Alternative and Complementary Medicine Commons^™

The Perceived Impact Of Holotropic Breathwork: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, Felipe Landaeta Farizo

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Holotropic Breathwork (HB) is a method of self-exploration developed by Stanislav and Christina Grof. Research has only just begun to investigate the effects of HB, while the possible influence of the context and other features of HB within the experience and its impact have not been studied in depth. This qualitative study investigated the perceived impact of HB on 6 women and 6 men (ages 25-67) in Chile, using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), an emergent method developed specifically to work with these types of subjective issues. Results revealed 10 major themes involving both intrapsychic and relational features prior, during and …

There's A Duwende On My Shelf: The Parapsychological Studies Of Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, Sj, Carl Lorenz Cervantes

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

In the Filipino transpersonal worldview, the mind is not contained within the brain, and is often projected onto the world as “spirits”. Studying these cultural metaphors may allow for a deeper understanding of the Filipino psyche. Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, SJ, one of the founders of the Psychological Association of the Philippines, studied the projections of the Filipino psyche as they manifested in paranormal phenomena. Bulatao provides the metaphor of eggs frying in a pan as a framework to understand this: the egg whites fuse despite the yolks being far apart. It is in the dissolution of boundaries that transpersonal …

Life Before Birth: A Thematic Analysis Of Memories Of Coming Into Life Part 2: Recollections Of Fetal Life And Birth, Jenny Wade

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This article examines a second set of data produced in a thematic analysis of 68 “earliest memory” narratives submitted to an independent website to explore the question: what do people who claim to remember how they came into the world say about their experience prior to and including birth? Part 1 examined the first and largest subset of the data, narratives of an otherworldly existence consistent with Western reincarnation intermission stage 2 experiences, near-death experience accounts and mythic traditions. This article thematically analyzes descriptions of life in the womb, birth, and apparently veridical out-of-body and other paranormal impressions of events …

Emotion And Judgment In Young Women Of A Society In Transition, Maura A. E. Pilotti, Khadija El Alaoui

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The present study asked whether emotional responses to narratives of moral transgressions are shaped by the reader’s assumed relationship with the injured party (i.e., oneself, familiar other, and unfamiliar other). Its goal was to test a cultural, religious, and individualistic account of such responses in young females of a traditional society in transition towards a sustainable integration into the global economy. To this end, female college students from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were asked to identify their emotional reaction to each of several moral transgressions, report its intensity and then judge the severity of the transgression. In agreement with …

How Perception Meets Hermeneutics: An Empirical Investigation Of Tasseography, Elizabeth Avetisian

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Tasseography is a divination method to provide insight about the seeker’s past, present, or future life by interpreting patterns in the dregs of a liquid. Although it has been practiced with coffee throughout Europe and Middle East, particularly among women, no known studies exist on the seer’s perceptual process of the ambiguous patterns or how the roles of the seeker and seer, symbols, ritual, and cultural epistemology shape the divinatory hermeneutics. This study focused on the Armenian coffee divination ritual, asking what are the processes and conditions that enable experienced cup readers to obtain divinatory insight in tasseography? Two seekers …

What Is Transpersonal Psychology? A Concise Definition Based On 20 Years Of Research, Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Research on definitions of the field of psychology and themes in the literature of the field over a period of 20 years inform this description: Transpersonal psychology is a transformative psychology of the whole person embedded within a diverse, interconnected, and evolving world that pays particular attention to states of consciousness and developmental models reflecting expansion beyond conventional notions of self. Each element of this definition is examined, as well as the four phases of definitional development within the field from its founding in 1968 up to the present.

The Role Of Spiritual Intelligence And Differentiation In Predicting Marital Adjustment Of Married Iranian Students, Sedigheh Ahmadi, Richard H. Morley, Faezeh Ghalebi, Hossein Ilanloo, Christine D. Nguyen

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of spiritual intelligence and differentiation in predicting marital adjustment of Iranian students. The participants of this study were 312 married students from Yazd University. The instruments used in this study were the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) to measure marital adjustment, Differentiation of Self- Inventory, and the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI). The results of the study demonstrated that spiritual intelligence predicted the marital adjustment of married students (p

Transformative, Noetic, And Transpersonal Experiences During Personal Development Workshops, Helané Wahbeh, Cassandra Vieten, Garrett Yount, Agnes Cartry-Jacobsen, Dean Radin, Arnaud Delorme

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The global personal development market was valued at $38.28 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow an additional 5% from 2020 to 2027. Many of these workshops promise to be transformational. This secondary analysis study examined transformative, transpersonal, and noetic aspects of personal development workshops. We found that 74% of post-survey records endorsed that participants experienced a moment of clarity or profound insight during their workshop. In addition, 66% endorsed that participants had experienced at least one noetic experience, and 84% endorsed at least one transpersonal experience. These analyses provide preliminary evidence for the transformational potential of personal development …

Eliciting Awe In The Spectator: The Case Of A Dhrupad-Based Dance Performance, Alfonso Santarpia, Andrée Martin, Armando Menicacci, Pierre De Oliveira, Daniel Lemieux, Laurence Éthier, Caroline Charbonneau, Bruno Pucella, Christophe Flambard, Les Frères Gundecha, Louis-Charles Lusignan, Alice Bourgasser, Élisabeth-Anne Dorléans, Ariane Dubé-Lavigne, Angélique Poulin

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This paper describes “Kalos, eîdos, skopeîn,” an immersive Dhrupad-based dance installation designed to elicit feelings of awe in the spectators, in a real-life artistic context. This study used a mixed-methods approach in order to explore spectators’ awe experience (N=45), using specific scales and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results suggested that “Kalos, eîdos, skopeîn,” with its combination of nature motifs and the slow dance-walk associated with the Dhrupad music in the choreography, was able to produce awe-related moments in some spectators and inspire a degree of positive emotions. Our qualitative results viewed awe explicitly as a positive emotion and showed that generally …

Life Before Birth: A Thematic Analysis Of Memories Of Coming Into Life Part 1: Recollections Of Another Realm, Jenny Wade

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Autobiographic memories prior to birth remain controversial in psychology because such memories are traditionally believed to begin much later when some sense of self is formed. Prenatal sentience, including fetal learning, occurs in species from arthropods to humans, and evidence for autobiographic memories from pre- and neo-natal humans has typically come from clinical case histories of altered-state regression techniques eliciting records from adults or clinical case histories of children in normal states. This thematic analysis examined 68 “earliest memory” narratives submitted to an independent website to explore the question: what do people who claim to remember how they came into …

Emotional Freedom Techniques (Tapping) To Improve Wellbeing And Reduce Anxiety In Primary School Classrooms, Margaret T. Lambert, Sue E. Smith, Simon Moss, Marilynne N. Kirshbaum

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) as a class exercise was investigated to ascertain its effectiveness for student wellbeing. Although EFT has been validated in clinical settings, studies have not yet established whether this approach could be applied in classrooms to curb anxiety and improve wellbeing. A pragmatic, mixed methods study was conducted with 138 students in northern Australian primary schools. Student anxiety dissipated over two stages of intervention. Aside from class tapping sessions, students sometimes tapped surreptitiously, and teachers applied tapping for themselves on occasions. Students generally preferred a quieter, individual approach during class tapping sessions. Broader themes …

Providers’ Perceptions Of Chiropractic Care In Treatment Of Opioid Addiction, Rebekah Jan Khan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Fifteen hundred people in the United States die each week from opioid-related overdoses. In addition, the U.S. court system has been inundated with individuals facing legal proceedings, with opioid addiction, impacted competency, and recidivism. There has been a call for alternatives to address the crisis. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of (addiction) providers regarding chiropractic treatment in the management of opioid addiction. The health belief theory was used to guide the study. Interview data were collected from six participants via Zoom or phone. Thematic analysis resulted in four emergent themes: lack of knowledge of …

Wholistic Healing: The Physician Perspective Of The Tibetan Medical Philosophy, Emma J. Brooks

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In Western medicine, anatomy is divided into multiple disciplines with specialists focused on their specialization, thereby limiting the whole system medical approach within the diagnosis, practice, and treatment of illness. The purpose of this qualitative study with an emergent design was to explore how physicians of Tibetan medicine viewed treating the whole person through the lens of Sowa Rigpa. Inquiry and analytical thinking were viewed through the lens of Otto and Knight’s principles of wholistic healing, Wilber’s integral model, and the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. Phase I consisted of key informant interviews with four participants that were recent graduates of Tibetan …

Equine-Assisted Therapy And Learning Interventions With Youth: A Meta-Analysis And Quasi-Experimental Study., Sarah Lovins

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Equine-assisted psychotherapy interventions have become increasingly used and tested as an alternative or complementary approach with youth. This project presents two studies. The first study consists of an overview of existing reviews and a meta-analysis of controlled and comparison studies on the effectiveness of equine interventions with youth. A comprehensive search and selection procedure produced 3,525 records, from which 56 quantitative studies were identified, and ultimately 16 controlled or comparison studies were selected for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Results showed a statistically significant, medium, and homogenous effect size for the overall effectiveness of equine interventions for youth psycho-social outcomes ( …

College-Age Students' Attitudes Toward Essential Oils, Alternative Medicines, And Modern Medicine, Taylor Nicole Brown

Honors Program Theses

The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the attitudes of college-age students on the use of essential oils, alternative medicines, and modern medicine. Essential oils are natural oils that contain the essence/fragrance of a plant and are often used for cleaning purposes (e.g., in soaps, detergents, disinfectant sprays) and therapeutic purposes (e.g., relieving aches and pains, calming a person, healing illnesses and injuries, improving mood). Although essential oils are primarily used in alternative medicine, some oils have also been used on an experimental basis in modern medical settings (Corner et al., 1995).

College-age students took part in an …

Traditional Healing In Psychology On The Caribbean Island Of Montserrat, West Indies, Yvette Adelcia Cabey

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In Montserrat, traditional healing medicines consist of herbal treatments and customary therapeutic methods such as ritual practices and herbal teas also known as “Bush and Weed” (Duberry, 1973, p.1). The purpose of this study is to discuss herbs known as “Bush,” in Montserrat, and how they benefit psychological wellbeing among the communities in Montserrat. A subsequent intention of this study is to address how an understanding of Montserratian Traditional Healing remedies can be beneficial to Western Psychological practice and enhance the efficacy for psychological healing. The gap in the literature indicates that few studies are examining mental health methods in …

A Call To Create: Poetry As Healing And One Nurse’S Self-Discovery, Kim Cornett Henry, Kim Cornett Henry

English Theses

Florence Nightingale’s vision for nursing has changed greatly in the past one hundred and fifty years, with nursing’s identity replaced with an emphasis on science over caring. The fast-paced, technologically sophisticated environments, designed to meet the declining health of an American public, have resulted in nurses who are being pulled away from nurse-to-patient caring acts and the reasons they felt called to become nurses. These changes have had detrimental psychological and emotional effects on nurses and are especially evident in Intensive Care nurses. Expressive writing as poetry, autoethnography, and participation in vibrant writing communities offer nurses experiences for healing, voice, …

Table Of Contents—Masthead

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

N/A

The Origin (And Future) Of Transpersonal Psychology In An Open Scientific Naturalism, Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

A number of scholars well known within transpersonal psychology appear to be converging on open scientific naturalism as a philosophically and methodologically fruitful framework for transpersonal and related fields. This builds on the nascent open naturalism evidenced in the early years of transpersonal psychology, before it entered its metaphysical phase (ca. 1975 to 2000). Since it is necessary for science to assume some kind of world within which it is possible to do science, and not every aspect of that assumed world can be subjected to processes of empirical investigation, some of these necessary background assumptions are unavoidably metaphysical. However, …

Exceptional Human Experiences Among Pilgrims On The Camino De Santiago: A Study Of Self-Reported Experiences And Transformative Aftereffects, Miran Lavrič, Snežana Brumec, Andrej Naterer

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is an extraordinary endeavour that tends to trigger exceptional human experiences. Following our previous investigation of this topic, we conducted an online survey of 501 pilgrims in order to assess the frequency of different exceptional experiences (EEs) on the pilgrimage and their transformative aftereffects (TAs) in everyday life afterwards. More than 70% of the respondents reported improvement in terms of self-confidence, personal relationships and letting go of emotional “baggage”. The results show strong correlations between the observed EEs and the (consequent) TAs. We contend that walking the Camino de Santiago often produces exceptional experiences that …

Effects Of Brief Daily Kundalini Yoga Meditation On Self-Esteem, Mood And Emotional Self-Efficacy: A Randomized Comparison Study, Sonia Romero Martinez, Andrés Dueñas, Xavier Ordoñes

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This randomized comparison study measured the impact of brief daily use of two types of kundalini yoga meditation from the Yogi Bhajan lineage on self-esteem, regulatory emotional self-efficacy, and positive and negative affect in a non-clinical sample of 46 Spanish-speaking adults residing in Spain. Results of the two meditation types—Kirtan Kriya and Internal Conflict Resolution—are compared. Results showed that both types of meditation had positive impacts on all study variables, though the degree of change and effect size depended on the type of meditation used. Results point to these relevant forms of brief daily meditation as simple and inexpensive tools …

Tripping In The Moment: The Spiritual Journey Of Baba Ram Dass, Charles S. Hamilton

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Ram Dass, the iconic, countercultural, spiritual seeker, brought the wisdom of the East to those of us in the West through his many books and frequent, charismatic dharma talks. This view of his spiritual journey describes the transformation of Richard Alpert, clinical psychologist and product of the Western milieu’s often-shackling conventional expectations, into Ram Dass, the free, embodied soul who, through explication and example, and with witnessing attention, tries to guide us all to the always present abode of loving awareness. Ram Dass’s idea of self in existence was transformed: first, from a psychological object of clinical study, to a …

Book Review: Decoding Jung's Metaphysics: The Archetypal Semantics Of An Experiential Universe, Nicholas G. Boeving

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

N/A

Using Legos® In Research Facilitation: An Advanced Scripted Research Method, Samuel W. Root

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Transpersonal research methods can help individuals access useful information and material that typically reside out of conscious awareness. The playful activity of LEGO® block-building can be adapted for research purposes and used to overcome research impasses, for example. This paper presents a novel transpersonal LEGO® building process for facilitation in each of the four major phases of research. Readers are provided with a 6-step script that takes between 30 minutes and 1 hour to complete. Steps include: Prepare to Exercise; Set Intentions; Build While Intending Solution; Appreciate/Take In; Project and Actively Imagine; and Reflect and Ease Out. Future studies could …

The Luminous Night Of The Soul: The Relationship Between Lucid Dreaming And Spirituality, Tadas Stumbrys

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Lucid dreams, in which the dreamers are aware that they are dreaming, can be a source of spiritual and mystical experiences. This empirical study aimed to explore the relationship between lucid dreaming and spirituality, taking into account the role of mystical lucid dream experience, in an online sample of 471 respondents, 95% of whom had lucid dream experience and 65% were frequent lucid dreamers. The findings support the relationship between lucid dreaming and spirituality: spiritual transcendence was positively associated with both lucid dream frequency and mystical lucid dream experiences. Thus having recurrent lucid dreams and mystical experiences in them may …

Going Berserk, Running Amok, And The Extraordinary Capabilities And Invulnerability Of Battle Trance, Jenny Wade

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Battle trance, which evolved from instinctive defensive and offensive behaviors for close combat, involves socially transgressive processes like becoming-intense and becoming-animal that produce non-ordinary psychophysical states useful in fighting. Berserkergang (going berserk) is one of the best attested types of battle trance and the latest in a long history of Indo-European ecstatic warrior cults, but the state has been identified cross-culturally in consecrated holy amok warriors and in juramentado. Colonial interpretations for centuries have tended to denigrate such fighting styles, even though they involve discipline, spiritual dedication, and altruistic self-sacrifice, especially by falsely attributing such states to intoxication or insanity. …

A Consideration Of Transpersonal Research Methods For Studying Yoga And Mindfulness In Schools, Bethany Butzer

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Over the past decade, interest in yoga and mindfulness in schools has grown tremendously, with preliminary research suggesting that these interventions may have a variety of positive effects on youth. However, some quantitative studies of school-based yoga and mindfulness have reported null and/or counterintuitive effects, such as increases in perceived stress, negative affect and psychological symptoms. In addition, some mixed-methods studies that combined quantitative and qualitative approaches have found inconsistent results, with the quantitative outcomes failing to show statistical significance, while students report benefits of yoga and mindfulness in qualitative interviews/focus groups. These inconsistent findings suggest that the field of …

Book Review (Ije 3.1), Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Poem: Rat Jam, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

American Letters: Mencken, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.