Blog | Alexandra McGee

Transpersonal Psychology Matters!

Post #1: On healing

Transpersonal Psychology is about the psychology that goes beyond your ego. A Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinad said, “The self is itself when and only when it is for the other”. He was a philosopher who argued for an ethics first philosophy. He emphasized the primacy of our responsibility to the other people, community and the environment in our lives. This is one of the fundamental aspects of transpersonal psychology.

I have worked as a spiritual counselor, a psychotherapist and a life coach. I'm currently studying a PhD in transpersonal psychology.

I want to give some short talks on transpersonal psychologY that hopefully can give others something that can help them have some ideas of what to do in the face of possible trials ahead. Transpersonal psychology holds the premise that how you feel about the people you know and the people you don't know as my son Christopher used to say,is what will determine your mood, your mental and physical health, and the extent to which you will thrive, no matter what your circumstances are.

Start with a thought about a person who made you feel loved. Even if it was just a short while that they were in your life. Let those neural pathways of your brain reverie around that person. See them in your mind's eye. Remember their voice. Remember the things they said to you; how you felt when you were the focus of their attention. Sometimes we lose the people who made us feel loved. But we can preserve their love in our memories. And that is actually good for your health, as if they were right here, right now. So, stay with that person for a minute.

Take some deep breaths to allow their presence to permeate your whole nervous system.

Now, think of someone whom you know, appreciated your attention. Maybe it's a child or a grandchild. Maybe it was a stranger you opened a door for. Maybe it was a customer or a client who appreciated your help. Or maybe it was someone in need that you happened to help, but they didn't even say thank you.

But, you know that they were helped by you.

So say thank you to the part of you that respected and honored a part of them. Let that part of you know that you are grateful to have a loving part that wants to make others happy. Even if that part does it a little too much, sometimes it still is a beautiful part that has been kind.

And if you are concerned that your circumstances are going to get worse, or not get better soon. Be mindful of the part of you that holds love from the person who loved you and the part of you that is available to show love and kindness to the next person you meet where you have the opportunity to do that. If you can hold on to those parts of you that feel loved and know how to give love you will feel richer than Elon Musk, who can't be feeling very well right now. So, talk to you soon. Friday and Sunday are my days off.

But I'm going to try to give some little nugget on my work days.

Transpersonal Psychology Matters.

Post #2: On growing

Metamodernism:

I'll start with a bit of an explanation of what that means, and then at the end we'll have a short meditation. A bit like the one you had in the last episode to help you apply these ideas.

So, transpersonal psychology has a perspective on life that is different than objectivist modernism or relativistic post-modernism. Transpersonal psychology acknowledges that there is both subjective experience and objective concreteness. In a new philosophical perspective called metamodernism, transpersonal psychology considers subjective experience and objective concreteness to both be part of reality. For subjective experience to occur, you need a witness or observer or doer.

This subjective eperiencers and objective concreteness co-create reality. It happens in an instance.

In a continuously evolving present, sometimes, the experience feels good to the subjective being. Sometimes it feels bad or evil. And due to our childhood experiences, a person may have a propensity for seeing the cup half full or seeing it half empty. And this then affects their subjective experience of different events.

So, the purpose of psychotherapy is to heal, grow, and thrive. In these participatory co-creative moments, transpersonal psychology gives psychotherapy the chance to facilitate change through a co-creation in the moment. So, think of something that makes you sad or anxious or fearful or angry. Sit with it for a moment.

Try to breathe normally. Neither holding your breath nor hyperventilating or breathing too deeply. Allow yourself to notice the various feelings and thoughts surfacing. Name, the feelings, and if possible, quote the thoughts. See them as various parts of you floating in the mix of this particular event. Now acknowledge that you are allowed to co-create this event with the objective reality into a new reality that is a transformation of your current consciousness.

That's what we're gonna do now. So, ask yourself. How have you dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with this kind of event in the past? So, we're going to do two different actions depending on which answer you came up with. If an unsuccessful experience, that would be a feeling of evil is prominent as you think of your dealing with this event in the past.

Notice the part of you that felt that. Notice its age. Its resources. Or lack of resources. Its fears and its pain. And sit with it for the purpose of comforting it. Let it know that right now. As you are listening to this podcast, you are not in that troubled situation. You are safe.

And that you are calm. And let it be comforted by your presence. Spend some time with that younger part of you. And discuss what you would do right now as an adult for that younger part in that situation. You can pause the episode if you need to. Work out a plan where you are the successful caretaker of this part of you, that in the past was unable to overcome the darkness.

This can bring healing to that part. Perhaps instead, what came up for you when you thought about this event in the past was a successful dealing with it. Remember how you felt when you overcame it? Notice the details of what happened and what you did. Rejoice with that part of you that knew steps to take to keep you safe or to accomplish something necessary or important.

Now, come back to your current situation and see if there are any possibilities for applying some of those tactics in your current situation. Allow your mind to reverie on how you can work with the current difficulty.

This is your opportunity to co-create your reality rather than being stuck in defensive modes that are outdated and unhelpful in the present. This allows for growth into maturity of the various parts of you that need to interact with this particular darkness. So, that's all for today. In another episode, soon we will touch on thriving.

Heal, Grow Thrive are three goals of transpersonal psychology as I see it.

Transpersonal Psychology Matters

Post #3: On Thriving

Transpersonal psychology was dubbed the fourth force of psychology by Abraham Maslow.

Maslow was prominent in what he called the third Force humanistic psychology. Humanistic psychology took a positive view of human nature. This was a change from the original psychology of psychoanalysis.

Psychoanaysis, which Freud more or less started, became a rather pathologizing psychology, where the client had all sorts of drives that pushed them to hysteria, neurosis, or psychosis. The fact that Freud turned away from his original understanding of trauma induced reactions in his clients and that he turned to internal drives that led to bad behavior is a story for another podcast.

Although Freud's theory of drives is generally not accepted by most psychologists today, tere does remain a skill developed by Freud and later Jung and others.that would be called depth psychology.

Depth psychology is the practice of facilitating the client to bring the unconscious thoughts and feelings from the past into present consciousness. This practice in Psychology continues to this day in many forms in most psychology practices.

The second force in psychology was Behaviorism, which was an attempt to bring more scientific empirical evidence to psychology. Then the cognitive Revolution with behaviorism brought the study of psychology back to include the mind. Cognitive behavioral therapy was developed out of this revolution in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century.

CBT is still used today fruitfully.

Humanism, the third force in Psychology, grew out of a desire to understand the positive traits of humans. It was a bit of a rebellion against determinism and a mechanistic view of human behavior. Maslow's pyramid became a tool for understanding a general order of choice and development in human behavior.

The peak of the pyramid was called self-actualization. This was considered the time when a person has already learned skills to be safe to provide for themselves to survive physically. And so actualization is a focus on the mind and human potential. It included love relationship, but with a centering on the individual's accomplishment in these areas.

Maslow became dissatisfied with self-actualization as the highest level of psychological development. Along with some others, including stanislav Groff and Ken Wilbur, Maslow founded transpersonal psychology as the fourth force of psychology.

I gave some definitions of transpersonal psychology in episodes one and two. In this episode, I will quote Roberts and Winkelmann, who wrote about "self-expansiveness" as the main topic of interest in transpersonal psychology.

In their chapter written in the Wily Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology, published in 2013, these authors focused on Grof's empirical research on psychedelic drugs and altered states of consciousness. Now, I won't be talking about psychedelics in this podcast because I have not included psychedelics or other drugs in any of my counseling practice.

But the therapeutic effects of psychedelics are also achievable through non-pharmacological psychotherapy, and that includes depth psychology practices such as meditation and imaginal thinking, as well as some others.

We did this together very briefly in the first and second episodes of the podcast. There are many altered states of consciousness.

There's the normal waking state that we normally think of as consciousness, but there's also sleeping and dreaming, imagining meditating. These different states are measurable by the speed of the brain waves. The theta brain waves are slow waves and are induced by both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical methods.

The Theta brain wave state allows for a loosening up of rigid defense patterns in the brain and also an openness to emotion and pain that has been suppressed or "exiled", as it ix called in the internal family systems model of psychotherapy that I've been trained in.

Because these altered brain States can also include feelings and experiences that include other people such as being in love, or Community at a sports event l, or sacred experiences of closeness to God in worship or prayer, or oneness with nature. These different states are considered beyond ego psychological experiences, hence the name transpersonal, beyond the personal psychology.

Instead of a mini meditation here at the end, I'll leave you with a question. What activities in your life have brought you a sense of joy, aliveness, emotional, high flow, spiritual awareness, community oneness, or a desire to hug a tree. All of these are transpersonal experiences.

Working with people in counseling since 1986 has also been a transpersonal experience for me. So, where do you currently want to go beyond your own ego and participate in making the world a better place? That kind of thriving is where transpersonal psychology can take you.