Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research (SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology)

very good

Good

Excellent book; Grof on his usual form. Every home should have one, failing that, every home should have a book by him!

Great book!

Grof has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the transpersonal world and it shows. His most original contribution is uncovering the psychology of the perinatal. He demonstrates convincingly that the psyche of the new born is not a tabula rasa and that the complex journey towards birth leaves powerful imprints on our adult psyche. Thus the mother infant relationship explored by Klein is not the starting point for the development of the psyche. His work on the perinatal levels of the psyche were developed and described in his previous book on his LSD research. His other main contribution is the development of a method - holotropic breathwork - to access higher levels of consciousness and the transpersonal world. He is able to add depth and colour to Jung's concept of the collective unconscious.This is a useful book, but he is weakest on psychiatric matters, is clearly very out of date and overstates his case when proposing a new model for the understanding of psychiatric disorders. If he can express such strong opinions on the basis of contempt and ignorance, it casts doubt on his other assertions. His railing against the establishment becomes wearisome through repetition.

An accessible and comprehensive overview of the work of Stanislav Grof, one of the founders of transpersonal psychology.