"I am weak before the wind; before the sun
I faint, I lose my strength;
I am utterly vanquished by a star;
I go to my knees, at length
Before the song of a bird; before
The breath of spring or fall
I am lost; before these miracles
I am nothing at all."
(A. Moses Klein, 1940, Hath Not A Jew)

You Don't Have to Feel How You're Feeling
(unless you continue to think how you're thinking)

If you are reading this, you may be suffering from a heightened level of one of the common afflictions associated with being human: depression, stress/anxiety, worry, relationship problems, or simply a general dissatisfaction with where you are in life versus where you thought you would be or want to be. Though most people at some time in their life struggle with at least one of these difficulties in one form or another, the fact that you are on this site suggests that you have begun to realize that this is not the way life has to be. This realization is the first step, and probably the most important step, toward reaching your goals.  

Psychotherapy-Meditation Integration

The fact is that there exist ways of thinking and behaving that are very different from the constrictive patterns of relating to the world that are often taught, either explicitly or implicitly, by parents and society. The practices of psychotherapy and meditation have evolved over thousands of years to address this discrepancy which is the root cause of individual and societal suffering. After a period of differentiation and specialization, in which psychotherapy became a form of healthcare and meditation became a form of spirituality, it is now widely acknowledged that such a dichotomy is neither conceptually accurate nor practically helpful.

Indeed, psychotherapy-meditation integration is just one of a growing number of approaches introducing people to wisdom traditions and teachings on integration of body, little mind and Big Mind or "All That Is." To these ends, in addition to services provided by CBT Institute, clients are encouraged to identify and seek out additional resources specializing in other areas of personal growth. 

The Three (or Four) Psychologies (This section is adapted from Seiden & Lam, In Press, The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2010, Vol., 42, No. 1)

(1) Negative, or Curative, Psychology,
(2) Positive Psychology, 
(3) Transpersonal Psychology, and
(4) Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology

Negative or Curative Psychology is concerned with solving problems and curing what it defines, aligning itself with a "deficit" or "disorder" perspective, such as that of psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, as psychiatric illness and disease. Most cognitive behavioral and psychodynamic therapies are in this category.

Positive Psychology focuses on helping the individual to self-actualize within the boundaries of the so-called "real world," a subjective reality defined by the philosophy of materialism (a physicalist, pre-quantum physics, single universe, self-as-body model). The existential and humanistic approaches to therapy are in this category, as are any modalities that focus on achieving positive goals (addressed in some cognitive behavioral approaches, and in some mindfulness-based approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy).

Transpersonal Psychology explores the full range of human potential, without bias toward anomalous human experiences reported since the beginning of written history (e.g., religious, spiritual, mystical, psychic or otherwise consciousness expanding phenomena) and helps interested students and clients learn about these for themselves.

Integral Psychology (see the book by the same title by Ken Wilber) studies the philosophies and techniques of many systems of psychological knowledge, in their variety of forms across time, space and, arguably, no-time-no-space. Its application, Integral Life Practice, adapts this full range of wisdom to the unique evolutionary needs of a given individual. It will be interesting to watch psychology's evolution over the next decade as it realizes what it has been  missing by ignoring the works of Ken Wilber and scrambles to catch up.



Transpersonal Psychology

Transpersonal Psychology was co-founded by Abraham Maslow as the logical successor of the first field he co-founded, namely Humanistic Psychology. Humanistic Psychology was recognized as the Third Force in psychology, and Maslow expected Transpersonal Psychology to evolve into the Fourth Force. This has not happened. To the contrary, most psychologists have probably never heard of it (as most psychology programs don't teach it and most American Psychologist and other mainstream psychological journals don't publish on it) and, if they have, likely reject its concerns as of any relevance to their profession.

This, despite the facts that:

(a) The founder of psychology as a science, William James, coined the term trans-personal (though some other words he coined in the same 1905 Harvard University lecture notes more accurately referred to what is currently understood by the term) and was a firm believer in the value of religion and mystical experience as areas of valid psychological investigation.  Similarly, while he was not originating Psychology's first scientific method of Psychophysics, Gustav Fechner was writing books on such topics as "Life After Death" (see Ken Wilber's "Note to the Reader" in his Integral Psychology for a wonderful account of how lost -- or suppressed -- history may be rediscovered in used bookstores).

(b) The founder of the First Force (Psychoanalysis), Sigmund Freud, came to believe in non-physical phenomena such as telepathy, and some of his contemporaries (e.g., Roberto Assagioli and Carl Jung) developed some of the first transpersonal therapies;

(c) A number of leaders of the Second Force,  Behaviorism, have gone on to develop methods of psychotherapy borrowing from Eastern spiritual traditions (e.g., Acceptance and Commitment Therapy; Dialectical Behavior Therapy -- though it could be argued that these remain, for the most part, in the realm of Negative and Positive Psychology); and

(d) As mentioned above, Abraham Maslow, co-founder of the Third Force, Humanistic Psychology, himself proposed Transpersonal Psychology as the Fourth Force, and added "Self-Realization" to the top of his well -known Hierarchy of Needs pyramid (formerly topped by Self-Actualization). However, don't hold your breath while looking for this revision in an Introduction to Psychology textbook either. Mainstream psychology, as the mainstream voice of most sciences, is quite reactionary.

But you don't have to be. Anybody truly interested in the quest for truth would do well to understand the difference between science, on the one hand, and scientism, masquerading as science, on the other. In the words of Huston Smith,

"With science itself there can be no quarrel. Scientism is another matter. Whereas science is positive, contenting itself with reporting what it discovers, scientism is negative. It goes beyond the actual findings of science to deny that other approaches to knowledge are valid and other truths true. In so doing it deserts science in favor of metaphysics -- bad metaphysics, as it happens, for as the contention that there are no truths save those of science is not a scientific truth, in affirming it scientism contradicts itself. It also carries the marks of a religion -- a secular religion, resulting from overextrapolation from science, that has seldom numbered great scientists among its votaries." (1976, Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions, pp. 16-17)

Correspondingly, if Transpersonal Psychology is less well known than the first two psychologies, it may be due to the scientism of some who purport to be scientists, when they stubbornly adhere to familiar models of reality triumphed as Truth in supposed halls of learning, and abandon (or worse, ridicule and attempt to stigmatize) the open-mindedness (i.e., scientific-mindedness) necessary to seek out and discover new frontiers, which may actually be old frontiers, long known to wisdom traditions  far older and more advanced than "Modern" science.

As noted by Ouspensky,

"I know that it is not an easy thing to realize that one is hearing new things.
We are so accustomed to the old tunes, and the old motives, that long ago we ceased to hope and ceased to believe that there might be anything new.

"And when we hear new things, we take them for old, or think  that it is a difficult task to realize the possibility and necessity of quite new ideas, and it needs with time a revaluation of all usual values." (P.D. Ouspensky, from his Introduction to The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution, 1945, a compilation of lectures from 1934-1940)

Transpersonal Psychotherapy

The "Transpersonal" aspect of the particular approach taken here refers to the explicit therapeutic focus on moving toward "ultimate human capacities and potentialities" rather than merely on figuring out ways to eliminate "problems" (though this is an important focus as well). Some such capacities might include, as contained in one definition of Transpersonal Psychology,