AHP Perspective APRIL 2008 Perspective APRIL 2008... · 2011. 6. 28. · 4 ahp perspective...

1APRIL/MAY 2008 ahp PERSPECTIVE

PerspectivePerspectiveA P R I L / M A Y 2 0 0 8

ahpweb.orgAssociation for

Humanistic Psychology

Reviews

Life and Mind

Finding Heaven Here

The Empathic Ground

Remembering in a World

of Forgetting

THE INFINITE ASPECT OF NATURAL HEALING

by Carla Woody

ONTOSOPHY: A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THERAPY

by Francesco Palmirotta

Solinio College at Solinio Village, Bari, Italy, an AHP Energy Center, UNESCO-sponsored, dedi-cated to reintegration of human beings, their creativity, health, and wholeness, through holistic education, including music therapy, humanistic arts and sciences, teaching and therapy, art and music, workshops and conferences. http://en.solinio-college.com/the-Association_818428.html

APRIL/MAY 2008ahp PERSPECTIVE 2

ASSOCIATION for HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY . . . since 1962, kindred spirits on the edge, where human potential and evolving consciousness meetAHP principles include integrity in personal and profes-

sional interactions, authenticity, and trust in human

relationships, compassion and deep listening skills, and

respect for the uniqueness, value, independence,

interdependence, and essential oneness of all beings.

PAST PRESIDENTS

JAMES F. T. BUGENTAL

SIDNEY M. JOURARD

E. J. SHOBEN, JR.CHARLOTTE BÜHLER

S. STANSFELD SARGENT

JACK R. GIBB

GERARD V. HAIGH

FLOYD W. MATSON

DENIS O’DONOVAN

FRED MASSARIK

LAWRENCE N. SOLOMON

NORMA LYMAN

STANLEY KRIPPNER

VIN ROSENTHAL

ELEANOR CRISWELL

CHARLES HAMPDEN-TURNER

JEAN HOUSTON

GEORGE LEONARD

BILL BRIDGES

JACQUELINE L. DOYLE

VIRGINIA SATIR

RICK INGRASCI & PEGGY TAYLOR

DENNIS JAFFE

LAWRENCE LESHAN

LONNIE BARBACH & JOHN VASCONCELLOS

WILL MCWHINNEY

FRANCES VAUGHAN

RUBEN NELSON

ELIZABETH CAMPBELL

MAUREEN O’HARA

SANDRA FRIEDMAN

ANN WEISER CORNELL

ARTHUR WARMOTH

J. BRUCE FRANCIS

M. A. BJARKMAN

JOCELYN OLIVIER

KATY ELIZABETH BRANT

STAN CHARNOFSKY

STEVE OLWEEAN

LELAND “CHIP” BAGGETT

STEVE OLWEEAN J. BRUCE FRANCIS

AHP MEMBER BENEFITS

AHP PERSPECTIVE Free bimonthly newsletter.JOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY Quarterly journal, free to Professional Members, 75% off subscription price for regular members AHPWEB AHP’s on-line publication at ahpweb.org, with Articles, Bibliographies, Bookstore, Calendar of Workshops, Web Resources . . .DIRECTORY OF HUMANISTIC PROFESSIONALS Free on-line Directory listing for Professional members with description of your work CONFERENCE DISCOUNTS Member Discounts on conferences/events (See Calendar of Events on pages 4–5 and on ahpweb.org.) CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS CECs on many AHP events.AHP SPONSORSHIP OF YOUR EVENT Listings in Perspective and on ahpweb, CECs, mailing lists etc. for approved events. [email protected] LIABILITY INSURANCE American Professional Agency 800/421-6694 HEALTH AND LIFE AND DISABILITY INSURANCE Marsh Affi nity Group 800/323-2106; marshaffi nity.com NASRO: 800/638-8113; [email protected] BOOK DISCOUNTS 20% discount on books from Sage PublicationsAHP MAILING LIST RENTAL Member discount on AHP Mailing ListsADVERTISING DISCOUNTS Member ad rates for Perspective & ahpweb ads. Rates on p. 31 and at ahpweb.org/pub/perspective/adinfo.html AHP AUTHORS Your books listed in the AHP Humanistic Bookstore

MEMBERSHIP DUES

JOIN AT AHPWEB.ORG OR CALL 510/769-6495

AHP OFFICE & PERSONNEL510/769-6495; Fax: 510/769-6433, ahpoffi [email protected], 1516 Oak St., Suite #317, Alameda, CA 94501-2947, ahpweb.orgMembership Director: Bonnie Davenport, [email protected] Producer: John Harnish, [email protected] Coordinator: Deb Oberg, [email protected] Editor: Kathleen Erickson, [email protected] of Humanistic Psychology Editor: Kirk Schneider [email protected] AHP BOARD OF DIRECTORSPresident: Carroy U. “Cuf” Ferguson, (617) 287–7232 JHP LiaisonTreasurer: M. A. Bjarkman, [email protected]: Ken Ehrlich, [email protected], (973) 779–7793Leland “Chip” BaggettStan Charnofsky, [email protected] Comnenou, [email protected]

AHP BOARD AFFILIATESOlga Bondarenko, International Team, [email protected] Eulert, ATP Liaison, Consulting Editor, [email protected] Friedman, Consultant, [email protected] Harnish, International Team, [email protected] Oberg, [email protected] AHP Events ChairBruce Wochholz, Consultant

AHP COMMUNITIES AND ENERGY CENTERSIslamic AHP, Iran, contact S. Muhammad M. J. Tehrani, Mashaad, Iran, [email protected], 98–251–293–3280Northern Mexico Community, contact Manuel Cervantes Mijares [email protected], Vera Cruz 208, Gomez Palacio, Dur ango 35090, México, 011–52– (871) – 714–3335 Ontosophy Community, Bari, Italy, contact Francesco Palmirotta, [email protected], –39–080–534–7200, fax: –39–080–534–2468 Oregon Community, Strengthening wisdom, cooperation, positive action, $20 annual dues, contact [email protected] Monthly meetings: personal sharing & potluck (503) 244–3420Professional Issues of the Paradigm Shift, contact Chip Baggett at (828) 252–1086Somatics & Wellness, Educational & networking community focusing on integration of body & mind therapies, $20 duesStudent Communities, Campus groups dedicated to the ideals of humanistic living/psychology and active in their application, contact [email protected] & the Human Spirit, Exploring issues of the human spirit & developing technology, [email protected]

AHP MEMBERSHIP connect with conscious community,

enhance quality of life,and advance awareness & skill

in humanistic principles & practices

AHP–ATP Joint Board Meeting, Calistoga, California, July 2006: back row: AHP President Cuf Ferguson, ATP Co-President Stu Sovatsky, Ray Siderius, Ray Greenleaf (ATP), Deb Oberg, Don Eulert, Colette Fleuridas (ATP),

AHP Past President Bruce Francis, Olga Bondarenko, Stan Charnofsky, Beth Tabakian (ATP); front row, Kathleen Erickson, Bonnie Davenport, MA Bjarkman, Ken Ehrlich, Chip Baggett, ATP Co-President David Lukoff.

KEN EHRLICH

$ 49$ 79/69 $ 120/110$159

$ 49$ 149$ 20$ 25/112$1,000

First-time Introductory Membership Individual Regular Membership & print/PDF PerspectiveProfessional Membership includes Journal of Humanistic Psychology (JHP) & print/PDF Perspective magazineJoint ATP–AHP Professional Membership Limited Income Organizational Membership AHP Community (Somatics or Oregon)JHP subscription (with membership)/or JHP aloneLifetime AHP Membership


NEWS & COLUMNS

CALENDAR OF EVENTSPRESIDENT’S MESSAGE . . . Carroy “Cuf” U. FergusonINSIDE AHP and ATP: Electronic Option for Perspective; Correction to Book Review: Kirk Schneider’s Book Title; Call for Submissions to Pedagogy Journal; New AHP–ATP Joint MembersJOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY Spring 2008 Table of Contents and Editor’s Commentary . . . Kirk J. Schneider

HEALING

The Infi nite Aspect of Natural Healing . . . Carla WoodyOntosophy: A Holistic Approach to Therapy . . . Francesco Palmirotta

REVIEWS

Life and Mind: In Search of the Physical Basis by Savely Savva . . . Paul Von WardThe Empathic Ground: Intersubjectivity and Nonduality in the Psychotherapeutic Process by Judith Blackstone . . . David RybackRemembering in a World of Forgetting: Thoughts on Tradition and Post-Modernism by William Stoddart, edited by Mateus Soares de Azevedo and Alberto Vasconcellos Queiroz . . . Samuel Bendeck SotillosThe Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions by Esther M. Sternberg . . . David RybackFinding Heaven Here by John C. Robinson . . . Excerpt

AHP AD RATES

4 6 8

10

1216

26 27 28

29

31

31

Perspective magazine April / May 2008

C O N T E N T S

AHP PERSPECTIVE Editor-in-Chief: Kathleen E. [email protected]; 415/435-1604 Fax: 415/435-1654; P. O. Box 1190, Tiburon CA 94920Consulting Editors: Don Eulert, David LukoffATP Newsletter Editor: David Lukoff

DEADLINES/GUIDELINES: Jan. 1 for Feb. issue, Mar. 1 for Apr. issue, May 1 for June issue, July 1 for Aug. issue, Sept. 1 for Oct. issue, Nov. 1 for Dec. issue.Manuscripts: up to 2,500 words. Include brief bio and photo: TIF/JPEG/print. Edited for brevity and clarity.ADVERTISING: For advertising rates, see back inside cover or ahpweb.org/pub/perspective/adinfo.html.

The PERSPECTIVE is published bimonthly for members of the ASSOCIATIONS FOR HUMANISTIC PSYCHOL-OGY AND TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY. Use and cite with attribution of Author, publisher (Association for Humanistic Psychology), and issue date. The PERSPECTIVE is free to members of the Associations for Humanistic Psychology and Transpersonal Psychology.

ASSOCIATION FOR HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY1516 Oak St., Suite 317, Alameda, CA 94501 (510) 769–6495, ahpoffi [email protected], ahpweb.org

COVER ART:SOLINIO COLLEGE, BARI, ITALY,

FOUNDED BY FRANCESCO PALMIROTTA HTTP://EN.SOLINIO-COLLEGE.COM/THE-ASSOCIATION_818428.HTML

JOINT MEMBERSHIP AHP–ATP $159 includes all benefi ts of

Professional Membership in both AHP Professional Member benefi ts:

•Six stimulating, information-packed issues of our magazine, AHP Perspective

•Substantial discounts on AHP events, regional & Annual conferences

•4 annual issues of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology

•Continuing Education Credits for Conferences and Events

•Listing in online Directory of Humanistic Professionals

•Discounts on AHP Perspective and ahpweb.org ad rates, mailing list rentals

•Eligibility for professional liability, group health, disability, and life insurance

•Opportunity to link your website directly with ahpweb, as a Memberlink

•Access to ahpweb’s “Members Only” section for news and opportunities

ATP Professional Membership Benefi ts:

•Subscription to the semiannual Journal of Transpersonal Psychology

•Access to all 35 years of Journal (JTP) articles and hundreds of audio and

video recordings of past conference presenters

•A searchable Networking List of members

•ATP’s Listing of Professional Members

•Listing in the ATP Professional Members Guide, access to the listserv

•Reduced rates for Newsletter classifi ed advertising

•ID and Password to Members Only section atpweb.org, with full-text

archives of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and audio

archives of the past ATP conferences from 1990 to the present

•••

•

••

•

•

•

•

•

•


CALENDAR OF EVENTS

AHP-Sponsored Events

FOR AHP SPONSORSHIP OF YOUR EVENT, PLEASE CONTACT THE EVENTS COMMITTEE CHAIR DEB OBERG AT [email protected]

STAY ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS!ONLINE OR IN-PERSON WITH MARY BELL, SPIRITUAL HEALER, TEACHER, AUTHOR, AND CHANNELNew four part series in Healing from Unity beginning in October in Sedona, Arizona. Online series includes: Healing Brain Chemistry, Changing Patterns in DNA, Integrating Evolution-ary Changes, Releasing Astral Energies, and Materializing Your Dreams www.foundationforunity.com (480) 247–7263

DONNA EDEN COME ALIVE! THE HEALING TOOLS OF ENERGY MEDICINE

& DAVID FEINSTEIN CHANGE YOUR MIND CHANGE YOUR LIFE: THE POWER OF ENERGY PSYCHOLOGY (FOLLOWING DONNA EDEN, SUNDAY, 9–1) SPONSORED BY AHP • 9 CECs & 4CECs May 30–June 1, 2008 • Portland, OR, Holiday Inn Portland Airport Hotel Produced by The Conference Works! Produced by The Conference Works! (800) 395–8445; conferenceworks.com; ahpweb.org

HOWARD MARTIN: The Power of the Energetic Heart, and Joseph Chilton Pearce: Spiritual Creative Unfolding (following Howard on Sundays, June 8 and June 22)SPONSORED BY AHP • CECsJune 6–7, 2008 • Clearwater, FLJune 20–21, 2008 • Seattle, WA Produced by The Conference Works! (800) 395-8445

VOICE DIALOGUE DASSIE HOFFMAN, PH.D., LCAT, ADTR, AND BRIDGIT DENGEL GASPARD, LMSWSPONSORED BY AHP • 39 CECs June 7–8, 2008 • New York, NY • 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.New York Voice Dialogue Institute, 161 West 54th Street, Suite 804, New York 10019; (212) 956-0432; http://www.newyork voicedialogueinstitute.org

VOICE DIALOGUEMiriam Dyak, Ph.D., and Cassandra CosmeSPONSORED BY AHP • CECsDeepning Connections: Creating a Core Shift in the Way We Live Our Relation-ships • 10.5 CECsJune 7–8, 2008 • Redmond, WALearning the Language of Energy: A Voice DialogueFacilitator’s TrainingSeptember 6–7, 2008 • Redmond, WA October 4–5, 2008 • Redmond, WAOctober 18-19, 2008 • Redmond, WA November 8–9, 2008 • Redmond, WA Deepening Connections: Creating a Core Shift in the Way We Live Our RelationshipsThe Voice Dialogue Institute, Sammamish, [email protected]://www.thevoicedialogueinstitute.org/

BELLERUTH NAPARSTEKReversing Panic Attacks, Acute Stress, & PTSDPowerful New Solutions to Formerly Intractable Problems SPONSORED BY AHP • CECs October 4–5, 2008 • New Orleans, LA, Hamption Inn & SuitesOctober 11–12, 2008 • Denver, CO, Ramada Plaza Denver NorthNovember 22–23, 2008 • Salt Lake City, UTPProduced by The Conference Works! roduced by The Conference Works! (800) 395–8445; conferenceworks.com; ahpweb.org

HAKOMI CONFERENCE 2008: Mindfulness, Brain, and Body in PsychotherapyRICHARD SCHWARTZ, BESSELL VAN DER KOLK, PAT OGDEN, DIANA FOSHA, SUSAN APOSHYAN, RICHARD HECKLERCOSPONSORED BY HAKOMI INSTITUTE AND NAROPA UNIVERSITY EX-TENDED STUDIES • CECsAugust 7–10, 2008 • Boulder, CO • Naropa UniversityCall (303) 245–4800, [email protected]; http://www.Hakomi.orghttp://www.naropa.edu/extend/hakomi

LYNNE MCTAGGERT: Living with Intention, with Bryan HubbardSPONSORED BY AHP • CECsJuly 11–13, 2008 • Los Angeles, CA August 8–10, 2008 • Portland, OR October 31–November 2, 2008 • Cape Cod, MA Produced by The Conference Works! (800) 395-8445; http://www.theintentionworkshops.com/?page_id=49

PAT SHEEHAN One-Day Tantra ExperienceLevel 1 Ipsalu Tantra Kriya Yoga RetreatSPONSORED BY AHP • CECsJune 21, 2008 • Indianapolis, IN • $65 • Moving with Your Inner RhythmsSeptember 20–21, 2008 • Indianapolis, IN • $150 • Weekend Work-shop, Early Trauma and Finding Resources to Heal Your Body and Soul


AHP CONFERENCE

AHP–ATP Cosponsored Event

Third Biennial International Conference June 6, 7, 8, 2008

California State University Northridgecosponsored by the Association for Humanistic Psychology and California State University Northridge

BUILDING TRUTH, BUILDING TRUST A Humanistic Vision For Our Planet

FURTHER INFORMATION: (818) 677 2548; AHP (510) 769-6495 Reasonable fees, low-cost, comfortable housing in university dormitory––outstanding seminars––all-day, pre-conference in-depth work-shops with nationally known, Humanistic presenters––CEUs for counselors, MFTs, LCSWs and psychologists––community, networking

THE ESSENTIAL CONNECTION: Mindfulness, Brain, and Body in Psychotherapy. Keynotes by Richard Schwartz and Bessell van der Kolk SPONSORED BY HAKOMI INSTITUTE & NAROPA UNIVERSITYAugust 7–10, 2008 • Boulder, Colorado, Naropa University Contact: [email protected]; http://www.hakomiinstitute.com

INTEGRAL THEORY IN ACTION: SERVING SELF, OTHER, AND KOSMOSPRESENTED BY JOHN F. KENNEDY UNIVERSITY AND INTEGRAL INSTITUTEAugust 7–10, 2008 • Pleasant Hill, California Contact: [email protected]; Mark Forman at [email protected]://www.integraltheoryconference.org/page/page/5433778.htm

PRE-APA DIVISION 32 HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCEThe Human Dimension of Psychotherapy, July 18 – 20, 2008, Toronto, Canada

Rae Johnson, PhD, RSW, RSMT, Chair, Somatic Psychology Program, Santa Barbara Graduate Institute; former Director, Body Psychotherapy Program, Naropa University — The Embodied Psychotherapist: How We Teach Must Embody What We Teach David Lukoff, PhD, Co-President, Association for Transpersonal Psychology; APA fellow; faculty, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology — Transpersonal Psychotherapy and the Integration of Spirituality Dan Merkur, PhD, Author, Mystical Moments and Unitive Thinking, Unconscious Wisdom, Crucifi ed With Christ — From Eros to Mystical Experience: The Scope of Psychic Integration in Psychoanalysis Linda Page, PhD, Chair, Alliance of Psychotherapy Training Institutions; President, Adler School of Professional Studies — How Psychotherapy Develops: Ontario in an International Context Kirk Schneider, PhD, Vice President (and Past President), Existential–Humanistic Institute; Editor, Journal of Humanistic Psychology; Professor, Saybrook Graduate School — Existential–Integrative Therapy: An Emerging Cross-Disciplinary Paradigm Registration: www.livinginstitute.org 416-515-0404

AHP-Endorsed Events

NONDUAL WISDOM AND PSYCHOTHERAPYSPONSORED BY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL STUDIES, JOHN F. KENNEDY UNIVERSITY, ASSOCIATION FOR TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY, ET AL.October 30–November 2, 2008 • San Francisco • CIIS Contact: [email protected]; Mark Forman at [email protected]://www.integraltheoryconference.org/page/page/5433778.htmContact: Bob Cowart at [email protected]://www.integraltheoryconference.org/page/page/5433778.htm


PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

We may ask why, at both the individual and collective levels, it has seemed so diffi cult for us to choose

to evolve our human games with Joy. There is no one answer for such a question, for each of us has the gift of free will. I will suggest, however, that built into our human games is what I call a primary human challenge. That primary human challenge is a dynamic tension, fl owing from our creative urge for the freedom “to be” who we really are in our current physical form, and simultaneously to embrace our responsibility for our Being-ness. Freedom and responsibility are fl ip sides of the same coin. However, when we embrace our responsibil-ity as a Creator or Co-Creator with free will, there is no one to blame (see Figure 8, from Ferguson’s forthcom-ing book, Evolving The Human Race Game: A Spiritual and Soul-Centered Perspective). And so, throughout linear history, as we have constructed it, there has been

reluctance to acknowledge that we are the Creators or Co-Creators of all the horrifi c conditions, circumstances, and atrocities that we have perpetrated upon one another, for whatever reasons. At the personality level, therefore, this has been a most diffi cult idea to comprehend. It is much easier to view the world from the standpoint of separateness. Historically, therefore, we adopted numer-ous Self-limiting beliefs, fueled by fear, to structure our individual realities. And, it became much easier to play the blame game and to attribute motives, actions, and reactions to an “Evil Other” or to some Great Evil Force outside and apart from our Self. This primary human challenge also has more often than not led us, individually and collectively, to believe that anything worth having involved struggle or pain. And so it is that we adopted an approach to “evolution” that involved growth with pain. Up to this point, we have used this approach, or underlying, limiting belief, subconsciously to write and structure the scripts for our human games. However, at this point in time, I suggest

A Primary Human Challenge

— Carroy U. Ferguson


PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

that we have outgrown such a limiting belief. Now is the time, therefore, to choose to grow with Joy, for we al-ready know how to grow with pain. It is time to create or write new scripts to evolve our human games. It is time “to be free” and “to be responsible” for our creations, individually and collectively. So, how do we begin to see ourselves clearly and to fi nd balance with regard to the primary human chal-

lenge? I think we begin with what might appear to be an overly simplistic choice. The choice is to take personal responsibility for our own happiness. If we dare to do one thing each week that will improve the quality of our life in some small way, it would dramatically alter the nature our human games.

As President of AHP, therefore, I invite each person to view AHP as a supportive and nurturing community of kindred souls who are engaged in co-creating op-portunities to evolve our human games and to grow with Joy. Let us learn how to “play” well.

— CUF FERGUSON


INSIDE AHP AND ATP

ELECTRONIC PERSPECTIVE OPTION

Dear AHP Members, With this issue, AHP is now implementing the plan (announced last year) to e-mail the AHP Perspective to members who have not indicted that they prefer to get the print version. We see this as an environmental and ecological option that many members have requested. As the cost of paper, printing, and postage continue to rise, we are looking for ways to service our members well, wisely, and practically. If you prefer to continue to receive the print version, please send a check for $10 to the AHP offi ce (if you have not yet done so at your mem-bership renewal). And, as always, we welcome your comments, feedback, and suggestions. Happy Spring, — M.A. Bjarkman, Board Director

CORRECTION

We deeply regret misnaming Kirk Schneider’s book, Existential–Integrative Psychotherapy: Guideposts to the Care of Practice, in three different places in the February/March 2008 AHP Perspective magazine. We used the word Psychology instead of Psychotherapy on the cover, on the contents page, and on the title of the Book Review itself on page 29.

INVITATION TO SUBMIT PAPERS

TO REFEREED JOURNAL

AHP members are invited to submit articles for a special issue of the Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice, an online refereed journal published out of Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. We are dedicating an issue to the topic of: higher education and the task of educating the whole human being. Anyone interested in submitting an article should send an e-mail to AHP Member Dr. Neal Klein, [email protected], by August 1, 2008, with a brief description of your topic. Final articles are due by January 31, 2009. Please pass this invitation along to colleagues you feel

may have an interest in submitting to this issue: local, national, and international. For more detailed information, including a letter outlining what we are looking for and a sample article, contact Dr. Neal Klein at 617-349-8909 or [email protected]. Following publication of the journal we are looking to publish the collected articles as a book.


INSIDE AHP AND ATP

WELCOME TO NEW AHP–ATP JOINT MEMBERS

Ted Anstedt California

Leland Baggett North Carolina

Cecilia Bajusz Canada

Lorraine Bennington Canada

Tina Benson California

Crete Brown Idaho

Susan Burns Washington

Donald Carty Georgia

Carlos China Australia

Christopher Coulson Oklahoma

Jane W. & Quinn Crosbie

Alan Davis Texas

Daniel Davis Colorado

Debbie Dumlao Michigan

Lawrence Edwards New York

Jordis Fasheh California

Paula Kenley Freeman Washington

Helaine Z. Harris California

Dassie Hoffman New York

Brad Hunter Canada

Lawrence James Arizona

Christopher Johannes Japan

Varida Kautner

Harriet Mall Michigan

Eileen Marder-Mirman New York

Antonio Nunez New Mexico

Genie Palmer California

Pamela Pappas Arizona

Nancy Paul California

Alan Pope Georgia

Suzy Prudden California

D. Lorraine Ramsey-Spence Maryland

Maria Shea Wisconsin

Jan Stampley Illinois

Francesca Starr Colorado

Jennifer Stevens Wisconsin

Jamesena Talbot Pennsylvania

Deborah Tull California

Joy Wassel

Paul Wernick Massachusetts

Cynthia Willemsen United Kingdom

April Woodward United Kingdom

Diane Zimberoff Washington


RECOVERY AND THE GOOD LIFE: HOW PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVORS ARE REVISIONING THE HEALING PROCESS............................................ALEXANDRA L. ADAME & ROGER M. KNUDSON

EUPSYCHIA REVISITED: THE ROLE OF SPIRITUAL LEADERS

............ARMENIO REGO, MIGUEL PINA E CUNHA, & MIGUEL OLIVEIRA

MEANING IN PSYCHOLOGISTS’ PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIVES

............JERRY T. KERNES & RICHARD T. KINNIER

RECLAIMING HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY FROM MODERNITY: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS ............JAMES J. DILLON

THE PLOT THICKENS—OR NOT: PROTONARRATIVES OF EMOTION AND THE CHINESE PRINCIPLE OF SAVORING..................................................................LOUISE SUNDARARAJAN

BUILDING A HOME IN NATURE: AN INNOVATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR PRACTICE....RONEN BERGER

JOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

VOLUME 48, NUMBER 2, SPRING 2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITOR’S COMMENTARY

This issue is another chance to showcase

our storehouse of riches here at JHP.

Our fi rst article by Alexandra Adame

and Roger Knudson is an inspiring

survey of politically and socially minded psy-

chiatric survivors. Adame and Knudson make

a powerful case that both “survivor” solidar-

ity and social advocacy can lead to positive

changes for individual survivors. The liberation

of the voice, according to the participants in

the authors’ study can be as gratifying as the

liberation of the mind. Witness the following

heartfelt testimony from one of the more vo-

cal participants:

And then I get behind the microphone

and get to say what I think.

And that keeps me going.

Because I don’t wash down what I’m saying

because I think of the people

that are still in the institutions.

And the faces of the friends I’ve made

for whom this is a passion.

Regarding “patient” transformation, more

eloquent words have hardly been uttered.

Our next article, Eupsychia Revisited: The

Role of Spiritual Leaders, is a similarly spirited

inquiry into the emancipation of everyday

workers. Drawing on Maslow’s notion of

self-actualization in the workplace, or what

he termed the “eupsychian” ideal, Armenio

Rego, Miguel Pina E Cunha, and Miguel

Oliveira plow fresh ground in the area of mo-

tivational management. Using in-depth, quali-

tative research, the authors unveil a salient yet

sometimes hidden dimension of employees’

participation in work—the social and spiritual

purview of their manager. By articulating this

purview, the authors make a compelling case

for a eupsychian revival—and I hope many will

follow their lead.

In the next article, Jerry Kernes and

Richard Kinnier set out to investigate another

Maslowian perplexity: the role of meaning in

psychologists’ lives and careers. In this illumi-

— Kirk J. Schneider


JOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

nating inquiry, the authors fi nd that far from

being nihilistic about the ultimate meaning of

their own (and others’) lives, many psycholo-

gists are acutely hopeful about, and indeed

elevated by, such a meaning. This fi nding, the

authors elaborate, has signifi cant implications,

not only for the longevity of psychologists’

careers, but for the effectiveness of their prac-

tice—I urge you to fi nd out how.

James Dillon takes an alternative tack

with his survey of humanistic psychologists

in the academy. In Reclaiming Humanistic

Psychology from Modernity, Dillon deftly

articulates the current challenges of humanis-

tic psychology, which include, in his view, an

overemphasis on individuality, self-fulfi llment,

and novelty, and a consequent neglect of the

classic humanistic values of ancient Greece and

the Renaissance. Among the values he cites as

most relevant from these classic sources are

the inquiry into “human nature, padeia, char-

acter, and democratic citizenship.” I urge you

to read more about these classic

but potentially restorative dimen-

sions, and the benefi ts they may

bring to all.

In the next article, Louise

Sundarajan presents an extraor-

dinary inquiry into the complexi-

ties of emotion. She claims that

not only do emotions “serve the

purpose of coping and adaptation,

but [they] foster an expansion of

the experience of consciousness

that contribute importantly to a

subjective self, without which bio-

logical survival would be meaning-

less.” This question of meaningful

coping and adaptation has critical

signifi cance for the fi eld of emo-

tion, as well as mainstream psy-

chology as a whole.

In Building a Home in Nature,

Ronen Berger deepens the home

of humanism. Drawing on an ar-

ray of case illustrations, Berger

takes us on a fascinating excur-

sion into nonverbal and innovative

methods of healing. Readers who

work with incorrigible adolescents or stultifi ed

seniors will especially benefi t from this novel

humanistic alternative. One of my favorite

lines from this article is the conception of

nature as a “co-therapist.”

On a more somber note, we at JHP

mourn the passing of some remarkable human-

istic scholars. Among these is Will McWhin-

ney, who served graciously and gracefully as

an editorial board member for many fruitful

years. Also noted is the passing of a pioneer

in existential-phenomenological psychology,

Adrian van Kaam. Dr. Van Kaam was one

of my own early mentors through his book

Existential Foundations of Psychology, which

holds a prominent place on my (and many

of my colleagues’) bookshelf. Finally, we are

saddened to report the passing of Heinz L.

Ansbacher, who was a student and disciple of

Alfred Adler, and who served faithfully as a

member of JHP’s editorial board. Dr. Ans-

bacher will be remembered especially for his

important contributions to a more personal

Individual Psychology.

— KIRK SCHNEIDER


One of the travelers in our Maya Mysteries program (http://www.kenosis.net/Retreats/Mayantrip.

htm) experienced a natural healing during our trip in January 2008 that has been scientifi cally documented. I’ll call the traveler Hope to protect her privacy, even though she’s given permission to use her story.

Scientifi c Documentation Hope had been seeing nutritionist Jane Kohner and receiving monthly testing since October 2007 using the Asyra technology (http://www.asyra.com). This computerized system has been thoroughly researched and shown highly effective in clinical studies to uncover patients’ condi-tions and is being used by a variety

of allopathic and complementary health professionals from the Mayo Clinic to Dr. Norm Shealy. The Asyra machine shows a range of red, yellow, and green levels for physical conditions. Hope was in the red (dangerous) for blood sugar levels and cardiac stress. She was adhering to the diet/supplement program Jane prescribed. But the reading levels hadn’t budged from red. Jane tested her right before she went on our Spiritual Travel Program to Mexico and immedi-ately afterward—about a three-week lapse. The timing just happened that way and hadn’t been specifi cally intended, nor was I aware of Hope’s health challenge or this process at the time. In the post-trip test, Hope showed

in the green (normal) for both condi-tions! Jane indicated that Hope had improved on everything and was now at the green level in almost all areas, with no signifi cant conditions showing. She has maintained those levels as of this writing in April 2008. Jane said to me, “I consider it to be a dramatic healing. These things just don’t resolve that quickly! I know what to do to support the body nutritionally. But I know from work at the Gershon Cancer Center, if the emotional healing doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t work.” I expressed my excitement to Jane about this news. Finally, here’s a way to study and show scientifi cally what I’ve witnessed happening for years in the work I’ve undertaken—

The Infi nite Aspect of Natural Healing— Carla Woody


consistent emotional healings with visible physical results periodically. Now here’s also a way of showing the physical healing that doesn’t necessarily present to the casual eye, but does happen quietly, like a return of normal blood sugar levels. We’ve agreed to collaborate on document-ing case studies with people who are engaged with the programs I sponsor, at least those living in the Prescott, Arizona, area. While I don’t think in scientifi c terms, I most defi nitely appreci-ate the validation that research can bring, especially when I can only describe the occurrences in esoteric ways that are absolutely real, but may not make sense to the general population. Recently, a friend sent me the link to an inspirational short video that’s making its way through the Internet, called My Stroke of Insight (http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229), where Jill Bolte Taylor describes her personal experience of a stroke and, because of her background as a sci-entist, her awareness as it occurred and now as fully recovered. The beauty in the fi lm also came through her description of what happens when we’re in right and left brain functioning. This allows me to point back to science to explain what transpires in our spiritual travel programs and during retreats. Those of us involved enter a predominantly right brain state—a state of higher conscious-ness that touches the God space. This is where healing occurs—in taking a vacation from the internal dialogue and fi nite impossibilities professed from the left brain per-spective.

Toward Non-Ordinary States In the beginning of programs, I always discuss with the participants the nature of our work and the vessel which will contain us, already ex-tending it for them to enter. I relate the energy that will move within it

and the visible to invisible levels of experience that will insert itself. That being so even when what we’re doing seems quite ordinary, such as eating together or even riding on a bus. They shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that nothing is coming about. Well ahead of our time together I begin to com-municate to them about activating their intent, so that indeed their intent will meet them as they arrive, even if they don’t con-sciously know or have a clue what I’m relaying. The ones who stare at me blankly are still entrenched in the predominantly left hemisphere of the brain where we are taught, in our culture, to live. Those who look at me in confusion are making a shift to the right brain state, and those who tear up at my words or gaze back with soft eyes have already made the transition. When people take a swan dive into this beautiful container and allow it to hold them, what seems like magic happens. But it’s merely because they’ve given themselves permission to open to the sacred aspects of what resides there. What follows are just some examples of many occurrences over the years.

Emotional and Physical Healings This past weekend a participant of my Navigating Your Lifepath program reminded me of her experience at one of the retreats I led a few years ago. She woke up in the middle of the night, couldn’t get back to sleep and was fretting about it. Then she remembered what was said that day about being open to what’s present, not in a way of submitting, but of acceptance. She calmed. Her mind quieted. And when that happened, she suddenly felt a presence. She heard her moth-er’s voice clearly, saying how sorry she was that she hadn’t able to be

NATURAL HEALING

there for her when she was young. This woman felt waves of sorrow coming from her mother, spoke back to her and, in that moment, forgave her actions. A weight lifted and the presence gradually left. Her mother had passed from this life a number of years ago. I don’t need to tell you the details of the emotional healing that followed for you to know the signifi cance. In one of the 2005 Spiritual Travel Programs in Peru, a woman in midlife underwent a healing from a fairly serious chronic asthmatic con-dition. She is still free from it today. Her full story is on the Peru testi-monials page at http://www.kenosis.net/Retreats/Testimonial/htm. The synopsis is that she moved through a fear that had been with her since childhood. The powerful energy of the Peruvian jungle ate it. This past summer a Hopi Spirit Keeper had a profound healing related to alcoholism, while he was with us in Peru, and which he has maintained. This is what he relays: “When I was in the Pachamama cave I prayed to be a better husband, a better man for my family. And when I came back from Peru I quit

CARLITA WOODY

ROSS

HILM

OE


drinking and it’s been positive for me since then . . . keeping busy with my art work, tending to my family and things I need to do. . . . We had ceremony with the Q’ero people and I had my medicine pouch blessed by them. They’re good-hearted people. . . . This trip was very moving, very spiritual. It brought my son and me closer together . . . ” In an article I wrote in 2005 called The Entrainment of Intent (http://ahpweb.org/pub/perspective/february2005/feb05cover2.html), published by the AHP Perspective, I offered some case studies of what can happen in a refi ned energy state, which I will now add to, coming from almost total immersion in right brain functioning. A couple of them are my own experiences, one incident from a physical accident and the other involving a protective action. The third case study was of a traveler in our group who avoided a usual allergic response, one that, back home, would have brought about anaphylactic shock.

CHOICES Sometimes what’s held in the left brain—the internal dialogue—has to

come up and smack us in order for it to attempt to vacate, creating dif-fi cult situations in order to recognize what we’ve been denying. Other times, the release just happens, al-most like the exhalation of a breath, with no fanfare. It’s been my experi-ence that what is necessary occurs in order to offer the opportunity toward whole health. Strangely enough, just the right people come together in a group and circumstances present themselves that support that process. Then it’s the choice of the individu-als involved whether to create the movement. Spirit Keepers such as Don Antonio Martinez of the Lacandón Maya, Don Américo Yábar and the Q’ero paq’os of Peru, and others like them are anchored in a more infi nite state of being most of the time. Jill Bolte Taylor’s description of the full right brain experience supports my statement. We can live in these states, too. The rub is that, as opposed to indig-enous cultures, mainstream society

NATURAL HEALING

MAYA MYSTERIES GROUP IN DON ANTONIO MARTINEZ’S GOD HOUSE IN THE TINY VILLAGE OF NAJA IN THE LACANDON RAINFOREST, CHIAPAS, MEXICO.

Darle

ne Du

nning

Darle

ne Du

nning

DON ANTONIO MARTINEZ, LAST SPIRIT KEEPER OF THE LACANDÓN MAYA, AND SACRED BALCHÉ CEREMONY.


doesn’t value, understand, or support this level of wisdom or the people who hold it. The quest for those of us living in Western culture and

traversing those outer reaches is to straddle both worlds and to integrate them.. Therein rests the magic and, in reciprocity from the gifts we’ve received, our service to the wider world. From my perspective, Jill also scientifi cally explains the trial of re-entry for those intrepid explorers of other realities. Having surrendered to a no-mind, expansive realm of infi nite possibilities, returning to fi -nite, sometimes hard-edged societal containers is jarring at best. No won-

der I frequently hear, “I don’t want to go home!” But return we must or, as Joseph Campbell said, we don’t complete the journey. For more information about the work of Jane Kohner, Nutritionist CCN, using live blood cell analysis

and Asyra technology, contact Heal-ing Winds Alternative Health Care Center in Prescott, Arizona, (928) 445-4401. View the Kenosis programs page at http://www.kenosis.net/programs.htm for Spiritual Travel Program destinations and periodic retreats. The Navigating Your Lifepath course work and private consultation are specifi cally intended to integrate and anchor the aforementioned ex-periences into everyday life. I offer these opportunities for integrity of

NATURAL HEALING

UNRETOUCHED PHOTO FROM OCTOBER 2007 KENOSIS RETREAT SHOWS AN ENERGY PHEOMENON THAT WAS NOT SEEN BY PARTICIPANTS, BUT WAS REPORTED AS FELT BY SOME. THE PHOTO WAS TAKEN AT THE POINT OF FEEDING PRAYERS INTO THE

FIRE TO BE CONSUMED AND RELEASED DURING A DESPACHO CEREMONY (AN OFFERING OR RITUAL PRAYER ORIGINATING FROM THE QUECHUA INDIANS OF THE ANDES.

Darle

ne Du

nning

the work and to support permanent transformation. See the calendar at http://www.kenosis.net/Retreats/cal-endar.html for scheduled offerings.

CARLA WOODY, MA, CHT, author of Standing Stark: The Willing-

ness to Engage and Calling Our Spirits Home: Gateways for Full Consciousness, is the founder of Kenosis LLC, based in Prescott, Ari-zona, whose mission is to serve hu-man potential through retreats and spiritual travel. She is also Found-ing President of Kenosis Spirit Keepers, a nonprofi t organization, helping to preserve the integrity of indigenous wisdom and sacred cultural practices. [email protected]. www.kenosis.net. (238) 779-1058


— Francesco Palmirotta

Holism, a currently emergent vision in many disciplines in the arts, sciences, and

medicine, offers psychology a timely path beyond both modern-ism and postmodernism. A holistic vision can provide the possibility of overcoming both the fragmentary ellipses of postmodern thought as well as the dualisms that are the heritage of modernity. In their place, an urgently needed integrative vision can be seen within a comprehensive understanding of the human. Here is an overview of the prospects and purposes of holistic psychology by examining its signifi cance in three

Ontosophy: A Holistic Approach to TherapyPresented at the symposium Holism Beyond Postmodernism created by C. Aanstoos, M. Arons, and F. Palmirotta, in Trento, Italy

contexts: through its appearance in history, in everyday lived experi-ence, and in professional praxis. First, we will discover the value of holism for contemporary psychology by examining the history of under-standing the human holistically. That historical viewpoint shows us that holism has been an undercurrent throughout Western intellectual his-tory, and has had three great periods of ascendancy. We will examine the recurring themes of holism as it manifested in these waves. First, in ancient Greek thought, holism took the form of a mythopoetic ontology, depicting the meaning of the human

in terms of the meaning of being. Second, in the European Renais-sance, holism took the form of a humanistic and artistic pedagogy, depicting the place of the human in the natural and social world. In the 20th century, holism began to be ex-pressed as a phenomenological and psychological rendering of human potential. Second, by researching the phe-nomenology of the embodiment, we can discern an anatomy of human creativity. Expanding on the lead of Erwin Straus, this paper explores the philosophical debate in light of the lived worlds of the uniquely human upright body posture, a quirky stance that by its own ap-parent disadvantages of instability and disharmony renders a human creative advantage. These fi ndings exemplify how the human spirit and its dynamics on both the individual and collective planes demonstrate the key axiological values of balance and harmony. Third, we will interrogate psy-chology’s professional practice as psychotherapy. This inquiry will propose a practice founded on the basic premise of the nonduality of subjectivity and objectivity; one ca-pable of forging the unity of psychic and psychosomatic. This practice can lead the human consciousness to the autopoetic rediscovery of the natural gift of well-being. Holism offers psychology a timely path beyond postmodernism, an integrative vision in which dualisms are seen within a comprehensive understanding of the human. This ar-ticle presents holistic psychology in three ways: by examining a history of understanding the human holisti-cally; by exemplifying how balance


ONTOSOPHY

and harmony manifest phenomeno-logically in the experience of the anatomy of human creativity; and by demonstrating within psychology’s praxis as psychotherapy the nondu-ality of subjectivity and objectiv-ity and the forging of the unity of psychic and somatic. The division of soul and body introduced by Plato (1971) and consolidated by Descartes (1641), or in any case formulated to establish modern science’s evidence criteria, has created more problems than it has solved. To satisfy the needs of the scientifi c method, this division has created a split in the conception of man that all scholars say they want to overcome, without fi nding the instruments to do it. The only science that has the full right to reason a possibility of reunifi cation in the scientifi c–epochal rationality is psychotherapy–psychosomatics, and not philosophy, nor biology, nor psychology or psychoanalysis or psychiatry, because they lack the methodological and hermeneutic mandate–statute to treat the pathol-ogy or the healthy realization of the psychosoma without any foreign, theoretical–material means. It is shown that the psyche is cured by means of the psyche, and, thus, psychosomatics. After this split, on the one hand psychology (which has focussed on a subjective world or sensations, quality, scientifi cally disqualifi ed thoughts because they cannot be measured), and on the other hand exact science (biology, physics, etc.) described in terms of quantity, have each proceeded along their own way for a long time and with their own methods without fi nding a solution. The former has sought a connection between the soul and the body, the spirit and matter, while continuing to consider them as two qualitatively different entities and thus diffi cult to consider together; science has continued to think of the spirit as a simple name destined to disappear when scientifi c research has made

suffi cient progress to be able to biologically explain those signs that we are still forced to describe with the categories of the spirit. The importance of Husserlian phe-nomenology (1965) is that of having determined the origin of the “crisis” of sciences (1961) in the clear sepa-ration between what can be quanti-fi ed and the qualities perceived by the subject. Husserl does not draw a reason for defi nitive disillusion toward rationality from this situation of crisis (the outcome of postmod-ernism), which the universal value claims; indeed, to reclaim this value, it is necessary to return to the origi-nal dimension from which science derives, the dimension that is the one of the world of life: the world of direct sense experience (percep-tive and emotive), a pre-categorical world which does not coincide with pure rationality, but is full of the cor-poreity of common life. The ultimate meaning of the theoretical construc-tions is to be sought precisely in this world of life. RECENT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHThis different viewpoint of the prob-lem of the bases of science, through the meaning and the pragmatics of the phenomenological reduction, has assumed many variants in the fi eld of knowledge. There is a need to overcome the division, the fragmen-tation of knowledge, through a more unitarian vision which can no longer be of knowledge but of Being. The most recent discoveries of neuroscience focus on the “relation of equivalence between mental state and cerebral state” (Manganaro, 1966), absorbing the mind on the bodily plain (Edelman, 1990), going toward the defi nitive elimination of the soul.MIRROR NEURONSMirror neurons (Rizzolatti, 1996) are a group of nerve cells located in the frontal pre-motor zone and in the parietal lobule of the en-cephala (areas considered motor ones without cognitive functions,

but the system is said to include many cerebral areas, even those of language) which are activated both when a specifi c action is performed, and when the execution of the same action performed by another indi-vidual is observed. These cells have the capacity to immediately recog-nize and understand the meaning of observed acts; in other words they allow the immediate recognition of the intentions of others’ actions. They are also capable of activating when actions are only mimed. All this is said to demonstrate that action and perception are a single phenomenon. Internal motor representation of the observed act could be at the basis of learning by imitation, and the mirror neurons would be the control system of this process, facilitating or inhibiting and even conditioning by the emotive situation. It is thought that imita-tive learning controlled by specifi c mirror neurons is at the basis of the evolution of a system of inten-tional communication, actuated through gestures, responsible for the origin of language, so concepts and thoughts would be based on sensorial–motor factors (Rizzolatti, Senigallia, 2006, 140-163). Mirror neurons are thought to be the ana-tomic substrate of empathy (under-standing others’ emotions, percep-tion of what the other perceives); they are situated in a neuronal centre of the insula, whose activation trans-forms sensorial inputs into visceral reactions. Giacomo Rizzolatti (2006, 177-183) says that the mechanism of mirror neurons incarnates on the neural plain that manner of under-standing that, before any conceptual and linguistic mediation, gives shape to our experience of the others and to the network of our interindividual and social relations; they are internal “a priori” forms, connected to the motor system, which give a meaning to and verify our knowledge. The relations with the world would thus be determined before the intellect, by the bodily capacity to resound with it.


ONTOSOPHY

OLOGRAPHIC MODEL OF THE UNIVERSEThe unitary vision of man and of the cosmos, in spite of all the diffi cul-ties, has still continued to be a sort of main theme, sometimes visible and sometimes hidden and removed in Western culture. Today, this theme seems to emerge in the holographic model of the universe devised by the theoretical physicist David Bohm (1996), who supports the concept of “implied order” where everything is connected, and in every point there is the image and information of everything else. Starting from the demonstration of the nonlocal link between subatomic particles, this discovery was made in 1982 by a group of researchers from the University of Paris under the physicist Alain Aspect. They found that they remain in contact no matter what the distance that separates them, because separation

is an illusion. Aspect thus devised a universal model of relation and global information which states the analogy between microcosm and macrocosm, between the one and the infi nite because everything co-penetrates everything and thus the divisions, the classifi cations, and the categorisations do not have any sense, and even time and space are simple projections of a more com-plex system. In this universe, man is a holographic unit which contains in himself the matrix of global information of the system in which it is contained and with which it is continually exchanging information and energy. From this holographic hypothesis, the neurophysiologist Karl Pribram (1971, 1979, 1985) of the University of Stenford, explained the operation of the human brain: it works like a hologram, and the information is contained in the schemes of the nervous impulses which form neu-ronal networks of thin fi bres which pass through the whole brain, in

which the impulses generate low frequency waves which have the ca-pacity for mathematical elaboration (it is thought that a particular rhythm is necessary for this function), trans-forming the frequencies into senso-rial perceptions. The same continual relation also occurs simultaneously with the smallest cells of the body, which are, in turn, holographic units because their DNA contains the global information of the whole hu-man unit, in continual relation with the whole system. The existence of a primary structured and signifi cant dimension of reality is confi gured and transcends space–time, in which our brain is a hologram which interprets a holographic universe, creating shared confi gurations, but it can also tune into the invisible ma-trix, which generates what appears real to us, in the states which we defi ne as “altered or non-ordinary consciousness,” states in which our “intelligent perception,” comparable to insight, is capable of producing a harmony, a complex correspondence between mind and matter. The tuning with the primary real-ity is an explanation of precognition, of psychokinesis, of the healing processes. It also explains the ex-traordinary intuition of the mystics and the ancient philosophers who preceded the scientifi c proof of the subsequent centuries (Leibniz de-scribed the system of monads a long time before this holographic model) (Cariati, 1977). The problem of reconsidering the meaning of getting ill, of why it happens, and the meaning of the symptoms is opened. The holo-graphic universe is full of mean-ing, in it the synchronicity and the signifi cant coincidences make sense. Nothing happens by chance.AUTOPOIESISThe harmony between the micro-cosm and the macrocosm is also stated in the theory of autopoiesis. The word autopoiesis comes from the Greek auto (self) and poiesis(creation). With this term, the biolo-gist H. R. Maturana and the neu-


ONTOSOPHY

rophysiologist F. J. Varela (1980) indicated the fundamental charac-teristic of living systems: possessing an independent organised structure, self-maintaining and self-regenerat-ing, which contributes to the genera-tion of the whole system. The living systems produce subsystems which make them up and produce the global structural organisation necessary to maintain them and to produce them. In this sense, living systems are self-ref-erential, they only think about their own maintenance, and all the actions which they seem to carry out toward the outside really have the aim of maintaining their own integrity with respect to environ-mental disturbances. Every system, even the closed one, is not isolated, because it is linked to a self-behaviour in which the actions of the subsystems, intercon-nected by the structural organisation, cause actions within the confi nes of the system itself and of its own internal dynamics. Living systems have such internal coherence that in spite of not exchanging informa-tion between each other, they create a sense, an unpredictable mean-ing, which did not exist before the activity of the system and which cannot be separated from it. Varela considers the immune system as a network with independent activity which ignores everything that does not come within its own cognitive dominion; he also considers cogni-tion and consciousness as indepen-dent systems and states: “the brain is not a computer and consciousness is not in the head.”VISCERAL BRAINA long time has passed since, for example, R. B. Onians (1998, p. 352) spoke, amongst the ancient Jewish conceptions, of “those who speak from the belly” (engastrimy-thoi) (Palmirotta, 1997, p. 149, p. 213), as people possessing a spirit which predicts (which gets to know)

inside the man, and only today are some people beginning to talk about visceral intelligence again: some modern scientists say that we have a second brain distributed on the intes-tine. They call it enteric brain be-cause here a lot of substances typical of the brain are produced and used, starting with neurotransmitters. Michael Gershon (1999), professor of Anatomy and Cellular Biology at Columbia University, has discovered that a nervous system operates in the intestine which embryologically comes from the neural crest, like the central nervous system, but is functionally outside its control. This means that it does not necessarily carry out its commands nor does it always send back the informa-tion received; it can process data detected by its sensitive receptors and independently activate groups of effectors under its exclusive control. It is an independent site of integra-tion of nervous system information; it presides over the functions of digestive enzymatic, glandular, mus-cular, pressure, chemical–physical, and immune hormonal coordination; it produces the greatest quantity of serotonin (95%) present in the hu-man body (only 1% of it is produced in the encephala), which operates as an activator of the intestinal mucous, starting up the peristaltic refl ex. The production of serotonin by the en-teric nervous system is not triggered by external stimuli, it is indepen-dently synthesized and acts on the development of the enteric neurons. The second brain is responsible for the “visceral decisions,” that is those that are spontaneous and unaware: it thus has an important role in joy and pain, indeed serotonin regu-lates humour, sleep, pain, and also abdominal contractions. The small intestine contains about one hundred million neurons against about two thousand nervous fi bres in the vagus nerve which connect the central ner-vous system to the intestine; indeed most of the neurons present in the intestine are inter-neurons, that is sensitive nerve cells capable of inte-grating and elaborating the messages

in transit, as occurs in the central nervous system, where the sensitive areas have the job of integrating the messages coming from the periph-eral organ. The “enteric brain” is also closely connected to the endocrine system, widespread within the gastrointes-tinal mucosa (APUD system cells), and to the immune system, which has a large lymphatic network. Our abdomen is thus an important integrated neuro–endocrine–immune complex which carries out functions with a great amount of indepen-dence, but with strong infl uences both external (food, visual input, etc.) and internal (emotions, form beliefs, habits, etc.). A different way of considering knowledge has an almost organic implication for recognising reality: a way of perceiving life as a discov-ery in organismic communication. Barbara McClintock, American biologist, describes her research: she “listened to the material,” without preconstituted models, seeking to be “in tune with the organism,” a sensa-tion of being part of what she was observing, “of being there” and thus being able to know. This recalls a therapeutic love toward what should be known, and also an opportunity to refl ect on ourselves. Refl ecting and philosophical medi-tation, aimed at listening not only to thought but also to the total organ-ism through which we are communi-cating with the world, are an integral part of what we create and what we plan to be in the future, both as simple human beings and as people who carry out a function in society, especially if we have decided to be physicians, analysts, therapists, loading ourselves with professional, ethical, and human responsibility of sharing our cure with all those who request our help. HOLISM IN TIMEThe holistic vision characterised the fi rst forms of philosophical thought developing in the regions of Ionia and Magna Graecia (Southern Italy) from the 6th century BC (and which


ONTOSOPHY

have been given the names of hylo-zoism; pantheism; monism). The linchpin of this vision was a sort of syncretism (which was ex-pressed in the category of the whole of the “to olon”, meaning whole-ness, catholicity, universal), which referred to a single principle or arkè which was both the animated matter and the divine force which gener-ated it, as well as the only law that regulated it and made it intelligible to the mind. The Pre-Socratics worked for a conception of man as a whole, pre-senting soul–body–reason as parts of the same reality. From Socrates and Plato (1991a) (who in the Sympo-sium embodies this scission into a myth, that of man as a sphere in which the two sexes cohabitated and which was later divided by the gods into two halves, each one of which continued its worldly journey, feel-ing the absence of the other which it yearns to join up with again) onward, subsequently consolidated by Descartes in the attempt to blend modern science, it has been subject to a division. For the fi rst Greek philosophers, there was no clear or dogmatic distinction between philosophy, religion, paideia, pedagogy, but rather a sensation of maieutic and transformative psycho–existential, metamorphic acts of the human or ecosystemic reality (Jaeger, 1982). In this context, the Being was both the universal totality and the dialectic principle generating all the things that made up this totality—it was a continuum of individual–en-vironment–cosmos. Thus the ontos (being) was referred to various situations, things, people, divinities. From the philosophical conceptions of Homer, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Eraclitus, Socrates, Plotinus (Abbag-nano, Fornero, 2000, 5-169, 456-467), a concept of Ontos–Being can be determined which contains the dynamic and also the status (form) of a matter–energy–intelligence, this

being the fundamental idea of the ancient masters who lived in Greece and Magna Graecia. Historically with Romanity (Terentius Varrone and Catone) (Ab-bagnano, Fornero, 2000, 446-450) and offi cial Christianity, the streams of meanings which come from the mother philosophy of the ontos are crystallised for specifi c interests, in itineraries, disciplines, and particular arts defi ned by need and contingen-cies of powers and corporations (military, political, religious), and the holistic conception is relegated to the margins of the offi cial culture. In spite of the positions of some Fathers of the church (Origen, St. Paul) (Fries, Kretschmar, 1996) and the pantheist philosophies of G. Bruno (Yates, 1995) and B. Spinoza (1677, 1997), until the end of the 1800s there was a clear division between philosophy of spirit and sci-ences of nature, between subjective world and objective world, between primary qualities and secondary qualities, which is nothing but the ideological refl ection of that divi-sion of the original idea of being like “to olon.” The result was the positivistic myth of science which not only empties the nonmeasurable qualities of things of any meaning, but also feeds on the idea of theories as instruments of dominion and control, crushes knowledge on its concrete applications. It would be Nietzsche (1872,1976), through the criticism of excessive rationalism of Western culture, who reproposed the recovery of concepts like corpore-ity and phenomenology, to report the “crisis” of science whose results are no longer sure—see Evidence Based Medicine (Timio, Antiseri, 2000; Liberati, 2005). He alludes to the loss of the sense of the cognitive enterprise, whose roots are in the fracture between the objective and subjective world.ONTOSOPHY AND PSYCHO-SOMATICSI would like to point out the rea-sons which induced the use of the terms Ontosophy and Psychosomat-

ics (Palmirotta, 1992, 2000a) to identify a therapeutic approach to psychopathology and to the differ-ent conversion phenomena which sometimes accompany the growth of a human being. I intend to treat the two meanings of Ontosophy and Psychomatics fi rstly separately from the historical and epistemological point of view, then propose the con-jugation of the two terms exactly as it is practised in psychotherapy. The following discussion is thus based on: a) Why Ontosophy?; b) Why Psychosomatics? a) WHY ONTOSOPHY?In about thirty years of clinical and historical–philosophical research, I have reached the conscious necessity that to explain the term Ontosophy, it is necessary to recover not only pre-Socratic thought, but also some elements (historical–philosophi-cal) of an operation of etymological removal, repression, which has been performed during the course of sev-eral thousands of years, which meant that some words were used wrongly over time or even epistemically deprived and distanced increasingly from the complete original meaning, which, undoubtedly richer, allowed a metamorphosis–mythopoietics, or an ontopoietic–metemsomatosis (Pugliese Carratelli, 1990) of the intentional energy contained in the word-verb (logos); this process gives us the examples of the words: method, metaphysics, psyche, soma, drug, therapy . . . while other no less important words have even disap-peared from common and/or intel-lectual use, leaving an inevitable lack of meaning only partially made up for by discoveries or new scien-tifi c practices; i.e., engastrimuthoi (the visceral intelligence–soul of Plato rediscovered by M. Gershon as an enteric–visceral brain), logotikoi (the psyche–intelligence which resides in the head–brain rediscov-ered by R. y Cajal), pneumatikoi (the psyche that resides in the chest–pneuma, the intelligence of stem cells that repair independently by migrating the heart’s damaged


ONTOSOPHY

ones), paideia (practising virtue in one’s life cycle to realise oneself in a wise–divine sense of existence—not to be God). In the word Ontosophy we fi nd the concept of the wisdom of be-ing which is linked not only to the meaning of these words in pre-So-cratic philosophy, but also to the practice of Sophia as a therapy by the ancient philosophers. In spite of this, Ontosophy apparently only found itself in the history of the culture in more recent times and has undergone a series of particularly signifi cant trials and tribulations in relation to the discussion that we are making about the fortune of holism in Western culture. The word Ontosophy appeared for the fi rst time (Ferrater Mora, 1963, 36-47) in a work by Caramuel y Lobkowitz, and was discussed in more detail in the work Metaphysica de ente, que rectius Ontosophia . . . by Johann Clauberg in 1647, then by A. Genovesi in 1745; it was replaced by the term Ontology, introduced as a technical term in philosophy by Jean Le Clerc or Ioannis Cleri-cus in the second treatise entitled Ontologia sive de ente in genere dated 1722, and was defi nitively systematically legitimated in the philosophical terminology of the time by the dogmatic rationalist philosopher Christian Wolff. He also guided the illuminist philosophers or the anonymous author who wrote the article “Ontology” in the French Encyclopaedia, who were rather acritical toward Wolff’s “Filosofi a prima sive ontologia” and presented his dogmatic thought as rational pre-illuminist. Thus from Wolff onward the sense of Ontosophy was eclipsed and was darkened for 300 years and for the philosophic and scientifi c consciousness of our times and the signifi cant importance of wisdom within the dimension of the Being was also replaced in the common philosophic linguistics with the term Ontology which refers only to

the discourse, to the logos without logotikoi, to the word-speaking of the being, deprived of its own who or motivating subjectivity on which it is based. Ferrater-Mora writes (Ferrater Mora, 1963, 47): “We may blame the French philosophers for lack of historical sense, if not historical information. But it may well happen that by 1765, Calovius, Caramuel, Clauberg, Micraelius, Chauvin, et al., had already been forgotten, or else overshadowed by Wolff.” Thus the term “Sophos,” intended as being aware of a psychic and intentional knowledge–energy in the living being or in the world of existence, was created in the Indo-European history and culture before “Logos” and has a wider and more radically cosmic meaning, but it was Logia, not even Logos, as its main etymo, that assumed importance in science and in art, in literature and in philosophy, in dialogic, therapeu-tic and non-therapeutic relations . . . losing itself along the way in the idea of a knowing start–end which informed latently or patently the sense of the discourses, of the banquets of human actions. Ontosophy could have become a more comprehensive discipline and in any case independent from Christian Theology (Catholic–Prot-estant), and could have founded the true Metaphysics as fi rst philoso-phy, at least according to the title of Clauberg and to what Genovesi stated about a century later but also according to the sense of ontos-olos–sophos present at the origins of Western culture in Parmenides, Pythagoras, Homer, Esiodo, Talete, and other ancient masters. The removal–repression of ontoso-phy, wisdom of being, in civilisation and in history (indeed, according to Genovesi’s biography, 1713-1769, he was accused of rationalism and atheism after the publication of his ponderous opera Elementa methaphysicae mathematicum in modum adornata, 1743-1745, by the Catholic Church, and thereafter could not hold the chair of theology)

(Genovesi), goes hand in hand with epistemic expropriation of the sense of wisdom and of its use in the prac-tice of daily life (and this is indirect-ly proven also by the assertion in the Western subculture of categorical, negative, apparently indissoluble or incurable or incomprehensible hypostasis like diversity, alienation–madness–schizophrenia (Foucault, 1978), the devil–inquisition–sexual perversion in Churches, hospitalisa-tion–incarceration of the cure–ther-apy–birth assimilated–confused many times with illness–sociopa-thy–criminality; the bewildering–la-belling–dogmatics of diagnostics; the prognostic insecurity–incapacity; the massifi cation–mediocrisation of the spiritual–philosophical–scholas-tic–familiar training; the addressing–fi nalising of the energies of whole peoples toward the consumerist materialism or dogmatic spiritualism without historical–civil intelligence, without the guiding soul from the ontopoietic intentionality toward social well-being and in particular: psychosomatic intentionality of the therapist–client individuat which solves or improves health in the therapeutic settings. b) LET’S CONSIDER PSYCHO-SOMATICS Let’s consider in part its history and the reason for its need in clinical medicine. Psychosomatics is a state of hu-man or living energy, “regarding the relation between mind and body. Disturbances which have a physi-ological component but are consid-ered to originate from an emotive state of the patient are defi ned as psychosomatic. . . . This separation of the human being is unthinkable: there are no pathologies that are lim-ited to the physical sphere without infl uencing the emotive one as well. There is always a strict interaction, even though, in particular cases, a pathology to a superfi cial exam may seem to concern the physical or psychic aspect alone” (Taber, 1994, 1446). Despite that German physician


ONTOSOPHY

G. Groddeck (1923-1966) is widely regarded as the “Father of Psychoso-matics,” H. F. Dunbar (1935) in the US from the 1930s and F. Alexander (1967) in the 1940s in Europe are considered the initiators of thist discipline, bridging the gap be-tween medicine and psychology and more pertinent to psychotherapy, as it is a clinical practice. However, from careful research carried out a few years ago in the “I frammenti Pitagorici” (Pythagorean fragments) (Timpanaro Cardini, 1962), it was found that, around 2500 years ago, in the culture of the time in Magna Grecia (the origins of Western culture), the meaning of the term Psyche was freely exchangeable with that of Soma, and vice versa. From this it was deduced that in the intellectual class of the Pythgoreans of the period, which signifi cantly infl uenced the common sense of the language and of the culture, there was the idea of a single (olos) Psychesoma, which was then di-vided in the course of history. The fact that Pythagoras was the fi rst to scientifi cally cure emotive disturbances (or psychosomatic ones as reported by F. Alexander, 1975) with music therapy, and that Alcmeon (Teti, 1988) the physician (considered to be the fi rst neuro-physiologist in history) was the fi rst to enucleate the law of insomnia (what happened in the individual body reverberates in the social body and vice versa), tells us there was a more natural and accredited aware-ness of the Psyche–Soma unit. After studying history of science and T. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientifi c Revolutions (1962,1978), I realized that when a specifi c sci-entifi c discipline–vision to explain a particular discovery is missing from the series of sciences accred-ited by an epochal system, this must come from somewhere, the fruit of someone’s intelligent and creative research work, which almost seems to have been created especially

to give the rest of contemporary humanity that revealing illumina-tion which summarises the previous knowledge about the new disci-pline–vision and opens perspectives on universal horizons. Compare the heliocentric idea of Copernicus–Galileo already present in Aristarchus of Samos and sub-sequently used by H. A. Lorentz in astrophysics and deductively by T. Van Flander (1993) to demonstrate that there is a superluminal speed (gravitational wave) which contra-dicts and innovates the relativity of Einstein, which asserted the impos-sibility of the existence of a faster speed than that of light. The following argumentation is the divulging summary: “if sunlight reaches us on the earth with about eight minutes of delay, the gravita-tional wave–force which makes the sun move forward faster than light compared to the earth, has a speed faster than that of light.” Taking an example from this argumentation (faster speeds than those seen and discovered up to today may ex-ist), if Freud’s dream (1899, 1973; Palmirotta, 2000b) came to his consciousness about fi fteen years earlier, to diagnose his cancer of the jaw with the vision of the appear-ance of leukcoplakia marks exactly as it happened fi fteen years after having dreamt it, then the psyche is faster than rational consciousness and can, thanks to this, both inform the soma and determine outcomes (health and non) in psychosomatic conversion phenomena. From what has been said, the logical–scien-tifi c idea of knowledge–wisdom of the being before, or projectual or prognostic before the somatic phe-nomenisation—is deduced: psycho-somatic ontosophy.PSYCHOSOMATIC ONTOSOPHYPyschosomatic ontosophy (Palmirot-ta, 1994, 1996, 2000c) translates the old meaning of the above consid-erations into psychotherapeutic theory–praxis enucleated in almost thirty years of clinical practice and

based on a holistic vision–action of human ontopoietic well-being. It is a psychosomatic-dynamic approach, intended as a continual process which goes from the psychic dimen-sion to the corporeal dimension, to the socio-environmental reality in a circularity or holistic–hermeneutic sphere of action and is based on four matters: a) an assumed one, already verifi ed in the physical sciences, re-garding the existence of a tendency to the matter’s own order, or the propensity to formal confi guration, stable from all atomic and subatomic elements (principle of self-organi-sation of matter of E. Schrodinger which inspired Watson and Crick’s research on DNA) (De Broglie, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, 1991; Schrödinger, 1995); b) the propensity to self-organisa-tion of biological life can be recog-nised in the principle of autopoiesis, discovered by Maturana and Varela; c) in philosophy it can be found in Husserl’s ontopoiesis (1988), fur-ther theorised by A. Tymieniencka (2000), although without clinical–psychosomatic evidence, which is the only way, in my opinion, capable of proving the philosophical value; d) in psychology–psychotherapy, both in the Rogerian motive of “Actualising Tendency” (Rogers, 1980, 1994), as a propensity of the organism to realise itself in relation to its innate growth potential, both in the conception of self-realisation of A. H. Maslow (1976), when he affi rms the presence in the individ-ual of an active will which aims at health, an impulse to growth and to actuation of human potential, which require the sense of an intrinsic substrate–law which can be defi ned as a principle of Psychosomatic Ontosophy (PO): the wisdom of the human being as psyche–soma indi-viduality, which, as olos–individual, tends toward healthy harmony–ho-meostasis of the self-regenerating being (ontopoiesis). It is a mat-ter–strength–intelligence principle which can be also understood in the theory of Gaia di Lovelock (1981),


ONTOSOPHY

who hypothesises a single living system capable of self-regulating the climate and atmospheric composi-tion, but also determines itself in the processes of insight and in the states of ecstatic consciousness (Imagogy from the Latin Im-ago, I act from inside, interiorness which becomes existential act). In particular, PO takes up on the ancient and modern ideas of relation between determination and every-thing and adds the possibility that the Being is a psycho–bio–physical law completely ecosystemic (olos) in the part (being-human) and inter-acts as preconstituted knowledge or consciousness (psychic DNA) or vi-sion–principle of wisdom in human determination, recomposing from a sphere of intelligent and intimate action the world of life, the Erlebnis in Hussler’s Lebenswelt. Consider the software that makes up the DNA of the cells continually bothered by cosmic rays. There has always been, in all hu-man cultures, the idea of an agent who creates or reorders the harmony of forms from chaos; the Greek ci-vilisation seems the only one to have explicitly mythicised a God of love as creator of the universe and con-tinually interacting in the divine and human world as the most powerful entity of all the Gods; we cannot deny now that the “fl ourishing of art and science from Greece–Magna Graecia of 2500 years ago, had no equals in any other human civilisa-tion, according to Pugliese Carratel-li, and this is owed to philosophy: wisdom of love or love for wisdom? In today’s psychotherapy, the open dimension of research-fi nding, that motivating-correspondent which is at the basis of the creativity of the authentic well-being of a civilisa-tion, may exist. THE THERAPEUTIC RELATIONThe therapist knows he must “love” the client (in the epistemological

sense of Eros_therapon and|or erota philosophon). He offers against alienation, the deep wisdom of their Strength–Love (c.f. the sense of philosophy in Pythagoras). On the one hand this is, in some way, similar to a Rogerian “uncon-ditional acceptance” of the client, on the other it is connected to the ancient custom of physicians, thera-pists, and masters of humanity who had a good philosophical education (the agathoi iatroi in Plato) (Veg-getti, 1995, p. 16), which implied being “friend–lover–son of wisdom” (according to the Greek–Latin root) existing in life. It is also recon-nected to the existential psychology as psychosynthesis of the numenic being. This is the reason why I be-lieve philosophical–psychotherapic training is important to operate the realisation of the mandate–client in psychotherapy with psychosomatic and historical–existential wisdom. Both material and psychic and psychosomatic well-being are steps on a single ladder, as the most recent analysis of A. Maslow (1971) has allowed us to understand. However, intuitions alone do not bring peace, the solution of confl icts, and the truth of life: they must be acted on! Correct intuitions about the ecosystemic progress of the Hu-man Being must be acted on silently or openly case by case but onto-sophically in any case (according to the vital, apartitic wisdom of the Being). This ethics of action is the best form of healthy egoism which wants psychic, psychosomatic, and somatic well-being of subjectiv-ity–collectivity living present and future. The (psychosomatic) malaise of an individual is only the latest stereotyped refl ection of the ill that a whole population suffers. For this reason, in the therapist’s study, the client represents the node of a large network of socio–environ-mental malaise. They are the point in which many historical, political, religious, economic, familiar, scho-lastic, and fi nally individual respon-sibilities are concentrated. The therapist’s job is to give the

client the key to the intelligent psychobiological sphere (sphere of action) (Palmirotta, 1999), natu-rally ready for self-governing of their own egoicity, clearing it up in its surroundings and in its tension toward the individual ontic realisa-tion (Ontic Existential Self). The egoic virtuality of the client (Alien-ated Virtual Self) is opposed to the Ontic Real Self present in the two therapist–client poles by integrating the energy of psychic intentionality (conscious in the psychotherapist and mostly unconscious in the user) as a force of consciousness which determines a growth in the psycho–biological fi eld of the patient going beyond the sign dimension of the verbalised and determining well-be-ing during the session and beyond. The scientifi c formula of the Sphere of Action can be summarised in the formula: SphA = E . I = PH. This means that the Sphere of Ac-tion (SfA) is the result of E (Energy in the Einsteinian sense) multiplied by I (Intentionality of the Being); the individual result is the constant P (Psyche, intended in its preSocratic sense) multiplied by H (Harmony, intended in the Pythagorean sense as harmony of the macrocosmic–mi-crocosmic spheres). This formula operates on the therapeutic level and, as the psychic or psychoso-matic symptom is a blocked energy, it has a physical relevance, in the sense that it is pertinent to the physi-cal reality. Thus, the above formula may have consequences and effects for physics, as did the synchronicity of Jung (1952,1976, 451-486). The sphere of action is a possible mediation between contemporane-ousness and the continuity of energy as it hypothesises a “universe” of spheres of energy which intersect, blend into one another, belong to one another, and inform themselves according to laws of harmony of the physical reality and/or of vital homeostasis. Each sphere coincides with the energy levels–frequencies corresponding to the individualities, increasingly more comprehensive of the total energy, the holos–real


ONTOSOPHY

of each determination that in OP is called Real Ontic Self. The theory of PO foresees: 1) the Alien Virtual Self: any energy confi guration which is strati-fi ed on the original one, blocking it (projection of other energy confi gu-rations conditioning the sense of reality–health that are stratifi ed on their own energy conformation); 2) the Ontic Virtual Self is the consciousness, the intentionality present to their own energy, which may operate a “shielding” (holo-gram) which preserves the original energy from the blocking interfer-ences by channelling potentially to self-realisation—e.g., through scien-tifi c–artistic intuition in dreams—as happened for Kekulè and Tartini (Gutheil, 1951,1972, 21-23).CONCLUSIONExtending the humanistic conceptual framework, I have developed appli-cative specifi cations and a particular manner of “resonant empathy” in the musical sense. I use music therapy and art therapy (Palmirotta, 2004) both to “tune in with” and to ensure that the client is in tune with their own self (ontic self): thus I tune in to the client and in doing so I har-monise the being–symphony of the client with all its unique and creative potential. I also use other methodol-ogies to achieve this result, like fi lm therapy (using the cinematographic module to make alienating condi-tioning conscious and to abreact it—the dynamic hologram—which acts through the fi xed nature of sociocultural images), ontosophic imagogy (which can be likened to a bodily relaxation technique, some-times with the production of freely produced images, up to achieving peak experiences/ecstatic experi-ences), oniric ontosophy (Palmirotta, 1995) (diagnosis–therapy–strategy of self-realisation coined by the Psyche through dreams). Psychotherapeutic ontosophy adopts a maieutic methodology in

the sense of respecting and agree-ing with the governing interiorness of the client in every psychic–exis-tential decision. In other words the therapist “sees” the dynamics of the interior control and acts psycho-somatically to make the client be born again in his or her uniqueness, respecting the individual and histori-cal growth times. With “seeing” we mean: 1) a participating scientifi c obser-vation (empathic), 2) stating (through the references of kinesic–proxemic, physiognomic, and above all psychic–psychoso-matic behaviour), and, 3) waiting for each further step of the personologic growth of the client. “Respect” (a fundamental of therapy) is the resonance of the Real Ontic Self of the psychotherapist with the client’s Real Ontic Self. If the energy contained in the depth of the atom can be freed by generating other strong energy, what can the energy enclosed in the depth of the human soul, of the human psyche, be like, and what value of strength, of quantics can it express when free? Maybe a state of well-being beyond the expectations of WHO or of the domestic health systems . . . or even a state of divine grace, beyond the possible projec-tions of all the religions, or even a situation of intelligent ecosystemic harmony direct and independent from legal impositions, and lastly but not leastly, a continual creativity in the authentic civilisation affi rm-ing from “inside” every unpredict-able possibility from university and non-university itineraries. This bases the emergency (Varela) described by physics, by biology, and by the neurosciences, as a phenomenology of ontopoiesis. The diversity is that the physicist, the biologist, the neuroscientist rea-son by postulating the law, whereas the principle of the phenomenon postulates the intelligence that cre-ates that law. When the emergency appears, we realise that it has been prepared: by whom? How? By the Being, ontopoiesis. But this opens a

further debate, if we do not succeed in seeing the being, it is because the being is inside the being: “water speaks to the fi sh of water.” The sun emits a note 24 hours long and we do not hear it because we are im-mersed in it. If we consider the meanings that the term “inside” used above as-sumes, we can linger on two forms of “inside”: one, the “inside” of an infi nitesimal particle of more com-plete matter, more special, and quite measurable (although not complete-ly) which appears in the physical order; the other, an “inside” that cannot be investigated with the same instruments with which the atom is investigated, but which has more po-tential for investigation, considering that the human physical–biophysical unit is the only one that contains an intelligent continuum between an invisible event, the psyche, and a visible one, the body. In this inside, there is the love of the being because wisdom continues in the administration of life.FRANCESCO PALMIROTTA, Psy. D, Phi.D., is a licensed psychologist–psy-chotherapist and music therapist in Bari, Italy. President of the Humanistic Ontosophy Association, Director of the Psychosomatic Ontosophy Association (AOP), and Director of an AHP Energy Center, he works with Division 32 of the American Psychological Associa-tion, and trains in Psychotherapy and Music therapy. He has worked for 30 years with his staff in Southern Italy (Magna Greece). He founded with other colleagues Solinio Village (in the Murgia National Park) where the meaning of Ontosophy theory and practice is applied (in a UNESCO membership college). He fi rst pointed out the rela-tionship between a dream and Freud’s cancer as a psychosomatic event. He is the author of The Meaning of the Fam-ily to Realize the Ontic–Existential Individuation; Psychosomatic Music Therapy; Psychotherapy and Music Therapy. Researches and Resolved Case; Humanistic Ontosophy; Dream and Cancer in Sigmund Freud. [email protected]


Abbagnano N, Fornero G (2000) Protagonisti e testi della Filosofi a. Tome I e II. Turin: Paravia. 5-169; 446-450; 456-467.Alexander FG (1949,1977) Medicina Psicosomatica (tr. P Re). Giunti-Barbera. Alexander FG, Selesnick ST (1975) Storia della psichiatria. Rome: Newton Compton.Aurigemma L (1952,1976) C. G. Jung. Opere. Vol. 8 La Dinamica dell’inconscio. Chap. 18: La Sincronicità come principio di nessi acausali. Boringhieri.Bohm D (1980,1996) Universo Mente Materia (tr. A. Sabbadini) Como: Red Ed.Cariati S (1714,1997) (ed. Leibniz) Monadologia. Principi razionali della natura e della Grazia. Milan: Rusconi.De Broglie L, Schrödinger E, Heisenberg W (1991) Onde e particelle in armonia. Alle sorgenti della meccanica quantistica. Milan: Jaca Book.Descartes R (1641,1967) Meditazioni Metafi siche. Vol. I (ed. E. Garin) Laterza.Dunbar HF (1935) Emotions and Bodily Changes. New York: Columbia University Press (Published for the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation). Edelman GM (1990) The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Conscious ness. New York: Basic Books.Ferrater Mora J (1963) The Essayist. On the Early History of ‘Ontology’. Philoso phy and Phenomenological Research 24: 36-47. Ferrater Mora Foundation.Foucault M (1961, 1978) Storia della follia nell’età classica. Milan: Rizzoli.Freud S (1899, 1973) L’interpretazione dei sogni (originally Die traumdeutung). Turin: Ed. Boringhieri. 117–129. Fries H, Kretschmar G, editors (1996). I classici della teologia. Vol.I. L’epoca della patristica. Milan: Jaca Book.Genovesi A (bio) http://www.humanrightsobservatory.net/ulisses/ declaracio angles/urbino.pdfGershon MD (1999) The second brain. New Jersey: Harper Collins. 2-80;220-236. Groddeck G (1923, 1966) Il libro dell’Es. Milan: Bompiani.Gutheil EA (1951, 1972) Manuale per l’analisi dei sogni. Rome: Astrolabio. 21-23. Heidegger M (1953, 2001) Che cos’è la Metafi sica? 2nd ed. (ed. F. di Volpi ). Adelphi. Husserl E (1913,1965) Idee per una fenomenologia pura e per una fi losofi a fenomenologica (tr. E. Filippini) Turin: Einaudi.Husserl E (1954,1961) La crisi delle scienze europee (ed. W. Biemel) Saggiatore.Husserl E (1988) Meditazioni Cartesiane. Milan: Bompiani.Jaeger W (1953,1982) La teologia dei primi pensatori greci. Florence: La Nuova Italia. Kuhn TS(1962,1978) La struttura delle rivoluzioni scientifi che. Turin: Einaudi. 29-30, 44, 75, 91-92, 103-104.Liberati A, editor (2005) Etica, Conoscenza e Sanità. Evidence-based medicine fra ragione e passione. Rome: Il pensiero Scientifi co Editore.Lovelock JE (1979,1981) Gaia. Nuove idee sull’ecologia. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri.Manganaro P (1996) Il realismo fi losofi co. Nuove prospettive del pensiero anglo- americano. Rome: Aracne.Maslow AH (1962,1971) Verso una psicologia dell’Essere. Astrolabio-Ubaldini.Maslow AH (1976) The farther reaches of human nature. New York: Penguin. Maturana RH, Varela FJ (1980) Autopoiesis and Cognition: The realization of the Living. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. Maturana HR, Varela FJ (1992) Autopoiesi e Cognizione: la realizzazione del vivente. 3rd ed. (tr. A. Stragapede) Venice: Marsilio.Nietzsche F (1872,1976) La nascita della tragedia. In: Opere complete (tr. S. Gia- nnetta, ed. G. Colli & M. Montanari) Vol. III:I.21:105-106. Milan: Adelphi.Onians RB (951,1998) Le origini del pensiero europeo. Milan: Adelphi. p. 358.Palmirotta F (1989,2004) Psychosomatic Music Therapy (originally Musicoterapia Psicosomatica). Bari: AMO Editrice.

Palmirotta F (1992,1994) Maieutica del benessere psicosomatico. Bari: AMO Editrice.Palmirotta F (1993,2000) Psychotherapy & Music Therapy, Researches & Resolved Case.Palmirotta F (1994) Ontosophy: The wisdom of the psychosomatic being. V Congreso sMundial del Nino Aislado. UNICEF: Buenos Aires.Palmirotta F (1995) Ontosofi a Onirica. Bari: AMO Editrice.Palmirotta F (1996) Eros and Psyche: From the myth a psychotherapic intuition. Vienna: World Council of Psychotherapy Congress.Palmirotta F (1997) Psicoterapia e Musicoterapia. Indagini e casi risolti. Bari: AMO Editrice. 149, 213. Palmirotta F (1999) The meaning of the family for the Ontic-Exsistential individualisation. Bari: AMO Editrice.Palmirotta F (2000a) Humanistic Ontosophy. Bari: AMO Editrice.Palmirotta F (2000b) Dream and Cancer in Sigmund Freud. Bari: AMO Editrice. 1st ed. July 1990.Palmirotta F (2000c) Therapeutic Ontosophy: The therapeutic process; and Psychosomatic Ontosophy: Didactic explanation of the theoretic model. Old Saybrook II Humanistic Psycotherapy Congress; Carrollton, Georgia, United States. Plato (1971) Opere (edited by G. Giannantoni) Bari: Laterza.Plato (1971a) Simposio (edited by P. Pucci) Bari: Laterza. 192b–193d. Pitagora, Parmenides, Eraclito, Socrates, Plotino (2000) In: Abbagnano N, Forn- ero G Protagonisti e tesi della fi losofi a. Vol. A: 1, 5-169. Turin: Paravia.Pribram KH (1971) Languages of the Brain: Experimental Paradoxes and Prin- ciples in Neuropsychology. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.Pribram KH(1979) Behaviorism, Phenomenology and Holism in Psychology: A scientifi c analysis. J Social and Biological Structures 2: 65-72.Pribram KH (1985) ‘Holism’ could close the cognition era. APA Monitor 16: 5-6.Pugliese Caratelli G (1990) Tra Cadmo e Orfeo Bologna: Mulino. 365–467.Rizzolatti G, Fadiga L, Gallese V, Fogassi L (1996) Premotor cortex and the recognition of motor action. Cognitive Brain Research 3: 131-141.Rizzolatti G, Senigallia C (2006) So quel che fai. Il cervello che agisce e i neuroni specchio. Milan: Raffaello Cortina Editore.Rogers CR (1951, 1994) La terapia centrata sul cliente. Teoria e ricerca. Florence: G. Martinelli & C.Rogers CR (1980) A way of Being. Boston: Houghton Miffl in Company. 113-121.Schrödinger E (1944, 1995) Che cos’è la vita. Milan: Adelphi.Spinoza B (1677,1991) Trattato teologico-politico (ed. R. Cantoni, F. Ferniani). Milan: Tea. pp. 6-73.Taber (1994) Dizionario enciclopedico di scienze mediche. 17th ed. Milan: McGraw–Hill.Terenzio Varrone C (2000) In: Abbagnano N, Fornero G, Protagonisti e tesi della fi losofi a. Vol. A:1, pp. 446-450. Turin: Paravia.Teti D (1988) Alcmeone e Pitagora. Catanzaro: C.L.E. Ed. pp. 45–61.Timio M, Antiseri D (2000) La medicina basata sulle evidenze: realtà ed illusioni. Estensione delle rifl essioni epistemologiche sull’evidence-based medicine. Italian Heart J (Supplement). Timpanaro Cardini (1962) Pitagorici. Testimonianze e frammenti. Florence: La Nuova Italia.Tymieniencka AT (2000) Impetus and Equipose in the Life-strategies of Reason: Logos and Life. Book 4. Analecta Husserliana LXX. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Van Flandern T (1993) Dark Matter, Missing Planets & New Comets. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.Veggetti M (1995) La Medicina in Platone. Venice: Il Cardo Ed. 16.Yates FA (1995) Giordano Bruno e la cultura europea del Rinascimento. Bari: Laterza.

ONTOSOPHY REFERENCESONTOSOPHY REFERENCES


REVIEWS

LIFE AND MIND: In Search of the Physical BasisBY SAVELY SAVVA

Trafford Publishing, 2006, 276 pp., $40, ISBN 10-1425110908.

Reviewed by Paul Von Ward

Despite mind-blowing technological strides in unraveling and produc-ing images of the insides

of living organisms—from single cells to human bodies—how they come into being, survive, and re-produce still eludes science. Savely Savva and fourteen other scientists probe what is inside the insides of all organic structures—and even some we consider inorganic—in this collection of “paradigm-busting” studies. Have you ever stopped to won-der which laws of nature produce a living, conscious organism made up of originally inert matter? What sort of process can make life out of non-life? That you’ve never heard of a totally unique, single life form points toward an answer. Living forms always come as members of a group or species, each kind distinc-tively shaped by a set of abstract principles known as a “biological control system.” Most of today’s biologists, bio-chemists, neuroscientists, and other life-sciences specialists assume the “inert-matter-to-life” process is limited to chemical and electri-cal interactions. But, to describe a process begs the question of how that process “pulled itself together” out of chaos. It does not explain why such a universal process works and how it maintains life, and even adapts through changing external and internal conditions. Savva and his colleagues are attempting to learn how unseen pat-terns can account for increasingly complex combinations of living matter—even the human mind. They deal in the concepts of matter-shap-

ing, but nonmaterial structures that parallel and inform the nature of the physical universe. The implicit “holy grail” of their research into the “foundation of fundamentals” is to understand how simple matter orders itself to produce a level of consciousness that takes the initia-tive to study itself. At this preliminary juncture, they have concluded that each living entity has at least two forms. One is the visible and touchable, physical organism. The other is an energy fi eld (likely not electromagnetic) with patterns that control four stages in the life of each member of every species [p. 7]. This bioenergetic fi eld shapes the processes of develop-ment, maintenance, reproduction, and death. Reproduction (with vari-ous methods of gestation and birth) cannot occur independently of a pre-existing, generic species-biofi eld. (While Savely and his scien-tifi c colleagues shy away from address-ing the question of an original source for the so-called species biofi elds, the descriptions they give can be related to the more simplistic terms of Egyptian and other metaphysical models of multi-layered life forms. In this way science seems to sometimes reinforce intuitively developed informa-tion.) The authors generally agree with one of their colleagues (Beloussov) that a phe-nomenon with the characteristics of the biofi eld model is necessary to explain the ontogenesis (life cycle) of organisms. One (Drochioiu) states it this way: “biostructures” can be formed from “nonliving prebiotic systems” only because of estab-lished rules for living systems. Other authors of various chapters in the book ask where such rules of

biological control patterns might be stored [p. 12]. Some options being tested include biological nuclear reactions, thermophysical processes, consciousness, universal plenum vacuum (Puthoff and Sotina), and the quantum level of psychoenerget-ics (Tiller). Evidence is offered to support the call for further research in each area. Regardless of scientifi c discipline, all the authors agree that “the prob-lem of stability in any living system is one of the greatest mysteries of nature.” Given the entropic nature of the universe in general—a process of degradation or running down, or a trend to disorder—life is an “anti-entropic process” [p. 63]. They, in their respective fi elds of research, seek an understanding of why life maintains order among chaotic physical conditions, where, regard-less of missing elements or changing conditions, the process goes on.

One study (Burlakova) focuses on the power of low doses of elements to have the same impact as full doses on plants and animals. (Note: This concept was made famous two decades ago by evidence that a homeo-pathic drug still had an effect when diluted in water to the

point where no physical presence remained.) Another (Kiang) studies the role of bioenergy (subtle ener-gies like chi or prana) as a possible medium for the BAS. What has been called a level of primary perception or biocommunication (Backster) is also offered as a possible medium. While different terminology is evi-dent among the various contributor’s to Savva’s book, a general consen-sus emerges that all living systems


REVIEWS

and pre-life molecular organisms are embedded in parallel with or as “continuations” of a conterminous force fi eld of a non-physical and non-molecular character. This points to the next revolution called for in physics. The revolution wrought in thinking and science by quan-tum theory must be built upon and complemented by a pattern theory that includes bioinformation fi elds that shadow quanta of energy in whatever form they assume. Fortunately, some physicists are already moving in that direction. The rest of us can feel comfortable in our attempts to validate informa-tion from extradimensional sources. We know that scientists will closely follow and help us to discern the difference between private, anthro-pomorphic projections and what is certain enough for public implemen-tation. For these reasons, I recommend reading books like Life and Mind. They show us a middle path be-tween being trapped in the dogma of science and wishfully changing our view of reality based on untested as-sertions by any would-be guru. Only with a balance between the extremes of blind skepticism and irrational credulity can lasting progress be made in the evolution of human consciousness and behavior.

PAUL VON WARD, interdisciplinary cosmologist and independent schol-ar, is author of The Soul Genome: Science and Reincarnation, Gods, Genes, & Consciousness, and other books. He can be contacted at [email protected] or on his web site www.vonward.com.

THE EMPATHIC GROUND: Intersubjectivity and Nonduality in the Psycho-therapeutic ProcessBy Judith BlackstoneSUNY Press, 2007, $20, 133 pp., ISBN 9780791471845

Reviewed by David Ryback

Nondual philosophy is best characterized as deepened contact with oneself through “pure (or

empty) consciousness” resulting in “emotional resilience, and authentic-ity,” according to the author. With an emphasis on human connection, Judith Blackstone focuses on how two individuals can connect by shar-ing their subjective natures, attempt-ing to resolve the problem of the “subject/other split.” Apparently there are two theories about this—intersubjectivity and nondual philoso-phy—and Blackstone attempts an integra-tion of the two, but seems to focus on the latter. She refers to this nondual nature somewhat paradoxi-cally as a “state of at-tention…experienced without effort of any kind…a simple lucid openness…as if open-ing a clenched fi st.” Language is tricky, especially when it is used to describe the ephemeral. Black-stone alludes to a form of raw percep-tion, e.g., the suchness of an object, independent of conditioning and past meaning, yet continues to describe how two individuals experiencing such “suchness” can also share their respective perceptions. That would be most interesting to observe, I imagine, as the two com-pare their subjective views with one another. Does each individual have their own “suchness,” or do the two perceptions mirror one another? This becomes even more interesting (and useful) when applied to the thera-peutic relationship, a focus which this title promises. This is how Blackstone puts her mission: “I will attempt to show that it is exactly this shift, from the contracted, entangled intersubjective fi eld to the nondual

fi eld of self/other (or self/self) unity that constitutes the direction of psychological healing and personal development.” I understand the fi rst—intersubjec-tive fi eld—in the therapy process, but I fi nd it hard to conceptualize the “self/other unity” that goes further. If there is such pure unity, then what is the process of therapy all about? Blackstone further explains that dissociating from emotional pain is counterproductive in this process, “exacerbating rather than healing the schism…. And it obstructs the process of deepening inward toward attunement….”

So if the client does not dissociate and maintains that individu-al perception, then how does the non-dual relation-ship with the therapist manifest itself, unless the therapist has a mirror image of that pain? Now, if the therapist reaches for that percep-

tion from past experience, aren’t we back to the intersubjective fi eld that Blackstone seems to be trying to transcend? Blackstone’s answer: “When two people are both attuned to nondual consciousness, they experience subtle consciousness pervading them both as a unity.” Now, here’s where the language gets tricky. As a reader, I still don’t have any idea what this subtle consciousness is all about. I know what each word means, but I don’t know what the two words together mean. On the same page (p. 14), the author admits: “In this book, I make no claims about what nondual consciousness actually is, but only how it is experienced.” Later on in the book we’re fi nally


given the exercises that will bring us nondual realization in therapy. To my unknowing eyes, these all seem very similar to meditation or hypnotic relaxation instructions, all beginning with the words, “Sit upright with your eyes closed (or open)…” and then going on to focus on inner awareness of physical or mental sensation. The less skeptical part of me wants to understand and accept all this. So the meaning I make of it is that a more sensory/perceptual awareness of our immediate experience while communicating with another tends to obliterate the physical world sepa-rating us. I feel better already.

DAVID RYBACK is a therapist in Atlanta, Georgia, and the author of “Mutual Affect Therapy and the Emergence of Transforma-tion Empathy” in JHP 41(3), 4-10 (2001). He can be reached at [email protected] if anyone would like to engage in intersub-jective sharing (or even nondual togetherness).

REMEMBERING IN A WORLD OF FORGETTING: Thoughts on Tradition and Post-Modernism By William Stoddart, Edited by Ma-teus Soares de Azevedo and Alberto Vasconcellos QueirozWorld Wisdom Books, 2008, 184 pp., $22, ISBN 9781933316468

Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos

The only antidote to the relative and the subjective is the absolute and the objective, and it is precisely they that are the contents of traditional metaphysics or the philosophia perennis. —William Stoddart

In his new book Remember-ing in a World of Forgetting: Thoughts on Tradition and Postmodernism, perennialist

author William Stoddart synthesizes the vast depth and breadth of the traditionalist perspective that he discovered in 1945, at the age of 20, through the writings of the metaphysician Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; a seminal spokes-man of the perennial philosophy that led the author to the writ-ings of René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon. Schuon later came to be his spiritual mentor. It might be of interest to the reader to note that Aldous Huxley, who published his anthology The Perennial Philoso-phy in 1945, became from that time forward the central fi gure attrib-uted to the perennial philosophy. (“One comment, concerning Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philoso-phy: The least one can say is that his comments are not at the same high level of the quotes he selected. His approach is more ‘literary’ than really spiritual.”—Mateus Soares de Azevedo, also the editor of Ye Shall Know the Truth: Christianity and the Perennial Philosophy). Yet the three writers mentioned above, who are relatively unknown outside certain circles, have dedicated their lives to doctrinal exposition of the perennial philosophy and living in accordance with its spiritual methods. Readers who have never encountered their writings will be very surprised to see that what they presumed the peren-nial philosophy to be, from both a theoretical and practical outlook, is quite the contrary. Dr. Stoddart makes the traditional perspective accessible to those who have never been exposed to the perennial philosophy, providing an excellent introduction, topographic

in scope, and yet his book offers countless pointers for those who are more familiar or established in the traditional perspective. He conveys this perspective, as disclosed in the preface of the book, with three key characteristics: “precision,

simplicity, and essentiality” as he coherently outlines what has been lost and forgotten in the modern and postmod-ern worlds, proceeding to the essence of theory (doc-trine) and then practice (meth-od), which are indispensable in understanding the perennial philosophy.

The book is divided into a triadic discourse. The fi rst part is: I. Forget-ting DECLINE or What We Have Forgotten. It is in these seven chap-ters where Dr. Stoddart contrasts the traditional world to that of the modern and postmodern, decisively underscoring the “progress” that has led to our current impasse—shed-ding light on the terminal polarity of our times—survival or destruction? He points out the “shadow” or “un-conscious” implications of evolu-tionism, progressivism, scientism, psychologism, and democracy itself as the pseudoreligion of contempo-rary man, which is rarely perceived, understood, or questioned in the current era. In chapter four, Ideological Obstacles to the Spiritual Life, Dr. Stoddart makes it clear that the “evils” committed in the name of religion (i.e., terrorism and those of fundamentalism in whatever shape or form) should not be confused nor identifi ed with true religion itself. In chapter fi ve, Religious and Ethnic Confl ict in the Light of the Writings of the Perennialist School, he ex-plains how the increase of “atheism”

REVIEWS


in the modern and postmodern eras have led to the further disarray of the Western World. He clarifi es that the universal principles of the peren-nial philosophy are not “syncre-tism,” but rather a synthesis—testi-fying that all religions are one in the transcendent Unity. This does not however mean that one must discard religion altogether, thinking that because they are all one, ipso facto, it being unnecessary to practice a religion. This has also been one of the many unfortunate misunderstandings of those who have interpreted Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy to be al-most anything that the human imagi-nation could derive from its own directives. Including the idea that it is somehow enough to acknowledge the transcendent Unity—the peren-nial philosophy—without practic-ing a specifi c and genuine spiritual form. Dr. Stoddart clarifi es—that one must practice a religious form if one is to align oneself with the perennial philosophy. It is through the metaphysical principles of the perennial philosophy that a true uni-versal understanding of diverse eth-nicities and races (i.e. many of the popularized terms of our current era such as “cultural competencies” and “cultural diversity”) can be estab-lished. It is for this reason that Dr. Stoddart points out that the perennial philosophy is not “syncretism” but rather a synthesis—where each of the traditions remains integrally its own, each one affi rming, beyond its relative distinctions and differences, the primacy of truth. What is of the human or individ-ual (relative) order and at the same time Universal (Absolute) order—or what is of immanence and Transcen-dence. It is here that the voice and outlook of the traditionalists can of-fer guidance in resolving the confl ict and violence that plagues our current epoch by testifying to the validity of all revelations that were disclosed to the different ethnicities and races of the world, without creating a

monopoly on truth or speaking of “oneness” without any substance behind the words which is sadly enough often the case. Part two of the book entitled, II. Remembering (theory) TRUTH or What We Have To Know, is com-posed of six chapters. In chapter eight he clarifi es what religion is according to the perennial philoso-phy. In chapter nine he clarifi es the misconceptions that are attributed to what is commonly referred to as “or-thodoxy.” In chapter ten he clarifi es what is commonly misunderstood by the term “intellect” and how, as it relates to the perennial philoso-phy, it is synonymous with Spirit. In chapter eleven he briefl y outlines the perennialist school—those who were involved and their biographical information. In chapter thirteen he describes what education is from a perennial perspective.

The fi nal portion of the book, part three, is Remembering (practice) SPIRITUALITY or What We Have To Do. He clarifi es the many misconceptions of the term “mysti-cism.” The author gives an overview of the different religious traditions, some from a fi rsthand account, read-ing like a spiritual travel log—where he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain of Mount Athos, a remote monastic community where Christian spiri-tuality has been practiced in its purity since the 5th century AD. The author also writes about hav-ing darshan with the Jagadguru of Kanchi who traces his lineage to the original Sankaracharya who is known for his metaphysical doctrine of advaita or “non-dual-ism.” There is also an appendix with ex-cerpts of his previously unpublished

letters, including a brief biography of the author and a glossary of terms.

SAMUEL BENDECK SOTILLOS, MA, CPRP, has traveled throughout the world to visit sacred sites, and had contact with noted spiritual authorities. He received an M.A. from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and has gained extensive training in both transpersonal and humanistic approaches. He currently works as a mental health counselor in California.

THE BALANCE WITHIN: The Science Connecting Health and EmotionsBy Esther M. SternbergW. H. Freeman, 250 pp., $8.50, ISBN 0716744457

Reviewed by David Ryback

It all started with Descartes, who postulated—in the 1600s—that the bridge between body and mind was the pineal gland.

Hundreds of years later, Wilder Pen-fi eld, at the Montreal Neurological Institute, crossed that bridge when he was able to map the brain by stimu-lating it electronically in patients

fully awake. For the fi rst time, there was a clear map of how we experienced the world in our brain, as the well-known homunculus revealed the sensory sys-tem, with its giant, disproportionate lips, large fi ngertips, and relatively smaller body. A decade later, physiologist Paul MacLean illustrated the importance of the nucleus accumbens, in the deepest part

of the brain, and the amygdale, on either side, as the most important emotional components of the brain, registering fear and joy.

REVIEWS


REVIEWS

A decade after that, the big name in body–emotion interaction was Hans Selye, also working in Montre-al, introducing the word stress into our physiological vocabulary. As a side issue, author Sternberg points out how it was necessary for the rebellious Selye to move his profes-sional home from the conservative, English-speaking McGill University to the more liberal, French-speak-ing Universite de Montreal. Working with lab animals, Selye discovered the gen-eral adaptation syndrome on which we continue to lean heavily to understand how we deal with stress. Another side issue: Selye was able to convince the Academie Francaise, guardians of pure French language, to accept a new French term—le stress. Dr. Sternberg’s style is both anecdotal and highly scientif-ic. She described in detail the research on mind–body con-nections over the years and across cultures. But she also takes the time to describe in picturesque detail some of the labs the researchers used, as if guiding us through an historical tour of the research. She describes the stress involved in Army Ranger training, involving lack of sleep and poor nutrition, extremes of heat and cold, and how the inability to control the dangers of actual combat can create breakdowns. More than 50% of all traffi c controllers have high blood pres-sure, though most are only in their late 30s. Twenty years later, these same individuals, psychiatrist Bob Rose discovered, have signifi cantly higher rates of cancer, heart disease, alcoholism, and depression. The most predictive factors turned out to be psychological. Most of us are familiar with the pain of heartbreak, either in our own experiences or in those of our clients. There are so many poten-tial reminders of such loss in our

complex social enviroment—photos, places visited, etc.—that it’s virtual-ly impossible to forget these highly emotional memories. Such experi-ences, as well as exposure to army combat, so prevalent in wartime, can all be characterized as post-trau-matic stress disorder (PTSD), a very common diagnosis these days, sub-suming divorce, hostile workplaces, the ending of any relationship. But author Sternberg doesn’t let us forget that there are genetic

factors as well. Some of us are just more susceptible. Others appear “stronger,” able to undergo tremen-dous stress without effect. But all of us need others in our lives. We need love, and those so intimately connected can wreak havoc if we feel abandoned or abused, leaving us “wounded” until healing slowly recharges us with replenished en-ergy. Great books and movies also generate much emotion, but at a safe enough distance that we can enjoy the ride without suffering lasting effects, unless they’re too close to home in terms of our own experi-ence. Most recently, we’ve learned about amygdale hijack, illustrated by New York neurologist Joe LeDoux and popularized in Daniel Goleman’s popular book Emotional Intelli-gence. Fight-or-fl ight syndrome is the result of amygdale overstimula-tion, we’re told.

Dr. Sternberg advises us: “prob-ably less than 50% is molded by our environment . . . especially early childhood experience.” She goes on to say, “humans are affi liative animals—biologically not meant to spend their lives too far from the pack. We crave affi liation, we see it—in fantasy, in art . . . to overcome the social isolation that our mobile lifestyle generates.” The Internet doesn’t help much, keeping us at arm’s length from those we hope to

be close to. Mice susceptible to dormant herpes virus prove more likely to have outbreaks if they are dominant, and moved into new social situations. Psychologist Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University has shown that stress, especially when cu-mulative, makes us more vulnerable to the common cold. So, in addition to reduc-ing the stress in our lives, we also take medications. But about one-third of the effectiveness of such

pills is due to the placebo effect. So much healing, from recorded history onward, seems to be colored by this placebo effect. And that’s where the benefi cial effects of praying come into play. (Although placebo effect does not explain the healing that is effected through prayer when the patient does not know he is being prayed for.) Even rituals—including religious worship practices—play a role. Herbert Hoover’s concept of the “relaxation response” becomes more readily understood here. Back in the 16th century, French explorers—coureurs des bois (run-ners of the woods)—in North Amer-ica learned from the Indians about the “magic” of a small sweat gland found in beavers that were hunted for their pelts. This gland, when con-sumed in powder form, could cure fever, and get rid of headache and pain. Turned out those beavers were biting away at willow trees. Whole

HELP REBUILD A LIBRARY AHP Board Affi liate Don Eulert lost 4,000 books in the in the Witch Fire in Southern California last fall (and everything else except himself and his truck). Don is Director of the Center for Integrative Psychology at California School of Professional Psychology San Diego. AHP is asking for donations of books, especially: Jung’s Collected Works, authors from Jung’s First Circle, Fairy Tale collections, or anything on ritual. Please send books to: P. O. Box 38, San Ysabel, CA 92070-0038, or 18998 Old Julian Trail, San Ysabel, CA 92070. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.


REVIEWS

bark conained salicylic acid, which we modern individuals know as as-pirin. Who would have known then? In similar fashion, we are cured by many factors about which we know very little, even today. In this highly informative book, Dr. Sternberg lifts the veil from the unknown of the connecting bal-ance between our emotions and our health. What happens beneath our skin and within our brains becoms known to us as its own pace. The Balance Within quickens that pace.

DAVID RYBACK is a consultant in Atlanta and coauthor of the forth-coming book The Psychology of Champions (Praeger). He can be reached at [email protected] or at (404) 377–3588.

FINDING HEAVEN HEREBy John C. RobinsonO-Books, 2009.

Excerpted from the Preface

One day soon you will have an experience of Heaven on Earth. Per-haps this has happened

already, but you didn’t notice, you looked away or you’ve forgotten. Reading this book and using the exercises it provides might trigger an experience or make you aware of your past experiences of Heaven on Earth. If you are not sure what experi-

encing Heaven on Earth might look or feel like, simply imagine your mind’s incessant chat-ter falling silent and your aware-ness expanding, thus allowing you to discover a radiantly beautiful, exquisitely detailed, and utterly en-chanting wonderland—imminently holy and infi nitely precious—ev-erywhere around you. Astonished, you examine one seemingly familiar thing after another, surprised to fi nd each one transformed before your eyes into the most beautiful creation you have ever seen. Wonder and awe accompany you everywhere, and the world keeps growing more beauti-ful and extraordinary the longer you stay in this state of awareness. . . . Slowly and incredulously, it dawns on you that the whole universe has become alive, awake, and aware. A conscious Presence enfolds you—soft as sunlight, gentle, inti-mate, loving—and all your desper-ate everyday dramas evaporate in its peace. You realize, too, that this Presence creates and imbues all things—animate and inanimate alike—with its own life and con-sciousness: you, me, animals, trees, cities, homes, the Earth and the sky. With this knowing, you notice all things pulsing and vibrating with Divine energy. People shine with the splendor of angels and Heaven’s light transfi gures reality right before your eyes. You understand that this omnipresent sacred conscious-

ness—the answer to all problems, all questions, and all struggles—makes everything Heaven on Earth. Rejoicing in the goodness, cre-ativity, and love surging through Creation, doubts about purpose and worth vanish. You do not have to be good enough here; instead, Heaven on Earth invites you to explore the infi nite possibilities of Divine life. And in Heaven on Earth, you discover that no place other than Heaven exists. Heaven on Earth lies here, wherever you are, right now, always full and always enough.

Feelings of relief, gratitude, and joy nearly sweep you off your feet. You realize this is how you were meant to live -- in Heaven on Earth. You are fi nally home. . . .

REV. JOHN C. ROBINSON, Ph.D., D.Min., holds doctorates in clinical psy-chology and ministry and is an ordained interfaith minister, author, and mystic. http://www.JohnRobinson.org

AHP PERSPECTIVE including AHPWEB ads

1/6 PAGE: 4.75” X 2.25” $190 MEMBERS $230 NON-MEMBERS



FULL PAGE: 7.25” X 9.75” $785 MEMBERS $850 NON-MEMBERS

Bulletin Board ads $1 per word, min. $50 MEMBERS ONLY

AHP ADVERTISING RATES

Contact: Kathleen Erickson [email protected] P. O. Box 1190 Tiburon CA 94920, (415) 435-1604 fax (415) 435-1654

Rates are for an ad in BOTH AHP PERSPECTIVE & AHPWEB.ORG 3 million hits/yr.

BECOME AN AHP BOOK REVIEWER

To receive a quarterly list of books available for review, send your e-mail address to [email protected]. When you choose books to review, we mail them to you. You may also submit reviews of other books anytime.

APRIL/MAY 2008ahp PERSPECTIVE 324/2008

ahpweb.org

SEE CALENDAR ON PAGES 4–5 FOR EVENTS/WORKSHOPS

ASSOCIATION FOR HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

1516 OAK STREET, SUITE 317ALAMEDA, CALIFORNIA 94501TEL (510) 769-6495FAX (510) 769-6433E-MAIL: [email protected]: http://ahpweb.org

PERSPECTIVENON PROFIT

U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDJEFFERSON CITY, MO

PERMIT NO. 210

AHP Perspective APRIL 2008 Perspective APRIL 2008... · 2011. 6. 28. · 4 ahp perspective...

Documents

Transcript of AHP Perspective APRIL 2008 Perspective APRIL 2008... · 2011. 6. 28. · 4 ahp perspective...