|
|
|
|
Esalen History Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology 1962: The eminent psychologist Abraham Maslow, co-founder of both humanistic and transpersonal psychology, arrived at Esalen by chance, and came to play an important role in its development, leading several workshops and guiding the founders. Esalen workshop leaders eventually played a pivotal role in the growing discipline of humanistic psychology.
1964: Fritz Perls, co-founder of Gestalt therapy, arrived at Esalen in poor health and relatively unknown. In the ensuing five years at Esalen, his health improved and he was provided a public platform for his work through regular demonstrations in the lodge and sundry workshops. By his death in 1970, several training centers had opened and Gestalt had become an important component of the psychotherapeutic landscape.
1967: Will Schutz published the national-bestseller Joy and took up residence at Esalen, which subsequently became a major center for his style of encounter groups, thereby helping to spark a boom in group-centered therapies.
1970: an Esalen team visited Europe to find new approaches to personal growth and discovered Roberto Assagioli's psychosynthesis, an eclectic and comprehensive approach to development focused on the positive and "higher" dimensions of humans. This group then introduced Assagioli's work to America in the winter of 1971. Key figures: Michael Murphy, James and Susan Vargiu, Stuart and Sukie Miller, James Fadiman, Robert and Donna Gerard.
1970-1971: a number of Esalen group leaders traveled to Arica, Chile to study with the Sufi teacher Oscar Ichazo. Key figures: Claudio Naranjo, John Lilly, Steven Stroud, Jack Downing. This eventually resulted in the proliferation of work on the Enneagram, a system of personality typology, as well as the founding of the Arica school.
1971-5: summer programs in Berkeley, co-sponsored with the Association of Transpersonal Psychology, on "Human Consciousness: Exploration, Maps, and Models." Core seminars taught by: John Lilly, Dorothy Fadiman, James Fadiman, John Perry, Charles Tart, Stanley Keleman, Arthur Hastings, Stanislav Grof, Joan Halifax-Grof, Jean Houston, and Arthur Deikman. These summer programs helped shape the nascent discipline of transpersonal psychology.
1977: during a month-long seminar at Esalen, Christina and Stanislav Grof invented Holotropic Breathwork, a non-drug method for exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness using deep breathing in a group setting with evocative music and bodywork. In 1987, they created a formal training program, which has since spawned its own international organization and journal.
|
|
|