Transpersonal Psychology Commons^™

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Iv. Carl Jung's Archetypal Imagination As Futural Planetary Neo-Shamanism, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This series of papers on early anticipations of a spiritual New Age ends with Carl Jung’s version of a futural planetary-wide unus mundus rejoining person and cosmos, based on his psychoid linkage of quantum physics and consciousness, and especially on the neo-shamanic worldview emerging out of his spirit guided initiation in the more recently published Red Book. A cognitive-psychological re-evaluation of Jung’s archetypal imagination, the metaphoricity of his alchemical writings, and a comparison of Jung and Levi-Strauss on mythological thinking all support a contemporary view of Jung’s active imagination and mythic amplification as a spiritual intelligence based on a formal …

“You Can Catch More Flies With Honey Than Vinegar”: Objectification Valence Interacts With Women’S Enjoyment Of Sexualization To Influence Social Perceptions, Abigail R. Riemer, Jill Allen, Marco Gullickson, Sarah Gervais

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Although objectification is a common experience for women (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), little is understood about how women perceive sources of objectifying commentary and behaviors. The current work provides a novel integration of objectification and consistency theories to understand how valence of sexual objectification and women’s feelings about sexual attention interact to predict perceptions of objectifying sources. In two online vignette studies with 121 and 110 U.S. women recruited through MTurk, female participants were asked to recall an experience of complimentary or critical objectification and report perceptions of source warmth, approach behavioral intentions, perceived overlap between the self and the …

Learning Together To Heal: Toward An Integrated Practice Of Transpersonal Psychology, Experiential Learning, And Neuroscience For Collective Healing, Tatsushi Arai, Jean Bosco Niyonzima

Peace and Conflict Studies

This essay brings together complementary insights from transpersonal psychology, experiential learning, and neuroscience to develop an integrated framework of psychosocial healing in societies affected by conflict and trauma. While transpersonal psychology examines the spiritual and transcendental aspects of psychosocial wellbeing, research on experiential learning examines how people learn from direct experience. Recognizing that both are useful for psychosocial healing, the first part of the essay explores how the two sets of activities can complement each other. Of particular interest is the role of transpersonal exercises such as yoga and meditation, as well as the purposeful use of experiential learning techniques …

Relational Inquiry: Seven-Years Practicing Seven Relationships, Gregg Lahood

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Greetings from Byron Bay—what follows is a postcard version of a seven-year cycle of relational inquiry retrospectively nicknamed The Rainbow of Desire. I outline our practices, explore five basic fields in our approach to new paradigm research, and present an updated version of my seven relationships model as a heuristic for understanding and participating in relational inquiry. As a contemporary spiritual expression, with roots in the Greek-Socratic tradition of research, and informed by Gestalt practice (not psychotherapy), this account may also be of value for persons interested in further Gestalt-transpersonal inquiry, research, and learning.

Transpersonal Dimensions In Islamic Spirituality, Nikos Yiangou

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

The Sufi tradition that arose within Islam describes a compelling and varied map of the self and its transformations. Over the span of a millennium of practice and discourse, Sufis have explored and detailed the stages of the journey of selftransformation towards their ultimate aim of union with the One. Their models of the spiritual journey and of the emergent transpersonal self, extensively contextualized in phenomenology, epistemology, theology and ontology, offer singular insights into a richly detailed holistic psychology of self-realization and the making of the complete human.

The Relationship Between Frequency Of Yoga And Meditation On Ptsd Symptoms In Individuals Who Have Experienced Intimate Partner Violence, Kimberly Polignani

Dissertations

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has become a growing phenomenon in the United States,

affecting nearly 13% of the population. The adverse mental health outcomes from people who experience IPV are prevalent and more than half have a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore, therapeutic techniques for PTSD appear to be feasible for IPV survivors and their mental health issues. Complementary and alternative medicine has become a widely accepted approach for PTSD. Being two complementary and alternative medicine techniques, yoga and meditation are effective forms of therapy in many diagnoses, including PTSD. This study utilized a not-for-profit organization called the …

Amigeist: A New Extreme Love Phenomenon, Jeffrey Sundberg

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Falling in love may begin with an inescapable, uncontrollable, transformative experience of intense emotions and intrusive thoughts, such as limerence. Romantic love researchers have tended to lump extreme love into pathology. Transpersonal psychology was chosen as the lens to examine an extreme occurrence of falling in love for its transformational and spiritual potential using a phenomenological approach. Twenty-five U.S. born participants, age 30 or older, reported experiencing a highly intense and deeply significant romantic love occurrence. Results revealed a unique experience with limited correlations to limerence. The new phenomenon is called amigeist, characterized by immediate, intense soul-mate bonding, such as …

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Ii. Wilhelm Reich As Transpersonal Psychologist Part 2: The Futural Promise Of Reich’S Naturalistic Bio-Energetic Spirituality, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This is the second part of a consideration of the later Wilhelm Reich as anticipating a future planetary-wide “New Age” form of this-worldly spirituality in ways overlapping with figures from the same era of Western crisis from the 1930s through the 1950s, including Jung, Toynbee, Bergson, Heidegger, Teilhard de Chardin, and Simone Weil. Where the first part of this treatment of Reich as transpersonal psychologist traced his evolution from his bio-energetic psychotherapy to a Weberian this-worldly mysticism of a universal life energy, his cosmic orgone, with its attendant features of conflicted “spiritual emergency,” this second paper seeks to further develop …

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Ii. Wilhelm Reich As Transpersonal Psychologist. Part I: Context, Development, And Crisis In Reich’S Bio-Energetic Spiritual Psychology, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Wilhelm Reich is the focus of this second in a series of papers on a group of independent figures from the 1930s into the 1950s—also including Jung, the later Heidegger, Toynbee, Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin, and Simone Weil—who in the context of those years of crisis articulated overlapping visions of a future “New Age” spirituality that might in some more distant future serve to balance and even transform a globalizing materialism and disenchantment with traditional religion. The later Reich developed a highly original version of a “vitalistic” transpersonal psychology, as his “religion for the children of the future,” which needs …

Religion And Spirituality In Clinical Practice: An Exploration Of Reluctance Among Practitioners., David Drew, Jessica Banks

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Across the United States, an overwhelming majority of the population claim that religion and spirituality beliefs shape their worldview and assist in coping with life stressors. Yet, the literature has shown that mental health practitioners reported discomfort integrating religion and spiritually in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to explore whether license-holding mental health professionals in Southern California develop reluctance toward addressing religion/spirituality with their clients. Through snowball sampling, 52 clinicians composed of social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, nurses, psychologists, and psychiatrists were recruited across Southern California (N =52). The participants were measured descriptively based on …

Dance/Movement Therapy As Influence On Sense Of Self: A Community Engagement Project, Jasmine Yahid

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This community engagement project seeks to explore the influence of dance/movement therapy and authentic movement techniques on one’s sense of self. This project focused on these techniques as an approach toward self-actualization and finding one’s essence. This study considered the potential implications of these practices on populations whose bodily experience can be perceived as a barrier toward self-actualization, such as in eating disorders and trauma. Six expressive therapy students from Lesley University participated in two sessions of dance/movement therapy. This included: a movement-exploration warm up, authentic movement, and a visual artistic representation of their perceived essence based on the experiential. …

Watering Black Roots: Exploring Black Ecological Identity Development Within Nature-Based Expressive Arts Therapy, Stormy Saint-Val

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Nature-based expressive arts therapy promotes the holistic healing and recovery of individuals by interweaving the practices of ecopsychology, ecotherapy, and expressive arts therapy. These interventions have been proven to mediate ranges of symptomologies, such as anxiety disorders and PTSD. Research conducted by the U.S. National Park Services indicates that African- Americans are less likely to have a positive relationship to nature than all other racial groups. The amplification of this report without introspection of its context perpetuates racialized generalizations. This can limit a black individual’s ability to embrace their ecological identity and be receptive of nature-based expressive arts therapy interventions. …

Traversing Mass Tragedies: Material Religion Between The 9/11 And Newtown Memorials, Kate Deconinck

Journal of Global Catholicism

In keeping with recent anthropologists and scholars of religion who are re-imagining the phenomenon of pilgrimage as including more than just journeys to traditional “religious” sites, this article focuses on visitation to multiple sites of remembrance associated with mass tragedies. At the same time, my interest lies not only in the human actors who move between different memory sites, but also in the things that journey alongside or independent of them. In this article, I trace the movement of one particular object—an angel statue—that was initially created to memorialize individuals killed in the September 11 attacks and was later gifted …

Back To Belonging: Nature Connection And Expressive Arts Therapy In The Treatment Of Trauma And Marginalization, Jesse Newcomb

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

There is increasing research on the benefits of incorporating nature-based approaches into mental health. This can be done in myriad ways both in and out of the counseling office. This literature review focuses on the benefits of incorporating nature as co-therapist and kin rather than only material or metaphor, particularly in the treatment of people who have experienced trauma and or marginalization. According to Herman (1997), wounds made relationally must be healed relationally, and the literature reviewed in this paper suggests that connection with the “more-than-human” world (Abram, 1996), and coming back into a sense belonging in the larger web …

Why Girls? The Importance Of Developing Gender-Specific Health Promotion Programs For Adolescent Girls, Amanda Birnbaum, Tracy R. Nichols

Amanda Birnbaum

Adolescence is a time when many girls begin to develop unhealthy behaviors that can affect myriad short- and long-term health outcomes across their lifespan.2There is evidence that smoking, physical activity, and diet are habituated during adolescence, and some physiologic processes of adolescence, such as peak bone mass development, have direct effects on future health.3-4 Establishing healthy practices, beliefs and knowledge among adolescent girls will decrease morbidity and mortality among adult women and potentially affect the health of men and children through women’s role as healthcare agents. This paper provides a brief review of lifestyle health behaviors among women and girls …

Self-Management Strategies Mediate Self-Efficacy And Physical Activity, Amanda Birnbaum, Rod K. Dishman, Robert W. Motl, James F. Sallis, Andrea L. Dunn, Greg J. Welk, Ariane L. Yung, Carolyn C. Voorhees, Jared B. Jobe

Amanda Birnbaum

Self-efficacy theory proposes that girls who have confidence in their capability to be physically active will perceive fewer barriers to physical activity or be less influenced by them, be more likely to pursue perceived benefits of being physically active, and be more likely to enjoy physical activity. Self-efficacy is theorized also to influence physical activity through self-management strategies (e.g., thoughts, goals, plans, and acts) that support physical activity, but this idea has not been empirically tested.

Painting Intimacy: Art-Based Research Of Intimacy, Michal Lev

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This art-based research explores whether — and, if so, how — the process of painting, together with witnessing and reflection on the process and imagery, further an understanding of intimacy. The research also examines the conditions that favor intimacy, the obstacles to intimacy, and the particular features of artistic media, processes and reflection, through the editing of video footage, that can further the intimate experience. The participants in the study were five adults (including the researcher) between the ages of thirty and eighty who were familiar with the creation of visual art. Among them were three women and two men …

Objectification In Heterosexual Romantic Relationships: Examining Relationship Satisfaction Of Female Objectification Recipients And Male Objectifying Perpetrators, Gemma Sáez, Abigail R. Riemer, Rebecca L. Brock, Sarah J. Gervais

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Sexual objectification is one of most the common manifestations of discrimination against women in Western societies; however, few studies have examined objectification in the context of romantic relationships. The primary aim of the present research was to bring the study of objectification phenomena into the setting of heterosexual romantic relationships. The present set of studies examined the relation between sexual objectification and relationship satisfaction for both the sexual objectification recipient (Study 1) and the sexual objectification perpetrator (Study 2). The results of the first study with 206 U.S. undergraduate female students in committed romantic relationships replicated a previously identified negative …

Evaluating Joseph Campbell's Underexplored Ideas In The Light Of Modern Psychology, Leonard L. Martin, James Conners, Jacqueline A. Newbold

Heroism Science

Joseph Campbell was a scholar of mythology and comparative religion who attained great popularity by promoting the value of mythology in people's lives. Interestingly, he attained this status even though there was little scientific evidence for his ideas. In recent years, researchers have begun to evaluate Campbell's ideas in rigorous, empirical ways, with most of this research being focused on the implications of the hero's journey. There are still a number of Campbell's psychology-related ideas, however, that have not been evaluated scientifically. These are the ideas we evaluated in this paper. Because we focused on the underexplored ideas, we could …

Sexual Consent As Transcendence: A Phenomenological Understanding, Mark A. Levand, Nicolle Zapien

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Consent to sex is a topic of much research, particularly with the goal of optimizing sex education for youth, college students, and military service personnel. Sex educators have tended to err on the side of clear and concise definitions of consent for ease of instruction. However, the sexual science literature has steadily shown that the navigation of consent to sexuality activity is much more nuanced, situated and contextual. When consent is conceptualized as a yes or no answer to particular sexual acts or sexual activity altogether, it overlooks the dynamic nature of how people experience consenting. This article examines consent …