Scope and Outline
Routledge eBooks November 26, 2021 DOI: 10.4324/9781003196068-2 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | The chapter proposes that modern Transpersonal Psychology is defined by three themes—a "beyond-ego psychology of self-expansiveness," an "integrative whole-person psychology," and "a psychology of transformative process"—and argues that its subject matter includes transpersonal experience, transformative capacities, and exceptional experiences. It contends that exceptional experiences are natural phenomena amenable to scientific study and that parapsychology is a transpersonal concern contributing to the field's scientific foundations. |
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the definitions of Transpersonal Psychology and the subject matter of the field. The first part of the chapter begins by briefly describing four thematic analyses of published descriptions of Transpersonal Psychology conducted between 1991 and 2007. It then explores three themes that have come to define modern Transpersonal Psychology as a “beyond-ego psychology of self-expansiveness,” “an integrative whole-person psychology,” and “a psychology of transformative process.” The second part of the chapter provides a brief outline of the subject matter that comprises the content domain of the field. This includes transpersonal (awakening) experience, human transformative capacities, and exceptional experiences. This is followed by a discussion of how exceptional experiences (EEs) become exceptional human experiences (EHEs), the benefits of writing and reading a (scientific) EHE autobiography, and why EEs are natural phenomena that can be studied by scientific methods. The chapter then focuses on why parapsychology is a transpersonal concern. It examines the parapsychology of transpersonal phenomena, the parapsychology of spirituality, and how experimental parapsychology contributes to the scientific foundations of the field. The chapter ends with an experiment in psychological time (Psy-Time).