Transpersonal Psychology

[SaraTherase]

Transpersonal psychology is a field of psychology for all of the soul searchers out there. Trans translates to "beyond", and personal refers to personality. Therefore, transpersonal psychology is a field of psychology is the study of the human aspect that goes beyond the realm in which the so-called normal personality operates.

Transpersonal psychology has one of the more interesting histories of all fields of psychology. It started during the psychedelic hippie wave of the 1960's. It was around this time that two Harvard psychologists, Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary, began experimenting with drugs.
Their experiments were meant to discover altered states of consciousness and transpersonal aspects of the human psyche. Although these two unorthodox professionals were fired from the university after their unusual experiments, the seed of transpersonal psychology had been planted and had begun to grow
In 1967, a small group of psychology professionals gathered to create a field of psychology with the purpose of studying all areas of human existence, including our transpersonal existence. From this group, transpersonal psychology began to come into its own.
Today, drugs are not used to aid those in the field of transpersonal psychology. At least not in traditional circles. It is, however, still a growing field, especially considering humans are becoming more spiritual and looking for new holistic ways to feel better about ourselves and our lives.

Transpersonal psychologists believe that to be at our peak performance in life, our bodies have to be completely healthy.
Medical doctors can help us take care of our physical bodies, and traditional psychologists can help us take care of our minds. Transpersonal psychologists can help take care of the often ignored soul.
Having a healthy mind, body, and soul can lead to a much healthier and happier existence. The field of transpersonal psychology can also help people realize that people are ultimately spiritual beings in physical bodies, and that our consciousness has more than one level. By understanding these concepts, individuals will often have an easier time reaching self-actualization and self-fulfillment in life.

Transpersonal psychologists work directly with people that might be "lost" spiritually, or just those that are looking for help "finding themselves" in order to leave a happier life. These professionals can also help patients change their negative behaviors, improve their relationships, or even just explore their spiritual sides.
Professionals in this field might use a number of different types of therapy and counseling to help guide their patients. They might use talk therapy, for instance, just as a traditional psychologist would. However they might also combine this traditional type of therapy with spiritual aspects as well.
Therapy and counseling in transpersonal psychology might involve such things as meditation, dream work, altered states of consciousness, and vision quests. These types of therapies can be used to help patients see themselves not merely as flesh, blood, and bones, but as diving individuals with a heightened sense of the world around them.

I have developed a keen interest in transpersonal psychology and feel as though the subject itself would be of interest to many others on their own journeys on here. Sadly in my country it's not an accredited qualification and is unavailable to study or pursue professionally which is a real shame.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day

[Hemera]

I love transpersonal psychology and did a short course in it a year or so ago. I absolutely loved it, best course I've ever done. I'm a psychology graduate but psychology is quite literally soul- less without spirituality. I'm a huge fan of Carl Jung because he brought the two together in what I feel is a very accessible way.

[Miss Hepburn]

SaraT - You are starting some really great Threads!
Oh, and sorry I had to delete a couple druggy words we don't use here.

[HITESH SHAH]

Originally Posted by SaraTherase

Professionals in this field might use a number of different types of therapy and counseling to help guide their patients. They might use talk therapy, for instance, just as a traditional psychologist would. However they might also combine this traditional type of therapy with spiritual aspects as well.

Sadly in my country it's not an accredited qualification and is unavailable to study or pursue professionally which is a real shame.

Your post is indeed insightful . People are currently devoid of true spirituality and any help in orienting people to right spirituality would be a great help .

Combining traditional type will have higher success rates for traditional psychologists .

That said if someone wants to try hand at it being professional in it, here are few things to note.
1. Current awareness in society about it is extremely less . And people may find little value of traditional answers or may feel they know it .
2. Spiritual and psychological world being unstructured / uncertain/ non-measurable , the fee structure too can be like that. Many a times , one may have to be happy with the success of our advice only without any monetary gain .
3. The holistic measures like this takes time and today's jet age giga speed age people have little patience waiting.

Another aspect I see you looked at it from the point of view of spiritually deprived / poor only . But the target audience can be very large . A lot of spiritual normal people also suffer from envisioning / focusing / visualization issues. The trans personal psychology can address that too .

[FallingLeaves]

so my thought on this was, many of the tools out in the 'real world' are good, very good concept wise, and they can take you far.

Personally the thing that always keeps me going down rabbit holes anyway is, my desire to agree with and be agreeable to other people. Even when I find a good tool, my desire to be doing what others are doing often bars me from using it in a way that would ever help me fully heal...

as such i never fully heal...

As one example there is thing in society, at least here in the US, where you are supposed to be making goals, then making a plan to attain them, then executing on that plan. And then you obtain the goal.

Personally, that one thing has so many pain points I don't know where to even begin! And yet it is so valued, by so many people, it is very hard for me to sidestep all the issues arround it, all the baggage that so many have added to it and believe must surround it. But we must have it anyway?

Just to take one thing at random as an example... this reinforces the whole thing about being a control freak. Because often what I do when I go down the path of attaining goals (either business or emotional) is try to run the lives of other people in small ways or large, or at least to advise them on the 'best' ways to do things, or at the very least when I have absolutely none of that available I have to feel in complete control of my OWN life or i won't accept life???? And that all leads to lots of fights for dominance....

And it leads to all sorts of problems reinforcing (in my view) with the very strong need to be getting what I want... which itself ripples off into so many other pain points as to make me aghast...

What happened to me next after a long time is that i didn't like that. Deep down inside I didn't like living that way. But the whole of society is screaming at me to do it. To want it. To even like it.

So often I try do it anyway and make myself feel happy about that with all sorts of lovely rationalizations and I think that I love doing it, because it gives me something I very very much want, a way to relate.

If I took transpersonal psychology (for example) the way I do everything else, I would keep going down that kind of rabbit hole, of believing that I actually liked a lot of things that are so valuable to society at large. But the truth is, I don't personally like to do a lot of the things that seem so valuable to society at large. My only excuse for an awful lot of it is, everyone else is doing it, and so that is how I know how to relate.

Anyway going down that path while I'm able to relate to others in any big way would never let me actually heal.

And that is the problem I have again and again, when I try to apply the tools/methods that have been made available to us, to try to heal myself. I just go down rabbit holes for long periods, because, the desire for the things I actually would like and that would heal me, has somehow been set against the desire to be doing what others are doing.... and 99.9999% of the time you will find me choosing what others are doing over my own sanity. And claiming it is for my own sanity...

[Unseeking Seeker]

Reading these posts ~ and I claim no knowledge on the science of this branch of psychology, on a fundamental level as I see it, the inner conflict we feel is because head and heart are not in alignment.

Head or let’s say mind, it helps us to navigate earth life. So it’s needed to look after the well being of the mind-body apparatus which we ensoul or occupy. However, it is the heart, which offers us happiness, joy and bliss. As such, if our life view is narrow, we are mind-centric, ego driven, whereas if we let go, from time to time, we embrace the love and light of our true being.

So, to meld head with heart would then be a logical step even for the ego mind! How may we do this without being taken advantage of? The answer lies in balance between head and heart, sometimes thinking and sometimes surrendering to feeling. In time, we then employ, what I term as ‘mind of the heart’ or simply, higher mind.

We can call this surrender, ego dissolution, prayer, a bending down or whatever. What happens is, that we are in touch with our true being, with soul or spirit, with universal consciousness. Why, even in the kundalini energisation process, after ascent to crown and polarity balance, the energies descend to heart, where they merge, resulting in an explosion of bliss.

To sum up, prioritise feeling instead of thinking. Ego is an instrument. Use it but don’t let the tail wag the dog.

[Gem]

Not saying it's a bad thing in principle, but it started as experimentation with mind altering substances, and it sounds like the sort of thing that would attract a lot of quackery.

I'm from a social work background, so mental health is more of a systems, structures and social standpoint. Stressful environments, systemic oppression and and tense relations can cause the biggest problems. Others can be helped by one on one counseling - like a psychologist, but I would be wary of 'far fetched ideas' when it comes to that.

We already considered the 'whole person' anyway including their spiritual aspect, so this 'transpersonal' thing is kinda superfluous as far as I can tell, but this, again, ignores environmental and social affects that play a huge part in human life.

[SaraTherase]

Hemera - That sounds really interesting, I'm glad that you enjoyed it. Congrats on getting your psychology degree! Psychology is quite literally soulless without spirituality, I agree. The Jungian concept of transpersonal psychology really speaks to me. "This paradigm, largely derived from psychoanalytic and Jungian theory, views human development as initially emerging from the preconscious depths of the psyche, differentiating into ego development in the first half of life and ultimately returning to, and ideally reintegrating with, the primordial depths in the second." Thanks for sharing

Miss Hepburn - Thank you, their are so many great threads on this forum sometimes I don't even know where to begin..

HITESH SHAH - Thank you for your insight and advice. I would like to pursue studying this but feel like I'm living in the wrong country to do so. So starting off studying general psychology seems to be the most sensible thing to do. I try my best to live within my means and foresee a future where I will help people for free as much as I possibly can as personally I feel that if you have the ability, as we all do to help someone in some way then we should indeed utilise our skills and abilities to do so.

FallingLeaves - Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings. I am not unfamiliar with living life on what feels like a hamster wheel, the loops and curves we encounter, the repetition and the mistakes but hey 'we are learning and growing' and that is ok. Sometimes we have to learn to accept that it's ok to be where we are at even if it's not where we want to be. Getting back to the basics and fundamentals of life such as 'I have a roof over my head', 'I took time for myself today', to me it's the little things you know. I used to be a people pleaser, I used to be very controlling, I use to care what society thought of me. You too can change with time if you want to. Don't be so hard on yourself, all that pressure you place on yourself causes stress. I genuinely wish you all the best on your journey.

Unseeking Seeker - Thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight with everyone. What you say resonates heavily and I agree with your words wholeheartedly. Your advice is very much valued.

Gem - Thank you for sharing your opinion. I personally do not feel that mainstream psychologists, counselors, social workers or mental health workers address or take into account the spirit-self or soul or even spirituality. This is a little off considering how religion and culture is even taken into account. Emotions and feelings are an important aspect of psychology but it's more from a medical standpoint which doesn't always promote healing more of a case of medicating people so that they can function in society even if it is to a bare minimal degree. The problem is these people often go through life medicated but unhealed, living within a state of dis-ease for most of their lives. Disease which stems from early emotional discord, unhealed having festered away further developing into a psychical or mental problem depending on the root cause of said issue. Help is help at the end of the day but if we can do more, why not?

[HITESH SHAH]

Originally Posted by SaraTherase

I try my best to live within my means and foresee a future where I will help people for free as much as I possibly can as personally I feel that if you have the ability, as we all do to help someone in some way then we should indeed utilise our skills and abilities to do so.

Indeed your orientation is great and with this God's blessings in any form too find your way. Very inspiring.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by SaraTherase

I personally do not feel that mainstream psychologists, counselors, social workers or mental health workers address or take into account the spirit-self or soul or even spirituality

I'm skeptical of psychiatry, but if a person thinks medication would be a positive part of a broader plan, I refer to a psychiatrist. In social services people are generally broke so no one is going to see a private psychologist for weekly therapy, but some counselors volunteer a day a week or work on a 'what you can afford' basis. In my experience, only a minority of people who say they want a counselor end up keeping their appointments.

At least in the psycho-social approach I'm familiar with, firstly, most social services are run by churches, and in the secular space, we generally find having a religious group as a support network is a good thing. It's just we don't put forth our own spiritual notions because maybe the person has a totally different kind of spirituality, or is an atheist. It's not uncommon that it works backwards when there's harsh judgment or abuse in the church or whatever, or maybe their spiritual group is kinda cultish, but generally speaking, spirituality is a good thing for people who are inclined to it.

I don't think it's a good idea to set a soul and God theory as a premise, especially in terms of lack. It seems to me that spiritual people tend to have high ideas that don't have much practical application. Now after some drug induced mind trips they came up with Transpersonal Psychology? Sure they dress it up with 'greater-than-thou' stories, but it's still some drug addled professors' pontifications.

I've seen people with high stress get diagnosed with a disorder by better educated people than me, but then I find out they are living precariously, and no wonder they are on edge. You would be, too.

In most cases, it's a bit of a hand up with practical things like a secure place to live, nice work with stable income and maybe some sort of help with the kids or something. Secure people tend to thrive and improve year after year.

Otherwise there's additional problems like disability or addiction or something which needs additional care - and for some it keeps getting worse no matter what you do, so you gotta be there for that, too.