The Emergence of Transpersonal Psychology

Abstract

Transpersonal psychology, as the fourth force in psychology, has emerged from humanistic psychology (the third force) in much the same way that humanistic approaches emerged from their behavioral and analytic foundations. To address the role of transpersonal perspectives within the realm of humanistic psychology seems, therefore, a natural place to begin this discussion, for humanistic psychology represents an openness to all aspects of human nature and human beings: behavior, cognition, and affect as well as transcendent experience. And it is this very openness to experience that makes third force psychology the natural home for existential-phenomenological perspectives. Yet, in spite of this openness, there remains a not-so-subtle resistance to incorporating certain approaches to the understanding of human life and human existence into the humanistic framework, that is, approaches that integrate aspects of ourselves that do not seem part of our more day-to-day conceptual, emotional, and languaged realities—the so-called transpersonal and/or spiritual dimensions.