Transpersonal Psychology
What is Transpersonal Psychology?
A psychology that studies as well as relates the “personal” to the “transpersonal”. The “personal” encompasses the personality, the mind, body, and spirit. The “transpersonal” includes the “personal” and goes beyond it: soul, the collective unconscious, and God.
In placing the personal within the transpersonal, and vice versa, this psychology peers into the mystery of unconditional love, creativity, intuition, and other important questions that give rise to the human condition.
Transpersonal psychology investigates the shared insights of wisdom traditions and the world’s longest standing religions about human nature, the nature of consciousness, and the nature of the universe. It is interested in the full spectrum of human experiences, valuing the pathological as well as transcendent experiences the same in their potential for individual as well as collective healing, transformation, and evolution.
Pioneers and notable persons recognized for their contribution to transpersonal psychology include William James, Abraham Maslow, Roberto Assagioli, Carl Gustav Jung, Stanislav Grof, Ken Wilber, Frances Vaughn, Angeles Arrien, James Fadiman, Robert Frager, Roger Walsh, Charles Tart, John Welwood, Robert A. Johnson, and still others.