16
The Emergence of Transpersonal
Psychology
Ronald S. Valle
There are more things in heaven and earth. Horatio. than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Transpersonal psychology, as the fourth force in psychol-
ogy, has emerged from humanistic psychology (the third
force) in much the same way that humanistic approaches
emerged from their behavioral and analytic foundations.
To address the role of transpersonal perspectives within
the realm of humanistic psychology seems, therefore, a
natural place to begin this discussion, for humanistic psy-
chology represents an openness to all aspects of human
nature and human beings: behavior, cognition, and affect
as well as transcendent experience. And it is this very
openness to experience that makes third force psychology
the natural home for existential-phenomenological per-
spectives. Yet, in spite of this openness, there remains a
not-so-subtle resistance to incorporating certain ap-
proaches to the understanding of human life and human
existence into the humanistic framework, that is, ap-
proaches that integrate aspects of ourselves that do not
seem part of our more day-to-day conceptual, emotional,
and languaged realities-the so-called transpersonal
and/or spiritual dimensions.
Ronald S. Valle • Graduate School for the Study of Human
Consciousness. John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, California
94563.
257
R. S. Valle et al. (eds.), Existential-Phenomenological Perspectives in Psychology
© Plenum Press, New York 1989
William Shakespeare. Hamlet
THE FIRST THREE FORCES IN PSYCHOLOGY
From a historical-philosophical perspective, the hu-
manistic movement was, and continues to be, both a reac-
tion to and an attempted completion of the world-views or
approaches within more mainstream, traditional psychol-
ogy. Both behavioral-experimental psychology and the
psychoanalytic school (interchangeably referred to as the
first and second forces in psychology) represent this tradi-
tion, and, as such, have provided a solid and well-defined
groundwork. It is within this context that the philosoph-
ical bases that underly the third and fourth forces have
taken form in psychology.
In strict behaviorism, the human individual is treated
as a passive thing with no experiential depth, a separate
entity divorced from its surrounding environment, an en-
tity that simply responds to stimuli impinging upon it
from the external physical and social world. Only that
which is observable and whose dimensions can be agreed
to by more than one observer is allowed. Human behavior
(including our verbal behavior) is, therefore, the objec-
tive focus of the behaviorist; human experience is dis-
missed as subjective, unmeasurable, and not the stuff of
science.
In partial response, the radical behaviorism of Skin-
ner (e.g., 1974) claims to have collapsed this rather clas-
sic behavior-experience dualism by regarding thoughts
258
and feelings, in their manifest, observable forms, as sub-
ject to the same laws that govern operant conditioning and
the roles that stimuli, responses, and reinforcement
schedules play within this particular paradigm. More spe-
cifically, Skinner (1974) regards that which is felt or in-
trospectively observed as not some nonphysical world of
consciousness, mind, or mental life, but the observer's
own body. He states:
"Emotion ... is a matter of the probability of engaging
in certain kinds of behavior defined by certain kinds
of consequences. Anger is the heightened probability of
attack, and love is the heightened probability of
positively reinforcing a loved person. (in Evans, 1968,
p. 11)
In the psychoanalytic scheme, the person is given
more depth. Not only is the role of conscious experience
discussed, but the realms of Freud's personal uncon-
scious and Jung's collective unconscious are acknowl-
edged as well. The human being is thereby more whole,
but is still treated as a passive entity, one that responds to
stimuli from the "inside" (current emotions, pastexperi-
ence, unconscious motives, etc.) rather than the pushes
and pulls from without. Whether the analyst speaks of the
punitive nature of one's toilet training or the subtle em-
powerment of the mother archetype, the implicit and radi-
cal separation of person and world goes on.
Yet, the seeds for an expanded discussion of human
nature have been planted here. As discussed in more de-
tail later, transpersonal psychologists acknowledge egoic
experience and self-identity as foundational necessities
whereas Jung's description of archetypal realities are re-
garded by many as central to understanding the essence of
transpersonal awareness.
It is only when we reach the third force, humanistic
psychology, that the fullest range of human potential is
entertained and open to investigation. Yet, within these
ranks, there are various perspectives, each with its own
approach to human experience and human possibilities.
Let me be more specific.
Of the numerous approaches labeled humanistic
(e.g., those of Frankl, Rogers, Perls, Bugental, and
May), existential-phenomenological psychology re-
mains, for me, the central (and essential) third force per-
spective. It was here, in this blend of existential philoso-
phy and phenomenological method, that I first felt a Call
(to use the Heideggerian term) to experiencing a different
way of being-in-the-world, not simply a different way of
thinking. The human individual and his or her surround-
ingenvironment are regarded as implicitly and insepara-
bly intertwined; one has no meaning when treated inde-
pendently of the other. The person and world co-con-
stitute one another. Although the world is still regarded
as essentially different than the person in kind, the human
VI • TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY
being, retaining its experiential depth, is seen as an ac-
tive agent who makes choices within preexisting external
constraints (i.e., human freedom is a situated freedom).
From this tradition come a number of concepts that
call us to a new definition of human capacity: not only co-
constitutionality and situated freedom, but lived struc-
ture, prereflection, the life-world, and intentionality.
For me, the notion of intentionality has been of spe-
cial importance in several ways. It has helped me to un-
derstand the nature of my everyday experience, it has
provided a context in which to better understand the es-
sence of my transpersonal experiences, and, in these
ways, it has provided me with a conceptual form with
which to bridge existential-phenomenological and trans-
personal psychology.
Intentionality directly addresses and reflects the felt
quality of what we normally describe as our con-
sciousness, awareness, or experience, and its contents.
To speak of the intentional nature of consciousness is to
say that consciousness always has an object (whether that
be a physical object, another person, or an idea or feel-
ing), that consciousness is always a "consciousness of."
This particular way of defining/describing intentionality
directly implies the deep, implict interrelatedness be-
tween the perceiver and the perceived that characterizes
consciousness for the existential-phenomenological psy-
chologist. It is this prereflective inseparability that en-
ables each of us, through reflection, to become aware of
the meaning that was implicit for us in the situation as it
was lived (i.e., to have a textured and meaningful
[meaning-full] experience).
A BEGINNING PHENOMENOLOGY OF
TRANSPERSONAl EXPERIENCE
Even with this acknowledgment of and sensitivity
to the nature and levels of human experience, there are
certain types of awareness that do not seem to be fully
captured or illuminated by phenomenological reflections
on descriptions of our own experience and/or our pre-
reflective felt sense of things. Often referred to as tran-
scendent or transpersonal experience, these types of
awareness are not really "experience" in the way we
use the word in daily conversation (i.e., as made up of
our thoughts and emotions) nor are they identical with
our prereflective sensibilities. Rather, they are in some
way "prior to" both of these levels and are more of a
context or "space" from which our more common expe-
!i.ence or felt sense emerges. This space or context does,
however, present itself (i.e., manifests) as an "experi-
ence," and is, thereby, known to the one who is experi-
encing. But implicit in this "experience" is also the di-