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What is the transpersonal? And where is it’s future?

This brief synopsis speaks to the wholeness of working with the sublime as well as the mundane; it speaks to the opposites of life and to the moving beyond into that realm that we call the Transpersonal. As practitioners it is both our right and our goal to bring this knowledge to the general public, to bring Psychosynthesis into the forefront of therapies, and to be, as Ferucci remind us ‘all that we can be’.

The personal and the transpersonal dimensions are distinct but not separate. Both are natural to human enfoldment. Andra Angyal (1965) refers to the individual’s need to achieve autonomy as well as ‘homonomy’, or, union with a greater whole.

Roberto Assagioli refers to personal psychosynthesis (development of a well-integrated, effective personality) and spiritual psychosynthesis (leading to the realization of one’s higher nature). Abraham Maslow introduced the term transpersonal and recognized three groups of people: self-actualizers (well-integrated, strong, effective, minimal experience of transcendence), transcenders (strong spiritual contact, frequent transcendent experiences, underdeveloped personalities), and transcending self-actualizers (strong and effective personalities, capable of transcending limitations of personal identity, deep sense of eternity and the sacred (1971). "Self-realization, the realization of our Transpersonal Self (Assagioli, 1965, 1973; Carter-Haar, 1978; Miller, 1978), involves the progressive unification, at higher and higher levels, of the two dimensions of growth. It is important to remember that Self-realization is not something we should do or make happen. Self-realization is a natural process, and it occurs spontaneously." (Firman and Vargiu in Boorstein, 1996, P.121)

When we are functioning normally, in a stable environment, we begin to experience, from the moment of birth, urges and needs that motivate us into activity. We develop a sense of motivation and achievement, something that has value and meaning. Physical survival is our first, basic, primary need. When this need is satisfied we move into new goals with different and/or greater meaning. We learn to master physical competence and meaningful relationships with the sensitive, deep emotions that this encompasses. We desire to understand ourselves and learn more about the world, with the mind taking a central place in our lives. We learn to coordinate and integrate our inner resources in a unified way, in line with our aims. (Vargiu, 1977) Our feelings develop and harmonize so we can relate to others in a satisfying way. We learn to think creatively, flexibly, and with specific details and we move towards the full, harmonious integration of the personality: body, mind and feelings.

When personality development has been stifled, or arrested, and latency, or total disruption has occurred, as in severe abuse, the self needs to find different ways to express itself, to deal with the deficiencies in specific personality functions or conflicts between the functions, which is what most forms of psychotherapy propose to do.

Psychosynthesis suggests an approach to self-actualization, aiming at the positive development of particular aspects of the personality, contributing to the gradual integration into a unified, dynamic whole. Because there is not only a harmonization of the personality needed, but also a gradual emergence and empowering of the ‘I’, or center of personal identity, Psychosynthesis, with it’s resources such as the integration of subpersonalities and identification with the ‘I’, is the ideal form for working with this dual process. As people move through the existential crisis, which changes and creates the seeking of new goals and brings in the consciousness of the Transpersonal Self, life reorients itself and the search for the truth begins. The move towards the disidentification from the known self of personality moves into identification with a higher form and meaning.

But, what of those that have been so abused that they feel that they have no right to existence? Arieti (1955) refers to the child’s experience of parent hostility and the utter hopelessness of obtaining parental love and approval. Believing themselves to be the ‘bad one’ the unloved child begins to see himself as unlovable and his self-esteem undergoes injurious attacks as he begins to hate himself more than anyone else possibly could. The defence mechanisms become incapable of coping and the anxiety is experienced with the same violence as experienced in childhood. The behaviour becomes more and more symbolic, continues to be distorted by the power of the repressed experiences, and, over time, may be experienced as panic or psychosis. Arieti suggests that the treatment of these individuals becomes very difficult because of their lack of contact and fear of their feelings. “He fears lest they be used against him to demonstrate how bad he is, just as he originally feared his parents would do. He is still afraid that feelings will bring about rebuff, anxiety, and attacks on his self-esteem.” (Arieti, 1955, P. 65)

     “Psychotherapy has branded…certain altered states as intrapsychic aberrations, and has been quite oblivious to the energetic basis of the symptomatology.” (Don, in Boorstein, 1996, P.353) while we know through scholarly studies of yogic texts (Eliade, 1969) of the dualism of body and mind and of the ‘bodies’ and states of consciousness experienced through their particular ‘organs’ of perceptions (Meher Baba, 1967; Isherwood, 1969) which speak of levels of bodies, with the physical body as the bottom and higher levels of energy above. Although Freud had originally formulated his theories in terms of an energy variable, it was the work of Wilhelm Reich (1972, 1974) who formed the basis of the energy-oriented body therapies in the Western world with Lowen (1971, 1976), Pierrakos (1975), Brown (1971) ,Kelly (1971) ,Keleman (1975), and Baker (1974) continuing on and developing systems for therapy based upon the release of energy and muscular stasis in the body, coupled with psychological interpretations.     

Norman Don reminds us that "working with people ... the therapists’ state of consciousness, intentionality, and energy level are being perceived by some level of the client’s consciousness." (Boorstein, 1969, P.373)  Assagioli (1965) refers us to fact that in practical psychosynthesis, or the actual construction of the new personality, we need to use the available energies (forces released by the analysis and disintegration of the unconscious complexes and latent tendencies which exist on the psychological levels), develop aspects of the personality which are deficient or inadequate (evocation, autosuggestion, creative affirmation, methodical training, i.e. memory, imagination and/or will) and coordinate/subordinate psychological energies and functions and  create a firm organization of the personality. He also reminds us of the inherent polarities: polarities of the manifest and unmanifest, of spirit and matter, of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system, emotional attraction and repulsion, ambivalence and the compensatory function, the masculine and feminine elements, the emotional polarities: pleasure-pain, excitement-depression; confidence-fear; attraction-repulsion; love-hate, the mental polarities: analytical activity  (concrete mind) and abstract intelligence, inductive process (from particular to general) and deductive process (from general to particular), lower Unconscious and Superconscious; Pathos (Receptivity, Sensitivity, Reactivity) and Ethos (Activity, Dynamism, Will), Eros (Feeling) and Logos (Reason), and the spiritual polarities: personality and the Transpersonal Self (which is the cause of many inner conflicts until harmonious relationships and an increasing blending or unification is achieved).

     Assagioli also talks about interindividual polarities, such as: Man and Woman, adults and young people, parents and their children, and the various relationships between individuals and the different groups to which they belong. There is also a psychic entity polarity in families: members who are alive and ancestral influences and family traditions which can be both an influence as well as oppression. There are also social groups of different kinds (social and professional classes, cultural and religious groups, nations) with which the individual may find himself associated, in a condition of passive subordination or of cooperation, as leader and directing agent or in conflict. In groups one may find polarities between families and families, classes and classes, nations and nations, etc. and the hierarchical ones, between the family and the state, classes and nations and between a state and a federation of states. As the last step in looking at polarities, Assagioli even looks at that between the northern and southern individuals and groups in each nation and continent and that between Western and Eastern peoples. Assagioli refers to the method of synthesis, which is analogous in a certain sense to a chemical combination, which includes and absorbs the two elements into a higher unity endowed with qualities differing from those of either of them. It is to this purpose that the understanding of Transpersonal Psychology can be most attributed.

One of the limitations of the transpersonal is felt to be its lack of adequate experimental foundation. Many of the concerns of the transpersonal therapist lie outside the range of interest, competence, and investigative arenas of most researchers. Assumptions remain experimentally untested and many feel that, if the transpersonal is truly to become what it claims to strive for, namely, an effective synthesis of Eastern wisdom and Western science, then practitioners need to do all they can to ensure that their work is subjected to careful scientific scrutiny. While there is a growing body of research on meditation, few other transpersonal areas have been examined. One wonders if the investigation of transpersonal phenomena is applicable to traditional scientific paradigms. Novel approaches which are less interfering, more sensitive to subjective states, and involving trained participant observer investigators need to be found. Intellectual comprehension demands an experiential foundation (Deikman, 1977; Walsh, 1977, 1978). It is important to recognize that it is through the experience that one can appreciate the power and implications of the changes. Even the most intellectually, sophisticated mental health practitioners, if they are experientially naïve, may have no reference point from which to draw an understanding. Transpersonal Psychotherapy places stringent demands on its practitioners, representing subtler, deeper demands because the phenomena with which they are working are themselves subtler and deeper. Ferrucci (Weiser, 1984) reminds us of the dangers of the transpersonal. After the original enthusiasm generated by spiritual awakening, people have discovered that the transpersonal dimension can oppress, torture, confuse, and even annihilate if it is approached with inadequate psychological equipment. If the attitude of the Higher Self is immature there can be a violation in the name of the spirit. "The numinous is not protected as it was in the past, and we are on our own, entering free, naked, and vulnerable into a world of energies unknown." (Weiser, 1984, P.23, 24) Some believe that schizophrenia is the result of stepping into the spiritual while still identified with some unresolved subpersonality. Ferrucci refers to Alberto Alberti who states that the remedy is humility and not moralistic imposition from the therapist. It is a natural force, which is spontaneously grown and needs to be skillfully evoked.  As we move toward greater health these psychological phenomena will become increasingly subtler, and the tools most suitable for dealing with them will become correspondingly less active and interfering, and more simply observing, accepting, and allowing (Walsh, 1976, 1977).

The perspective, attitude and orientation of a transpersonal therapist or counselor must include the following:

• Be on their own spiritual/transpersonal path
• Acknowledge that any person be accepted and allowed to pursue their own path and to change to another if that seems desirable
• Commitment to the principle that all human beings have continuous impulses toward emotional growth and ultimate states and that it is the responsibility of the transpersonal therapist to help in the realization of emotional growth as well as ultimate states
• Know, including their function, the knowledge of the role of mechanisms throughout the life cycle that can be self-deceptive
• All individuals have impulses toward ultimate states whether or not they are on a personal path, i.e., work with techniques and forms of relating that are directly relevant to the current state

Arieti, S. (1955) Interpretation of Schizophrenia, NY, Robert Brunner

Assagioli, Roberto M.D (1965) Psychosynthesis: A Collection of Basic Writings, NY, Penguin

Assagioli, Roberto M.D. (1973) The Act of Will, NY, Viking

Assagioli, Roberto M.D. The Balancing and Synthesis of the Opposites

Boorstein, Seymour M.D. (1996) Transpersonal Psychotherapy (second edition), NY, State University of New York Press

Deikman, Arthur J     The Observing Self: Mysticism and Psychotherapy http://www.deikman.com/observingself.html

Eliade, M (1969) Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, NJ, Princeton University Press

Isherwood, C (1969) Vedanta for the Western World, NY, Viking Press

Maslow, A.H. (1971) The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, NY, Penguin

Meher Baba (1967) Discourses. Sufism Reoriented (vol. 2, 176-193), 1290 Sutter St., San Francisco

Weiser, John and Yeomans, Thomas (1984) Psychosynthesis: In the Helping professions: Now and for the Future, Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education