Spotlight on Spiritual Psychology
The following is a list of courses on Spiritual Psychology and Spiritual Emergence which have been offered in the past at ITP. Courses are offered based upon the interests of the current student body and faculty availability. Please consult the academic course schedule for each program of interest for classes offered at this time.
Proseminar in Spiritual Psychology
We will approach our study of spiritual psychology as a Transpersonal Psychology of Self-cultivation. We will reflect on world and spiritual traditions as an integrative humanity process of Self-cultivation searching for higher life purpose, freedom, and transformation. Through our study, we will discover significant psycho-spiritual guiding principles and methods in realizing our higher nature. We will examine the process of Self-cultivation through Shamanism, Christian Mysticism, Hinduism, Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. We will apply these lessons from Spiritual Psychology to everyday ordinary life, to recover a truly integrative way of practicing and living.
With the study of Spiritual Psychology that is firmly grounded with universal wisdom and psychological insights from world spiritual traditions, we shall arrive at an integrative life practice of self-cultivation. First, we seek to integrate meaningful psycho-spiritual guiding principles & methods into our everyday life. Second, we liberate the psycho-spiritual Self from debilitating life contradictions and paradoxes. Third, we will examine how Spiritual Psychology can transform daily life stressors and human relations into joy and equanimity. Fourth, we revitalize our family dynamics and uplift our work purposes. In this course, our study of Spiritual Psychology will lead us to explore together ways of gradual Self-cultivation and sudden Self-transformation.
Psychology of Spiritual Development
This course will explore Western and Eastern theories related to spiritual development and the intersections of psychological growth and development with spiritual belief and experience. We will draw from theoretical models of Spiritual Psychology, as well as biography and personal experience, to understand how spiritual development occurs progressively and spontaneously, developmentally and chaotically. We will also examine the impact of spiritual experience on individuation and the structure of the psyche. The course will cover classical western perspectives on the Psychology of Spiritual Development, such as those of Richard Bucke, William James, and Evelyn Underhill, mystical perspectives in Christian and Eastern traditions, biological and subtle body models, and spiritually transformative experiences that occur spontaneously or in practices used in transpersonal psychology. Assignments will include direct practices, weekly reaction papers, and a final essay related to the experience of spiritual awakening.
Psychology of Spiritual Guidance
This course is for students who desire professional and academic training in spiritual guidance. The primary goal of this course is to explore the major processes and dynamics of spiritual guidance. The course will consist of lectures and discussion plus frequent experiential and small group work.
Course objectives are to:
- develop understanding of the distinctions between therapy, counseling, & spiritual guidance
- become familiar with basic approaches to spiritual development and spiritual guidance
- experience spiritual guidance in class practices
- work with meditation, prayer, and other spiritual exercises
- clarify for oneself the meaning and significance of becoming a spiritual guide
Spiritual Psychology: Spiritual Development
This course explores several models of spiritual development as a basis for discovering perspectives effective for ecumenical, integral, and socially inclusive approaches to spiritual guidance. Our approach will be to recognize the intertwining of psychological and spiritual development throughout one’s life and the limitations of "universally valid" templates. To illustrate the complexities of Spiritual Psychology and psychospiritual development, we will study two spiritual biographies, one Western, the other Eastern. Each biography anchors spiritual development in the challenges of human life, both in its multidimensionality and its relationship to an historico-social context. We will then consider themes and issues within Spiritual Psychology which may be involved in differences of gender and sexuality, against the background of contemporary American society. There will be opportunity to discuss course materials in terms of personal experiences as well as a variety of theoretical perspectives brought by the students, the teaching assistant, and the instructor. Diverse perspectives are particularly encouraged and respected.
Spiritual Emergence/Emergency
The increasing evidence of spontaneous religious/spiritual experiences in contemporary westerners calls for the psychological support and further study of these phenomena. This course introduces a new developmental life-span model applicable to people with spontaneous spiritual experience and/or religious or spiritual problems (DSM-IV, V62.89). The model (Louchakova) serves as a theoretical framework for spiritual-oriented psychotherapy. It introduces the notion of embodiment of spiritual experience, and links the particular spiritual experiences to the stages of ego-development and ego-transcendence. The model accommodates cross-cultural differences, religious contexts, relationship between various spiritual experiences and their psychological counterparts, and the treatment of psychosomatic disorders associated with the process of so called “spiritual awakening.” Religious/spiritual experience itself is seen as a developmental event. The class is experiential and participatory, involving personal exploration of spiritual emergence, case histories and video materials.
The course also reviews early, crisis oriented theories of spiritual emergence (Perry, Sanella, Grof & Grof, Greenwell). It reviews the Kundalini process (Harrigan) as a spiritual tradition-related perspective on spiritual emergence, and touches on Kundalini Yoga-related therapeutic strategies. The course also includes personal exploration of spiritual emergence, and how it builds on our psychospiritual development. Personal themes will be self-identified, examined, and integrated through group work, contemplation, and creative expression. The course will use some guided meditation skills and other tools of working with the energies of spiritual emergence.
The course investigates the different types of spiritual emergence, which may induce altered states or intense rising of unconscious material, which may be too overwhelming for easy integration with ordinary reality. Since our culture is largely unprepared for dealing with the possibility of spiritual emergency, these episodes can be diagnosed as pathological and mistreated. The course is based on a non-pathological perspective. Both clinical and personal strategies of relating to spiritual emergence are covered in the course. The material draws from the methodology of world traditions and contemporary psychological approaches such as Jungian, depth-psychological, and transpersonal.
Spiritual Dimensions of Human Behavior
This course explores images of spiritual development with special emphasis on James Fowler’s stages of faith development, and the themes of spiritual emergence and spiritual guidance. Students will become conversant with a variety of maps and models of the spiritual path, including identifying one’s own perspective on spiritual development. Fowler’s model will be contrasted with an alternate perspective on spiritual growth as presented by Sam Keen. The course will also familiarize students to the phenomena of spiritual emergence and spiritual emergency. The potential psychopathological disturbances that may accompany spiritual emergence will be elucidated, and students are encouraged to become familiar with energy systems from a variety of spiritual and psychological perspectives in order to gain an understanding of the numerous areas of expertise that may contribute to the role of spiritual guide.
Research Group: Spiritual Guidance
The field of spiritual guidance is an ancient tradition, dating back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 3rd and 4th centuries. Yet in spite of its recent “renaissance,” there is a paucity of research in the field. This research group will explore the art and practice of spiritual guidance in the context of a research project that might serve to enhance the field, illuminate the transpersonal qualities of spiritual guidance, and further an understanding of a spiritual practice that has endured for centuries. We will pay particular attention to (a) the value of spiritual guidance for seekers who are on a spiritual path; (b) how to research a sensitive topic like spiritual guidance and still maintain the integrity of the process; and (c) the relevance of doing such research.
Our research project includes the development of a survey questionnaire which will inquire into the varieties of spiritual guidance being practiced by individuals in the U.S. and Canada; selected individuals who describe themselves as practicing spiritual guidance/direction based on whatever method or tradition they use. The survey will explore each guide’s practice, how and why they became guides/directors, how they are making an adequate living in their practice, and other relevant questions. The intention of this project is to benefit the existing spiritual guidance program at ITP by providing further information on the art and practice of spiritual guidance in today’s world.
An additional and equally important intention of this project is to demonstrate that the field of spiritual guidance is an area worthy of scholarly research, and to contribute solid research to the field of transpersonal psychology as it applies to the art and practice of spiritual guidance. Individual projects are also encouraged in this class that may contribute to participating students’ dissertations, focusing on specific aspects of spiritual guidance: e.g., the use and effects of spiritual guidance in various settings such as in business, with certain populations of people, in relationships, to heal religious wounding, etc.
The Research Group will continue with the practice of students and instructor spending time in meditation and dialogue about the topic and its relationship to research. We will employ various experiential practices in class to allow the research project to continue to unfold in an organic and guided way. We will use specific readings to open our minds and our hearts to the topic in creative and varied way.
The Inner Experience: Thomas Merton on the Phenomenology of Contemplation
One of the principal and enduring characteristics of Thomas Merton’s life and work has been the universal appeal of his spirituality. He demonstrated an ability to touch into the basic religiosity of humanity, which he believed constituted the essence of our being. His writings served as a beacon for others to search their hearts and minds for the answers to life’s perennial questions about our origin, purpose, love, and the sanctity of life. Moreover, his own life and spirituality served as a balm for others with regard to the alienation and anguish that humanity inevitably encounters when attempting to extract meaning from the existential givens of birth, death, illness, emotion, despair, guilt, alienation, identity, etc. While Merton has certainly been recognized as one of the intelligentsia of his era, he will be remembered not so much for his acumen as a scholar as for his charismatic capacity to reach people’s hearts on the most fundamental issue of becoming fully human.
This course focuses on Merton not as a biographical figure, but as a spiritually awakened monk within the Christian mystical/monastic lineage. The course is structured as a sequence of 10 distinct yet interrelated modules that will give students a more immersed, experiential perspective into a subject matter that is sometimes difficult to perceive through the written word alone. Programmatically there will be an emphasis placed on cultivating a visceral sensibility of the subjective nature of contemplation through didactic lecture, Socratic discourse, and experiential practices that support phenomenological inquiry into direct experience. Each of the proposed modules will orbit around Merton’s personal revelatory and scholarly interpretations of the phenomenology of contemplation, as well as the more universal characteristics of contemplative life found in the mystics and diverse spiritual and philosophical traditions before him.
What benefits can students derive by participating in a course on contemplative life? As with other periods in human history, our modern world is teetering on an abyss of reckless self-destruction, manifesting in the daily occurrences of war, genocide, sexual violence, social injustices, racism, and economic inequality. Merton has expressed unequivocally that contemplative life, with its emphasis on solitude, silence, and surrender, can act as an antidote to the unbridled narcissism and passions of the false self that lives a life of alienation and inauthenticity.
Ignatian Spirituality for Transpersonal Psychologists
In this course we will consider the spirituality and spiritual practice of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a 16th century soldier turned Christian mystic, and founder of the religious order known as the Society of Jesus (“the Jesuits”). We will use Ignatian spirituality as a point of reference for examining our own spirituality and spiritual practice. The course will include an experiential learning component, allowing students to “test drive” approaches to prayer and meditation rooted in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. There will be room in the experiential learning tasks to adjust them to your own understanding of the Divine, or Higher Power, or God. As we travel through the course, we will also consider psychological constructs that underlie the spirituality of St. Ignatius, such as the role of memory, imagination, intellect, and desire in prayer and meditation; the role of affect in the process of spiritual discernment and decision-making; and Ignatius’s notion of the intimate interpersonal quality of communion with the Divine.
Spiritual Perspectives
This experiential course explores psychological, mythical, and spiritual perspectives of personal growth and development. It is intended to help students reflect deeply on how each moment is a spiritual moment. The course explores the universal themes of inner spiritual journeys from different cultural and spiritual perspectives. An introduction to meditation helps students develop and apply practical tools for inner spiritual work.
By studying this material, students become familiar with universal spiritual themes found among all spiritual paths, all cultures, and all peoples. Metaphors of self-transformation from a cross-cultural perspective of myth, symbol, and religion will be explored. Students are encouraged to develop an understanding of the commonalties and differences between spiritual paths of wisdom and paths of devotion. In addition, the interconnectedness of psychological processes and spiritual development will be explored; including the psychological themes of individuation, relatedness, and triangulation.
