Inner Road Maps of the Psyche: An Interview with Robert L. Hutchins

Abstract

© JACK TALES Inner o* WieP ^n M1]HVWl -VcVi JVaìACTKVÌ Gurney Norman and Robert Hutchins request that you read the two reprinted folk tales and the tape transcription of Marshall Ward's version of one of the reprints, before you read their interview. 27 INNER ROAD MAPS OF THE PSYCHE An Interview with Robert L. Hutchins by Gurney Norman Robert Hutchins has recently completed his doctoral studies in psychology at the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He is a native ofBerea, Kentucky and a graduate of Berea College. Nancy RosserHutchins is an artist and afree-lance illustrator who holds a masters degree in Transpersonal Psychology. A majorfocus of her work is doing commissioned paintings called "Symbolic Portraits" for individuals. Gurney Norman is afiction writer who teaches creative writing at the University of Kentucky. Thefollowing interview was conducted in a marathon session in Hutchins Library at Berea in January ofthisyear, and recently edited by Gurney Norman andRobert Hutchins. Nancy Rosser Hutchins did the illustrations used in thisfolklore section. NORMAN: Hutch, you're a Kentuckian who, along with your wife Nancy, went to California in the late 1970s to study psychology at a place called CITP. Tell us about CITP. What kind of school is it? 28 HUTCHINS: The California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology is in Menlo Park, California. Eleven years ago it was the first graduate school to offer a doctorate in Transpersonal Psychology and it is still the foremost school in Transpersonal Psychology in the world. NORMAN: What is Transpersonal Psychology? HUTCHINS: Transpersonal Psychology is the study of optimum health and wellness. It integrates previous forms of psychology into a larger context. It is both an extension of the depth psychology of Freud and Jung, and of the humanistic psychology of Maslow and Rogers. It also includes theory and practices from the mystical psychologies of the world's great religions. In 1969 Abraham Maslow (the past president of the American Psychological Association) and others established Transpersonal Psychology as a field of psychology extending beyond the "I," the ego personality, to include selfactualization and the higher reaches of human nature. Transpersonal Psychology sees the ego personality not as an end in itself but as a tool to be understood and placed in service of the soul, spirit, or higher self. NORMAN: So Transpersonal Psychology is a kind of spiritual psychology that focuses on health and human potential? HUTCHINS: Yes, and it also includes the study of the pathological side of human existence as well. NORMAN: What was the program like at CITP? HUTCHINS: The program was similar to the Greek ideal of a healthy mind in a healthy body. The model we used was to study in five different areas: intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual, and community. We took courses in each of these areas. The expectation was that in each we would develop a daily spiritual practice or something that we were doing regularly. So the learning was both cognitive in the usual academic sense and experiential in that we were living the learning in our lives. NORMAN: How did your time at CITP differ from your previous academic experiences ? HUTCHINS: In my other educational experiences I was somewhat alienated from the learning process. I was always learning something for someone else. This was not true at CITP. The learning there was actually in service of my deeper self and my deeper needs. It was often difficult, the most rigorous training I have ever received I got at CITP. At the same time, CITP was the scene of many of my most joyous learning experiences. NORMAN: Describe for us one of your major learnings. HUTCHINS: Probably one of my most profound personal learnings is the ongoing process of coming to know and befriend my own feelings. I know this may sound strange, but it's not. In fact I am typical of many American men. My feelings were so bottled up inside that I hardly knew they were there. The premise at CITP is that in order to be of assistance to others you have to begin the process of healing yourself. So a lot of my work at CITP was focused in the emotional/clinical area, both in giving...