Abstract

Transpersonal psychology has an short history, but is a rapidly developing field of study. It first gained prominence in the late 1960's, as an outgrowth of humanistic psychology, and quickly moved, towards distinguishing term in the title of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology was made in 1968 by its founding editors, Anthony Sutich, Abraham Maslow and others in order to reflect their vision of a new and proper area of psychological inquiry/ Prior to the 1960's, American psychology in the twentieth century has been dominated by two major theoretical perspectives : behaviorism and psychoanalysis. But during the 1960's, two other important perspectives emerged: humanistic psychology and transpersonal psychology. Humanistic and transpersonal psychology developed largely as a reaction against certain aspects of behavorism and psychoanalysis. As the pioneers of humanistic psychology, Abraham Maslow in particular, began to examine the human potential for psychological healty and 'the farther reaches of human nature', they came across such phenomena as peak experiences, meditative and yogic states, and various other altered state of consciousness, all of which seemed to involve a transcendence of the individual ego - self and direct, subjective participation in a larger reality. Maslow called attention to the possibility of development beyond self-actualization, development in which the individual transcended the limits of identity and experience that had been considered ultimate by humanistic psychologists. Transpersonal psychology is associated with a direct, subjective experience of our oneness with the more fundamental reality. 'Transpersonal' literally means across or beyond the individual person or psyche. It is characterized by the feeling of the individual that his consciousness expands beyond the usual ego boundaries and limitations of time and space. Transpersonal psychologists are interested in those ultimate human capacities and potentialties that have no systematic place in the so-called legitimate psychology. While the definition of transpersonal psychology is still in the process of development, it is apparent that transpersonal psychology had reawakened interest in an number of long-forgotten topics: mystical religious experience, the relationship between psychological and spiritual development, meditation, and others.