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State University of New York Press - Stanislav Grof

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233 pages

English

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Summarizes Grof's experiences and observations from more than forty years of research into non-ordinary states of consciousness.

This accessible and comprehensive overview of the work of Stanislav Grof, one of the founders of transpersonal psychology, was specifically written to acquaint newcomers with his work. Serving as a summation of his career and previous works, this entirely new book is the source to introduce Grof's enormous contributions to the fields of psychiatry and psychology, especially his central concept of holotropic experience, where holotropic signifies "moving toward wholeness." Grof maintains that the current basic assumptions and concepts of psychology and psychiatry require a radical revision based on the intensive and systematic research of holotropic experience. He suggests that a radical inner transformation of humanity and a rise to a higher level of consciousness might be humankind's only real hope for the future.

"It's rare to find a textbook that is both extremely informative and enjoyable to read. Psychology of the Future has to be one of the first ones I've ever come across … Each chapter brought an entirely new concept, theory, or method that was just as engaging as the previous one." — Dr. Tami Brady, TCM Reviews

"This book is by a pioneering genius in consciousness research. It presents the full spectrum of Grof's ideas, from his earliest mappings of using LSD psychotherapy, to his clinical work with people facing death, to his more recent work with holotropic breathing, to his latest thoughts about the cosmological implications of consciousness research and the prospects for dealing with an emerging planetary crisis. Grof has always been one of the most original thinkers in the transpersonal field, and his creativity has kept pace with the maturity of his overall vision." -- Michael Washburn, author of Transpersonal Psychology in Psychoanalytic Perspective

"Grof offers an outstanding contribution to the ever-growing debate about the nature of human consciousness and about the place of humankind in the cosmos. If more psychiatrists could be persuaded that human consciousness transcends the limitations of the physical brain, and instead is but an aspect of what may best be described as 'cosmic consciousness,' we could not only expect treatment modalities to change, but we could also anticipate the possibility of culture-wide rethinking of the basic presuppositions of modern cosmology, the cosmology that grounds Western institutions, ideologies, and beliefs about the nature of personhood." -- Michael E. Zimmerman, author of Contesting Earth's Future: Radical Ecology and Postmodernity

Stanislav Grof, MD, is a psychiatrist with more than fifty years of experience in research of non-ordinary states of consciousness. He has been Principal Investigator in a psychedelic research program at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, Czechoslovakia; Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center; Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University; and Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen Institute. He is currently Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, conducts professional training programs in holotropic breathwork, and gives lectures and seminars worldwide. He is one of the founders and chief theoreticians of transpersonal psychology and the founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA). In 2007, he was granted the prestigious Vision 97 award from the Vaclav and Dagmar Havel Foundation in Prague. He is the author and editor of many books, including The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration; Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science; Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy; The Cosmic Game: Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness; and Human Surviv
Preface

1. Healing and Heuristic Potential of Nonordinary States of Consciousness

2. Cartography of the Human Psyche: Biographical, Perinatal, and Transpersonal Domains

3. Architecture of Emotional and Psychosomatic Disorders

4. Spiritual Emergency: Understanding and Treatment of Crises of Transformation

5. New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Self-Exploration

6. Spirituality and Religion

7. The Experience of Death and Dying: Psychological, Philosophical, and Spiritual Perspectives

8. The Cosmic Game: Exploration of the Farthest Reaches of Human Consciousness

9. Consciousness Evolution and Human Survival: Transpersonal Perspective on the Global Crisis

References
About the Author
Index

Sujets

Psychiatry

Psychotherapy

Psychology

Informations

Publié par	State University of New York Press
Date de parution	28 mars 2019
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9780791492383
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

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Extrait

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE
SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology Richard D. Mann, editor
PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE
Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research
STANISLAV GROF
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
2000 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Fran Keneston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grof, Stanislav, 1931- Psychology of the future : lessons from modern consciousness research / Stanislav Grof. p. cm. - (SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-4621-2 (alk. paper) - ISBN 0-7914-4622-0 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Altered states of consciousness. 2. Consciousness. 3. Spirituality. 4. Psychology-Philosophy. 5. Psychiatry-Philosophy. 6. Transpersonal psychology. I. Title. II. Series. BFIO45.A48 G76 2000 154.4-dc21 00-025255
10 9 8 7 6
To Christina
with much love and deep appreciation for your contributions to the ideas expressed in this book
CONTENTS
Preface
CHAPTER ONE Healing and Heuristic Potential of Nonordinary States of Consciousness
CHAPTER TWO Cartography of the Human Psyche: Biographical, Perinatal, and Transpersonal Domains
CHAPTER THREE Architecture of Emotional and Psychosomatic Disorders
CHAPTER FOUR Spiritual Emergency: Understanding and Treatment of Crises of Transformation
CHAPTER FIVE New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Self-Exploration
CHAPTER SIX Spirituality and Religion
CHAPTER SEVEN The Experience of Death and Dying: Psychological, Philosophical, and Spiritual Perspectives
CHAPTER EIGHT The Cosmic Game: Exploration of the Farthest Reaches of Human Consciousness
CHAPTER NINE Consciousness Evolution and Human Survival: Transpersonal Perspective on the Global Crisis
References
About the Author
Index
PREFACE
More than forty years ago, a powerful experience lasting only several hours of clock-time profoundly changed my personal and professional life. As a young psychiatric resident, only a few months after my graduation from medical school, I volunteered for an experiment with LSD, a substance with remarkable psychoactive properties that had been discovered by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann in the Sandoz pharmaceutical laboratories in Basel.
This session, particularly its culmination period during which I had an overwhelming and indescribable experience of cosmic consciousness, awakened in me an intense lifelong interest in nonordinary states of consciousness. Since that time, most of my clinical and research activities have consisted of systematic exploration of the therapeutic, transformative, and evolutionary potential of these states. The four decades that I have dedicated to consciousness research have been for me an extraordinary adventure of discovery and self-discovery.
I spent approximately half of this time conducting therapy with psychedelic substances, first in Czechoslovakia in the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague and then in the United States, at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Baltimore, where I participated in the last surviving American psychedelic research program. Since 1975, I have worked with holotropic breathwork, a powerful method of therapy and self-exploration that I have developed jointly with my wife Christina. Over the years, I have also supported many people undergoing psychospiritual crises, or spiritual emergencies as Christina and I call them.
The common denominator of these three situations is that they involve nonordinary states of consciousness or, more specifically, an important subcategory of them that I call holotropic. In psychedelic therapy, these states are induced by administration of mind-altering substances, such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, ibogain, and tryptamine or amphetamine derivatives. In holotropic breathwork, consciousness is changed by a combination of faster breathing, evocative music, and energy-releasing body-work. In spiritual emergencies, holotropic states occur spontaneously, in the middle of everyday life, and their cause is usually unknown.
In addition, I have been more peripherally involved in many disciplines that are, more or less directly, related to nonordinary states of consciousness. I have participated in sacred ceremonies of native cultures in different parts of the world, had contact with North American, Mexican, and South American shamans, and exchanged information with many anthropologists. I have also had extensive contact with representatives of various spiritual disciplines, including Vipassana, Zen, and Vajrayana Buddhism, Siddha Yoga, Tantra, and the Christian Benedictine order.
Another area that has received much of my attention has been thanatology, the young discipline studying near-death experiences and the psychological and spiritual aspects of death and dying. I participated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in a large research project studying the effects of psychedelic therapy in individuals dying of cancer. I should also add that I have had the privilege of personal acquaintance and experience with some of the great psychics and parapsychologists of our era, pioneers of laboratory consciousness research, and therapists who developed and practiced powerful forms of experiential therapy that induce nonordinary states of consciousness.
My initial encounter with nonordinary states was very difficult and intellectually, as well as emotionally, challenging. In the early years of my laboratory and clinical research with psychedelics, I was daily bombarded with experiences and observations, for which my medical and psychiatric training had not prepared me. As a matter of fact, I was experiencing and seeing things which, in the context of the scientific worldview I was brought up with, were considered impossible and were not supposed to happen. And yet, those obviously impossible things were happening all the time.
After I had overcome my initial conceptual shock and doubts about my own sanity, I began to realize that the problem might not be in my capacity to observe, or in my critical judgment, but in the limitations of current psychological and psychiatric theory and of the monistic materialistic paradigm of Western science. Naturally, it was not easy for me to come to this realization, since I had to struggle with the awe and respect a medical student or a beginning psychiatrist feels toward the academic establishment, scientific authorities, and impressive credentials and titles.
Over the years, my initial suspicion about the inadequacy of academic theories concerning consciousness and the human psyche has gradually turned into certainty, nourished and reinforced by thousands of clinical observations, as well as personal experiences. At this point, I have no doubts that the data from the research of nonordinary states of consciousness represent a critical conceptual challenge for the scientific paradigm that currently dominates psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and many other disciplines.
This book is an attempt to point out in a systematic and comprehensive way the areas that require a radical revision and to suggest the direction and nature of the necessary changes. The conceptual challenges presented by consciousness research are very fundamental and cannot be resolved by a minor conceptual patchwork or a few ad hoc hypotheses. In my opinion, the nature and scope of the conceptual crisis facing psychology and psychiatry is comparable to the situation introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century into physics by the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment.
The opening chapter of the book offers a general discussion of non-ordinary states of consciousness, the role they have played in the ritual, spiritual, and cultural life of humanity, and of the challenges they present for the monistic materialistic worldview of Western science. This chapter closes with an outline of the areas in which major conceptual changes are necessary and briefly sketches the nature of the suggested alternatives. These are then explored at some length and depth in the following sections of the book.
The next chapter focuses on the first of these areas-the nature and origin of consciousness and the dimensions of the human psyche. The observations from consciousness research dispel the current myth of materialistic science that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter, a product of neurophysiological processes in the brain. They show that consciousness is a primary attribute of existence and that it is capable of many activities that the brain could not possibly perform. According to the new findings, human consciousness is a part of and participates in a larger universal field of cosmic consciousness that permeates all of existence.
Traditional academic psychiatry and psychology also use a model of the psyche that is limited to biology, postnatal biography, and to the Freudian individual unconscious. To account for all the phenomena occurring in holotropic states, our understanding of the dimensions of the human psyche would have to be drastically extended. The new cartography of the psyche outlined in the book includes two additional domains: perinatal (related to the trauma of birth) and transpersonal (comprising ancestral, racial, collective, and phylogenetic memories, karmic experiences, and archetypal dynamics).
As the book continues, this expanded understanding of th