Transpersonal Psychology: A Comprehensive Overview

This presentation provides a comprehensive overview of transpersonal psychology, a psychological school of thought that incorporates spiritual aspects of human life. It covers the history of transpersonal psychology, its features, benefits, and limitations. The presentation also highlights the difference between transpersonal psychology and existential-humanistic psychology and how it can help individuals achieve their greatest potential.

Transpersonal Psychology
Presentation
By (Student’s Name)
Course Name and Number
Professor Name
Date

Introduction
Transpersonal psychology refers to a psychological school of thought
that is based on the spiritual aspects of human life. It looks at the
whole human experience and incorporates multiple psychology
attributes, theories, and other disciplines such as spiritual traditions,
cognition science, social theory, philosophy, literature, and arts among
others (Friedman et al. 3).
It acknowledges that they are more expansive and intense states of
awareness which human beings experience in certain circumstances.

History of Transpersonal psychology
Transpersonal psychology was founded in the 1960’s by psychologists
Carl Jung, William James, Abraham Maslow, and Roberto Assagioli
(Friedman et al. 23-44). The Psychologists tried to use psychology to get
a deeper understanding of the human being spiritual experiences in
order to help them achieve their greatest potential.
The first publication of transpersonal psychology journal was published
in the year 1969. Later in 1971, the Association of Interpersonal
Psychology was founded, which is a membership organization of
transpersonal psychologists (Friedman et al. 23-44).

Transpersonal psychology versus
Existential-humanistic psychology.
The major similarity between the two is that they both believe in
human potential and are committed to human dignity, therefore, they
are both concerned with the client’s subjective experience(Heine 299-
345).
The difference between the two is that, in transpersonal psychology,
the focus on the spiritual part of human being is implicit as a higher
level of consciousness, while in existential-humanistic psychology there
is little metaphysical commitment.

Features of transpersonal
psychology
It does not have specific methods and tools: This means that it focuses
less on the use of particular procedures or techniques and more on
motivating an intervention (Heider 7-16).
Relationship is essential: the psychologist should create a cordial
relationship with the client during therapy since this relationship is as
important to the client as other relationships (Heider 7-16). This is the
only way a positive change can be discovered
It does not view the therapist as an expert: the therapist acts just as a
facilitator to enable the clients to uncover their own problems and view
possible solutions.

Features continued
There is no judging of other person's experiences: neither the client nor
the therapist is wrong or right. Therefore the therapist should be ready
to accommodate the client’s experiences despite how uncomfortable
they may be (Heider 7-16). This enables the therapist to guide the
client in overcoming the problem.

Benefits of transpersonal
psychology
It provides a deeper understanding of human beings, therefore what
may be viewed by other psychological schools of thought as the
optimal level of human psychology, is by no means the end point
human development in transpersonal psychology (Heine 115-159).
Secondly, transpersonal psychology provides better healing to a client
since it involves meditation and other conscious changing practices that
enable the client to uncover their problem. Once the client knows their
problem they can easily be guided into solving it (Heine 345-401).

Benefits continued
Transpersonal psychology has more flexibility than other fields of
psychology since it does not have fixed approaches, and it involves
maintaining an open mind in the relationship between the client and
the therapist. This flexibility creates an environment that facilitates the
creation of a strong bond between the therapist and the client.
The fourth benefit is that transpersonal psychology is not limited to any
field, instead, it also utilizes principles of other fields which are closely
related to psychology (Thibaut 117).

Limitation of transpersonal
psychology
The major limitation is that transpersonal psychology is mainly based
on the client's disclosure in order to know the problem/experience. The
honesty and quality of the disclosure given by the client can however
be influenced by factors such as the environment, the relationship
between the therapist and client, and the approach used by the
therapist to obtain information from the client (Friedman et al. 3).

Works Cited
Friedman, Harris L., and Glenn Hartelius, eds. The Wiley-Blackwell
handbook of transpersonal psychology. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.
Heider, Fritz. The psychology of interpersonal relations. Psychology
Press, 2013.
Heine, Steven J. Cultural psychology: Third International Student
Edition. WW Norton & company, 2015.
Thibaut, John W. The social psychology of groups. Routledge, 2017.