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Transpersonal Psychology as a Science

Article · October 2018

DOI: 10.32031/ITIBTE_ITJ_11-LP2

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Transpersonal Psychology as a science
P. L. Lattuada MD., Psy. D., Ph. D

Abstract

Transpersonal psychology represents the newest movement within the psychological field. It was
born at the end of the sixties as a natural evolution of humanistic psychology, in the wake of trends
that favored the development of human potential, with the aim to expand the area of interest and
jurisdiction of psychology in order to include spiritual inner experiences, the whole spectrum of states
of consciousness and the full realization of the Self.
Here below is Charles Tart’s definition of transpersonal psychology:
“Transpersonal psychology operates in favor of the realization of the Self and the awakening of the
spiritual nature and most genuine human qualities in every individual.” Tart C.T. (1992 p. 18)
In this article, I will emphasize the specificities of transpersonal psychology, which I believe offer
enormous potential to psychological science, encouraging it to widen its jurisdiction and methods –
as Maslow hoped for – but I will also mention the causes of its weaknesses, which will expose it to
attacks by its opponents who are often not willing to recognize its validity. I will examine the criticism
and reasons that aim to demonstrate the groundlessness of transpersonal psychology by reporting
some ontological, epistemological and methodological aspects of the transpersonal approach, which
can guarantee its validity as a science.

Critiques

Before entering the debate on the scientificity of transpersonal psychology, I will try responding to
the ostracism declared by science, which can be summarized in the following justification:
Transpersonal psychology operates on metaphysical bases that cannot be verified or falsified through
a procedure of measurement, objectively observable and replicable; therefore, it places itself outside
the field of psychological science.
Moreover, I will face some of the fierce criticism coming from various areas of the psychological
field.
Here are some critiques:

Ø There are an increasing number of reports from people in psychotherapy and

counseling centers, who have been harmed through participation in various groups, courses
and psychotherapies where - under the heading of 'psychotherapy' - various spiritual and
esoteric practices are conducted. After an early hope of fulfillment, promises of healing are
often followed by a form of disillusionment. (Schulthess P. 2017 p. 15)

Ø Welcoming Transpersonal Psychology into the field of scientific psychology might

lead to the risk of validating its practices. (ESTP application to EAP, 2017-18)

Ø Transpersonal Psychology's mysticism, deceive those people who hardly tolerate the
existential philosophical view that the creation of life starts from a zero point and that death
marks an end-point where everything is over: beginning and end. Full stop! (Schulthess P.
2017 p. 14)

Ø The idea of a hierarchy of consciousness has something elitist about it, especially
for those who are "at the top". Doctrinal theories and rites "as we have always known"
are removed from objective examination. (Schulthess P. 2017 p. 15).
 Ø To equate any western 'scientific' concepts with either shamanic intuition and/or the
eternal mystical traditions of the high religious cultures (“philosophia perennis”)3 alienates
us from our present culture and also from our profession, as the argument is hardly rational
and not externally verifiable. It is definitely not suitable as a referential framework for a
being scientifically-recognized psychotherapy as some of the representatives of
Transpersonal Psychotherapy claim. (Schulthess P. 2017 p. 16)

Ø To me there seems to be a range of different modalities that have the same belief
system / ideology. (EAP – 2017-18 p. 3)

Ø Transpersonal psychology can actually increase a person's frustration, intensify

neurotic defenses and impede the development of a healthy self-image. (Ellis A., Yeager J.R.
1989)

Comparing Ontologies

We will compare the so-called “metaphysical bases” of transpersonal psychology to the “scientific
bases” on which classical psychology is founded.
Pierre Weil (Weil P. 1992 p. 21), one of the founders of transpersonal psychology, outlines four
assumptions that characterize transpersonal ontology:

Ø Consciousness is an unending and boundless flow. Limits only exist in the human mind.
Ø 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.
Ø Human evolution does not end in intellect but moves towards higher qualities such as
wisdom, love, humbleness, sympathy, awareness, etc.
Ø Death is just a passage, an opportunity to reach new dimensions of being.

The “scientific” bases of classical psychology are grounded on the premises of materialistic
reductionism:

Ø The creation of life starts from a zero point that death marks an end-point where everything
is over: beginning and end. (Schulthess P. 2017 p. 14)
Ø Where the scientific study of the mind is concerned, consciousness and its special
features are of rather minor importance. It is quite possible, indeed desirable, to give an
account of language, cognition and mental states in general without taking into account
consciousness and subjectivity.
Ø Science is objective because reality itself is objective.
Ø The objectivity of science requires that the phenomena studied are completely objective,
and in the case of cognitive science this means that it must study objectively observable
behavior.
Ø From the fact that reality is ultimately physical and the fact that it is completely objective, it
is natural to assume that everything in reality is knowable by us. There is no place or at least
very little place-for consciousness in this overall picture. (Searle John R. 1994 p. 28)

Going into detail on the abovementioned visions goes beyond the aim of this paperwork; therefore, I
will limit myself to emphasizing the evidence that stating that everything is matter, the mind can be
studied objectively through behavior, consciousness does not exist or is only an expression of brain
activity, has no scientific value.
When it comes to metaphysics, Reductionist materialism is just as metaphysical as the assumptions
on which the transpersonal vision is based.
“Ultimate reality is material”, “consciousness does not include matter” and “the psyche coincides
with the mind” are non-observable, measurable nor replicable statements.
The issue of the premises could be easily settled by embracing the invitation of Husserl’s epoché
(Husserl E., 2006) to base the premises on a phenomenological approach that places one’s own beliefs
and judgments in brackets.
The demarcation line in order to consider any approach as valid should be moved from going into
detail on its system of creation to the “way” it treats it. Any discipline should emphasize its
ontological assumptions and provide epistemological guarantees regarding how it achieved its
knowledge and the use it makes of it.
In so doing, the focus would shift from the discipline to the people and from beliefs to the world.
The fake boundary between scientific and transpersonal psychologies would be crossed and the focus
would be placed on the people and their statements. The limits, tasks and jurisdictions would become
clear and based on a mutual recognition of a difference in the intent, object of investigation and
ontological and epistemological bases. However, these bases should not be considered as exclusive
or absolutely true, but rather as starting points for the premises to be verified and the relative visions
of the world to be approached with an “as if” kind of attitude.

Comparing Epistemologies

As a result, it would become possible to understand that the epistemological approach of

transpersonal psychology provides tools and methods that do not invade the territory of behavioral
sciences, but rather increase the validity provided by psychological science.
By simplifying the transpersonal practice and relying on a phenomenological approach that suggests
leaving behind one’s own beliefs and judgments, transpersonal psychology introduces in the scientific
method three elements: exposure, awareness and disidentification.
Exposure suggests declaring the ontological premises or beliefs, placing them between brackets and
behaving “as if”, this way overcoming the well-known problem that is reflexivity1 (Thomas W. I.
1923, Amderson R. 2017), which is the tendency of the researcher to influence the investigation in
order to confirm his own assumptions, more or less consciously.
Awareness comes from the consideration that it is possible to observe thinking, offering a further tool
that adds supra-rational guarantees, provided by aware thought, to the rational guarantees of critical
thought, based on meta-cognition.
Disidentification allows detachment from the objective and therefore from the results of the research,
non-attachment to one’s own beliefs and it reinforces the comprehension that it is possible to act “as
if”. “As if” I weren’t the content of my perception, my feelings, emotions, needs, desires, thoughts,
judgments, beliefs, etc.
Classical epistemology is based on reason and critical thought. Transpersonal epistemology
transcends and includes without denying meta-cognition and we could say it is based on exposure,
awareness and disidentification.
Thanks to the three mentioned pillars, the researcher, or more generally the professional, can
guarantee that he knows what he is doing and, once declared his contents, concept and percept, he is
able to leave them behind and not be guided by them.
Transpersonal psychology offers an epistemological map that defines an I, place of concept and
percept, and a Self, place of disidentified and aware observation, able to operate “as if” and therefore
transcend the cognitive dimension of reason within the aware dimension of insight, which is that new
order of comprehension mentioned by Bohm (Krishnamurti J., Bohm D. 1986).
Steiner2 says:
“Only when we have made the world content into our thought content do we rediscover the connection from
which we have sundered ourselves. This goal is reached only when the tasks of scientific research are
understood much more profoundly than often occurs.”3 (Steiner R., 1995, p. 33).
And continues:
“But for everyone who has the capacity to observe thinking—and, with good will, every normally constituted
human being has this capacity—the observation of thinking is the most important observation that can be
made.” (Steiner R., 1995, p. 20).
In so doing, anyone can understand that thinking:
“Is a kind of activity that is neither subjective nor objective; it goes beyond both these
concepts.”4 (Steiner, R., 1995 p. 37).
And understand that the appearances of reductionist materialism, which he calls “naïve
realism”, are overcome through the knowledge of thinking true essence5 (Steiner R., 1995
p.53).

Aware Thought in history

“The importance conferred to intuition throughout the centuries as “a direct, immediate and
ready knowledge of reality that reaches the spirit without need of reasoning”, evidences it
irremissible value for any knowledge system wishing to give validity guarantees.
Aristotle and Plato recognized the possibility of perceiving directly the first principles
through intuition. (Treccani, vol.VI) Plotinus, (Plotinus, 1918) Saint Augustine (Saint
Augustine 2005) and the medieval mystics pointed to intuition as “the only way for man to
get in touch with God”. Saint Thomas (Aquinas T. 1996), believed that the same Divine
Knowledge, seen as creator of its own objects, has an intuitive character. In modern
philosophy the concept of intuition overlaps with that of evidence; Descartes defines
intuition as “immediate perception of single contents absolutely certain”, (Descartes (1971),
while Locke recognizes intuition as “the privileged way to perceive immediately and with
certainty, concordance or discordance among different contents” (Locke J.,1823); Spinoza
credits intuition with the capability of “rendering the subject part of the nature of the object”
(Treccani, vol.VI) and in so doing he states the superiority of the intuitive science. More
complex is Kant’s approach. He distinguishes between a sensitive intuition seen as the
immediate perception of the object, and an intellectual intuition, specific to God, through
which the object itself is created. (Kant I., 1998), With Hegel and the idealist philosophy,
intellectual intuition becomes a human quality too and is defined as the means through which
man cooperates to the creative process of the object.
“Bergson, in his turn, talks of intuition as a “privileged form of perception allowing to go
beyond intellectual schemes to reach a more realistic comprehension of the object in all its
dynamism and plasticity”; (Treccani, vol.VI) similarly, Husserl regards eidetic intuition as
the only way to get essence.” (Husserl E, 2006).

Comparing Cognitive Maps

The cognitive map of materialistic science is dual, linear and exclusive and it includes both
rational and irrational levels. What is knowledgeable and can be investigated according to a
rational method is considered to be scientific, whereas what goes beyond is irrational and
therefore anti-scientific.
The cognitive map of the transpersonal approach is ternary, circular and inclusive.
Knowledge can be acquired through pre-rational, pre-personal, instinctive, rational, personal,
transpersonal and supra-rational modalities.
We could add that the Es is the place of instinct, the I the place of reason and the Self the
place of intuition. Exposure, awareness and disidentification represent the main cognitive
tools for the evolutionary journey – which takes place through transcendence and inclusion,
differentiation and integration – of consciousness from instinct to intuition through reason.
Access to the dimensions of awareness, intuitive consciousness, supra-rational and
transpersonal instances of the Self – which transcends and includes without denying, but
rather by “purifying” the instinctive and rational dimensions through exposure, awareness
and disidentification – provide validity guarantees that are testable and verifiable by anyone
who knows the right set of instructions and is willing to follow them.

In summary:

In order to solve the problems of the fallacy of subjectivity, ineffability of consciousness and
evanescence of the soul, psychological science has restricted its area of investigation to
behavior and has chosen the reductionist materialistic approach of natural sciences:

- Everything is matter
- Consciousness is a ghost to be left out of the area of scientific investigation
- The psyche coincides with the mind and resides in the brain
- Reason is the tool
- Measurement and replicability are the method

In so doing, it had the chance to develop effective methods for the study and treatment of
psychopathology and behavior.
The object of study of the transpersonal approach is the participatory, unitary and
interconnected dialogue between subject and object.
The transpersonal approach suggests that:

- Human experience is a participatory dialogue between objectivity and subjectivity

and there are various levels of consciousness through which it can be investigated.
- Consciousness has its own independent existence that can be studied by expanding
the investigation methods
- The psyche does not coincide with the mind nor reside in the brain
- Awareness and insight are cognitive tools that transcend and include reason as well as offering
guarantees for the study of the true nature of the psyche
- The unity of science is not guaranteed “by a utopic reduction of all science to physics and
chemistry, but rather by a structural uniformity (regularity of dynamic models) of the various
levels of reality”6 (in Wilber 2011 p.19).

In so doing, it suggests tools and methods for the study and mastery of inner experience, states of
consciousness and the development of the highest spiritual potentialities and qualities.

And so we come to the second perplexity:

- Welcoming transpersonal psychology into the field of scientific psychology might lead to the risk of
validating those spiritual and esoteric practices that are increasingly proposed by various groups
and spiritual, religious, esoteric and new age centers, causing serious damage.

Such a statement, which aims to protect the supremacy of reason, is paradoxically based on an
irrational kind of fear. There is nothing scientific about the fear that by welcoming transpersonal
psychology, esoterism might be validated; it is a political statement based on risk control rather than
trust in opportunity.
It is a choice that shows limited knowledge and proves itself ruinous also on a political level.
The ignorance regards the principles and methods of transpersonal psychology, as well as the
abovementioned epistemological maps.
Considering work such as Spiritual Emergency (Grof S. and Grof C. 1993), or the works of Walsh
and Vaughan (Vaughan F.E. 1989, Walsh R., Vaughan F., Walsh R. 1999), among others, would be
enough to comprehend that the transpersonal approach is able of operate with competence and deal
with psychological problems created by the vast world of spiritual research, providing guarantees of
validity. Transpersonal psychology represents an efficient answer to the overflow of moral-less
spiritual practices, as it offers psychological guidelines, maps and methods that allow studying and
mastering the ineffable dimensions of consciousness with due care.
Once again, the problem lies not in metaphysical beliefs but in what a person makes of them, that is
to say the cognitive system used to deal and elaborate them. It is possible to approach a spiritual
experience with a dogmatic, confessional and fundamentalist attitude or a laic, disidentified and
aware one. Transpersonal psychology provides tools for the second kind of approach.

Circular Reasoning

Proceeding with the analysis of the criticism, we now must deal with an especially discouraging
situation.
In a recent number of the International Journal of Psychotherapy, within a debate on psychology and
spirituality, an article by Peter Schulthess – Chairperson of the Swiss Charta for Psychotherapy and
of the Science and Research Committee of EAP – states:
“Transpersonal Psychology's mysticism, deceive the people who hardly tolerate the
existential philosophical view that the creation of life starts from a zero point and that death
marks an end-point where everything is over: beginning and end. Full stop!” (Schulthess P.
2017, p. 14)
Emphasizing the scientific inconsistency and epistemological fallacy of such statement
might seem superfluous, if not for the significant position held by Schulthess within
European psychology.
Schulthess employs the classic circular reasoning typical of wishful thinking, since life
begins with birth and ends with death, then Transpersonal Psychology’s mysticism deceives
the people by stating the contrary.
Besides being wrong from an epistemological point of view, the statement also represents a
generalization without any foundation.
Where are these deceived people and when does Transpersonal Psychology act that way?
Besides ideological beliefs, the scientific thought cannot get around the basic evidence that
everything always happens within a certain space and time; Doctor Schutlhess, when and
where does Transpersonal Psychology’s mysticism deceive the people? What do you mean
exactly by Transpersonal Psychology’s mysticism?
Perhaps you refer to the shared awareness that apprehension of knowledge, inaccessible to
the intellect, may be attained through contemplation and self-surrender, as we mentioned in
the brief analysis of the history of human thought?
Perhaps a superficial reading doesn’t allow understanding that transpersonal psychology
offers maps and models, tools and methods to guide, without dogmas nor beliefs, anyone
who is looking for apprehension of knowledge and takes care of anyone willing to do that
and who is lucky enough to lose themselves during the journey, by providing reliable
guidance and precise reference points. The research and data on how to develop spiritual
competencies in the psychological field are countless (Lukoff D., 2016) (see brief synthesis
in references).
A greater knowledge of the scientific documentation and comprehension of the transpersonal
approach based on exposure, disidentification and awareness might suggest greater care and
willingness to engage in dialogue. It would become possible to engage in a true debate based
on the aforementioned epistemological differences and agree, as Tart suggests (Tart C.T.
2009), on the fact that there are principles and methods to investigate reality, as if life begins
with birth and ends with death, this way obtaining measurable and replicable results within
the fields of physio (matter) and bios (life), as well as principles and methods to investigate
the Psyché (nous) as if it were an unlimited, synergic and interconnected flow…
As a partial justification for those who are confused, it must be remembered that
transpersonal phenomenology, in absence of a map consistent with the territory, might seem
to coincide with magical, superstitious and mythological contents, typical of uncritical and
pre-rational fusional experiences.
Here are some examples: those who experience regressive hypnosis to past lives, typical of
New Age, with an uncritical and uninformed attitude, will “truly” attribute the experience to
a previous incarnation. When dealing with the emergence of an archaic memory in a patient
during a process of profound exploration, the transpersonal psychotherapist is able to treat
that memory as phenomenological data to work on, according to the aforementioned “as if”
epistemology and contextualize the memory within a cartography that is wider than the
Psyché and that includes the memory itself.
For those who attend sessions of new shamanism, the vision of the encounter with a black
panther experienced during their journey in the lower world will be interpreted as an
encounter with their power animal. For the transpersonal psychotherapist, the vision of the
panther is considered as an archetypical element able to express profound qualities of the
Self of the patient, when investigated, known and let free to express himself. We could go
on mentioning encounters with guiding spirits, angels, ancestors, mythological animals,
fairies and elves, extraterrestrials, kundalini awakenings an so on, all archetypical
transcultural, transpersonal and universal phenomena, to be welcomed, respected and
mastered. These kinds of experiences are often dismissed as imaginary, esoteric and
damaging by the materialistic thought, delegated to psychiatry or fed to religious dogmatism
and charlatans of every kind.
The transpersonal approach offers a non-judgmental kind of listening, maps and tools, words
to name things, in order to face the arduous psychological journey into territories at the
doorstep of mystery, as well as competencies for a leap of consciousness that makes it
possible to face the ineffable experience of the Psychè, beyond a literal reading, towards a
further mode, symbolic, dynamic, interconnected, synergic and archetypical.
The aforementioned ternary cognitive map together with the “as if” epistemology, the tools
of awareness and disidentification, the widening of the cartography of the psyche and pre-
birth and transpersonal experiences, allows operating with the aforementioned vast
phenomenology, integrating it in the field of psychology. Access to super-conscious,
transpersonal and transcultural states of consciousness makes it possible to access profound
and archetypical structures of consciousness.
As a consequence, the competencies obtained preserve the subjects of experience form the
risk of using them in an uncritical, manipulative and dogmatic way, enriching psychology
with tools, areas of intervention and research.

About hierarchy

The refusal of some psychology to accept hierarchies of consciousness by accusing its

supporters of elitism is based on a scientifically inconsistent argument: evolutionary states
of consciousness do not exist, as the idea would imply: “something elitist, and those who are
at the top could take advantage.” (Schulthess P. 2017 p. 15)
Once again control. Once again fear.
Following this path could lead to state that some scientific excellence, such as the researchers
of the CERN, should not exist as they could abuse their power by agreeing to tell us lies to
their own advantage.
The use of cartographies of the psyche that include evolutionary orders is purely practical.
The transpersonal vision is clear about the fact that the maps are used to navigate a certain
territory and are not flags of supremacy. I have described some of the benefits of an expanded
and evolutionary cartography of consciousness; transpersonal ethics and epistemology
include the antibodies against attachment and dogmatism. If the maps were to prove
themselves useless for the territory, they would be dismissed.
To show the intellectual honesty and multiplicity of eyes through which the transpersonal
vision addresses the world, it is important to mention that within the transpersonal
community itself there is an intense debate between perennialists, who propose redrafted
maps of ancient spiritual traditions, and advocates of a participatory and non-hierarchic
vision. An example is the debate between Hartelius, Taylor, Ferrer, Friedman and Lancaster,
in the Journal for Transpersonal Studies, mentioned in references.
It is also important to specify that the transpersonal vision is not hierarchic but rather
hologarchic, as widely demonstrated by Wilber (Wilber K. 2011).
In accordance with the holistic/systemic vision, the term hologarchic means that the potential
of the more complex system is included in the less complex one and the more complex
system transcends but includes the features of the less complex one. The awareness that one
does not exist without the other and therefore the respect for all forms of existence represent
the foundations of the transpersonal ethics.

Psychologists state:

“Shamanic intuition and/or the eternal mystical traditions of the high religious cultures
(“philosophia perennis”) alienates us from our present culture and also from our profession,
as the argument is hardly rational and not externally verifiable.” (Schulthess P. 2017 p. 16)
Since the only science is materialistic reductionism, everything that is hardly rational and
not externally verifiable is left out of psychology. Once again the use of circular reasoning:
using the premises to justify the conclusions.
Even if we overlook the ethnocentrism of an attitude that excludes what doesn’t belong to
Western culture for the mere reason of not belonging to it and therefore the mythological
pre-rational stage of thought it reports, it is very difficult to find a justification other than the
closure caused by fear, for an argument willing to support the danger of alienation in
welcoming the inheritance of the past in our current culture.
Plato was aware that we are standing on the shoulders of giants. It wouldn’t take much to see
the historical evidence that the majority of the current psychotherapeutic practices already
existed in ancient shamanic cultures. Think of the shamanic journey that led an individual
into the lower world of the unconscious and the upper one of creative potentials, yoga
breathing techniques and its psycho-corporal positions, interpretation of dreams of the dream
masters or their incubation in the sleep temples in Ancient Greece, hypnotic and regressive
induction, proving courage through initiatory rites, maieutic techniques in the Socratic
dialogue, sharing circles with the use of the talking stick and so on.
Without the technical and cultural heritage of the past psychotherapy would not exist. If
anything, the problem lies in the thinking that uses it, which depends on one’s state of
consciousness, which in turn, depends on one’s cultural beliefs and emotional experience.
The need to differ from the past indicates an unresolved bond with it, which is a legitimate
phase during development, but it must be transcended and included within integration once
the conflict is resolved.
It is legitimate to feel overpowered by a heavy unresolved past and therefore act to overcome
its shadows, for instance, thanks to the development of reason and the scientific thought that
have freed us from the slavery to the superstitious-magical and mythological thought. On the
contrary, it is certainly limiting to leave behind the inheritance of the knowledge and tools
that those who came before us conquered and it is even more disconcerting to exclude from
the community those who are not willing to do that.
Once again, the maps of transpersonal psychology, that take into consideration various states
of consciousness and evolutionary stages of thought, provide psychology with tools capable
of distinguishing and protecting from an inappropriate use of powerful traditional healing
technologies.
A knife can be used to wound or cut. Similarly, the inheritance of the shamanic tradition or
perennial philosophy can be used, according to magical-superstitious thinking, to manipulate
or damage, or, when used according to transpersonal ethics and supra-rational thinking, to
favor profound and authentic processes of inner transformation.
The transpersonal psychologist’s knowledge of states and stages of consciousness is the
necessary resource to face those risks that the psychological community sees as a threat to
its own identity.
By expanding its jurisdiction and methods through the contributions of the transpersonal
epistemology and methodology, future psychological science could become a reference point
capable of protecting the most authentic spiritual areas of human experience.
These areas will become increasingly attractive and it would be deleterious to leave them in
the hands of New Age, confessional dogmatism of Religion or even worse the dark objectives
of fundamentalism and esoterism.
The “as if” ontology, epistemological maps and methodology of awareness allow traditional
tools to cooperate with supra-rational modalities, purifying the process by providing
guarantees of ethical and methodological validity.
In so doing, as Boadella warns, it might become possible to prevent “throwing the baby out
with the bath water”, giving back to the Psychè its original meaning and to psychology its
function for the future.

Psychology or Spirituality

Another singular accusation is that transpersonal psychology contributes to spiritual visions

rather than the psychology of spirituality.
Such statement is only possible if you don’t know transpersonal psychology. There are many
established clinical methodologies, namely psychotherapeutic transpersonal approaches.
Having a vision means supporting the practice with a theoretical model that is both
ontological and epistemological. Transpersonal ontology and epistemology inevitably share
many statements with perennial philosophy but, as explained before, differ from it in the
interpretation and application in therapeutic practice. The distinction between pre-personal
and transpersonal contents, the laic, non-confessional, non-doctrinal and non-dogmatic
approach favored by the supra-rational and transcultural “as if” reading, the definition of
maps and models that indicate the phases of the transpersonal evolutionary process and the
use of a clinical methodology that teaches how to reach, master and verify certain
transpersonal stages and states, trace a clear boundary with spiritual and esoteric traditions,
for anyone who is willing to see the distinction. There are many different psychodynamic,
cognitive and humanistic approaches. Similarly, there are various transpersonal psychologies
that present transpersonal psychotherapeutic models attributable to common matrices that
respect the entire spectrum of human experience and deal both with historically important
issues of Western psychology and specific matters of the transpersonal approach. The
Western laic psychological research has elaborated a series of autonomous technologies
within the transpersonal movement. Think of the progenitors, that is to say Roberto
Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis and Carl Gustav Jung’s Psychology of the Unconsious, which
have anticipated by decades some of the theories later developed and expanded by
transpersonal psychology. Among the more recent ones, we must mention the technologies
elaborated by the founding fathers of the transpersonal movement such as the Cosmodrama
of Pierre Weil, Stan Grof’s Holotropic Therapy, Arnold Mindell’s Process-Oriented
Therapy and John Pierrakos’ Core Energetics, which stands between transpersonal and
psycho-corporal psychotherapy.
Other prominent authors of transpersonal psychology have developed their own therapeutic
models, such as Claudio Naranjo and his method based on the Enneagram, Frances Vaughan
whose method is based on Healing Relationships, Jean Houston, John Rowan and Jean
Shinoda Bolen. The contribution of the Brazilian transpersonal movement is also significant
as it has developed different approaches based on Transe; think of David Akstein’s
Terspsicoretransetherapy, Armando Leite Naves’ Transpersonal Analysis, or Eliezer
Cerqueira Medes’ Psychotranse.
Moreover, as reported by Tart (Tart C., 1992), there are psychotherapeutic models that
clearly derive from ancient traditions of wisdom, such as: The Psychology of Yoga,
elaborated by the Indian philosopher Harida Chaudhuri, present in more than fifteen works,
Essential Psychotherapy proposed by the Californian psychologist Kathleen Riordan based
on the work of Gurdjieff, The Psychology of Consciousness elaborated by the American
psychologist Robert Ornstein based on the Sufi tradition. Even the Christian Mystical
Tradition has inspired a psychotherapeutic methodology presented in the work of the
Catholic mystic minister William McNamara. Vedanta Hinduism has inspired K. Wilber’s
work. Buddhism, which is probably the most psychological spiritual tradition, has been
proposed from a psychotherapeutic point of view by various authors: think of the Texan
psychologist Claire Myers Owens and her psychotherapeutic elaboration of Zen Buddhsim,
or of the Californian psychologist Daniel Goleman and his research on the “Meditative
Mind”. Last but not least, we can consider the contribution given by Biotransenergetics
(Lattuada P.L., 2015), an integral transpersonal psychotherapy we have been developing
since the year 1982 through more than forty thousand hours of clinical work, taught at various
Italian and American Universities as well as at the Transpersonal Psychotherapy Training
School in Milan, fully accredited by the Department of Education, University and Research
MIUR.

A serious omission?

And speaking of departments, here are the guidelines for the practice of psychotherapy that
the Austrian Ministry of Health has released in 2014. In their preamble, these Austrian
Guidelines state (Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, 2014):

“… psychotherapy is an independent care process for the comprehensive, deliberate and

planned treatment of behavioral disorders or cases of suffering of a psychological,
psychosocial or psychosomatic nature, using scientific psychotherapeutic methods. The
primary objective of psychotherapy is to ease or remove existing symptoms, to cure or
alleviate conditions of psychological suffering, to provide help during existential crises and
with changing disturbed behavior and attitudes, and to encourage personal development and
health”.

At first sight, it is easy to agree with the statement, if it weren’t that it almost completely
ignores the knowledge offered by the authors we have previously mentioned as well as
others.
The guideline ignores the statement of William James, the father of American psychology,
who considers mystic experiences as a “healthy and natural yearning” (James W., 1961),
Gustav Jung’s contribution to psychology, which has probably been greater than Freud’s,
when he describes “spiritual experience as the best way out of neurosis” (Jung C.G., 1979),
as well as the fact that Assagioli was the first to use the term Transpersonal “to widen the
personal boundaries towards the accomplishment of a transpersonal Self” (Assagioli R.,
1973). It also ignores Stanley Grof’s work7, the huge amount of clinical records he collected
on transpersonal experiences and his elaboration of a new cartography of the psyche, as well
as Ken Wilber’s (Wilber K., 2011) integral model of the four quadrants, stages and states of
consciousness – we will stop here because the list is endless.
This serious omission makes it clear that the statement at issue cannot be considered as a scientific
document, but rather as a political one. However, we could overlook this omission if it weren’t that
further on in the document the final objective of the mentioned premise is revealed:

“There is a clear and distinct difference between psychotherapy and all kinds of esoteric,
spiritual and religious methods, such as human energetics, spiritual healing, shamanism and
many others. These methods do not form part of psychotherapy.
The provision of any kind of esoteric content, spiritual rituals or religious healing doctrine
is strictly prohibited in all psychotherapeutic education and training. Attendance of events
with esoteric, spiritual or religious content will not be recognized as fulfilling the legally
standardized further education obligations of the psychotherapist…”

That is a paradox: using antiscientific statements to protect psychotherapy and its users from
antiscientific and potentially dangerous methods.
Spirituality is placed on the same level of religion, ignoring that transpersonal psychology
offers maps and methods to access the spiritual dimension in a laic, non-confessional and
non-dogmatic way, providing tools to avoid those risks that the aforementioned guidelines
are trying protect psychotherapy from. Not knowing these maps and methods forces a
draconian and punitive regulation that ignores the state of the art. Referring to the
aforementioned statement Young reminds us:

“On the surface, this might 'sound' clear, but it is actually a 'false positive' statement: i.e.
more of a wish, than a statement of reality. The situation - on the ground - is much more
diffused, complex and confusing. If one 'Googles' "psychotherapy and spirituality", one gets
about half-a- million results, which might suggest that the difference between these is not as
clear as the Austrian Ministry might like (Young C., 2017)”.

Esoteric methods are stigmatized lumping everything together and forgetting that psychic
experience includes an external and exoteric aspect, namely behavior, as well as an inner and
esoteric one, that is to say the state of consciousness, the true Self.
Shamanism is refused with disdain, forgetting that a large part of today’s psychotherapeutic
techniques represent a development of millenary shamanic practices and ceremonies.

May Transpersonal Psychology be dangerous?

Yes, as everything. Love may be dangerous, power may be dangerous, as well as drinking a
glass of water, crossing the road or climbing a mountain.
Yes, Transpersonal Psychology can be misunderstood, as it happens for many of its critics
such as Ellis and Yeager. It can be misused and therefore dangerous, as anything that is
efficient. Common sense should be enough to understand that such an accusation rather than
weakening transpersonal psychology, it makes it stronger. In fact, is something can be
dangerous it means it works, as if it didn’t work it wouldn’t be harmful. A car that doesn’t
start, a blunt knife, a medicine without an active ingredient or an attenuated virus are not
dangerous.
Transpersonal psychology can be dangerous if misunderstood and misused, but it is benefic
is used properly. Hereafter, an easily comprehensible conclusion that can be reached using
the “Modus Tollens” of rational logics without having to bother critical or aware thinking:
“if B is inferred from A and if B is true, then A is also true”.
Ellis and Yeager dedicate an entire work to explaining why the more sensible and effective
RET [Rational-Emotive Therapy] approach “supported by a tremendous amount of research”
is better than the “dangerous transpersonal phenomenon, in whatever form it might take”, in
terms of human well-being (Ellis and Yeager 2012). And more:
“Transpersonal psychology can actually increase a person's frustration, intensify neurotic
defenses, and impede the development of a healthy self-image.” (Ellis A., Yeager J.R. 1989)
I shall confine myself to one consideration and one question.
As suggested by the humanistic psychology of Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow A., 1954), Bateson’s Ecology of The Mind Bateson G., 1976) that reminds us how
evolution is actually coevolution of an individual and his environment and Fromm’s warning
about the choice between having and being (Fromm E., 1977), the consideration is that a
certain form of psychology has expanded its object of investigation, shifting the focus from
psychopathology and behavior to the full achievement of human potentials, a process that
today has reached its peak in transpersonal psychology.
According to this psychological approach, the final objective is not well-being but rather the
connection with one’s true nature and one’s full realization.
The question is directed to Ellis and Yeager and it is articulated and multiple: how can
lumping everything together be considered scientific (transpersonal phenomenon, in
whatever form it might take)? How many and what kind of transpersonal experiences have
they known and what kind of damage have they caused? What evidence based studies prove
the efficiency of RET regarding the comprehension of the true nature of the Self, mastery of
inner experience, non-ordinary states of consciousness and full realization of the Self? What
and how many evidence based studies prove the harmfulness of aware observation, empathic
listening, meditative practices based on breathing, active imagination, sound, movement,
dialogue with sub-personalities and shadow integration, to name but a few?
Yes, a transpersonal psychotherapeutic process might lead to the risk of showing the vanity
of one’s induced needs and narcissistic attachment to one’s image causing a crisis that calls
for a change; it might lead to the encounter with one’s shadow, with the small Reichian man
(Reich W., 1968) living inside you and therefore ask to pass through the Dark Night of the
Soul; it might show one’s illusionary beliefs and social achievements encouraging one to
leave the castle and begin the journey of the hero where in the forest one might meet his
inner ghosts, the dragon to be defeated, before being able to free the princess from the tower
(Self) and unite with her within the hiero gamos.
This is why transpersonal psychology’s objective is not well-being, which is considered as a
collateral effect; instead, it offers tools and methods to complete the entire heroic journey
towards oneself.
I understand that without transpersonal maps the horizon ends with behavior and wel-being,
but I find it anti-ethical and antiscientific to speak about territories that have not been
explored with adequate maps and tools.
Maslow’s well-known Hierarchy of Needs makes it clear that the passage from the
satisfaction of secondary to tertiary needs is delicate. Grof’s Four Stages (Grof S., 1988)
shows that the evolutionary journey of inner experience proceeds from abstract and
biographical experiences to inevitably lead to a delicate stage of death and rebirth before
accessing transpersonal dimensions. Moreover, Campbell’s Monomyth (Campbell J., 1948)
shows us that our passage from life represents much more than a simple search for well-
being in his incomparable work.

The problem of fragility

Hereafter we will face what we have defined as transpersonal psychology’s problem of

fragility.
By crossing the Pillars of Hercules of the rational state of consciousness it becomes possible
to reach the territories “angels fear” (Bateson G., 1992), as it occurred to the majority of
representatives of the transpersonal movement (and not only obviously), by chance or choice,
because of a firm purpose or accidental causes, including severe traumatic situations as well
as disease.
The transpersonal and supra-rational contents accurately described by Grof (Grof S., 1988)
and Vaughan (Vaughan F.E., 1989) are phenomenologically similar to the pre-personal and
pre-rational contents that characterize a large part of fundamentalist religious movements,
esoteric cults, new-age circles or shamanic communities.
It is easy to get lost without adequate cognitive maps that offer orientation along the way
towards the ineffable territories of consciousness and help distinguishing between pre and
trans-personal contents, without a language that allows naming things, tools to navigate and
organize experience, that is to say a stage of consciousness and functional thinking.
Many prefer not crossing the boundaries, others cross them and get lost and some use the
power that a certain condition gives them in order to manipulate others. It would be a good
thing to welcome into the scientific community or at least not to sanction those who want to
explore these dimensions with methods that provide validity guarantees.
Transpersonal psychology presents itself as an evolution of the psychological thought, a
further phase of the scientific progress in the direction of the extraordinary journey of
humanity towards itself, the overcoming of suffering and evolution of consciousness on this
planet.

Guarantees

To complete the explanation of the epistemological bases of the transpersonal approach, we

must clarify that it identifies and in no way contrasts with the jurisdiction and fields of the
current psychological science, founded on evidence based quantitative and qualitative
methods.
However, the transpersonal approach strongly suggests expanding the jurisdiction and
methods of psychological science. For instance, it suggests complementing experiential
guarantees that aim to provide results with a high objective level of certainty with historical,
epistemological and experiential guarantees, more adequate to explore the inner dimension.
From evidence based to attention-oriented methodologies

The history of the validation of healing methodologies starts with the well-known
Hippocratic Oath, which has beneficence at its core – to help or at least do no harm.
For centuries, the decision as to the helpfulness or harmfulness of any treatment was
dependent primarily on the practitioner’s ethical intent, as well as his or her judgment of the
effectiveness of the treatment. With the development of modern scientific understandings
and methodologies, including the modern methods of collecting evidence in support of
scientific theories practices taught although beneficent in intent, may not have been
beneficent in actual practice. (Stout C. E. and Hayes R. A., 2005, p.1).
The evidence based method starts thanks to the life and work of Florence Nightingale (1820–
1910). Nightingale used the collection, analysis, and graphical display of healthcare data
from the Crimean War to prove that conditions at the time in military hospitals were not
beneficent, but in fact harmful to the lives of the soldiers being treated (Small, 1998).
The collection of medical and health-related data in terms of treatment effectiveness came to
the fore, albeit briefly, with the systems of Ernst A. Codman, A graduate of Harvard Medical
School in 1895, during the turn of the past century as the science of epidemiology was
developing. (Brauer, 2001, p.2).
The transpersonal approach’s suggestion to the scientific community is based on accurate
reflections, such as the consideration that evidence based methods were born within the
medical field to study the effectiveness of cures for diseases in a context where it is clear that
the disease is objectifiable and there is a method that can be a protocol for external
intervention.
As it occurred for the reductionist scientific method – which, after its huge success within
the study of matter, was implemented for the study of the living being and the psyche, which
was in the meantime reduced to the mind and placed in the brain – the evidence based method
was also implemented for the study of behavior, given its usefulness for the evaluation of
medical treatment.
Transpersonal ontology and epistemology suggest a wider view that is not reducible only to
objective data, the cure of symptoms and study of behavior. The object of investigation of
the transpersonal approach is the participatory dialogue subject/object, where the “object
symptom” and the “object behavior” are not separable from the “subject inner experience”,
where the “object body” and the “object mind” are not separable from the “subject
consciousness”, unitary experience of the psyche, dynamic and interconnected.
Moreover, it recognizes in its subject/object of investigation a self-organizing and self-
transcending complexity (CAS), as well as a multiplicity of stages and states for which mere
objective evidence is limiting. If the psyche is considered an expression of a body-mind
unity, stratified in unconscious, conscious and supra-conscious dimensions, pre-rational,
rational and supra-rational stages, evidence is interpreted as appearance. Therefore, a deeper
and integral investigation is needed; an investigation that respects and recognizes the
complexity and mystery and that timidly, humbly and consciously explores the ineffable
territories of consciousness and the transpersonal dimension searching for classifiable
regularities. These regularities might not coincide tout court with the measurable evidence
demanded by behavioral science, but they may be compared within a view of reciprocal
respect and synergic collaboration.
Ultimately, the transpersonal approach agrees with the necessity of the experiential
guarantees demanded by the reductionist scientific method if limited to the study of behavior.
At the same time, for the study of inner experience, the transpersonal approach claims the
most elevated qualities of the human being, the realization of the Self and states of
consciousness as well as other methods and forms of guarantee, as for instance the
epistemological and experiential ones.
Proof that the transpersonal vision does not deny, but rather transcends and includes evidence
based methods, lies in the fact that the methods of treatment and results of transpersonal
psychology do not avoid evaluation through specific tools of measurement and diagnosis of
the related constructs in the field, as the DSM-VTR classifications or psychometric tools
such as the MMPI or the scales of Beck and Hamilton.
There are specific methods of measurement for the transpersonal field, precisely twenty-six
different tools that are used for research (Mac Donald D.A., Friedman H.L., Kuentzel J.G.
999, p. 137-154), such as: the Assessment Schedule for Altered States of Consciousness, the
Ego Grasping Orientation, the Expressions of Spirituality Inventory, the Hindu Religious
Coping Scale, the Measures of Hindu Pathways, the Self-Expansiveness Scale and the Vedic
Personality Inventory.
As it isn’t limited to the study of behavior and it deals with issues such as inner experience,
the participatory object/subject dialogue and the evolutionary journey of realization of the
Self, the transpersonal approach suggests the necessary transcendence and inclusion of
measures and falsifications within qualities, the overcoming of correct data through the
identification of regularity, as well as investigation and description through attention and
awareness. A lot of research within the transpersonal field present and use innovative
epistemological and research approaches, as described by Anderson and Braud (Anderson
R., Braud W., 2011).
We refer, among others, to the Intuitive Inquiry by Anderson, the Integral Inquiry by Braud
(Anderson, R., & Braud, W., 2011), the Organic Inquiry By Clements, the Essential Science
by Tart (Tart 2009), the First-Person Science by Varela (Varela 1999), the Integral Science
by Wilber (Wilber, 2011) and the Second Attention Epistemology by Lattuada (Lattuada
P.L., 2010, 2011, 2012).

Experience Based Guarantees

Scientific research excludes from its area of investigation any subjective data, emphasizes
objective data and by choice disregards the subject of experience, if not in order to submit it
to a strict experimental protocol.
The scientific method is based on objective methods and empirical evidence and in order to
answer verifiable questions it:
- Starts from theories, abstracts, interconnected ideas of behavior, asking questions
about possible causes of thoughts, emotions and behaviors
- Yields testable predictions (hypotheses)
- Which are tested in a systematic way (research)
- By collecting and evaluating evidence (data)
- Broad conceptual frameworks are assumed to be true
It chooses not to tell the researcher’s history. Other than the right to hold his position,
guaranteed by his academic curricula, it tells us nothing about his ontology, epistemological
premises, beliefs, passions and life experiences; he is asked to exclude them, obviating the
problem of reflexivity and rigorously implement procedures with critical thought.
To face the question of the researcher and the subject of research we could begin with the
issue of credit.
It is said that the value of a person shouldn’t be based on his power or wealth, but rather on
the credit he has.
It is clear that a statement made by a Harvard mathematician about Gödel’s Theorem is more
valuable than one made by a common person about the same issue.
Similarly, the statements of a recognized neuroscientist regarding the study of human
behavior have more credit than those of an occasional interlocutor.
When dealing with Physio, Bios and behavior receiving credit is relatively easy.
What happens when dealing with inner experience of a spiritual kind or non-ordinary states of
consciousness? In this case, not willing to reduce the phenomenon to its neurophysical consequences,
the Harvard mathematician or the neuroscientist wouldn’t have much to say, unless they have
documented experience in the area.
This means that academic qualifications are not enough to have credit in the study of the Psyché in
its integral conception; it is necessary to explain one’s experience and clinical history and from there
deduce the knowledge that one has gained through hands-on experience. I don’t mean that we should
give credit to someone only because of his experience and consequently that this person is allowed
to obviate the hard task of validation of his statements, but rather that anyone who is willing to
embrace a discipline and make statements about it should declare in detail his experience in the
matter, so that his history, coherence of method and subjective data can contribute to give value to
his statements.
A firsthand science encourages complete transparence about our beliefs, values, motivations and
experience related to the subject of research, as well as the exposition of our experience during the
investigation.
This way, as Rosemarie Anderson (Anderson R., 2017) suggests, the use of reflexivity might help the
researcher rather than represent a problem to dismiss.
Moreover, if it’s true that looks are deceiving and reality is not as it appears, it is necessary to use an
experience based method that teaches going beyond appearances, beyond the mind understood as
rational thinking, and consequently the researcher will have to explain how he intends to obviate the
issue of appearance and the tools he will use to do that.
Experiential investigation uses millenary technologies implemented for centuries by spiritual
researchers from all around the world and it is implemented this way:

- Through the laboratory of personal, inner and integral experience, according to

declared and validated methods, insights are reached and they are explained to
anyone who wants to verify them through the same experiential procedure and
therefore recognize the veracity or falseness of the conclusions.
- As Wilber says: “they show that there are higher domains of awareness that
include love, identity, reality, Self and truth (Wilber 2011 p. 369).
- These statements are not dogmatic; they are not believed because stated by an
authority, but rather because they are based on hundreds of years of experimental
introspections and shared tests.
- False statements are rejected on the basis of consensual evidence; successive
evidence is used to correct and tune experimental conclusions.
- In other words, these spiritual dimensions are literally purely scientific and the
systematic presentations of these dimensions follow exactly the ones of any
reconstructive science”.

Following are a few more words about the method, that is to say the type of thinking
through which these statements are reached.
The highest states of consciousness that operate according to modalities of supra-rational
thinking, such as casual and non-dual, can be explained rationally by those who have
experienced them in first hand but cannot be experienced through rational thinking (first
attention). They can be reached following a trans-rational and contemplative modality
(second attention) (Lattuada P.L., 2010, 2011, 2012).
We can understand the accusations of elitism and non-scientificity, but we cannot agree
with them. The scientific community should simply accept that there are states of
consciousness and stages of thought whose access demands precise procedures and whose
acquisitions can be described and understood with the use of a supra and trans-rational
language.
Hereafter, we will report how Wilber describes a process of access to the psychic, subtle,
causal and non-dual worlds, providing validity guarantees (Wilber 2011 p. 381)

- Injunction: “If you want to know this, do this”.

- Insight: as mentioned before, insight should be considered as the adequate tool to
reach the true nature of knowledge; it is a direct vision that shows things the way
they really are, a flash that we have all experienced once, that unveils the veil and
reveals the data hidden beyond appearances.
- Shared confirmation or denial: sharing one’s conclusions with a community of
equals.

Historical Accuracy

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

Who are you to say what you say? What makes you say it? What experience, suffering, encounters,
intuitions, reference points, contexts, love and anecdotes have contributed to create that specific
vision of the world, to do your research in that specific field and embrace that specific methodology?
How do you relate to your beliefs, your personal epistemology and what tools do you use to “put it
in brackets”?
How is it possible to carry out research on the psychological life of an individual leaving out yourself
and the most authentic, unrepeatable, immeasurable and extraordinary things you have experienced
in life?
Who can state that during his growth as a human being and professional researcher, only his education
or doctorate counted?
What to make of those experiences in the Amazon, in rundown suburbs, or at the peak of a mountain,
in the woods nearby, of that encounter in India or in Burkina Faso or of that love story during youth?
I’m not saying that a trip to Peru can exempt you from scientifically supporting your statements, but
rather that, when carrying out research on personal histories and other people’s psyche, your personal
history and the evolutionary journey of your Self should hold an important and recognized position
on the scale of scientific accuracy to be provided in order to support your statements.
I say this thinking about the guidelines of the Austrian Ministry of Health and the judgments by the
aforementioned colleagues.
If we think of the different psychological theories and psychotherapeutic methodologies it is easy to
understand that they reflect the personal history of their founders.
For this reason, here on a personal note, I will speak about myself.
After my training in medicine, my academic training as a psychotherapist, my extra-academic training
in Bioenergetics and my doctorate in Behavioral Studies, in 1982 I founded the Association for
Humanistic Medicine and Psychology. After that, I met Brazil, its syncretic rites, shamanic practices,
the humanity and spirituality of its people, the magic and superstition of its healers, its miracles, many
of them fake but many unquestionable, as well as the transpersonal phenomenology, some of which
manipulative but most of it evidence based, verifiable and authentic.
The Brazilian experience shook my western doctor’s mind, which was asked to expand its horizons.
The journey I began continued with my training in transpersonal psychotherapy and the creation of
Biotransenergetics.
I say this in line with the invitation to exposure that a certain transpersonal approach makes to the
scientific community and in support of my next question.
I ask the writers of the guidelines for psychotherapy of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health and
the collogues at EAP who agree with Dr. Schulthess if after thirty five years of inner research, twenty
years of experiences in the Brazilian forests and uplands, after many encounters with Peruvian,
Tibetan, African, Ecuadorian and Siberian wise men I should exclude from my profession everything
I have learned and a large part of the inner technologies that have deeply transformed me and revealed
my true nature? Should I deny the clinical experience confirmed by more than forty thousand hours
of clinical work during thirty-six years of practice to avoid ostracism?
Obviously the question is rhetorical and the predictable answer lies in the depths of myself.
I described part of my personal history to remind those who criticize transpersonal psychology that
in absence of an academic training in transpersonal psychology up to recent times, transpersonal
psychologists and psychotherapists had to necessarily train in psychodynamic, cognitive or
humanistic methodologies before being able to access the transpersonal approach; the same is not
true for its detractors, who have no experience or knowledge in the area.
I will end by reporting some elements of transpersonal psychology, entrusting to the human and
professional value of the founding fathers and their followers the task of inviting the scientific
community to reflect on the inheritance and contribution that transpersonal psychology can make to
the progress of psychological science.

The beginnings
It seems that the word “transpersonal”, applied in psychology, was first used by Roberto
Assagioli, the father of “Psychosynthesis”, and then by C.G. Jung.
It refers to the areas of the psyche that go beyond identification with individual personality.
Transpersonal psychology thereby refers to the particular approach that studies and develops
spirituality and spiritual experiences in a psychological context.
Transpersonal psychology is characterized as a contribution given by scientific research to
the study and comprehension of inner experiences, beyond the Ego.
This approach began to assert itself in the field of psychology in the 1960s, moving from the
works of A. Maslow, who first put the stress on an “evolutionary” psychology that would
take into account the “development of potentialities”, the “gradual satisfaction of needs”, the
“relationship between persons” involved in the therapeutic setting and “mystical
experiences” as a basis in a process of self-realization.
The first transpersonal association was founded in the USA in 1969, by personalities such as
Charlotte Buhler, Abraham Maslow, Allan Watts, Arthur Koestler and Victor Frankl. Antony
J. Sutich founded “The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology” on which the most relevant
minds of the transpersonal movement wrote their papers: Ken Wilber, Stan Grof, Stanley
Knipper, Lawrence Le Shan, Michael Murphy, Charles T. Tart, Jim Fadman, Frances E.
Vaughan, Roger Walsh, David Lukoff, etc.
During the following decades, transpersonal psychology spread throughout the world thanks
to international organizations such as ITA, ATP, EUROTAS and ALUBRAT, the increase
of scientific papers such as IJTS, TPR, ITJ and ITR, as well as academic teaching at
universities such as Sofia University, CIIS, Saybrook University, Meridian University in
California, Alef Trust in England and the Integral Transpersonal Institute in Milan.
The founders
William James
A pioneer in psychology, he was the first to study mystic experiences considering them both
as psychic and religious events.
In “The Varieties of Religious Experiences”, James views mystic experiences as a healthy
and natural yearning, resting at the basis of every religion. (James W., 2002).

Carl Gustav Jung

In parallel to this prevalent trend, various researchers, with heterogenic studies and
backgrounds, kept transcendence and spiritual experience at the core of their speculations.
First of all, we must mention Carl Gustav Jung, who postulated the existence of the
“Collective Unconscious” defined in a first time as Uberpersonliche (transpersonal). This
unconscious would stand at the basis of the fundamental interconnection of any individual
psyche and would be inhabited by archetypes that constitute the very basis of any
transpersonal experience.
According to Jung, we indirectly experience archetypes through dreams, symbols, fairytales
and rituals, while mystical experiences open the way to a direct contact with the realm of
archetypes. He even pointed to spiritual experience as the best way out of neurosis. (Jung, C.
G. (1938).

Abraham Maslow

He was the father of humanistic psychology and cast the basis, probably more than anybody
else, for the birth of transpersonal psychology as an organized corpus among psychological
theories. He himself 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 (Maslow, A. H. 1966,
1968).

Roberto Assagioli

He was the first credited to transcend the limits of psychoanalysis offering a psychosynthesis
that enabled the subject to widen the personal boundaries towards the accomplishment of a
transpersonal Self. It seems as well that he was the first to use the term “transpersonal
psychology”. Assagioli, R. (1976, 1991).

Pierre Weil

He is one of the great old men in transpersonal psychology still alive.

Exploring the dimensions of inner experience, as referred in his work “L’uomo senza
frontier”, he pointed out the various boundaries that limit the scope of human vision of the
world, in doing so he masterly 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 that scientifically operates to develop the following thesis:
- Consciousness is an unending 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.
-Death is just a passage, an opportunity to reach new dimensions of being (Weil P. 1992).

Stanislav Grof and Ken Wilber

They are, at present, the most representative researchers in the transpersonal movement.
Stan Grof, as we are later going to see, was the first one to elaborate a transpersonal
psychodynamic model, along with a map of inner experience and a psychotherapeutic
methodology with a transpersonal approach (Grof S., 1988, 1993).
Ken Wilber (Wilber K. 2011) can be considered 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.

Other authors

Among the heterogeneous authors who contribute to the main stream of transpersonal studies
we must mention as well Karen Horney, with her concept of “true Self” (Eckardt, M. H.
1984), Victor Frankl, who based his work on the research of meaning and the notion of “self-
transcendence” (Frankl V. E. 1963), Carl Rogers, who included the concept of “transcendent
spiritual power” (Rogers, C. R., 1960) among the characteristics of a perfectly healthy person
and Fritz Perls, who was deeply influenced by Zen in his formulation of the Gestalt therapy
(Perls, F.S., 1970).

Conclusions

We have tried to emphasize the specificity of the transpersonal approach, characterized by its object
of investigation, the participatory dialogue between an individual and the world marked by an
evolutionary journey of gradual realization of the Self towards the comprehension of the dimensions
of inner experience of a spiritual kind. We have explored the guarantees of transpersonal psychology,
offering a brief overview of the benchmark ontological premises, epistemological maps and models
that are based on aware observation and the historical roots that support it. We have traced the outlines
of an experience-based methodology that can be subject to validation and capable of engaging in
debate and integrating with the methods of behavioral science.

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Author Bio
Pier Luigi Lattuada of the Integral Transpersonal Institute, Milan, Italy is a Medical Doctor.
He has a Ph. D. in Behavioral Studies and a Psy. D. in Clinical Psychology. He is also a
Psychotherapist.
Founder of Biotransenergetics, Pier Luigi is the Director of the Transpersonal Psychotherapy School
in Milan, which has been fully recognized by the Ministry of Education University and Research
since 2002.
He is also director of the Training in Transpersonal Counseling accredited by AssoCounseling.
He is Adjunct Faculty at Sofia University, Palo Alto, CA and Faculty and chair of BA on Integral
Transpersonal Psychology at Ubiquity University.

Past medical director of Lifegate Holistic Medicine Clinic of Milan, Scientific Director of Integral
Transpersonal Journal. He serves as co-Vice-President of EUROTAS. Pier Luigi has published
sixteen books since 1985, more than 30 articles since 1980 and presented Biotransenergetics in more
than 50 International Conferences in several countries: Italy, France, Spain, Austria, Moldova, Latvia,
Switzerland, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, USA, Brazil, Greece, Mexico, Hungaria since 1988.

web site: www.integraltranspersonallife.com ; www.pierluigilattuada.com

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Integral-Transpersonal-Institute/180932665277603
Blog: www.biotransenergetica.blogspot.it
You tube: https://www.youtube.com/user/biotransenergetica

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