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The field of Transpersonal Psychology is concerned with expanding
the frontiers of psychology and spirituality for the betterment of
humanity and the sustainability of the planet.
Traditional psychology is interested in a continuum of human
experience and behavior ranging from severe dysfunction, mental and
emotional illness at one end, to what is generally considered
"normal", healthy behavior at the other end and various degrees of
normal and maladjustment in between. Transpersonal Psychology is a
full spectrum psychology that encompasses all of this and then goes
beyond it by adding a serious scholarly interest in the immanent and
transcendent dimensions of human experience: exceptional human
functioning, experiences, performances and achievements, true
genius, the nature and meaning of deep religious and mystical
experiences, non-ordinary states of consciousness, and how we might
foster the fulfillment of our highest potentials as human beings.
The groundwork for the field of transpersonal psychology was laid by
a number of prominent minds in the field of psychology, including Aldous
Huxley, William
James, Sigmund
Freud, Carl
Jung, Abraham
Maslow, and Stanislav
Grof. Many of the founding psychologists of this movement
believed that all humans have the potential to reach a higher state.
Rather than treating all people as fundamentally diseased or
twisted, many people in the field of transpersonal psychology
believe that people are simply trapped in themselves. Studies of
people who have transcended their own egos are an important aspect
of transpersonal psychology.
One must not confuse Transpersonal psychology with Parapsychology.
This may sometimes happen due to the overlapping and unconventional
research interests of both fields. In short; parapsychology tends to
focus more in its subject matter on the "psychic", while
transpersonal psychology tends to focus on the
"spiritual"(relatively crude though these categorizations are, it is
still a useful distinction in this context). While parapsychology
leans more towards traditional scientific epistemology (laboratory
experiments, statistics, research on cognitive states),transpersonal
psychology tends to be more closely related to the epistemology of
the humanities and the hermeneutic disciplines (humanism,
existentialism, phenomenology, anthropology), although it has always
included contributions involving experimental and statistical
research.
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