What is Transpersonal Psychology?

Transpersonal psychology developed from earlier branches of psychology including psychodynamic, behaviorism, humanistic, existential-phenomenological and cognitive. It also incorporates spiritual dimensions of existence in the scientific study of human beings.

Transpersonal literally means beyond the personal, beyond the ego, to include soul consciousness. Mind, spirituality, and higher states of consciousness are a main focus within transpersonal psychology. Within this context, spirituality refers to a universal dimension that is both transcendent and immanent.

Newer fields of psychology, especially transpersonal psychology and ecopsychology, are taking seriously the holistic notion of human beings as comprising mind, body, and soul. These fields propose that people are spiritual beings living a human life that extends beyond our mundane existence and skin-encapsulated ego-self to include direct experience of the environment and the cosmos. They recognise the importance of integrating spiritual with physical and mental reality, that spirituality is but one part of the whole.