Transformative Human Development in Contemporary Scholarship

Abstract

This chapter considers contemporary developmental theories that have influenced transpersonal psychology and/or incorporate transpersonal elements, divided into two categories: lifespan theories and research on sudden, transformational change. Since transpersonal psychology inherently treats beyond-ego phenomena, theories of ego development are a central interest, and early transpersonal theory assumed the “vertical” trajectory associated with contemplative paths. Harking back to Austrian psychoanalyst Otto Rank's assumption that human development is a series of separations, the Gravesian model notably alternates individuation and social connection, with both becoming increasingly complex. Wilber's work has generally been ignored or criticized by the academic community at large, not just transpersonalists, for its unwarranted claims, absolutism, shoddy scholarship, misunderstanding of fundamental constructs, and misrepresentation, and after the 1970s, virtually none of it has appeared in peer-reviewed journals. The sudden, transformational change literature—by whatever name and from whichever discipline—because it typically involves altered-state phenomena should be a natural purview of transpersonal psychology.