The transpersonal is a term used by different schools of

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

and

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

in order to describe experiences and

worldview A worldview or world-view or ''Weltanschauung'' is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. A worldview can include natural p ...

s that extend beyond the personal level of the

psyche Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" (ψυχή). Psyche may also refer to: Psychology * Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious * ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unconscious by Car ...

, and beyond mundane worldly events.

Definition and context

The transpersonal has been defined as experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos.Walsh, R. and F. Vaughan. "On transpersonal definitions". ''Journal of Transpersonal Psychology''. Vol. 25, No2, pp. 199-207, 1993. On the other hand, transpersonal practices are those structured activities that focus on inducing transpersonal experiences. In the ''Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology'', ScottonScotton, Bruce W. "Introduction and Definition of Transpersonal Psychiatry". In Scotton, Bruce W., Chinen, Allan B. and Battista, John R., Eds. (1996) Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology. New York: Basic Books. defined the term as "development beyond conventional, personal or individual levels." It is associated with a developmental model of psychology that includes three successive stages: the prepersonal (before ego-formation), the personal (the functioning ego), and the transpersonal (ego remains available but is superseded by higher development). One of the founders of the field of

transpersonal psychology Transpersonal psychology, or spiritual psychology, is a sub-field or school of psychology that integrates the spiritual and transcendent aspects of the human experience with the framework of modern psychology. The '' transpersonal'' is defined ...

, Stanislav Grof, has defined transpersonal states of awareness as such: "The common denominator of this otherwise rich and ramified group of phenomena is the feeling of the individual that his consciousness expanded beyond the usual ego boundaries and the limitations of time and space."Grof, Stanislav. (1975, 1993). Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking, London: Souvenir Press. The term is related to the terminology of peak experience, altered states of consciousness, and spiritual experiences.Miller, John J. "Book Review: Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology". ''Psychiatric Services'' 49:541-542, April 1998. American Psychiatric AssociationGrabovac, Andrea D. & Ganesan, Soma. "Spirituality and Religion in Canadian Psychiatric Residency Training". ''Canadian Journal of Psychiatry'', Vol 48, No 3, April 2003 The term is also associated with psychedelic work, and psychotechnologies, that includes research with psychedelic plants and chemicals such as LSD, ibogaine, ketamine, peyote, ayahuasca and the vast variety of substances available to all human cultures throughout history.

Etymology

The term has an early precedent in the writing of philosopher

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

, who used the term "Trans-personal" in one of his lectures from 1905.Vich, M.A. (1988) "Some historical sources of the term 'Transpersonal' ". ''Journal of Transpersonal Psychology'', 20 (2) 107-110Freeman, Anthony. "A Daniel Come To Judgement? Dennett and the Revisioning of Transpersonal Theory". ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'', 13, No. 3, 2006, pp. 95–109 However, this early terminology, introduced by James, had a different meaning than the current one and its context was philosophy, not psychology, which is where the term is mostly used these days. There has also been some speculation of an early precedent of the term in the writings of

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

, as a result of the work of Jung's translators. It regards the Jungian term ''ueberpersonlich'', used by Jung in a paper from 1917, which in later English translations appeared as ''superpersonal'', and later, ''transpersonal''. In a later, revised, version of the ''Psychology of the Unconscious'' (1942) there was even a chapter heading called "The Personal and the Collective (or Transpersonal) Unconscious".Lukoff, David and Lu, Francis. ''A Transpersonal-Integrative Approach to Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy'', in L. Sperry and E. P. Shafranske (2005) Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy, American Psychological Association. However, the etymology, as it is currently used in academic writing, is mostly associated with the

human potential movement The Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose out of the counterculture of the 1960s and formed around the concept of an extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement takes as its premise the be ...

of the 1960s and the founders of the field of

; Anthony Sutich,

Abraham Maslow Abraham Harold Maslow (; April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, cul ...

and Stanislav Grof.Valle, Ronald S. & Harari, Carmi. Current developments in...Transpersonal Psychology. ''The Humanistic Psychologist'', 11, Vol. 13, NO. 1, Winter 1985Judy, Dwight. Transpersonal psychology: Coming of age. ''ReVision'', 02756935, Winter94, Vol. 16, Issue 3.Ferrer, J. N. (2002). "Revisioning transpersonal theory: A participatory vision of human spirituality". Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. According to Vich all three had used the term as early as 1967, in order to describe new ideas in the field of Psychology. In 1968 the term was selected by the founding editors of the

Journal of Transpersonal Psychology The ''Journal of Transpersonal Psychology'' (JTP) is a semi-annual, peer-reviewed academic journal which is published by the Association for Transpersonal Psychology (ATP). The journal is a seminal publication in the field of transpersonal psycholo ...

, Abraham Maslow and Anthony Sutich, in order to represent a new area of psychological inquiry. PorterPorter, Kenneth. Book review: Spirituality in Clinical Practice: Incorporating the Spiritual Dimension in Psychotherapy and Counseling. ''American Journal of Psychotherapy'', Volume 56, Issue 101 Jan 2002 locates the start of the so-called transpersonal psychology movement to the American west-coast in the late 1960s. In addition to Maslow, Vich and Grof the movement was associated with the names of

Ken Wilber Kenneth Earl Wilber II (born January 31, 1949) is an American philosopher and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory, a philosophy which suggests the synthesis of all human knowledge and experience. Life and career Wilbe ...

Frances Vaughan Frances is a French and English given name of Latin origin. In Latin the meaning of the name Frances is 'from France' or 'free one.' The male version of the name in English is Francis. The original Franciscus, meaning "Frenchman", comes from the F ...

Roger Walsh Roger N. Walsh (born 1946) is an Australian professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, within UCI's College of Medicine. Walsh is respected for h ...

and Seymoor Boorstein. According to PowersPowers, Robin. "Counseling and Spirituality: A Historical Review". ''Counseling and Values'', Apr 2005, Vol.49(3), pp.217-225. the term "transpersonal" starts to show up in academic journals from 1970 and onwards. The use of the term in academic literature is documented in ''

Psychological Abstracts ''Psychological Abstracts'' was an abstract and index periodical and the print counterpart of the PsycINFO database. It was published by the American Psychological Association and was produced for 80 years, ceasing publication at the end of 2006 ...

'' and Dissertations Abstracts. The use of the term grew during the 1970s and 1980s and stabilized in the 1990s.Chinen, A.B. The emergence of Transpersonal psychiatry, in Scotton, Bruce W., Chinen, Allan B. and Battista, John R., Eds. (1996) ''Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology''. New York: Basic Books

Movement

The collective of people and organizations with an interest in the transpersonal is called the transpersonal movement. Walsh and Vaughan defines the transpersonal movement as the interdisciplinary movement that includes various individual transpersonal disciplines. The philosophy of

, the school of

psychosynthesis Psychosynthesis is an approach to psychology that expands the boundaries of the field by identifying a deeper center of identity, which is the postulate of the Self. It considers each individual unique in terms of purpose in life, and places value ...

(founded by Roberto Assagioli), and the analytical school of

are often considered to be forerunners to the establishment of transpersonal theory. However, the start of the movement is associated with the emergence and growth of the related field of

humanistic psychology Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that arose in the mid-20th century in answer to two theories: Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and B. F. Skinner's behaviorism. Thus, Abraham Maslow established the need for a "third force ...

. Several of the academic profiles of the early transpersonal movement, such as

and Anthony Sutich, had their background in humanistic psychology.Keutzer, C.S. Transpersonal Psychotherapy: Reflections on the Genre. ''Professional Psychology: Research and Practice'', 1984, Vol. 15, No. 6, 868-883Taylor, Eugene. Transpersonal Psychology: Its several Virtues. ''The Humanistic Psychologist'', Vol. 20, Nos. 2 and 3, pp. 285-300, 1992.Walsh, R. The Transpersonal Movement: A History and State of the Art. ''Journal of Transpersonal Psychology'', 1993, Vol. 25, No. 2 The formative years of the transpersonal movement can be characterized by the founding of a few key organizations and institutions, such as:

Transpersonal Institute The transpersonal is a term used by different schools of philosophy and psychology in order to describe experiences and worldviews that extend beyond the personal level of the psyche, and beyond mundane worldly events. Definition and context The ...

in 1969, the

Institute of Noetic Sciences The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is an American non-profit parapsychological research institute. It was co-founded in 1973 by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell,Pfeffer, Elizabeth''Stars aligned: Astronaut's mission seeks to answer life's b ...

in 1973, The International Transpersonal Psychology Association in 1973,

Naropa Institute Naropa University is a private university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, it is named for the 11th-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda. The university describes itself as ...

in 1974, and the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in 1975. The California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology later emerged as the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (ITP) and is today known as

Sofia University Sofia University, "St. Kliment Ohridski" at the University of Sofia, ( bg, Софийски университет „Св. Климент Охридски“, ''Sofijski universitet „Sv. Kliment Ohridski“'') is the oldest higher education i ...

. Contemporary

transpersonal disciplines Transpersonal disciplines are academic fields of interest that study the transpersonal. Definition and context According to Walsh & Vaughan,Walsh, R. & Vaughan, F. "On transpersonal definitions". ''Journal of Transpersonal Psychology'', 25 (2) 12 ...

include

transpersonal psychiatry Transpersonal psychology, or spiritual psychology, is a sub-field or school of psychology that integrates the spiritual and transcendent aspects of the human experience with the framework of modern psychology. The ''transpersonal'' is defined ...

transpersonal anthropology Transpersonal anthropology is a subdiscipline of cultural anthropology and transpersonal studies. It studies the relationship between altered states of consciousness and culture. Definition and context According to Walsh and Vaughan,Walsh, R. and ...

transpersonal sociology Transpersonal disciplines are academic fields of interest that study the transpersonal. Definition and context According to Walsh & Vaughan,Walsh, R. & Vaughan, F. "On transpersonal definitions". ''Journal of Transpersonal Psychology'', 25 (2) 12 ...

and transpersonal ecology. Other academic orientations, whose main focus lies elsewhere, but that are associated with a transpersonal perspective, include

and

near-death studies Near-death studies is a field of psychology and psychiatry that studies the physiology, phenomenology and after-effects of the near-death experience (NDE). The field was originally associated with a distinct group of North American researchers that ...

.Scotton, B.W., Chinen, A.B. and Battista, J.R. (ed. 1996). ''Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology''. New York: Basic Books. Contemporary institutions include: the

Association for Transpersonal Psychology The ''Journal of Transpersonal Psychology'' (JTP) is a semi-annual, peer-reviewed academic journal which is published by the Association for Transpersonal Psychology (ATP). The journal is a seminal publication in the field of transpersonal psycholo ...

(ATP), the European Transpersonal Psychology Association (EPTA), the

International Transpersonal Association The International Transpersonal Association (ITA) is membership organization in the field of Transpersonal studies. History The organization was founded in 1978 by Stanislav Grof, Michael Murphy and Richard PriceBook review: Holotropic breathwor ...

(ITA), the Ibero-American Transpersonal Association (ATI) and the European Transpersonal Association (Eurotas). Leading publications within the movement include: the ''

'', the ''

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies The ''International Journal of Transpersonal Studies'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering theory, research, practice, and discourse in the area of transpersonal studies. It is the official journal of the International Transpers ...

'', and the ''Journal of Transpersonal Research''.

Transpersonal studies

Several commentators note how the transpersonal field, and its vision, moved beyond the perspective of psychology and into other transpersonal domains during the 1980s and 1990s.Grof, S., Friedman, H., Lukoff, D., & Hartelius, G. (2008). The past and future of the International Transpersonal Association. ''International Journal of Transpersonal Studies'', 27(1), 55–62.Caplan, Hartelius & Rardin. Contemporary viewpoints on Transpersonal Psychology. ''The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology'', 2003, Vol. 35, No. 2. This expansion of the transpersonal concept resulted in an interdisciplinary situation, and a dialogue with such fields as

social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

acting Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor or actress who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode. Acting involves a broad r ...

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

ecopsychology Ecopsychology is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinarity field that focuses on the synthesis of ecology and psychology and the promotion of sustainability. It is distinguished from conventional psychology as it focuses on studying the emotion ...

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

.Atlas, N. (2016). (Book Review) The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of transpersonal psychology, by Harris L. Friedman & Glenn Hartelius (Eds.) ''International Journal of Transpersonal Studies'', 35 (2). In this respect, commentators have suggested that there is a difference between the founding field of

and a broader field of transpersonal inquiry, transpersonal studies.Friedman, H. (2002). Transpersonal psychology as a scientific field. ''International Journal of Transpersonal Studies'', 21(1), 175–187. This differentiation of the transpersonal field has to do with the scope of the subjects under study, and the interest of researchers and theorists. In their review of transpersonal definitions, published in 1993, Walsh and Vaughan noted that transpersonal studies had grown beyond the founding field of

. Commenting on the criticisms of transpersonal psychology in the 1980s, Chinen noted how the criticism did not differentiate between transpersonal psychology, on the one hand, and a broad range of popularized transpersonal orientations, on the other. The same line of reasoning was picked up by Friedman, who differentiated between a broad domain of inquiry known as transpersonal studies, and a more narrow field of transpersonal psychology. Both authors argued that the confounding of the two domains resulted in confusion. In a summary of contemporary viewpoints on transpersonal psychology

Jorge Ferrer Jorge N. Ferrer (born October 30, 1968) is a US-based Spanish psychologist who wrote about the applications of participatory theory to transpersonal psychology, religious studies, integral education, and sexuality and intimate relationships. F ...

placed transpersonal psychology within the wider "umbrella" known as transpersonal studies. Among institutions of higher learning that promote transpersonal studies we find

PRWEB. (July 16, 2012) Institute of Transpersonal Psychology Becomes Sofia University. PRWEB: Palo Alto, CA. Retrieved Saturday, December 8, 2018. and

California Institute of Integral Studies California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) is a private university in San Francisco, California.Otterman, Sharon. "Merging Spirituality and Clinical Psychology at Columbia". ''New York Times'', Aug. 9, 2012Aanstoos, C. Serlin, I., & Greenin ...

.Subbiondo, Joseph L. CIIS and American Higher Education. ''Integral Review'', June 2011, Vol. 7, No. 1 In 2012

announced that they were expanding their graduate program in order to include transpersonal studies. The new program was named the Graduate School of Transpersonal Studies. The

was established in 1981. It is sponsored by the

and serves as the official publication of the International Transpersonal Association.

Notes

:a. Grabovac & Ganesan, 2003: Table 3. :b. See Winkelman & Roberts, 2007: "Part III. Transpersonal Dimensions of Healing with Psychedelic States" :c. John Beebe, San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal :d. The term was considered to be an improvent upon an earlier term called «transhumanistic».

References