Transpersonal psychology, or spiritual psychology, is an area of psychology that seeks to integrate the spiritual and transcendent aspects of the human experience within the framework of modern psychology.
History
Origins
In 1968, Abraham Maslow was among the people who described transpersonal psychology as a "fourth force" in psychology. Early use of the term "transpersonal" can also be credited to Stanislav Grof and Anthony Sutich. At this time, in 1967–68, Maslow was in close dialogue with both Grof and Sutich regarding the name and orientation of the new field. According to Powers, the term "transpersonal" starts to show up in academic journals from 1970 onwards.
Both humanistic and transpersonal psychology have been associated with the Human Potential Movement, which revolves around alternative therapies and philosophies that grew out of the counter-culture of the 1960s at places such as Esalen, California.
Formative period
Gradually, during the 1960s, the term "transpersonal" was associated with a distinct school of psychology within the humanistic psychology movement. In 1969, Maslow, Grof and Sutich were among the initiators behind the publication of the first issue of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. The Association for Transpersonal Psychology was established in 1972, the International Transpersonal Psychology Association in 1973, and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in 1975 . The institute was founded by Robert Frager and James Fadiman in response to an academic climate that they felt was hostile to such ideas. Soon other institutions begain offering curricula in transpersonal psychology including Saybrook Graduate School, the California Institute of Asian Studies (now California Institute of Integral Studies), JFK University, and Naropa. Other proponents of transpersonal psychology included Ram Dass; Elmer and Alyce Green who were affiliated with the Menninger Foundation; and Ken Wilber.
An early preoccupation of those interested in transpersonal psychology was meditation and altered states of consciousness including those induced from psychedelic drugs.
In the early 1980s, a group of members within APA Division 32 (Humanistic Psychology) argued in favor of establishing transpersonal psychology as a separate division within the framework of the American Psychological Association. A petition was presented to the APA Council in 1984, but it was turned down. A new initiative was made in 1985, but it failed to win the majority of votes in the council. In 1986 the petition was presented for a third and final time, but was withdrawn by the executive board of Division 32. An interest group was later re-formed as the Transpersonal Psychology Interest Group (TPIG), which continued to promote transpersonal issues in collaboration with Division 32. Ken Wilber and Michael Washburn delivered the main transpersonal models of development of this period, Wilber in 1977 and Washburn in 1988. Ken Wilber has since distanced himself from the label "transpersonal", being in favour of the label of "integral" since the mid-1990s. In 1998 he formed the Integral Institute.
Later developments
Proponents of transpersonal psychology were behind the proposal for a new diagnostic category to be included in the DSM-manual of the American Psychiatric Association called "Psychoreligious or psychospiritual problem", which was approved by the Task Force on DSM-IV in 1993, after changing its name to Religious or spiritual problem. Concurrently, there was an increase in membership for the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, stabilizing at approximately 3000 members in the early nineties. In 1996, the British Psychological Society established a Transpersonal Psychology Section.
In 2007 the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies were accepted for indexing in PsycINFO, the journal database of the American Psychological Association. That same year, Ruzek, noted that the "American Psychological Association (APA) and most academic institutions have not yet recognized transpersonal psychology as an approved area of study; transpersonal psychology is rarely mentioned in mainstream academic journals or textbooks; and relatively few American academicians identify themselves as practitioners of transpersonal psychology. Furthermore, transpersonal psychology is scarcely mentioned, if at all, in history or introductory psychology texts".
In 2012 the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology announced that it was changing its name to Sofia University with an expanded graduate program featuring computer science and business.