New Perspectives in Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychotherapy:

New Perspectives in Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychotherapy:
Observations from Modern Consciousness Research Stanislav Grof, M.D. Maslow's Fourth Force: A Brief History of Transpersonal Psychology
.......... Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research
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Holotropic Breathwork: New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Self-
Exploration Understanding and Treatment of Crises of Transformation ("Spiritual
Emergencies")
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. Roots of Human Violence and Greed: Psychospiritual Perspective
............. The Current Global Crisis and the Future of Humanity: A Transpersonal
Perspective
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. Psychedelic Research: Past, Present, and Future
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Abraham Maslow's Fourth Force:
A Brief History of Transpersonal Psychology.
Stanislav Grof, M.D.
In the middle of the twentieth century, American
psychology was dominated by two major schools - behaviorism and
Freudian psychology. Increasing dissatisfaction with these two
orientations as adequate approaches to the human psyche led to
the development of humanistic psychology. The main spokesman and
most articulate representative of this new field was the well-
known American psychologist Abraham Maslow. He offered an
incisive critique of the limitations of behaviorism and
psychoanalysis, or the First and the Second Force in psychology
as he called them, and formulated the principles of a new
perspective in psychology (Maslow 1969).
Maslow's main objection against behaviorism was that the
study of animals, such as rats and pigeons, can only clarify
those aspects of human functioning that we share with these
animals. It thus has no relevance for the understanding of
higher, specifically human qualities that are unique to human
life, such as love, self-consciousness, self-determination,
personal freedom, morality, art, philosophy, religion, and
science. It is also largely useless in regard to some
specifically human negative characteristics, such as greed, lust
for power, cruelty, and tendency to "malignant aggression," He
also criticized the behaviorists' disregard for consciousness and
introspection and their exclusive focus on the study of behavior.
By contrast, the primary interest of humanistic psychology,
Maslow's Third Force, was in human subjects, and this discipline
honored the interest in consciousness and introspection as
important complements to the objective approach to research. The
behaviorists' exclusive emphasis on determination by the
environment, stimulus/response, and reward/punishment was
replaced by emphasis of the capacity of human beings to be
internally directed and motivated to achieve self-realization and
fulfill their human potential.
In his criticism of psychoanalysis, Maslow pointed out that
Freud and his followers drew conclusions about the human psyche
mainly from the study of psychopathology and he disagreed with
their biological reductionism and their tendency to explain all
psychological processes in terms of base instincts. By
comparison, humanistic psychology focused on healthy populations,
or even individuals who show supernormal functioning in various
areas (Maslow's "growing tip of the population"), on human growth
and potential, and on higher functions of the psyche. It also
emphasized that psychology has to be sensitive to practical human
needs and serve important interests and objectives of human
society.
Within a few years after Abraham Maslow and Anthony Sutich
launched the Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP) and its
journal, the new movement became extremely popular among American
mental health professionals and even in the general public. The
multidimensional perspective of humanistic psychology and its
emphasis on the whole person provided a broad umbrella for the
development of a rich spectrum of new effective therapeutic
approaches that greatly expanded the range of possibilities of
dealing with emotional, psychosomatic, interpersonal, and
psychosocial problems.
Among the important characteristics of these new therapies
was a decisive shift from the exclusively verbal strategies of
traditional psychotherapy to direct expression of emotions and
from exploration of individual history and of unconscious
motivation to the feelings and thought processes of the clients
in the here and now. Another important aspect of this therapeutic
revolution was the emphasis on the interconnectedness of the
psyche and the body and overcoming of the taboo against touching,
previously dominating the field of psychotherapy. Various forms
of bodywork thus formed an integral part of the new treatment
strategies; Fritz Perls' Gestalt therapy, Alexander Lowen's
bioenergetics and other neo-Reichian approaches, encounter
groups, and marathon sessions can be mentioned here as salient
examples of humanistic therapies.
In spite of the popularity of humanistic psychology,
its founders Maslow and Sutich themselves grew dissatisfied with
the conceptual framework they had originally created. They became
increasingly aware that they had left out an extremely important
element -- the spiritual dimension of the human psyche (Sutich
1976). The renaissance of interest in Eastern spiritual
philosophies, various mystical traditions, meditation, ancient
and aboriginal wisdom, as well as the widespread psychedelic
experimentation during the stormy 1960s made it absolutely clear
that a comprehensive and cross-culturally valid psychology had to
include observations from such areas as mystical states; cosmic
consciousness; psychedelic experiences; trance phenomena;
creativity; and religious, artistic, and scientific inspiration.
In 1967, a small working group, including Abraham
Maslow, Anthony Sutich, Stanislav Grof, James Fadiman, Miles
Vich, and Sonya Margulies met in Menlo Park, California, with the
purpose of creating a new psychology that would honor the entire
spectrum of human experience, including various non-ordinary
states of consciousness. During these discussions, Maslow and
Sutich accepted Grof's suggestion and named the new discipline
"transpersonal psychology." This term replaced their own original
name "transhumanistic," or "reaching beyond humanistic concerns."
Soon afterwards, they launched the Association of Transpersonal
Psychology (ATP), and started the Journal of Transpersonal
Psychology. Several years later, in 1975, Robert Frager founded
the (California) Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo
Alto, which has remained at the cutting edge of transpersonal
education, research and therapy for more than three decades.
Transpersonal psychology, or the Fourth Force,
addressed some major misconceptions of mainstream psychiatry and
psychology concerning spirituality and religion. It also
responded to important observations from modern consciousness
research and several other fields for which the existing
scientific paradigm had no adequate explanations. Michael Harner,
American anthropologist with good academic credentials, who also
experienced during his field work in the Amazon a powerful
shamanic initiation, summed up the shortcomings of academic
psychology very succinctly in the preface to his book The Way of
the Shaman (Harner 1980). He suggested that the understanding of
the psyche in the industrial civilization is seriously biased in
two important ways: it is ethnocentric and cognicentric (a better
term would probably be pragmacentric).
It is ethnocentric in the sense that it has been formulated
and promoted by Western materialistic scientists, who consider
their own perspective to be superior to that of any other human
groups at any time of history. According to them, matter is
primary and life, consciousness, and intelligence are its more or
less accidental side products. Spirituality of any form and level
of sophistication reflects ignorance of scientific facts,
superstition, child-like gullibility, self-deception, and
primitive magical thinking. Direct spiritual experiences
involving the collective unconscious or archetypal figures and
realms are seen as pathological products of the brain. Modern
mainstream psychiatrists interpret visionary experiences of the
founders of great religions, saints, and prophets as
manifestations of serious mental diseases, although they lack
adequate medical explanations and the laboratory data supporting
this position. In their contemptuous dismissal of ritual and
spiritual life, they do not distinguish between primitive folk
beliefs or the fundamentalists' literal interpretations of
scriptures and sophisticated mystical traditions and Eastern
spiritual philosophies based on centuries of systematic
introspective exploration of the psyche.
Psychiatric literature contains numerous articles and books
that discuss what would be the most appropriate clinical
diagnoses for many of the great figures of spiritual history. St.
Anthon