
The term “transpersonal psychology” was first introduced by humanistic psychologists such as Victor Frankl and Abraham Maslow in the 1960s.
As a field of study, transpersonal psychology is concerned with the totality of human experience, aiming to integrate spiritual and transcendent elements within the framework of modern psychological science.
Unlike other traditions, it values wholeness, and sees an individual’s wellbeing as inseparable from, and interconnected with, the entire pattern of being of which they are apart. According to the transpersonal view, your mental health doesn’t just exist “in your head” as many other approaches assume.
Instead, transpersonal psychology views human beings in the broadest possible context; taking mental, spiritual, emotional, physical, and social considerations into account.
Transpersonal approaches are increasingly being utilised in a wide range of psychological therapies to help clients heal, self-actualise, and live with a greater sense of meaning, purpose, and connection in day-to-day life.
In this online conference, we’ll explore three of these approaches, with talks on:
You’ll learn how these insights can benefit your own life, but also your ability to help others too.
The presentation gives a brief introduction to Frankl’s life and work, my collaboration with him, and the background development of Frankl’s Logotherapy. With this meaning-centered approach, Frankl made a substantial contribution to psychotherapy. Then will be outlined how it came to a new onset through a process-oriented different paradigm on the basis of strict use of phenomenological openness. This led to a complex, fourfold motivation theory in which meaning and becoming are just one existential motivation, besides securing and expanding one’s being, enriching one’s life with pleasure and values, and finding and asserting oneself by encounter.
The development of these four dimensions of existence laid the ground for fully-fledged psychotherapy: the modern Existential Analysis which provides broad access to the treatment of psychic suffering. We will outline the key to a fulfilling life, together with a short glimpse into the work with these existential motivations, including giving a tool to how individuals can live with a greater sense of meaning and purpose in their life.
Alfried LÄNGLE, M.D., Ph.D., Dr. h.c.mult., professor and honorary professor, was born in 1951 in Austria where he still lives. He studied medicine and psychology at the Universities of Innsbruck, Rome, Toulouse, and Vienna. After years of hospital work in general medicine and psychiatry and in an outpatient department of social psychiatry, in 1982 he started a private practice in psychotherapy, general medicine, and clinical psychology in Vienna.
At the same time, he came into close collaboration with Viktor Frankl (1983-1991). He assisted Frankl’s lectures at the university for years and worked together with him in many relevant fields of Logotherapy. He is the founder and president (1983-2017) of the International Society for Logotherapy and Existential Analysis in Vienna (www.existenzanalyse.org), whose honorary president was Viktor Frankl until 1990. By this date, Frankl resigned from his honorary presidency because of Längle’s new developments in the field of existential analysis (methods, implication of existential self-experience in the training and seminars, rejecting the exclusive use of the meaning paradigm in psychotherapy and enlarging its theoretical basis, implementation of biographical work). Dr. Längle is a Professor at the University of Vienna (Sigmund Freud University), Klagenfurt and Moscow (HSE). He has over 400 publications, 2 honorary doctorships, and 6 honorary professorships, as well as a gold medal from the Republic of Austria for scientifically high contributions.
Psychedelic therapy is at a historic moment, as the US state of Oregon prepares to legalize it next year, and other US states look set to follow. Companies preparing to offer psychedelic therapy have raised over $5 billion on US stock markets. Hundreds of people are training to be psychedelic therapists or facilitators, and thousands more are on waiting lists for training programs.
What shape will the psychedelic future take and what opportunities do they hold for patients and practitioners?
What theories underline psychedelic therapy?
What are the risks?
This talk will be in four parts. First, it will look at the history of psychedelic therapy, focusing particularly on the 1950s and early 1960s in the US. Second, it will look at the contemporary psychedelic renaissance, and how it builds on the research ideas of the 1950s and 60s. Third, it will speculate on how the field will develop into two different paths – medicalized psychedelic therapy, and psychedelic spirituality. Fourth, it will consider difficult psychedelic experiences and the challenge of integration.
Jules Evans is an honorary research fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London. He also teaches the History of Psychedelics at the Synthesis Institute in Holland. He is the author of Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations (2012), The Art of Losing Control (2017) and Holiday from the Self (2019) and the co-editor of Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergency (2021). You can sign up for his newsletter at www.philosophyforlife.org
Within us, the dim cavern of the unconscious holds our forbidden feelings, secret wishes, destructive impulses, and creative urges. Over time, these “dark” forces take on a life of their own, forming the Shadow. A recurring theme in literature and legend, the Shadow is like an invisible twin, a stranger that is us, yet not us. When it acts out, we hurt ourselves or others.
As we bring it into awareness with shadow-work, it loses its grip on us and we experience deeper self-knowledge, greater authenticity, and greater choice over our thoughts and behaviors. We also discover that the contents of the Shadow are not all bad; even our undeveloped gifts, talents, and dreams lie dormant there–the gold in the dark side.
This talk will explore the formation of shadow in childhood, the common ways we encounter the shadow in life, and how to “romance” it, or make a conscious relationship with it.
The Shadow is not a problem to be solved; it’s a mystery to be faced.
Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow, author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality, and a novel entitled ‘A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi’. Her new book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends shadow-work into late life and teaches aging as a spiritual practice.
Connie has been doing contemplative practices for 50 years. She is a wife and grandmother and was initiated as an Elder by Sage-ing International in 2017. After investing in all these roles, she is practicing the shift from role to soul.
Access the recordings for this conference, including:
Price: £29
Want unlimited access to 5 years of fascinating psychology conferences? (200+ sessions.)
Want access to the recordings and event materials for this conference?