Transpersonal Psychology (Campus-Based): Overview

T he Transpersonal Psychology program presents a broad understanding of human nature. Transpersonal Psychology is an integrative and interdisciplinary approach incorporating several factors: Western social sciences, as well as Eastern, Western, and Indigenous wisdom traditions. Its approach to understanding the individual incorporates both development of ego and awareness of spirit; this perspective is of value to the person as well as to social relationships. The program also looks at the larger picture of collective phenomena that are our social and cultural traditions, so that the student may gain a deeper understanding of how integration of these personal values enhance our understanding of the nature of human community and the further evolution of consciousness.

Transpersonal Psychology regards human beings in a holistic manner as integration of body, mind, and spirit. By body, we refer to the individual in a developmental manner with an evolving awareness of self and social role. Mind is reflective of the means of how we understand ourselves in relationship to ‘self’ and the world. Human community represents our various relationships that make up our lives and begin to interweave them into a complexity reflecting our aspirations and traditions. Eventually we face the question: how may each of us integrate an inner sense of self with that which is the world we live within? As we extend these analogies to the realm of spirit, transpersonal psychology embraces an understanding that spirituality underlies all, which is manifest.