15th Questions on Transpersonal Psychotherapy

P. L. Lattuada M. D., Psy. D., Ph. D.

1. Has clearly defined areas of enquiry, application, research, and

practice.

In order to help understanding transpersonal psychotherapy we will use some

metaphors, starting with the metaphor of the square and the circle.

Willing understand transpersonal psychotherapy, we can use the metaphor of the

square and the circle. The square represents the phenomenon, the behavior, in one
word the contents of Psyche; the circle represents the noumenon, the essence of
Psyche, the container.
Transpersonal psychotherapy aims to deal with the contents, that is to say the
expression (square), and with the container, which is the essence (circle).
to present the enquiry, application, research and practice areas of
Therefore, in one word, the Object of enquiry, application, research and practice
of Transpersonal Psychology is the participative dialogue Subject/Object. The
various traditions of wisdom of humanity gave different names to this Unity
(square/circle), which are all ascribable to one: Psychè.1
Therefore, Psychè understood at the same time as Object and Subject of the
experience that we can identify with the concept of the Self.
As a matter of fact, Jung, Assagioli and Wilber, among others, conceive the Self as
the unifying archetype, metaphor of the totality of Psychè, which, mentioning
Aristotle is, actually, everything.
According to transpersonal psychology, perennial philosophy and the holistic-
systematic vision from Bateson onwards, Psychè does not coincide with the mind that
in turn isn’t confined to the brain.

1
Psychè, Atman, Supreme Consciousness, Essence, Nous, Nagual, all terms that religion could
identify.
Panikkar (Panikkar, 1992, p.6) masterfully shows us how Psychè includes the totality
of the human being on an individual level, that is to say bios, pneuma, logos, autos
and Zoe.2

This vision leads to some consequences that help us to define in details the identity of
Transpersonal Psychotherapy and its areas of enquiry, application, research and
practice:

Ø The Self or Psychè that is the Subject, space and timeless.

Ø The incessant, participative, unifying, dynamic and interconnected dialogue
between the expressed content, explicated in the square (stage) and the
essential aspect implicated in the circle (backstage).
Ø Therefore, the area of application is extended to include the four quadrants
described by Wilber, that is to say the psychic field made by the individual,
related to him/herself, his/her environment and others.
Ø This field is not linear and static, but rather circular and dynamic, systemic;
this implicates the introduction of the concept of states of consciousness.
Ø In order to operate in a complex, dynamic, interconnected and
multidimensional territory, adequate tools are necessary, based on the mastery
of inner experience such as observation, listening, imagination, creativity, felt
sense, concentration, attention, contact, responsibility, acceptance,
compassion, trust, meditation and awareness.
Ø The mastery of inner experience opens ineffable dimensions. As we will see,
transpersonal psychology extends its fields of intervention to these areas
defined as transpersonal.
Ø The evolutionary journey of human beings within their participative dialogue
with the field delineates a stepwise process.
Ø The Self-expresses an organizing principle, healthy by definition and able to
organize the process towards wellbeing, unity, harmony, integration and
realization.
Ø Every intervention tool in transpersonal psychotherapy joins forces with this
process and tries to create the conditions for its completion and to learn how
not to obstruct the process itself.
Ø Maps, models and tools operating for an experiential integral practice.
Ø The full spectrum of human experience, dealing with most of the topics
traditionally considered important in Western psychology.3

2
Bios is not understood as something different and extraneous to psyche but rather as something that
represents the physical, natural, vital, biological and material aspects of it.
Pneuma represents the emotional dimension of psyche, the vital breath, feeling; its ineffable aspect that
religion identifies with the soul.
Logos is the thinking function, the cognitive dimension, which a certain rational vision identifies with
the mind.
Autos is the sense of identity; it could be identified with the I, personality.
Zoe expresses that clearly transpersonal dimension that aims to describe the true nature, the essence,
and the interconnected flow of existence that pervades everything, here and now.
3
The topics shared with other western Psychologies are: basic philosophy and assumptions about the
nature of the universe, the nature of mankind, mankind’s place and function in the universe, their
relationship with higher and lower entities, and the basic nature of human consciousness; the path's
teaching on personality, emotion, motivation, memory, learning, mind-body relationship,
psychopathology, perception, social relationships, cognitive processes, Research Methodology for the
Social Sciences, and Evaluation tests.
2. Has demonstrated its claim to knowledge and competence within its
field tradition of diagnosis / assessment and of treatment / intervention.

Coherently with the vision presented above, diagnosis and treatment in transpersonal
psychotherapy are affected by the fact that the nature of the Object/Subject of
investigation moves in a dynamic, unifying and multidimensional territory in constant
participative dialogue with the environment and oriented towards complete
fulfillment.
In order to understand better, we consider again the metaphor of the square and the
circle.
The square represents, in this case, the phenomenological world of objects and events,
reality and matter, behavior and conscious personality, expressed symptoms and we
could say the place of the I and of its identifications.
The circle represents the place of the Self, of the essence, consciousness, of that
ineffable backstage where true nature lives, of the most genuinely human qualities
and of the super-conscious and transpersonal dimensions.
Transpersonal psychotherapy tries to take into consideration both the square and the
circle, aware that they represent two different levels and that they deserve a different
approach and different tools; it operates within the square for its integration in the
circle, or better said, for the acknowledgement of their true nature, already integrated.
Therefore, the place of transpersonal psychotherapy is the place of the participative
dialogue between square and circle; a place that requires its own models and methods.
When dealing with the square, Transpersonal Psychotherapy accepts the typical
diagnosis criteria of the DSM-V-TR or the ICD-10, the main international
transpersonal psychology association respect deontological superimposable codes and
the general ethical standards established by the EAP for the practice of
psychotherapy.4
Plus, the DSM-V-TR has special categories for Religious and Spiritual Problems,
due to the work of David Lukoff, a Transpersonal Psychotherapist and theoretician.
When dealing with the circle, transpersonal psychotherapy expands, as we will
see, the cartography of Psychè by developing maps, models and metaphors,
creating its own diagnostic and therapeutic tools in order to operate on the afore-
mentioned spectrum in an integral way.
As it is a newborn in the psychotherapeutic world, transpersonal psychology uses
contributions of previous approaches when dealing with the square. Transpersonal
psychotherapy is an inclusive therapeutic approach which adds to the inquiry,

4
Training in transpersonal psychotherapy contemplates the knowledge of the full spectrum of human
experience, mentioned above.
On an academic level, training in Transpersonal Psychology and Psychotherapy is currently active in
various universities such as the Sofia University, the CIIS, the JFK and the University of Georgia. In
Europe there are seven training institutes recognized by EUROTAS. In Italy, at ITI in Milan, there is
an active four year course of Specialization in Psychotherapy recognized by MIUR; transpersonal
psychology and psychotherapy are also taught at “Università Bicocca” in Milan and at Università
Salesiana in Udine.
knowledge base, research, and practices of psychoanalytic, behavioral, and
humanistic schools of psychotherapy that were established before it.
When dealing with the circle, transpersonal psychotherapy introduces clinical
methodologies that draw from integral and psycho-spiritual experiences that use
meditation, breathing, psycho-corporal and imaginative practices, music and art,
integrating them, this way widening the spectrum of intervention to the totality
of the Self.
In constant dialogue with ancient spiritual traditions, transpersonal psychotherapy on
one hand uses models and tools borrowed from ancient traditions of wisdom of
humanity, and on the other hand elaborates new maps, models and tools, able to
include ancient pre-scientific wisdom in the psychological field and in
psychotherapeutic practice, giving to it a language able to dialogue with the
scientific world and a methodological strictness subject to verification or
disproval.
There are various transpersonal psychologies that present transpersonal
psychotherapeutic models attributable to common matrices that respect the full
spectrum of human experience, dealing both with most of the topics traditionally
considered important in Western psychology and with specific topics of the
transpersonal approach, as demonstrated in the attached wide bibliography.5

3. Has a clear and self-consistent theory of the human being, of the

therapeutic relationship, and of health and illness.

Regarding the metaphor of the square and the circle, we can consider the square as a
building: the building of personality.
Transpersonal psychotherapy shares the Freudian psychodynamic vision, as well as
Reich’s one and the archetypical vision of Jung. As a newcomer, transpersonal
psychotherapy integrates the previous visions amplifying them without denying them.
By exploring the building (square), in tune with ancient traditions of wisdom,
transpersonal psychotherapy has found new rooms, basements and lofts and
acknowledges a living, dynamic and interconnected space around the building: the
circle.
While wondering around the building, transpersonal psychotherapy chooses to
disregard certain rooms that it considers no longer functional, and, on the contrary,
emphasizes the use of other areas more coherent with its purpose.
In order to understand the concept of circle we can consider the Jungian model of the
collective Unconscious, originally called transpersonal unconscious, populated by
archetypes organized by a central archetype, the archetype of the Self.

5
Think about the perinatal matrices and Grof’s Holotropic Breathing, Wilber’s integral approach
named AQAL, Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis, Pierrakos’ Corenergetics, Mandel’s Process Work, Weil’s
Cosmogram, Mendes’ Psychotranstherapy, Lattuada’s Biotransenergetics and the psychotherapeutic
models still explicitly deriving from ancient wisdom traditions. It is the case of the Zen Psychology
proposed by Claire Myers Owens, or of the Buddhist Psychology described by Daniel Goleman, the
Yoga Psychology by Haridas Chaudhuri, the Gurdjeff Psychology, or the Arica System by Oscar
Ichazo, the Christian Psychology presented by William McNamara and the Sufi Psychology by Robert
E.Ornstein.
Therefore, Transpersonal Psychotherapy elaborated coherent maps and models
describing a self-consistent theory of the human being, of the therapeutic relationship
and of health and illness.
Thinkers like Maslow, Assagioli, Weil, Walsh and Vaughan, Grof and Wilber, among
others, traced with clarity the guidelines of a transpersonal vision of the development
of human beings; maps that allow to photograph the process and maintain a dynamic
interpretation without having to necessarily frame it in rigorous nosographic
categories.
Considering Jung (Jung 1971) and the model of the four functions and the eight
psychological types, we can easily embrace the model of Assagioli, (Assagioli 1965):
who was the first to conceive the existence of a Super-conscious, container of the
most elevated and still unexpressed potentialities of human beings and of a
transpersonal Self, precise metaphor of that ineffable circle.
We can then continue with the afore-mentioned model by Grof, which expands the
cartography of psyche and through the four perinatal matrices conceives an
evolutionary psychodynamic model that includes the pre and perinatal
experiences as well as the transpersonal ones.
We can find more important transpersonal models in Maslow’s famous pyramid of
needs, where tertiary needs coincide with transpersonal needs; Maslow himself is
one of the founders of transpersonal psychology, which, in his last years, he defined
as the fourth force of psychology.
We can also mention Campbell’s (Campbell 1948) evolutionary models, focused on
the journey of the hero, around which the universal adventure of human psyche
spins; moreover, we can mention Lattuada’s (Lattuada 2013) model of
Psychodynamics of the Process that describes the unfolding of the evolutionary
process and the correspondent psychopathological phases along a seven step process
described by seven fundamental dualisms characterized by seven specific matrices,
which in turn characterize seven psychodynamic positions.6
More importantly we must consider Wilber’s (Wilber 1980): integral model, which he
called AQAL, all the levels, all the quadrants or Atman Project, probably the most
complete and articulated model of Psychè ever produced, in which different
transpersonal models are transcended and included.
According to this model, the realization of the Self occurs through an evolutionary
time span characterized by stages of development connected to different states of
consciousness that unfold along a process from the pre-personal, to the personal and
transpersonal, and in a participative dialogue with the environment that occurs on four
quadrants.
The model allows recognizing phases of standstill and development, or
evolutionary phases, on each level and in each quadrant.
The standstill phases are characterized by chronic mechanisms and identifications,
responsible for pathological processes. The awakening of qualities and creative
potentialities that lead to wellbeing and complete fulfillment produce the
evolutionary leaps.
Wilber, with a transcending and inclusive view, suggests the most functional
therapeutic approach for each level.
Wilber’s model includes many references to different psychological and sociological
traditions discussed by authors such as: Piaget, Erikson, Assagioli, Loevinger,

6
The Seven dualisms: I am – It’s me, I observe – I judge, I leave – I hold, I love – I hate, I win – I
lose, Pleasure – Pain, I live – I die
Kohlberg, Ferenczi, Sullivan, Grant and Grant, Maslow, Broughton, Arieti, Tiller,
Welwood and Smith, Fromm, Riesman, Ausubel, Grof. Moreover, we must consider
various wisdom traditions of humanity: Vedanta, Buddhism, Tantrism, Cabala, etc.
(To better understand Transpersonal therapeutic relationship see answer 5)

4. Has methods specific to the approach which generate developments in the

theory of psychotherapy, demonstrate new aspects in the understanding of
human nature, and lead to ways of treatment / intervention.

The specificity and the innovation of the psychotherapeutic approach can be

summarized in the following way:

Ø Integration: the approach is integral and unitary, and it involves all the levels of
the human being, from the physical, emotional and mental ones, to the
transpersonal one.7
Ø Independently from the level of access or the practice used, the transpersonal
psychotherapist will always try to accompany the process on all the levels.
Ø Expansion: the approach is not limited to the rational state of consciousness or to
the investigation of the unconscious, but rather it draws from wider states of
consciousness, transpersonal ones, typical of super-conscious dimensions.8 The
aim of treatment in transpersonal psychotherapy is to help the person to
master his/her own inner experience learning to manage his/her own states of
consciousness.
Ø Connection: it works for the recovery of the shadow, the integration of
unconscious sub personalities and their connection with the super-conscious
dimensions of the Self, the unifying archetype and the organizing principle of
Psychè.
Ø Circularity: the fourth aspect of the innovation is to overcome, transcending
and including the linear logic of Cronos, the linear time, in order to move within
the dimension of Kayros, the opportunity here and now, aware that the time for
change is always now.
Ø Insight: David Bohm (Bohm 1985). invites the man of science to be able to
observe in a wide and open way, to feel the important features to access the
insight, the immediate perception out of time that Krishnamurti (Krishnamurti

7
In order to do so it offers a second aspect of innovation by proposing integral approaches. This means
that the transpersonal psychotherapist can use corporal practices in order to act on the muscular armor,
energetic practices in order to act on vital energy blockages, cathartic practices based on the abreaction
of the trauma, breathing, sight, voice and touch in order to favor emotional mastery and the resolution
of conflicts; it can act on a verbal level through the explanation of the question, focusing on the intent,
sharing and empathic listening and cognitive restructuration; it can use meditative practices based on
movement, dance, music, and on aware observation, mental presence, creative imagination, hypnotic
regression or recapitulation to access the transpersonal dimensions of the Self based on insight, new
order comprehensions, visions or intuitions about one’s self, one’s life and the world around us and on
the development of spiritual qualities such as love, compassion, sharing, trust, responsibility and
awareness.

8
In order to simplify under a “generalized orientation” view we can synthetize a map that defines pre
personal states of consciousness characterized by instinctive consciousness, personal states
characterized by rational and ordinary consciousness, and transpersonal states characterized by
intuitive consciousness.
 believes to be the essential condition in order to grasp the phenomenon how it
really is. This condition works for the establishment of the “comprehension of
new order that unfolds in a natural way” in every field of culture, science and
therapy.
Transpersonal psychotherapy has no projects or protocols for patients; it participates
to the field of relationship empty and awake in aware contact with the Self.
It aims to the creation of the conditions necessary for the awakening, aware that
insight is the master path of every transformation.9
Ø Wisdom: as Panikkar (Panikkar 2005 p.13). reminds us, wisdom “is an
experience in which there is no division between knowledge and love, soul and
body, spirit and matter, time and eternity, divine and human, masculine and
feminine, an experience obtained through love, patience, tolerance and
observation rather than will, through trust rather than research, a cosmic trust in
life rather than in a specific object…” “Wisdom available for the research of the
holistic consciousness and of the “new order comprehension that, as David Bohm
states, proceeds from the overcoming of the attachment to those needs that
promise security and from the “courage to choose love” (Bohm 1985).
Ø The transpersonal psychotherapist tries to recognize at all times and to maintain
an aware integral approach. When an individual life in an integral way, he/she
seems to be more able to draw from wisdom, which blossoms from the
experience of emptiness, essence, unity, interconnection, of the highest
qualities and the sacredness of existence, which some define as spiritual.
Ø Disidentification: think about the Hindu Mayan veil or the Buddhist samsara,
about movies like Matrix or Truman show, metaphors of the awakening from the
illusory world of senses. Think about Saint Exupery who reminds us how the
essential is invisible to the eye. Transpersonal psychotherapy operates in favour of
the awakening of the awareness of the Self (circle) and of the liberation from the
identification with the contents of the square, the I.

5. Includes processes of verbal exchange, alongside an awareness of non-verbal

sources of information and communication.

The metaphor of the square and circle is also applicable to the concepts of map and
territory. In this case the square, the map, can represent the theory, the verbal;
whereas the circle, the territory, is represented by experience, action. Transpersonal
psychotherapists believe that map and territory, experience and its elaboration are one
thing.

9
According to Anderson there are five ways through which insight be achieved in the lived
experience:
• Unconscious, symbolic and immaginal process
• Psychic or parapsychological experiences
• Sensory modes of intuition
• Empathic identification
• Through the wounds of the personal history
Anderson, Braud 22-26
Therefore, even if favoring inner experience through the afore-mentioned non-verbal
practices, it gives importance to the elaboration of experience on a cognitive level.
Within the maieutic dialogue with the client the psychotherapist helps recognizing
obsolete maps, myths, conditionings and acquired scripts, and he/she helps fulfilling
cognitive restructuration for the acquisition of maps and mental models more
functional to the territory. Through non-verbal practices the profound contents of
psychic processes are reached, and through mental re-elaboration their structures and
context are recognized.
The psychotherapist, through investigation practices of the profound and through
maps and psychodynamic models of the Self, can lead the client to recognize, within
the phenomenology of the contents of his/her own psyche, structures of processes
amenable to sub personalities, that is to say stereotypes, aspects of shadow
nonintegrated in the Self; in the same way, the therapist can help recognizing
expressions of elevated qualities, which are expressions of archetypical super-
conscious emergencies, transpersonal. Awareness and maieutic dialogue allow the
integration of different parts within the unifying archetype of the Self. Lattuada
(Lattuada 2013) proposes a combination of verbal and non-verbal methods, through
what he calls the four dialogic phases and the five maieutic categories.10
The various ternary, quaternary and septenary models, which we will see in detail
hereafter, orientate the participative dialogue towards therapeutic relationship and
offer precise maps to decode both verbal and non-verbal messages that come from the
entire complexity of the organism, in order to photograph the process and its
structures.

6. Offers a clear rationale for treatment / interventions facilitating

constructive change of the factors provoking or maintaining illness or
suffering.

The transpersonal psychotherapist recognizes that everything is a process that

through its contents reveals a structure.
In this case the square is represented by the structure, whereas the circle by the
process, which reveals itself through the structure. The square represents what is
measurable and repeatable, whereas the circle what is incommensurable and unique.
The integral approach of transpersonal psychotherapy tries not to forget about this and
to operate so that both dimensions are considered within clinical practice. Aware that
what appears is not what it is, it tries to favor awareness here and now within the
unity of the circle and square, structure and process, experienced and context.
In this case, the square can be seen as an expression of discomfort, conflict and
disease, interpreted as an identification of the I, interference in the natural healing
process, interruption of one’s own journey towards the realization of one’s
potentialities, a detachment from the connection with one’s own Self, a chronic
mechanism of behavior and of the related elaboration processes, a failed resonance
with the circle.
The square represents the mind, the past and future; the circle represents the
here and now, the only place where change can occur.

10
Four dialogic phases: Clarifying the context; Developing of the text, Revealing the pretext,
Reorganizing the text.
The five maieutic categories: To Dissolve, To navigate, To expand, To prolong, To become.
Transpersonal psychotherapy operates to favor the client’s ability to listen and
observe, to create the conditions to live here and now, this way accessing the
resources and qualities of the Self as well as the intuitive dimensions of
consciousness, able to recognize attachments to one’s personal history and the
identifications of the I. It also operates for the emerging of new images of the Self,
able to receive, integrate and manage the transformations occurred during the
therapeutic process of individualization; process that proceeds along the evolutionary
scale traced by maps and the afore-mentioned models.

7. Has clearly defined strategies enabling clients to develop a new

organization of experience and behavior.

We are all prisoners of our mind and the first step is to become aware of it.
At the same time ancient wisdom teaches us that: the best way to realize your dreams
is to wake up.
In tune with the traditional wisdom of perennial philosophy, transpersonal
psychotherapy investigates the true nature of a recognizable problem, be it trauma,
conflict, a behavioral or personality related disorder, keeping a distance from one’s
Self, true nature and own inner master or daimon. The therapeutic process, whether
carried out through talking or listening, psycho-corporal or meditative practices,
working on the dream or through breathing, aims to recognize pathogenic and
pathological ways of organizing one’s own experience and behavior. It operates
towards awareness or insight and the consequent cognitive restructuring, able to give
back to the individual a connection with his/her own Self and his/her most genuinely
human qualities.
The afore-mentioned maps and models, Grof, Wilber, Maslow, Campbell, Anderson
and Lattuada, offer general directions of holotropic order, oriented to the Unity of
consciousness and integration of the Self, and act as a secure guide for the
transpersonal psychotherapist so that he/she can accompany the therapeutic process
towards the evolutionary transformation of the Self on an integral level.
Therefore, we could say that the aim of transpersonal psychotherapy is to favor in
the client the gradual emerging of the archetype (circle) that includes a richness
of organized meanings, qualities and resources, able to “suck in” organization
from the environment and to accompany the client through an elaboration
process of experience and integration of the contents within conscious
personality (square).

8. Is open to dialogue with other psychotherapy modalities about its

fields of theory and practice.

Wilber’s work provides the basis for the dialogue between different forms of
psychotherapy. His theory on the spectrum of consciousness supplies the world of
psychotherapy with a model for dialogue and reciprocal synergy.
As mentioned before and as we will see in detail further on, in The Atman Project and
The Spectrum of Consciousness, Wilber (Wilber 1977): describes an evolutionary
model of personality that emerges from an in-depth discussion with many authors
who in turn had proposed models of development of the Self. Wilber suggests that in
every phase of development of the personality, of the cycle of life and the relative
state of consciousness, it is possible to find a specific indication of a certain
psychotherapeutic profile along a scale that goes from the cognitive-behavioral
approaches to the psychodynamic, humanistic and transpersonal ones.
Walsh and Vaughan (Walsh, Vaughan 1993) describe in detail the transpersonal
context, that is to say the frame into which the transpersonal vision interprets events.
For instance, a state of depression, in psychoanalysis may be connected to a fixation
on the oral phase of personality development, but from the transpersonal perspective
it will be seen as a separation from the sacral dimension of existence. Anxiety for life
will not be read as a substitute for castration anguish, but rather as the emergence of
an archetype asking to be recognised and honoured.
Recognising the transpersonal context means recognising the true nature of the
subject. The Daimon, or true nature, is always independent from personality. It is not
conditioned by personal biography: it is transpersonal. According to Hillman,
(Hilman 1997) it is related to the descent of the spirit to the level of material reality,
or according to Jung, to the emergence of an archetype of the collective unconscious
in the individual psyche.
At this stage, it can be understood that what characterises transpersonal
psychology is the recognition of the context more than the methodology used.
It is true that the privileged way to accede to the transpersonal dimension is a
meditative conscience state, but it is also true that it is possible to create the
conditions to achieve meditation with very different methods, such as
interpretation, a change in behaviour, a cognitive restructuring and so on.
Overall, it is possible to use typical transpersonal methods, such as meditation, dance
or visualisations without working in a transpersonal context, as it is also possible to
have a transpersonal approach using behaviouristic or psychoanalytical methods.

9. Has a way of methodically describing the chosen fields of study and

the methods of treatment / intervention which can be used by other
colleagues.

In terms of square, treatment methods and the relative results, in transpersonal

psychotherapy, can be evaluated both through specific instruments for measurement
and diagnosis of relevant constructs in the field, as well as trough high quality
diagnostic instruments like the DSM-IVTR classification and psychometric
instruments like the MMPI, Beck scales, and Hamilton. Measurement instruments
specific to the transpersonal field have been developed and are being used for
research purposes as MacDonald, Kuentzel, and Friedman have shown from the
review of 26 different instruments.
In terms of circle, transpersonal psychotherapy suggests transcending and including
measurements and falsification within the quality of the investigation and description,
and within attention and awareness. Many researches within the transpersonal field
propose and use innovative epistemological and research approaches, as describe by
Anderson and Braud. We refer to the Intuitive Inquiry by Anderson, the Integral
Inquiry by Braud, the Organic Inquiry By Clements, the Essential Science by Tart,
the First Person Science by Varela, (Varela 1999): the Integral Science by Wilber
(Wilber,2011) and the Second Attention Epistemology by Lattuada. (Lattuada
2010).
Walsh and Vaughan (Walsh, Vaughan 1993) state that Transpersonal Psychology is a
discipline that uses ‘scientific’ methods, that is, offers guarantees of validity, the
transcending of boundaries and the achievement of the Conscience of the Unity or the
Supreme Identity.
The psychotherapeutic approach derived from these premises is oriented towards
awareness, the instrument to transcend the boundaries of the dual mind.
Consequently the content, the chosen field of studies, in the case of the transpersonal
refers to what goes beyond the individual. Talking in psychodynamic terms, this
means that inside the subject, a process is taking place that transcends him/her. When
we use the terms ‘transpersonal contents’, we refer to the various experiences with a
transpersonal quality such as peak experiences, mystic and ecstatic experiences, non
ordinary conscience states, near death experiences, archetypical visions,
mythological dreams, revelations, insights, the opening of the heart, transcendent
experiences, meditative states and so on.
Stan Grof (Grof 1985) suggests the word ‘holotropic’: totality oriented, moving
towards the whole, to indicate these types of experiences (from the Greek holòs,
everything and trépein, moving towards something).
Walsh and Vaughan (Walsh, Vaughan 1993) studied some of the most significant
categories of experiences examined by transpersonal psychology, the ones we could
define in the transpersonal dimension of the conscience.
Here are some of them:
Ø Peak Experiences
This is the term Maslow (Maslow 1968): used for mystic and ecstatic experiences, as
well as for the healthiest psychological states. They seem to have the following traits:
- Very deep intense and positive emotions, similar to ecstasy
- Deep feeling of peace and calm
- A feeling of being in harmony with the universe
- A feeling of deep knowledge and comprehension
- The sensation of experiencing something unique, difficult to express in words.
Ø Plateau Experiences
Towards the end of his life, Maslow coined this definition applied to the series of
positive experiences characterised by a lesser intensity and a longer duration
compared to the peak experiences. We are talking about, for instance, meditative
states, deep interior peace, or feelings of complete fulfilment and so on.
Ø Nadir Experiences
Using Maslow’s term again, we describe the opposite of the peak experiences. They
are characterised by strong feelings of unease, typical of moments of great interior
change, the ‘transpersonal crisis’, as defined by Grof (Grof, S. and Grof, C. 1989):
Ø Transcendence of the Self
They are the conscience states in which the feeling of the Self has expanded beyond
the images and concepts of the individual personality. Maslow (Maslow 1968):
describes the meta-needs of self-transcendence as a sixth level of needs that reaches
beyond the gap not covered by self-realisation.
Ø Optimum wellness states
The peak and plateau experiences are states of being that, when cultivated, can last
for a long time. Transpersonal psychology works towards such achievements. They
are characterised by full awareness, self-understanding, fulfilment, freedom from
inner conflicts, expansion of conscience, ecstasy, sympathy and service to others.
Ø Spiritual emergency
Transpersonal psychology believes that a great number of upsetting experiences are
not pathological, but rather the expression of spiritual transformation. Psychological
crises are often hints of spiritual awakening characterised by the emergence of the
healthy core living inside each human being. The works of Christina and Stan Grof
(Grof, S. and Grof, C. 1989) have been of primary importance in this field of
research, along with those of Bragdon and Lukoff (Grof, S. and Grof, C. 1989).
Thanks to them, the category of Psycho-spiritual problems has been added in the last
version of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) IV.
Ø Personality development spectrum
As previously recalled, Ken Wilber worked out an evolutional model for personality
in which he distinguished between the pre-personal phases, preceding the stable sense
of ego, the personal phases in which the development of the I reaches its fulfillment,
and the transpersonal phases, based on the transcendence of the Ego and the
identification with the totality.
Ø Meditation
Meditation is a key method for the transpersonal psychology in the same way as
conditioning is the key of behaviorism and interpretation in psychoanalysis. Different
meditative practices have been taken from the ancient traditions. Some are based on
concentration on an object, whereas others are based on observation of the contents of
the consciousness. Both are oriented towards the comprehension of the real nature of
the mind, towards transcendence and expansion of the sense of self.
In the last decades, as we are shortly about to see, new disciplines and psycho-
spiritual techniques have been devised in transpersonal research in order to widen the
use of meditation towards relaxing psychotherapy.
Ø The Transpersonal Experience
In the transpersonal or holotropic states it seems that a deep transformation takes
place in the consciousness. It is characterized by a change of every area of perception.
They are connected with intense and unusual emotions, strong vegetative and
psychosomatic responses, often with ineffable modification of thinking processes. We
can frequently reach surprising levels of introspective perspicacity and intuitive
comprehension during transpersonal experiences. Confusion vanishes and truth seems
to be undoubtedly evident. Conflicts seem to settle and problems fade away as if they
have never existed.
According to Grof (Grof 1985) during transpersonal states, consciousness changes in
a deep and substantial way but, differently from delirium, its functioning is not
altered. It works in a wider and more open way so that we realize the limits of the
cognitive, intellectual experience, the insufficiency of rational explanation and of
words.
Ø Integration
In the transpersonal consciousness dimension, our inner sight opens up on worlds
otherwise unattainable; for instance, we can perceive the level of vital energy and the
network of vital interconnections running through our body, see the colors of organs
or the shape of an emotion. We can follow the movement of our focused attention
inside. We realize that each inner sensation produces an emotion and an image
simultaneously.
Images, in their turn, are always connected to sensations and emotions, and may
derive from the most different consciousness places; they can belong to our personal
story or to nature, its becoming and forces, can deliver immanent or transcendent
contents; cosmological, mythological, science fictional. The key trait of transpersonal
visions that distinguishes them from mental images produced by ‘daytime remains’ is
that they are self-generated images: they seem to spring from a source hidden in the
depth of our being and do not belong simply to the mind but involve all the levels of
our body thanks to the state of fluidity and interconnectedness typical of the
transpersonal experience.
Ø Emotions
Another typical aspect of holotropic states is that the transpersonal experience has a
numinous character to it that gives an indubitable sacred quality and a meaning that
goes beyond the single egoistic purposes. To integrate the insights we reach during
these experiences, we need to operate radical cognitive reorganizations and deep
personality changes, since they foster the surfacing of fulfillment, and transpersonal
phases, based of the transcendence of the Ego and the identification with the totality
Ø Intellect
Intellect works according to criteria very different from the usual ones. Analytical
judgment is flooded by such a huge and overwhelming amount of information that it
is silenced, to the advantage of an immediate and intuitive comprehension of our daily
problems, our personal story, our personality and our interpersonal behavior.
We are easily hit by a flow of connected intuitions that reveal philosophical or
metaphysical knowledge about human nature and the universe and that go far beyond
those related to our level of education.
Ø Space and time
The landscape of transpersonal contents would not be complete without mentioning
the modifications on the ordinary perceptions of time and space produced by the
holotropic conscience states. It is evident that, being mental categories of time and
space, the way we perceive them changes with a change in our conscience state.
In the widened consciousness states, typical of transpersonal experiences, time often
slows down or reverses. Memory may go beyond the boundaries of our present
existence to expand towards the lands of humanity’s journey of evolution. It may
meet powerful archetypical characters of an archaic past; multiform mythological, or
future hypothetical territories. It can go back to intra-uterine life, at the moment of
conception or even before, towards experiences that seem to come from what two
thirds of humanity would define as other incarnations.

10. Is associated with information, which is the result of conscious self-

reflection, and critical reflection by other professionals within the
approach.

Several transpersonal professionals have provided various publications of

conscious self-reflection and critical reflection of the transpersonal approach. In the
book, Psychotherapy and spirit: Theory and practice in transpersonal psychotherapy
(Cortright, 1997), the major transpersonal approaches to psychotherapy are reviewed,
the strengths and limitations of each are described, and key clinical issues are
reflected upon. Transpersonal research methods for the social sciences: Honoring
human experience (Braud & Anderson, 1998) provides the synopses of five
transpersonal oriented approaches to research and offers a critical view of the
strengths and weaknesses of each method. The book, Revisioning transpersonal
theory: A participatory vision of human spirituality (Ferrer, 2002) looks at the
problem areas of transpersonal psychology, deconstructs and reconstructs
transpersonal psychology theory, points out several practical and conceptual
limitations, and offers a new vision that is pluralistic and spiritually grounded. In
Shadow, self, spirit: Essays in transpersonal psychology (Daniels, 2005) the author
identifies the past struggles and main issues currently facing the transpersonal field
and writes about ways to support a more integrative approach. In an article in the
Humanistic Psychologist titled, Transpersonal psychology: Defining the past, diving
the future (Hartelius, Caplan, & Rardin, 2007) the authors have conducted a
retrospective analysis of how the transpersonal field has presented itself through
publications in its first 35 years. They reflect on its character, how themes have
unfolded, its potential value, and where it may be going.

11. Offers new knowledge, which is differentiated and distinctive, in the

domain of psychotherapy.

Before analyzing in detail the specific contributions of Transpersonal Psychology, we

would like to highlight an additional distinctive trait of its approach.
Authors like Hartelius, Caplan, and Rardin (Hartelius, Caplan, & Rardin, 2007) assert,
after a review of the transpersonal literature that “the transpersonal model is not
only about new knowledge, but about new contexts for knowledge and new ways
of knowing.
The Transpersonal approach does not substitute a square with another, that is to say it
does not deny the acquisitions of previous psychotherapeutic approaches, but rather it
recognizes the value and the specific contribution of each approach, but at the same
time it suggests general orientations and new meta-models for a common square.
The Transpersonal approach also proposes a series of orienting generalizations,
namely some acquisitions, for instance in the field of morality or of evolutionary
psychology, which even if not in detail, share common grounds. It is the case of the
distinction between pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional thought or
between pre-personal, personal and transpersonal development. The pre-personal
and personal dimensions, as well as the pre-conventional and conventional thought,
belong to the square; the post-conventional thought and the transpersonal dimension
offer maps and tools to master the experience of the circle.
Think about Grof’s (Grof 1985) pre-natal, perinatal and transpersonal contents, or
Wilber’s (Wilber 1995) four quadrants, or Anderson’s five modalities of intuition.
The Transpersonal approach also proposes new ways of knowledge, that is to say a
wider look able to perceive the circle and to dialogue with it. Think about Tart’s
states of consciousness or the importance of the vacuum, listening, observation, or
about the meditative states, or the new afore-mentioned epistemologies.
Willing to briefly run over the contributions of specific authors, we will mention the
following ones, among others:

Ø William James11: (James 1961).

-Views mystic experiences as a healthy and natural yearning
Ø Carl Gustav Jung12: (Jung 1989):

11
A pioneer in psychology; he was the first to study mystic experiences, considering them both psychic
and religious events. In "The Varieties of Religious Experiences," James as the Transpersonal
Psychotherapy does views mystic experiences as a healthy and natural yearning, resting at the basis of
every religion.
12
First of all, we must remember Carl Gustav Jung who postulated the existence of the "Collective
Unconscious," originally defined as the Überpersönliche (transpersonal). This unconscious stands at
the basis of the fundamental interconnection of any individual psyche and is inhabited by archetypes
 -Transpersonal Consciousness;
-Spiritual, that is transpersonal experience, as the best way out of neurosis
Ø Abraham Maslow13(Maslow 1968):
-Goes to further concepts like humanity, identity, personal self-realization,
towards a consciousness of the Self.
Ø Roberto Assagioli:14 (Assagioli 1965):
-To widen the personal boundaries towards the accomplishment of a transpersonal
Self
Ø Pierre Weil:15 (Weil 1992)
-Consciousness is an infinite and boundless flow. Limits only exist in the human
mind.
-Memory goes beyond phylogeny and can be tracked back through the evolution
of the living being up to the very source of the vital energy.
-Human evolution does not end in intellect but moves towards higher qualities
such as wisdom, love, humbleness, sympathy, awareness, etc.
- As if, death were just a passage, an opportunity to reach new dimensions of
being.
Ø Stanislav Grof: 16 (Grof 1985)
-New cartography of Psyche
-New Methodology
Ø Ken Wilber17 (Wilber 1995)
-Consciousness development model that enables us integrating the different
psychological models:
Ø Other authors
-Among the heterogeneous authors who contribute to the main stream of

that constitute the very basis of any transpersonal experience.

He even pointed to spiritual experience as the best way out of neurosis

13
He was the father of humanistic psychology and he, more than anyone else, laid the foundations for
the birth of transpersonal psychology as an organized corpus among psychological theories. He viewed
humanistic psychology, which is defined as the "third strength" of psychology, after psychoanalysis and
behaviorism, as a transitory one in preparation for a "fourth," even higher type of psychology: the
transpersonal, trans-human, centered on Cosmos more than on human needs, and that could go to
further concepts like humanity, identity, personal self-realization, towards a consciousness of the Self.
14
He is credited as the first to transcend the limits of psychoanalysis, offering a psycho-synthesis that
enabled the subject to widen the personal boundaries towards the accomplishment of a transpersonal
Self. He was also the first to use the term "transpersonal psychology."(7)

15
Exploring the dimensions of interior experience, as referred to in his work "L'uomo senza
frontiere,"(8) he pointed out the various boundaries that limit the scope of human vision of the world.
In doing so, he masterfully defined the sphere of action of transpersonal psychology: consciousness,
memory, development and death. Knowledge and transcendence of such boundaries are, in fact, the
main characteristics of the transpersonal movement, which scientifically operates to develop the
following thesis:

16
Stan Grof (9), was the first one to elaborate a transpersonal psychodynamic model, along with a map
of interior experience and a psychotherapeutic methodology with a transpersonal approach.

17
Can be considered to be the most prolific living author. He elaborated a consciousness development
model that enables us to integrate the different psychological models: cognitive, moral, psychodynamic
and spiritual.
transpersonal studies we must also mention Karen Horney, (Horney 1950) with her
concept of "true Self"; Victor Frankl, (Frankl 1967) who based his work on the
research of meaning and the notion of "self-transcendence”; Carl Rogers (Rogers,
1951) who included the concept of "transcendent spiritual power" among the
characteristics of a perfectly healthy person, and Fritz Perls, (Perls, F., Hefferline, R.,
& Goodman, P., 1951) who was deeply influenced by Zen in his formulation of the
Gestalt therapy.

12. Is capable of being integrated with other approaches considered to be

part of scientific psychotherapy so that it can be seen to share with
them areas of common ground

The scientific method studies reality through experimentation and widens its
knowledge through the elaboration of new theories and models. If we consider the
example of archeology, we can easily understand that archeologists, after
investigating on a first evident level, will have the chance to discover unexplored
areas by walking through caverns and tunnels; similarly, an astronomer can discover
new universes, galaxies and solar systems by improving the investigation technology;
the “discovery of the circle” doesn’t imply the denial of the square but rather its
transcendence and inclusion.18

18
The dispute we face is: what kind of guarantees should this knowledge, not willing to accept
measurement and symbolic representation of the dual mind as foundations, provide?
What should be the basis of a science willing to proceed over its own strict limits?
As we keep looking for further information, we will consider the contribution that old and new
members of “perennial philosophy and perennial psychology” have given to us in the course of time.
Feeding from the researches of Einstein, Schroedinger and Heisenberg, that support the inseparability
of subject and object, knower and known, Alan Watts says:
“ ...In order to profoundly comprehend reality, a modality of knowledge compatible with reality is
needed”18, namely a knowledge that does not separate the subject that knows from what is known18.
Eddington confirms:
“ ... two kinds of knowledge exist, I name them symbolic knowledge and intimate knowledge. The
traditional forms of thought were developed only around the symbolic knowledge. The profound
knowledge does not allow codification or analysis.”
And he hopes for:
“ ... an intimate knowledge of reality that goes beyond the symbols of science.”
Alfred North Whitehead 18 , the modern philosopher that more than any other focused on the two
different modalities of consciousness, opposes the “prehension”, meaning “to feel” reality in a direct
way rather that in a dual one, to the “symbolic modality” of knowledge.
Whitehead’s “master”, William James, distinguishes between “immediate knowledge” and “conceptual
or representative knowledge”18.
Likewise, Spinoza 18 and Henri Bergson 18 , distinguish between intellect and intuition, whereas
Abraham Maslow18 opposes a “fusional knowledge” to an “intellectual knowledge”, Andrew Weil18 a
direct knowledge to an indirect knowledge and Norman O. Brown18 a “carnal” knowledge to a dualistic
knowledge.
Regarding spiritual traditions, Taoism talks about a “conventional knowledge” opposed to a “natural
knowledge”, the Tao, that allows a direct comprehension of reality; Hinduism opposes a superior
 “We are living in a transitional period; a very special one. A period in which the
mechanistic paradigm, that characterized the path of science till now, is giving way to
the holistic paradigm. And what is more important, for the first time in human history,
a vision that can unify polarities, transcending them, that have been crossing
millenniums with hostile and sometimes violent dynamics, is coming to light. The
Transpersonal perspective embodies the holistic paradigm and “aims to the
development of wise and mature people, who are aware of solidarity for humanity and
of respect of nature, who contribute to the human life well-being.”
The transpersonal movement was born in the United States in the 60s, in the last
century. This movement finds its place within psychological disciplines, and has
developed thanks to the work of some psychologist who, recognizing the limits of
previous approaches mostly used in those years, impress an evolution to humanistic
psychology newly conceived including in their spectrum of survey the spiritual
dimension, the respect for the whole human experience, including non-ordinary states
of consciousness.
Thanks to the contribution of scholars that had come in contact with wisdom
traditions outside the dominant Occidental culture, the necessity to weaken and
correct the ethnocentric and cognicentric polarization of the Newtonian- Cartesian
paradigm was acknowledged. Notwithstanding the suspects and the accusations with
which Transpersonal psychology was received in the academic world in the first years
of her life, the accusations were of “irrationalism” and of “nonscientific”, new
revolutionary concepts and new discoveries in different scientific disciplines
supported the Transpersonal assumptions, giving a contribute to confute the dominant
materialistic Newtonian- Cartesian paradigm. The Transpersonal view acts as a
reconciling element between science and spirituality, (square and circle) based on
experience, as a synthesis between modern science and ancient wisdom.
So, transpersonal psychotherapy proceeds along the tracks of the psychodynamic,
behavioral and humanistic approaches, and as in the afore-mentioned examples
introduces the discoveries of the most hidden caverns such as pre-natal and perinatal
experiences and matrices, and/or the farther universes, that is to say super-conscious
dimensions and Transpersonal experiences connected to amplified states of
consciousness.

knowledge that can be reached directly through intuition to an inferior, conceptual and comparative
knowledge.
The Christian mysticism, as Ken Wilber18 reminds us, through Meister Eckhart, talks about a “twilight
of the knowledge” to indicate the symbolic knowledge through which ideas are perceived in a different
way, and a “sunrise of the knowledge” where “creatures are perceived with no difference, every idea is
refused, and all the comparisons dissolve in the One, God Himself”.
Even the Mahayana Buddhism considers two modalities of knowledge: vijnana and prajna, the first
characterized by dualism typical of the senses and of the intellect, and the second by the identity
between observer and what is observed.
 13. Describes and displays a coherent strategy to understanding human
problems, and an explicit relation between methods of treatment /
intervention and results.

The afore-mentioned maps and methods intend orientating towards the

comprehension and the solution of human problems, but also and especially aim to
guide human beings in their journey towards fulfillment and realization.
Among many proposals, it is possible to recognize that some, more than others,
provide orienting generalizations, that is to say they supply common denominators for
the psychological structure of human beings and the psychodynamic process of the
Self.
We can describe orienting generalizations following a structure of three, four or
seven main layers and read them both ontologically and filo-genetically

Ø Wilber: Three layers (Wilber 1995)

1. Pre-Personal and pre-conventional19
2. Personal or conventional20
3. Transpersonal or post conventional21
Ø Grof: Four layers (Grof 1985)
To understand what transpersonal process means, we refer to what we call the
dynamic structure of the inner experience, masterfully described by Grof.
The transpersonal psychotherapist accompanies the patient through transpersonal
practices or others derived from spiritual disciplines such as meditations, channelling,
chants, dances, the psychophysical and breathing exercises, shamanic practices,
rituals, visualisations and so on. The interior journey of the patient starts with a first
exploration of the sensations, emotions, and perceptions with no apparent meaning.
Then the patient is led to gradual liberation from personal history through
investigation, and then, going through radical transformation experiences, the patient
is led to the access to the transpersonal dimension, the place of spiritual qualities and
of ‘true nature.’

Dynamic structure of the inner experience:

Grof’s (Grof 1985) research on extraordinary consciousness states offers a firm guide
to the transpersonal psychotherapist, providing a well-constructed map that gives an
orientation of the development of a clinical methodology towards the transformation
of conscience and the achievement of what Assagioli (Assagioli 1965) calls “the
development of the transpersonal self.”

19
The unconscious layer formed in the past according to our experiences of satisfaction, deprivation,
trauma, well-being, expansion, and contraction. Humans develop along biographical lines that we call
pre-personal levels.
20
The second level is the level of conscious personality, of the I and its identifications on the personal
level.

21
The third is the layer that points towards the future, human potential and creativity, which are
connected to a deep “higher self,” and that tend to promote growth and well-being,
The post-personal levels of a deeper self that goes beyond what is usually called a “personality.”
Maslow called the human need that pushes towards this further development “needs for transcendence.
This refers to a need to go beyond oneself or the usual concepts of oneself. The level which bring
each person back into forms of deep integration, unification, or wholeness, both within his or her
personal structures and core, central, “higher” self.
Grof’s (Grof 1985) conclusions are also easily confirmed by careful observation of
the consciousness transformation process that seems to occur in any person who goes
through a personal growth mediated by inner experience.
This seems to unfurl itself along an evolutionary path in which, at a certain point, the
self seems to go towards a spiritual or transpersonal development in which a force
aiming to the aggregation around a superior centre of conscience, overcoming the
conflicts related to the dual mind, opens its way into a unifying vision, unidentified
from simply personal interests.
It is possible to determine the flow of events in this process through structures, which
we can group into four main categories of experience:22

1. Abstract and aesthetic experiences23

2. Biographic or psychodynamic experiences24
3. Death-rebirth experiences25
4. Transpersonal experiences26

Ø Wilber: Seven layers (Wilber 1980)

23
They are connected to the anatomy and physiology of sense organs and do not seem to offer
symbolic meanings linked to the personal story of the subject. They are colours and geometrical
perceptions both proprioceptive and exteroceptive, flows of thoughts particularly intense and
apparently meaningless and so on. In general, they are experiences related to the perception of oneself
on the level of the energetic process. We could link these experiences to states in which new perceptive
ways are opening to subsequently become an instrument and a vehicle for deeper contents of
consciousness.
24
On proceeding in the interior journey, the enhanced sensitivity and awareness tend to lead along
perceptive paths that open onto experiences tightly related to one’s personal story and to the emotional
world.
It is possible to get in touch with childhood emotional traumas, conflicts connected with the structure
of the character subsequently produced, affective needs, desires, fears, and hindrances. That is, with all
the removed contents which tend to dominate the subject.
25
While the inner experience gets more and more intense, it is possible to face experiences in which
one relives the phases of his/her biological birth, or is deeply confronted with death.
The actualisation, once again, of the birth-death process enables the subject to vividly experience
psychophysical symptoms. This process is often so intense it reaches the level of tissues and cells. Such
experiences go together with symbolic and mythological themes derived from different cultures. They
seem to be the way towards the spiritual or transpersonal dimension in which it will be asked to
transcend the ego.
26
We are dealing here with a wide range of non-ordinary experiences previously described. They have
in common the sensation of conscience expansion beyond ego borders, of transcending time and space.
Many of them may be recognised as a regression through the personal, biological, cultural or spiritual
story. It is possible to reach the point of experiencing one’s foetal life again, or even the embryonic or
cellular state by getting to the informational field of the ovum or sperm at the conception time. It is
possible to pass the threshold of present life and widen the conscience towards ancestral, racial, and
animal past dimensions. Such a widening can reach passed spatial barriers and draw from other
people’s consciousness, or animals, plants or inanimate objects. Other groups of important
transpersonal experiences comprise telepathy, clairvoyance, premonition, psychic diagnosis, medianity,
contact with entities or spiritual guides, out-of-body experiences and synchronism.
Though the most significant aspect of the transpersonal experiences may be that of the emergence of
archetypical themes, mythological or fairy sequences from the unconscious, which connect the subject
to the elemental forces of the origins, enabling him/her to reorganise in them the dimensions of
consciousness that directly emanated from the transpersonal Self.
1. Pleromatic Self,
2. Uroboric Self,
3. Thyfonic Self,
4. Membership Self, Mental Egoic Self, Centauric Self,
5. Subtle self
6. Casual self,
7. Ultimate Self

Which correspond to the respective states of consciousness,

1. Archaic,
2. Magical,
3. Mythological,
4. Rational,
5. Psychic,
6. Casual,
7. Non-dual.

Each one of the described phases and states shows (in the square) a constellation of
contents (shadows, behaviors, experiences, thoughts, qualities etc.) that allow
recognizing the problem and consequently the kind of intervention to be carried out in
order to draw from specific resources.
The psychopathology, the problem, coincides with the identification in restricted
areas of the square, isolated sub-personalities that live in the shadows of psyche,
developing in chronic behaviors, limited to one phase or to a specific state.
The resource, wellbeing, coincides with a gradual achievement of more elevated
phases and wider and unifying states of consciousness, able to integrate those areas in
conscious personality. This integration coincides with a gradual dis-identification
from those contents, a widening of the areas of awareness and of one’s own
archetypical qualities, which lead to a connection with one’s true nature and
consequently to the realization of the Self (circle).

14. Has theories of normal and problematic human behavior, which are
explicitly related to effective methods of diagnosis / assessment and
treatment / intervention

As said earlier, the absence of disease, normality, the condition of rationality, aren’t
considered by Maslow, From, Weil, Grof or Wilber, as the final condition of human
development, but rather they represent a limitation to complete fulfillment, to the
realization of the Self.
In a dynamic, participative and interconnected picture, on the back of the described
models, the concepts of normality and pathology are modified. The first is reduced to
a statistic concept and the second is amplified to include normality as it’s commonly
understood, the small man of Reichian memory, who abdicates to its own higher
qualities and creative resources remaining confined in the cages of his identifications,
cultural conditionings and induced needs.
The models afore-mentioned have in common a wider cartography of Psyche, a
step by step description of the ontogenetic processes that allow reading human
behavior through grids, able to “diagnose” using definition, “photographing” the
clinical picture with a psychodynamic view, without confining the individual in
nosographic cages.
The described models allow giving to the clinical pictures, which on the level of the
square are attributable to the ones described in the DSM V, a dynamic and
evolutionary dignity.
Character, personality traits and psychopathological categories, since they are
blockages in the evolutionary development, descriptions of specific modalities of
denial of one’s own Self and distance from one’s true nature, define positions that
contain the seed of transformation, the indications for the evolutionary process, a
process sustained and promoted by the deepest and highest instances, by the unifying
archetype of the Self.
Grof described Transformations as world visions, following the overcoming of
spiritual emergencies.
Transpersonal researchers and ancient traditions agree that access to the dimensions
of conscience, typical of transpersonal experience, seems to produce a deep
reorganization of the self, as well as a radical change in one's vision of the world.
Such a change seems to be characterized by what is defined by Kohlberg as post-
conventional moral thought, or in Wilber’s terms as post-formal operational
cognition. These changes could be determined by connections with ‘intrinsic spiritual
sources’, as Grof (Grof 1985) calls them, or following Capra, (Capra 1983) ‘the
interconnected flow’, or as we call them, ‘the flow of elemental and archetypical
forces’.
In this way, the subject can understand that the materialistic vision of the world, its
controlling and conservative structures, are rooted in a fear of birth and death; their
unsatisfied needs are linked to their disconnection from the flow of the forces, and
from the subsequent failed attempts to receive energy from others.
After having transcended the instance of the “I”, the lack of authenticity of one’s own
answer about oneself and the reality of the world become evident. The past and future
become less important than the present. The enthusiasm for the process of life tends to
substitute the craving to achieve specific objectives, and one is keener to think of the
world in terms of energy rather than in material ones.
The huge expansion of consciousness that is achieved through transpersonal
experiences allows one to overcome the concept of linear time and three-dimensional
space. Matter is revealed as a new form of energy, form and emptiness become
relative concepts.
The philosophical idea of existence comes closer to the great mystic traditions by
which the universe is seen as an infinite continuum of adventures of the conscience,
and the spiritual, human, animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms are considered as
living one for the other and one inside the other.

Jonas’s complex: the repression of the sublime

As has been stated before, acceding and sailing through transpersonal dimensions is
all but easy: it requires courage, accepting challenges, renunciations, responsibility,
acceptance of death and detachment from all personal needs.
Grof’s (Grof 1985) in-depth study of the dynamic of the evolutionary process
confirms the transpersonal researchers’ opinion that indicates the way of accessing the
transpersonal dimension, the experiences of death and rebirth in their different forms.
It is therefore easy to understand the need to consider what Maslow (Maslow 1968)
calls “Jonas‘s complex”, that is, the fear of growing that drives us to avoid our ‘divine
mission’. We become deaf to the call of our ‘daimon’.
Transpersonal psychology offers instruments to reveal the dynamics that lead us to
deny and prevent ourselves from reaching our higher potentials.
Erich Fromm (Fromm 1993) calls these “escape mechanisms” that actively operate
against our Self and are supported mainly by social and cultural forces as well as by
psychological instances.
In fact, the dominant culture has the function of educating us as well as of restricting
social norms that limit individual potentials.
According to John Mack, it is possible to explain why quite a number of saints and
wise men of ancient times ended up being poisoned, burned or crucified.
To society, it is more important to have control over the individual rather than the
expression of his/her unique latent potentials.
Transpersonal psychology offers individual and social answers to individuals and
social instances, tending to limit the realization of the Self.
It works on the subject through psychotherapy and meditation and on the society
through education.
It aims at a transpersonal upbringing that improves human potentials transcending
what John Mack calls ‘the material triumvirate’: money, sex and power.
Therefore, there will be attention to creating an environment, called by Maslow
(Maslow 1968): “eupsychic environment”, a social sphere that lends importance to
transpersonal growth, using practices to feed it and create healthy and open
relationships, favouring confidence, openness, and experimentation. Overall, it is the
environment that was offered by religious communities, and that is now created
during seminars and workshops, or else in structured communities that allow social
rituals, life models and systems of upbringing that foster spiritual growth.
Consequently, the transpersonal approach considers a healthy human being, who
coincides with the most elevated states of development, with positions free from
identifications with his/her own personal history. A human being who is open to
change, self-reliant, focused, socially constructive, loving and resilient, with a sense
of purpose in life. A healthy human being is integrated and lives life with a certain
degree of conscious unity; he/she is able to resort to humor and to distance
him/herself from life situations when needed. This healthy human being accepts that
others can behave differently and have different views, live in the present, enjoy life’s
diverse experiences, and freely allow moments of consciousness expansion during
ethical, aesthetic, and generally pleasurable experiences.
On the contrary, problematic human behavior coincides with the lowest levels of the
evolutionary scale of the described models and a greater distance from one’s authentic
Self.
This human being tends to be on the side of dissociation, disintegration, lack of
resonance with others, identification with pathology and pathological states. There is
a feeling of alienation, loss of purpose, and intense suffering without the skills to
endure and manage it. There is also a defensive shrinking of the field of
consciousness (as in phobias). We believe that a major part of human suffering comes
from rigid identification with disturbed patterns of behavior and emotion,
identification with very fragile personality structures and self-concepts, and
maladaptive attachments to self-concepts that are defensive social facades or
pessimistic views of oneself based on traumatic experiences, physical and emotional
deprivations.
The afore-mentioned methodological models provide operational tools to facilitate
healing/awakening/realization processes, and offer a “royal road” towards healing,
which implies deep changes in identity structure through transformative experiences
of healthy, expansive and modified states of consciousness, and the relative cognitive
restructuration according to a richer and integrated self-image.

15. Has investigative procedures, which are defined well enough to indicate
possibilities of research.

Transpersonal psychotherapists welcome research and acknowledge that

quantitative methods and standard psychometric tests have a relevant role in all
schools of psychology. However, we prefer case studies and also qualitative research
methodologies, which are now widely accepted and used in psychotherapy research,
because of their capacity to deepen our understanding of the investigated
phenomenon. Five research methods designed specifically for transpersonal research
are integral inquiry, intuitive inquiry, organic research, transpersonal-
phenomenological inquiry, and inquiry informed by exceptional human experiences
(Braud & Anderson, 1998). Several measurement tools specific to transpersonal
research have also been developed, such as the Spiritual Well-being Scale (SWBS)
and the Spiritual Orientation Inventory (SOI), among others.
The specifics of our area are not so much about the way we do research (an
emphasis on phenomenology and first hand reports about ongoing experiences from
research subjects) but about concepts such as, “peak experiences”, “spirituality,”
“spiritual well-being,” “paranormal beliefs,” “transpersonal orientation,” “self-
expansion,” “mystical experiences,” “spiritual beliefs,” and “mental, physical, and
spiritual well-being.” For such concepts, some psychometric instruments are already
available (see MacDonald, Kuentzel and Friedman, 1999a and 1999b). On the other
hand, we do resort to first person phenomenological accounts of ongoing experiences
during psychotherapy that can be correlated in real-time with brain activity, electro
dermal response, general bodily feelings, and measures of immune response.
They also develop research methodologies able to use three eyes, as Wilber (Wilber,
2011) suggests, the eyes of the flesh, of the mind and of the soul, in order to
investigate the participative dialogue of human beings with their environment on an
integral level, able to include, as Wilber would say, all the levels and all the
quadrants, and able to deal with the square and the circle.

We would like to finish with a sentence by Charles Tart: (Tart 1997 p.7 )

“I attempt to start this kind of bridging by looking at the nature of science, arguing that we have
unnecessarily confused the powerful tool of scientific method with a philosophy of physicalism that
keeps our science from adequately dealing with spiritual experiences and altered states of
consciousness. If we return to practicing the essentials of scientific method, we may, in the best sort of
scientific way, develop state-specific sciences. The kinds of human experiences dealt with in the
spiritual psychologies are not incompatible with the essence of science. Indeed the spiritual
psychologies presented later may be state-specific sciences themselves. Even if they are not what we
Westerners would call sciences, they have an immense amount to teach us.”

P. L .Lattuada M. D, Psy. D., Ph. D.

djirendra@gmail.com
www.integraltraspersonal.com
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