Bahman A.K. Shirazi - The Metaphysical Instincts & Spiritual Bypassing in Integral Psychology

Here is one of the more interesting articles from the new issue of the Integral Review (Vol. 9, No. 3). In this article, Bahman A.K. Shirazi (of CIIS), discusses how "the metaphysical instincts initially expressed as the religious impulse with associated beliefs and behaviors may be transformed and made fully conscious," and not bypassed as is so common today in spiritual circles, where spiritual bypassing is almost epidemic. In the making these instincts or impulses conscious they can be "integrated with the biological instincts in integral yoga and psychology in order to achieve wholeness of personality."

Gotta like any paper that references Roberto Assagioli and Psychosynthesis.

The Metaphysical Instincts & Spiritual Bypassing in Integral Psychology

INTEGRAL REVIEW | September 2013 | Vol. 9, No. 3

Bahman A.K. Shirazi [1]

1. Bahman A.K. Shirazi, PhD, is archivist and adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). For the past three decades he has studied, taught, and worked in a number of academic and administrative roles at CIIS. His main academic focus has been in the areas of integral, transpersonal, and Sufi psychologies in which he has published a number of book chapters and articles and presented at a number of international conferences. He organizes an annual symposium on integral consciousness at CIIS.

Abstract

Instincts are innate, unconscious means by which Nature operates in all forms of life including animals and human beings. In humans however, with progressive evolution of consciousness, instincts become increasingly conscious and regulated by egoic functions. Biological instincts associated with the lower-unconscious such as survival, aggressive, and reproductive instincts are well known in general psychology. The higher-unconscious, which is unique to human beings, may be said to have its own instinctual processes referred to here as the ‘metaphysical instincts’. In traditional spiritual practices awakening the metaphysical instincts has often been done at the expense of suppressing the biological instincts—a process referred to as spiritual bypassing. This essay discusses how the metaphysical instincts initially expressed as the religious impulse with associated beliefs and behaviors may be transformed and made fully conscious, and integrated with the biological instincts in integral yoga and psychology in order to achieve wholeness of personality.

Introduction

A key aim of integral yoga and psychology is to reach wholeness of personality. In practical terms, achieving wholeness necessitates harmonization of the various dimensions of personality through the organizing principle of the psyche—the Self, or in Sri Aurobindo’s terms, the Psychic Being (Sri Aurobindo, 1989). Among western transpersonal psychologists, Carl Jung and Roberto Assagioli have developed some of the most comprehensive personality frameworks that include a similar psychocentric principle—referred to as the Self or the Higher/Transpersonal Self respectively—to represent this integrating and harmonizing fulcrum of personality.

Roberto Assagioli, an Italian psychiatrist who was an early associate of Freud and Jung, is not as well known as these pioneers of depth psychology. However, his framework called Psychosynthesis, which combines empirical, depth, humanistic and transpersonal psychologies at psychotherapeutic system compatible with integral psychology. Assagioli’s conceptual model of human personality is complemented with a rich array of practical techniques and processes for growth, development and integration of personality. In his major work titled Psychosynthesis, Assagioli (1971) proposed a model of human personality with many practical implications for healing and transformation of consciousness including techniques for catharsis, critical analysis, self-identification, dis-identification, development for the will, training and use of imagination, visualization and many more, all as part of the psychosynthesis work aimed at integration of personality.

Assagioli’s personality framework includes three intrapsychic dimensions: the lower unconscious, the middle-unconscious, and the higher-unconscious. Depicted as hierarchal strata within an upright oval diagram, these are nested within the larger collective realm in the background which is similar to Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious, representing the transpersonal and cosmic dimensions of the psyche. The region that includes the conscious mind is at the center of the oval diagram and is referred to as the middle-unconscious region. This region is primarily subconscious with the field of ordinary waking consciousness represented by a circle at its center.

Assagioli (1971), who incorporated in his model some of the key features of Freud’s and Jung’s contributions, added the idea of the higher-unconscious and called its organizing principle the Higher or Transpersonal Self. While his concept of the lower-unconscious is essentially comparable to Freud’s concept of the Unconscious, and Jung’s personal unconscious (the Shadow), as the storehouse of dynamically repressed materials, his middle-unconscious was added to account for what is not in the immediate conscious awareness, and yet not dynamically repressed and available for recollection at will without any resistance or defense mechanisms.

Assagioli’s higher-unconscious explicitly represents the human spiritual realm which could be made conscious and integrated into the conscious personality, just as the lower-unconscious would be made conscious and integrated to achieve complete integration and wholeness of human personality. The Higher Self (also called the Transpersonal Self) would be crucial as a catalyst to make this integration possible. Beginning in the 1920s, Assagioli developed pioneering insights into the nature of the relationship between psychological and spiritual development and pointed out a number of psychological issues arising before, during and after spiritual awakening (Assagioli, 1971).

Although a two-dimensional depiction of the oval diagram is rather linear with the above mentioned regions appearing as hierarchal strata with the higher-unconscious at the top, in day-to-day experience both the higher and the lower unconscious are hidden below the surface of mental awareness and are ordinarily mixed-up and confounded. This inner fusion may eventually become clarified as more and more unconscious contents are integrated into the middle unconscious and enter the field of conscious experience.

The use of the term ‘unconscious’ is of pivotal interest to our discussion here: all regions in Assagioli’s scheme are outside of the conscious realm depicted as a circle in the center of the middle-unconscious. The lower-unconscious region is associated with the biological functions as well as dynamically repressed emotional and mental content. The lower-unconscious is mainly regulated through biological instincts. Instincts are innate, unconscious means by which Nature operates in all forms of life including animals and human beings. Biological instincts associated with the lower-unconscious such as survival, aggressive, and reproductive instincts, are well known and well researched in general Western psychology.

The higher-unconscious, which is unique to human beings, may be said to also have its own instinctual processes referred to here as the metaphysical instincts. These include transpersonal intuitions, visions, illuminations and spiritual aspirations which are initially unconscious relative to ordinary mental functions. Here we can apply the idea of instincts to the realm of the higher unconscious because they too initially reside outside of the realm of conscious experience and exert powerful influences on the human psyche. “…[A]ll psychic processes whose energies are not under conscious control are instinctive” (Jung, 1971, p. 451).

Metaphysical instincts are as powerful as the biological instincts and become more relevant and empowered in the course of psychospiritual growth and transformation. Whereas biological instincts are responsible for our embodiment processes, the metaphysical instincts tend to propel us toward our spiritual destiny. They influence our religious impulses, beliefs and behaviors as well as our philosophical ideations.

Integral Psychology

Sri Aurobindo’s key phrase: “all life is yoga”, suggests that integral yoga—which is an integration of the yogas of love (bhakti yoga), knowledge (jnana yoga), and action (karma yoga)—is not only understood as an individual spiritual practice, it is also accomplished by Nature in a collective manner. A simple observation of animal life reveals that even though the mental life of an animal is not as elaborate and complex as that of a human being, the essence of their being is nevertheless expressed through instinctual love and knowledge in action. Animals simply know how to go about their daily life, care for their young and live their lives according to the dictates of their biological instinctual processes.

The animal instinctual core structures also operate in human beings as part of our evolutionary heritage. Whereas animals are primarily driven by the biological drives, the human beings are, in addition, pulled by the gravitation of the forces of the metaphysical instincts. In other words, in humans the evolutionary instincts of the lower-unconscious and the involutionary instincts of the higher-unconscious—the metaphysical instincts—create an existential dialectical process in the psyche. This dialectical tension typically manifests in terms of diametrically opposing forces that act upon and within the psyche on all levels from physical, to emotional and mental, which must eventually be harmonized in the course of integration of personality.

Jung made a similar distinction between biological and metaphysical instincts as pairs of opposites, inextricably linked and often difficult to distinguish. He wrote:

…psychic processes seem to be balances of energy flowing between spirit and instinct, though the question of whether a process is to be described as spiritual or as instinctual remains shrouded in darkness. Such evaluation or interpretation depends entirely upon the standpoint or state of the conscious mind. (Jung, 1960, p. 207).

Before spiritual awakening—the first step in the psychospiritual transformation processes—a typical individual is primarily governed by conscious mental, emotional, and physical processes, as well as relatively unconscious instincts. The interplay between consciousness and unconsciousness is at the core of the phenomenal and psychic existence and some sort of balance among, or the reconciliation of, these is a common goal of western schools of depth psychology, notably Freud’s Psychoanalysis, Jung’s Analytical Psychology, and Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis. A similar, yet more comprehensive, aim is also at the core of integral psychology and yoga.

In integral yoga and psychology,

...consciousness is not synonymous with mentality but indicates a self aware force of existence of which mentality is a middle term; below mentality it sinks into vital and material movements which are for us subconscient; above, it rises into the supramental which is for us the superconscient. But in all it is one and the same thing organizing itself differently. (Sri Aurobindo, 1997, p. 88)

The human being is then an embodiment of various spheres of consciousness ranging in density from the densest to potentially most luminous strata. The ultimate aim of integral yoga is to eradicate the unconscious dimension of the human psyche and thus achieve a fully integrated conscious psyche.

According to Sri Aurobindo (1992):

In the right view both of life and of Yoga all life is either consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. For we mean by this term a methodised effort towards self perfection by the  expression of the secret potentialities latent in the being and highest condition of victory  in that effort a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos. But all life, when we  look behind its appearances, is a vast Yoga of Nature who attempts in the conscious and  the subconscious to realise her perfection in an ever-increasing expression of her yet  unrealised potentialities and to unite herself with her own divine reality. In man, her  thinker, she for the first time upon this Earth devises self-conscious means and willed  arrangements of activity by which this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly  attained. (p.2)

According to integral psychology pioneer Indra Sen (n.d.):

…to Sri Aurobindo the teleological or forward moving character is the central fact of our consciousness. It is the evolutional urge of life generally, which unfolds in the ascending scale of the animal species a progressive growth in consciousness. Therefore, the unconscious is the large evolutional base from which consciousness emerges. However, if the past is any indication, then it can be definitely affirmed that the goal of this long evolutionary march must be the attainment of a consciousness fully come to its own. That is to say when the unconscious has been reduced to the vanishing point and the human individual becomes fully aware of himself and capable of acting out of such awareness. (p.6)

 The Problem of Spiritual Bypassing

When a human being is primarily governed by his or her instinctual drives, various biological and metaphysical tendencies are at odds with one another and tend to compete to get the attention of the egoic will to utilize it toward their own purposes. The various levels of the unconscious (lower, middle, higher in Assagioli, or inconscient, subconscient, and superconscient in Sri Aurobindo) are in actuality not neatly divided and compartmentalized. They are in fact a ‘mixed bag’ of tendencies beyond the reach of the conscious, egoic will. In depth psychology it is understood that sexual and aggressive urges can easily get mixed up in the form of dominance or otherwise aggressive sexual behavior in animals and humans. This mixing up of the unconscious tendencies is not, however, limited to the biological instincts. The aggressive urges, for example, can get mixed up with religious fervor and, as history has witnessed over and over again, killing and other forms of aggression have been committed in the name of God or religion. In the same manner religious and sexual urges can manifest as either strongly segregated, or combined in certain sexual or religious rituals and spiritual practices.

Instinct is not an isolated thing, nor can it be isolated in practice. It always brings in its train archetypal contents of a spiritual nature, which are at once its foundation and its limitation. In other words, an instinct is always and inevitably coupled with something like a philosophy of life, however archaic, unclear, and hazy this may be. Instinct stimulates thought, and if a man does not think of his own free will, then you get compulsive thinking, for the two poles of the psyche, the physiological and the mental, are indissolubly connected. (Jung, 1954, p. 81)

In traditional spiritual practices, western or eastern, awakening the metaphysical instincts has often been done at the expense of suppressing the biological instincts—a process referred to as spiritual bypassing in transpersonal psychology. The body and its associated needs and desires are often regarded as impure and as an obstacle to spiritual attainment. This could be rooted in a belief that life on Earth and in the body is a form of banishment from heavenly realms. In other instances, this could be a result of an overly masculinized attitude which holds a fear of the body and the senses and privileges transcendent consciousness over embodied existence.

In such views the body is often deemed subject to pain, disease, decay and eventual death and thus ultimately unreliable and undesirable. This attitude is often extended out to the feminine principle and the Earth as manifestation of this principle. This tendency, explained in a number of different ways (Welwood, 1984 ; Cortright, 1997; Masters, 2010), has been called spiritual bypassing, which implies bypassing of embodied physical and related vital and emotional challenges through suppression of them in order to attain higher or transcendent spiritual consciousness—i.e. suppression of biological instincts by metaphysical instincts.

In a paper titled: ‘The Unconscious in Sri Aurobindo,’ Indra Sen (n.d.) who coined the term ‘integral psychology’, stated that in the Indian approach “yoga has been a necessary concomitant discipline for each system of philosophy for the realization of its truths and, therefore, the growth of personality is an indispensable issue for each system” (p. 2). Sen points out that most forms of yoga strive to incorporate the higher unconscious into the conscious personality but only touch the surface of the unconscious for the purpose of purification of the topmost level of the unconscious from which contents surge up. Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga, however, requires a complete investigation and integration of both the higher-unconscious (Superconscient) and the lower-unconscious (Subconscient) realms.

By the Subconscient Sri Aurobindo means the submerged part of the being in which there is no waking consciousness and coherent thought processes, will or feeling or organized reaction. Subconscient materials rise up into our waking consciousness as repetition of old thoughts and vital and mental habits and samskaras (impressions) formed by our past. There are three types of differentiation in the subconscient: the mental, the vital, and the physical subconscient, each one of which is distinguishable by the virtue of their contents and action on the waking personality. These subconscient processes are generally disorganized and chaotic. In other words, there is no execution of a unified will in the subconscient as the various impulses therein act chaotically and without any organization and thus various conflicts and struggles arise within the subconscient mind in addition to conflicts with the elements of our conscious personality related to the external environment. Using methods such as hypnosis, free association, and dream analysis, Freud’s therapeutic aim was to help the patient make conscious certain amount of the unconscious materials in order to create a balance between the conscious and unconscious mind. While many forms of psychological work attempt to help human beings become healthier by creating a harmonious balance between the unconscious and the conscious dimensions of personality, integral yoga and psychology aim at complete transformation of personality by making conscious the entire content of the unconscious. This would necessitate making the instinctual processes of both the higher and the lower unconscious fully conscious.

Sri Aurobindo was interested in much more than making the unconscious, passively conscious. Rather he was interested in the transformation of personality from the ordinary egoistic state to a fully conscious and integrated state. Sri Aurobindo was careful, however, not to recommend plunging into the subconscient without first mobilizing the higher-unconscious. Without this preparation there is a risk of losing oneself in the obscurity and the chaos of the Subconscient world. Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga is unique in that it starts with the opening of the higher centers of consciousness first. This is to avoid the trappings of the lower unconscious realms and intensification of attachments, as well as a myriad of other problems associated with premature opening of the kundalini energy—as in the case of spiritual emergencies—without first establishing the Psychic will or even possibly Supramental will to guide the process of transformation of the unconscious.

Integration of Personality

For Sri Aurobindo merely making the unconscious mind conscious is not sufficient for transformation and we need the assistance of the conscious will to help organize and transform the content of the Subconscient mind. Another point of difference is that unlike depth and ego psychologies, for Sri Aurobindo the therapeutic aim is not to strengthen the ego. This is because ultimately the ego is self-centered, even though it is better adjusted to reality. Therefore, access to a higher integrating center is needed which in integral yoga is the Psychic Being, or the evolving soul in the human being.

Jung was also aware of the need for such a higher integrating principle which he termed the archetype of the Self—i.e. the soul or psychocentric consciousness. Depth psychologists first discovered the unconscious through their encounter with the pathological manifestations of the unconscious. Both Jung and Assagioli realized the importance of the role of the Self or Transpersonal Self as the catalyst for integration of personality, a task not possible through ordinary therapeutic techniques which often emphasize the importance of ego-strengthening which is necessary for those who suffer various forms and intensities of neuroses and psychotic dissociation, or even unmanageable phobias, depression or anxiety etc. Certainly for the initial healing phase strengthening the ego up to the point of basic health and stability is unavoidable and desirable. But when it comes to the complete transformation of personality as required in integral yoga and psychology, a mere balancing of the conscious and unconscious elements of personality through a healthy and strong ego will be insufficient.

Traditional depth psychology often focuses on expanding the sphere of human consciousness by incorporating materials from the lower unconscious regions to the conscious regions, while traditional yoga attempts to engage with the higher realms of the unconscious and is not necessarily interested in transforming the lower unconscious psyche as much as it is interested in developing the higher unconscious. This could result in disinterest in ordinary consciousness and evolution of embodied consciousness. In integral yoga the goal is no less than the complete illumination, transformation and integration of the psyche and evolution of embodied consciousness.

To summarize, the goal of yoga is to accelerate the rate of conscious evolution. Integral yoga aims at total transformation of the unconscious as well as ordinary consciousness. Culmination of conscious evolution, therefore, requires a total transformation of human personality and consciousness. The high level of integration of personality required in this process supersedes the establishment of basic wholeness of personality which is possible by balancing the egocentric and psychocentric spheres of consciousness. This level of integration known as Psychic Transformation in integral yoga and psychology, which is similar to Jung’s process of Individuation or integration of ego and Self, is a necessary foundation. The complete transformations of the unconscious—including the inconscient physical base of consciousness and the subconscient— however, would necessitate the activation of Supramental consciousness.

References

• Assagioli, R. (1971). Psychosynthesis. New York, NY: The Viking Press.
• Cortright, B. (1997). Psychotherapy and spirit. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
• Jung, C. G. (1954). The Practice of Psychotherapy. In H. Read, M. Fordham, & G, Adler (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 16) (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
• Jung, C. G. (1960). The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. In H. Read, M. Fordham, & G, Adler (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8) (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
• Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types. The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 6) (Baynes, H.G. Trans.) (R. F. C. Hull, Rev. Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Masters R. A. (2010). Spiritual bypassing: When spirituality disconnects us from what really
  matters. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
• Sen, I. (n.d.). The unconscious in Sri Aurobindo: a study in integral psychology. (unpublished
  manuscript). 
• Sri Aurobindo (1989). The psychic being: Selections from the works of Sri Aurobindo and The
  Mother. Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.
• Sri Aurobindo (1992). The synthesis of yoga. Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.
• Sri Aurobindo (1997). The life divine. Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.
• Welwood, J. (1984). Principles of inner work: Psychological and spiritual. The Journal of
  Transpersonal Psychology, 16 (1), 63-73.

Berkhin & Hartelius - Why Altered States Are Not Enough: A Perspective from Buddhism

In the world of integral theory, there tends to be an assumption that Buddhist nondual experience is the same as Taoist nondual experience, which is the same as Christian nondual experience. I have generally accepted this assumption without question - until I read this article from the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies.

This piece argues that, from a Buddhist perspective, to use Buddhist language in describing non-Buddhist experience, including nirvana, is to confuse and muddle everything. They make a good argument in some respects (especially in the use of the term "nondual") - and there seems to me to be places where language fails the experience and that getting stuck in semantics reveals more about the people (and their worldview) than it does about the confusion in trying to equate experiences/terms from separate traditions.

Why Altered States Are Not Enough:A Perspective from Buddhism

Igor Berkhin: International Dzogchen Community; Donetsk, Ukraine
Glenn Hartelius: Institute of Transpersonal Psychology; Palo Alto, CA, USA

Transpersonal psychology has at times employed Buddhist terminology in ways that do not reflect distinctions that underlie these tightly defined terms. From a Buddhist perspective, attempts to equate Buddhist terms with language from other traditions are misdirected, and produce results that no longer represent Buddhism. For example, it is an error to translate certain Buddhist terms as referring to a shared universal consciousness; Buddhism explicitly rejects this idea. Nor is it appropriate to assume that the generic, cross-traditional altered state of nondual awareness postulated in some transpersonally-related circles is in any way related to nirvana or other advanced states described within Buddhism. Buddhist practices are focused on the achievement of particular knowledge and capacities, not the attainment of altered states.

Citation:

Berkhin, I. and Hartelius, G. (2011). Why Altered States Are Not Enough: A Perspective from Buddhism. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 30(1-2): 63-68.

Here is an example from the article of the ethnocentric perspective being advocated for in some parts of the article - or maybe religio-centric is the better word. In the West we tend to think of Buddhism as a spiritual psychology that is very open-minded and accepting, but that is because we are seeing it through our own cultural lens.

From within Buddhism, it is the first author’s view that traditions cannot be reconciled, and that attempts to do so create results that can no longer be considered traditional. Such efforts at homogenizing spiritual paths must be clearly distinguished from what His Holiness the Dalai Lama is doing: he is not working to reconcile different traditions, but to turn the followers of different religions toward the common human experience of compassion, thus pacifying the aggressive tendencies of human minds. Nor can different spiritual traditions be equated. Starting with Buddha Shakyamuni himself, most important Buddhist teachers have said that Buddhadharma has very special and highly important wisdom that other traditions do not have (a number of Buddhist teachers have also acknowledged that some realizations in other traditions are not that radically different). (p. 64)

In this passage, the authors assert that Buddhism is the one true religion (Buddhadharma has very special and highly important wisdom that other traditions do not have), which is what one does when the belief system is being defended from a concrete level of cognitive development. At this stage, there tends to be only black/white, no grays, no shades of difference, only extremes.

Having made the "one true faith" argument, the very next paragraph demonstrates how a transpersonal idea can be made personal (or even pre-personal) when filtered through the lens of a lower developmental stage. 

One of the most distinctive errors within the transpersonal world is the effort to interpret the idea of universal consciousness in Buddhist terms. The idea that there is some subconscious or unconscious mind or spirit common to all beings, or at least all humans, is never found in Buddhist texts of any tradition, except in the context where such an idea is explicitly refuted. Such a concept contradicts the Buddhist principle of karma, because if humans all share the same consciousness then each time any individual performed an action, every person in the world would experience the exact same results from that action, just as if they themselves had acted in that way. (p. 64)

It's interesting to me, at least (and maybe no one else), how the idea of a universal consciousness gets reduced to an individual consciousness as soon by invoking the idea of karma. Karma is uniquely individual, but the concept of universal consciousness is transpersonal, beyond the personal, and therefore is not something experienced or even acknowledged by most human beings. The argument is false on many levels - but the absence of any Buddhist teachings on universal consciousness is important and should have been argued more cleanly.

I am agnostic about such notions as universal consciousness - I am more likely to buy into a collective unconscious that is largely pre-personal and personal - I just wanted to point out that arguing against the notion of a collective or universal consciousness by invoking the concept of karma is like arguing against the idea of a planet by invoking a tree. 

In my opinion, the authors are on much more solid ground when they reject the idea of nondaulity as a universally accepted experience, no matter one's tradition.

Along the same line of thought is the recently flourishing transpersonal term nonduality (Blackstone, 2006, 2007; Prendergast, Fenner, & Krystal, 2003). However, here again Buddhist thought demands careful distinctions that appear to be largely absent from transpersonal thought. There are many different kinds of meditative and cognitive non-dual experiences—that is, experiences that do not explicitly involve feeling that subject and object are separate entities—and in Buddhism these various kinds of experience are delineated in careful and articulate terms. Some of these are no more than transient states of what Buddhism would classify as a deluded mind. Others, though of value, are far from the realization of nirvana. For example, an emptiness where the separation between subject and object is neither felt nor thought is not yet the non-duality of dharmakaya. Similarly, the non-duality of absolute truth and relative truth as explained in sutras must be wholly distinguished from the non-duality of five wisdoms and eight consciousnesses that is explained in higher tantras, and both of these are distinct from the non-duality of calm state and movement taught in Dzogchen. Light for the Eyes of Contemplation (Tibetan, bSam-gtan Mig-sgron) is an encyclopedic work from the 9th century CE by Sangye Yeshi that presented the major Buddhist traditions practiced in Tibet at that time; within this work is a profound treatise on different kinds of non-duality in both Indian and Chinese mahayana, in vajrayana higher tantras, and in Dzogchen atiyoga.

Thus, for Buddhism, the term non-duality is used in a considerable number of discrete and precise ways, each of which must be understood within its own context. By contrast, some transpersonal uses of the term seem to take the concept of non-duality as license to eschew careful distinctions, to uncritically meld together concepts that deserve precise definition and differentiation, and to conflate within a single theoretical ultimate a variety of states that may well include certain transitory experiences of a deluded mind (e.g., Blackstone, 2006, 2007; Krystal, 2003; Wilber, 2000). (p. 65)

I did know that some Buddhist schools have remarkably subtle distinctions in the various states of  consciousness, but it had not occurred to me that this was true as well with nondual states.

Finally, it is very appropriate that they name Wilber as a reference several times in this paper, since he is the primary or most public offender in the realm of transpersonal studies.

Be sure to read the whole paper.

Jorge Ferrer, PhD - "Transpersonal Psychology and the Future of Religion: A Participatory Vision for the 21st Century"

This is an interesting lecture by Jorge Ferrer, PhD, given at the University of Florida in April, 2006 - his topic was "Transpersonal Psychology and the Future of Religion: A Participatory Vision for the 21st Century." He is the author of Revisioning Transpersonal Theory: A Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality, and co-editor of The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies.

Ferrer teaches courses on transpersonal psychology, embodied spiritual inquiry, comparative mysticism, integral development, philosophy of science, socially engaged spirituality, and spiritual perspectives on sexuality and relationships. Jorge N. Ferrer, PhD, is core faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, and adjunct faculty at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, California.

Bio of Dr. Ferrer (PDF format)

The following weblinks may also be of interest:
- Dr. Ferrer's page at The California Institute of Integral Studies
- Integral Transformative Practice: A Participatory Perspective by Jorge N. Ferrer

You can watch the whole lecture in a single Windows Media Player file (may require a plug-in) or in the YouTube videos below.

Part one:


Part two:


Part three:


Part four:


Part five:


Part six:

Tags: Religion, Spirituality, Integral, transpersonal, Jorge Ferrer, Transpersonal Psychology, Future of Religion, Participatory Vision, 21st Century, culture, perspectives, psychology, interpersonal, intersubjective

Panel: What is the Relationship Between Integral Psychotherapy and Transpersonal Psychotherapy? (Part 2) #itc2010

More fun stuff - I wish I could have seen more of the psychology sessions. This is part two of two posts on this panel - too much for one post. (Part one is here.) OK, so I didn't get this done last night as planned . . . apologies.

Panel: What is the Relationship Between Integral Psychotherapy and Transpersonal Psychotherapy? Ray Greenleaf, Elliott Ingersoll, Janet Lewis, Andre Marquis, Joanne Rubin, Douglas Tatyryn, Jefferey Jessum

We were joined by a special guest, someone who has seen the evolution of transpersonal psychology into integral psychology, and has guided the process in some ways, Roger Walsh.

There's no abstract for this, but the topic should speak for itself.

[PLEASE NOTE: I am paraphrasing the panelists comments as accurately as I can - these are not to be taken as quotes.]

Please note:
IP = Integral Psychotherapy or psychology
TP = Transpersonal psychology
IT = Integral theory

OK, then, on with part two . . . .

Ray offered an observation:

• Psychotherapy = to serve the soul

Elliott:

• What is the soul?

Ray:

• The soul is that which brings meaning, depth, luminosity - (terms which also need to be defined, in my opinion, and that of those on the panel as well)
• He had mentioned earlier that as an earlier student of Jung, he finds a rich territory in bridging Jung and Wilber (and for those who know, Wilber has been very critical of Jung, while also acknowledging his debt to Jung)

There was then a brief discussion of Wilber having dropped the use of Transpersonal psychology in 1995 (with the publication of SES), due to its pre/trans issues, inordinate focus on altered states, etc. Ray suggested that he did not so much drop it as move beyond it into a larger field.

Elliott:

• This whole topic can be tied to the history of psychology
• Wilhelm Wundt as the father of Western psychology
• But Wundt was somewhat integral in looking at various elements of the psyche, including the brain, intelligence, and other factors

Doug:

• Is there a consensus that integral transcends and includes TP?

Janet: (the lone dissent)

• Yes and No.
• Each sees itself as subsuming the other.

Doug:

• Isn't that part of the integral model?
• What does TP offer that is not included in IP?

Andre:

• (citing Maslow): any psychology that does not account for higher stages/states or functions of consciousness as much as lower states/stages and functions is not complete
• IP transcends and includes TP

Janet:

• There is no way to know what we don't know (I'm not clear on the context of this statement, there may have been a side conversation at this point)

Doug: (offers this as a general rhetorical question)

• Is Ken still doing transpersonal and we're just confusing it with integral?

Ray:

• Integral handles the complexity
• Ken moved through TP into something bigger
• Integral is a huge space for us to play in
• There are likely to be things we have missed, that Ken has missed, that we will discover later

Elliott:

• TP developed to hold ideas and experiences that the humanistic models could not
• IP offers a bigger lens than TP can provide
• It's part of the evolution of psychology

Joanne: (she had been pretty quiet through the discussion, and Ray asked her what she was thinking)

• I'm wondering about the audience reaction . . .
• What is the relevance of this discussion
• Does this matter?

Ray opened up the Q&A portion at this point . . .

John Wagnon (who blogged the critics panel here) asked an excellent question:

• What techniques has IP offered that it created itself, techniques that are not borrowed/included from other systems?

Doug:

• IP is an operating system
• It points out the various practices to fill in the gaps

Doug mentioned at some point, and maybe I covered this in the previous post, that IP is a map, and it offers a way to fine tune interventions to the person and the dysfunction - kind of a meta-model he can use to orient himself

Ray:

• 3-2-1 shadow work has a place, but it is not true shadow work
• If that is your shadow work practice, you will be carrying a big shadow with you for the rest of your life - it's a false answer

[I am SO in agreement with that comment]

Jeff:

• Same thing with Big Mind and nondual consciousness
• You are not going to get enlightened in an afternoon session with Genpo Roshi
• It's a taste, not a real practice

[again, I SO agree with that comment]

And with that, we come to an end. This is was a fun discussion to witness. The general conclusion, with Janet as a lone dissent, is that IP transcends and includes TP - and also that IP is more of a generalizing map, or an operating system, than it is a unique form of therapy.

At one point, there was discussion about what might happen if IP DID become a part of the APA sections, would it lose it's uniqueness. There was some conjecture that we might see Integral CBT, Integral Self Psychology, Integral DBT, and so, with each of the various therapies now in use adopting the Integral tag (as we are seeing right now with mindfulness-based [fill in the blank]).

I don't really see this happening any time soon.

But what we really need is to find a way to make IP assessable to working therapists. My girlfriend looks at this stuff and says two things: (1) I'm already doing most of this stuff - my practice is bio-psycho-social, and (2) the model is way to complex to be useful when I am sitting with a client - at that moment, all that matters is the relationship with the client.

It's hard to argue with that logic - as often as I try.

Tags: Panel, What is the Relationship Between Integral Psychotherapy and Transpersonal Psychotherapy?, Ray Greenleaf, Elliott Ingersoll, Janet Lewis, Andre Marquis, Joanne Rubin, Douglas Tatyryn, Jefferey Jessum, Roger Walsh, #itc2010, mind, Psychology, therapy, transpersonal, consciousness, psychotherapy, soul, Big Mind, 3-2-1 shadow work, Jung, Integral operating system, Ken Wilber

Panel: What is the Relationship Between Integral Psychotherapy and Transpersonal Psychotherapy? (Part I) #itc2010

More fun stuff - I wish I could have seen more of the psychology stuff. This is part one of two posts on this panel - too much for one post.

Panel: What is the Relationship Between Integral Psychotherapy and Transpersonal Psychotherapy? Ray Greenleaf, Elliott Ingersoll, Janet Lewis, Andre Marquis, Joanne Rubin, Douglas Tatyryn, Jefferey Jessum

We were joined by a special guest, someone who has seen the evolution of transpersonal psychology into integral psychology, and has guided the process in some ways, Roger Walsh.

There's no abstract for this, but the topic should speak for itself.

Please note:
IP = Integral Psychotherapy or psychology
TP = Transpersonal psychology
IT = Integral theory

Roger kicked off the panel with a brief series of remarks:

• Socio-economic forces are stacked against us in a big way - HMOs/drug companies are dictating the terms of the game - drugs & cheap, brief therapies
• These therapies are not more effective - all therapies are equally effective when offered by skilled therapists
• Spiritual practice is not how it reads in the books - we do not go into the woods, meditate a bit, and become enlightened - it's messier than that, and IP/TP offer guidance with that
• The integral model brings the quadrants together in a way traditional models do not - when we consider things like lifestyle factors in depression, and that fish oil, exercise, and so many other things are effective, it's important to add these perspectives as options
• The IP/TP models tend to encourage therapists to do their own work - shadow work, contemplation, etc - which makes them better at their jobs and improves outcomes

The discussion was kind of all over the place, so it's hard to present any one person's perspective, since that is not how it was organized. Nor is it really possible to present any series of comments or a conversation.

[Everything here is my best effort at a paraphrase.]

Andre made some good points, at various times that add up to a valid and useful critique of IP and Wilber's model in general - so I will just list some of them:

• Wilber makes ontological statements about reality that are difficult to make - from the experience of interior states to the nature of reality - these are philosophically challenging
• I can honor a client's claims about transpersonal experience without alienating the field - we do not need to make declarative statements about reality
• I avoided superpersonal / transpersonal stuff in my book - in North Texas, where I work, transpersonal issues are not relevant - maybe spiritual issues, but not transpersonal

~ He left Adi Da because of Nietzsche

~ Nietzsche said that spiritual systems devalue this life but seeking something more

~ Andre feels that Ken is guilty of this devaluing

~ His main practice is hunting and fishing now - how many people experience or live in nonduality? Not many, and he can transcend himself in nature while fishing

• He prefers an embedded / embodied practice - interpersonal, intersubjective
• Nietzsche offers a "perpetual self overcoming" - what better practice is there?

Andre was probably the person on the panel who I most identified with - my sense of spiritual practice involves "we space" - the intersubjective space of relationship, especially with my girlfriend.

Joanne replied to some of Andre's points about Wilber:

• Training in states of consciousness can verify Wilber's claims - her point seemed to echo Wilber's Marriage of Sense and Soul in suggesting that we take an injunction (Wilber's claims about ultimate reality) and test them (follow the injunction, the practice), then compare outcomes.

In general, I agree with that methodology - but I disagree with the privileging of nonduality, or of meditation as the singular path to getting there. I think this poses problems for people who are not inclined in that way, such as me. I can meditate the rest of my life, and I doubt I will experience any semblance of the loss of self and feeling of unitive consciousness I experience in an intersubjective embrace with my girlfriend.

Jeff commented a bit on this as well:

• Different validity claims have their place - but translating them (as from subjective to objective) poses certain problems that are hard to surmount with our current framework
• Integral theory as scaffolding
• TP as a modality within the framework of IT

Moving on . . . .

Elliott is a cool guy (is it wrong to have a man-crush on him? None of the pictures online do him justice), who had a lot of interesting things to say.

• Ontological assumptions in journal articles often go unchallenged. Example: depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain - not true. We don't even know what a chemical balance would look like, let alone imbalance. It's all "word magic" - creating illusions of certainty.
• But if you posit a transpersonal or an integral etiology, the editors are all over it. Depression is a very integrally amenable illness with a variety of causes (quadrants, levels, states, stages, etc) and treatments. TP does not really offer this diversity of cause or treatment.

I think this is important - and it related to what Andre was saying about transpersonal states - if Ken says it, then like magic, it is assumed to be true. Many of Ken's ontological statements have gone unchallenged in the integral community, which is why yesterday's panel on critics was so useful.

More from Elliott:

• "Systems of Modern Psychology: A Critical Sketch" - recommended book
  
• The APA (American Psychological Association), ACA (American Counseling Association), and other "bodies" of psychology (boards, journals, etc) all decide what is real within their domains. They dictate the ontological truth. There is no division in the APA for transpersonal psychology.

Ray commented directly on this:

• If IP becomes another division of the APA, the risk is the loss of its unique way of working with clients.

Doug replied to this:

• As long as the people writing our textbooks are first tier, IP/TP will only be individual models among many many. Unless we write the books, IP in particular will not be seen as a meta-theory, an overarching map.

Moving on to a new topic, sort of . . . Jeff made this useful comment:

• Theory is good. But his passion is practice. CBT is useful, as is holotropic breathwork, and other techniques
• CBT can deconstruct a personality as well as any other method - different modalities can all be useful
• The "kosmic address" of the client and the therapist are both important in choosing the modality and in creating the relationship

Janet:

• IP vs TP - maps can help with acceptance - IP has more potential for acceptance because of its mapping and meta-theory - a Trojan Horse approach

Doug:

• Integral is a perspective he uses with clients to bring resources to them - Are there therapies/techniques that are distinctly transpersonal?

Roger:

• Many techniques have been developed to attain transpersonal states/awareness

Janet:

• "Revisioning Transpersonal Psychology" - a more participatory approach, in answer to Doug (and to Andre)
• So far, integral has been more about taking perspectives, more individually focused

[That is a great book, by the way.]

More to come in part two, later tonight. Now I must go see some of the posters.

Tags: Panel, What is the Relationship Between Integral Psychotherapy and Transpersonal Psychotherapy?, Ray Greenleaf, Elliott Ingersoll, Janet Lewis, Andre Marquis, Joanne Rubin, Douglas Tatyryn, Jefferey Jessum, Roger Walsh, #itc2010, mind, Psychology, therapy, transpersonal, consciousness, psychotherapy