Stanislav Grof's System of Holotropic Therapy

Abstract

This paper explores the Holotropic Therapy System of Stanislav Grof. Although Grof's psychotherapeutic system is not well known, it is an important system and, in fact, acts as a theoretical framework within which many better known and more traditional systems of psychotherapy can be located. Grof has always fully recognised the psyche (soul) in psychotherapy, where the trans-egoic experiences tapped during therapeutic sessions facilitate the movement to full psychological health and, from there, to the full utilisation of human potential. An overview will be given, covering origins, underlying theory, the practice and the relationship between Grof's system and more traditional therapies. This will cover the cartography developed by Grof to embrace the range of therapeutic experiences undergone by 4000 clients. These experiences were located by Grof into one of three categories: psychodynamic, perinatal and transpersonal. Grof argues that healing comes about in the reliving of these experiences where they are integrated into adult waking consciousness.