly legitimate scientific and academic psychology is not. The stereotype is, of course, inaccurate. For, like the fabled philosopher's stone, its seemingly weird exterior masks a more important philosophical challenge, the full articulation and subsequent flowering of which may yet prove to be the undoing of the reductionistic mainstream. The problem is that no survey of its history and meaning up to the present publication has been able to tease out which half of the Transpersonal movement is the chaff and which the wheat. Herein is one attempt at the riddle.This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Incorporating Nature into Therapy: A Framework for Practice

“…In addition to this strength and narrative attitude that can be found in most postmodern approaches (Freedman & Combs, 1996, Jennings, 1998Lahad, 1992;Lanndy, 1996;Rubin, 1984;White & Epston, 1990), the story also highlights the way in which working with a renewing environment can help a person regain hope and engage their sense of the capacity to make changes in life. Another powerful element of this work, also touched upon in the previous examples, relates to transpersonal and spiritual dimensions (Davis, 1998;Taylor, 1992). Connecting personal and universal cycles can help a person get in touch with his or her larger self and explore dimensions which extend far beyond the person-to-person relationship.…”

Applying Quantitative Research Methods in Transpersonal Psychology: Introduction to Special Topic Section

“…Friedman has argued that this is at least partially due to transpersonal theorists "frequently portraying science as inadequate for and irrelevant to addressing transpersonal concerns" (Friedman, 2005, p. 3), while Friedman with MacDonald (e.g., emphasized the importance of including quantitative approaches in studying transpersonal psychology, especially in the value of using psychometric approaches to build cumulative transpersonal knowledge. Taylor (1992), on the other hand, suggested that transpersonal psychology's emphasis on qualitative approaches counterbalances the prevailing overemphasis on quantitative approaches within other areas of psychology, while Braud and Anderson (1998) suggested that "in-depth [i.e., qualitative and other innovative] approaches tend to better suit the idiographic and personal nature of transpersonal experiences" (1998, p. x).…”

Transpersonal Education: Problems, Prospects and Challenges

“…A fter more than 35 years of organized investigation into "the spiritual or cosmic dimensions of the human psyche and the potential for consciousness evolution" (Grof, 1985, p. 197), transpersonal psychologyor what Abraham Maslow (1968) referred to as the "Fourth Psychology" (p. iii) -has developed into a full-fledged academic, scientific, and professional discipline that calls attention to possibilities of selfhood and psychological development beyond the humanistic model of self-actualization (Scotton, Chinen, & Battista, 1996;Taylor, 1992). It seeks knowledge through the study of causes (scientia in the broad Aristotelian sense), bases its conclusions on data obtained by observation and direct experience (empiricus in the radical Jamesian sense), and applies the steps of the scientific method in its exploration of a broad range of normal and nonordinary states of consciousness (Braud & Anderson, 1998;Wilber, 1990).…”