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Humanistic Psychology

S O C I A L C H A N G ES O C I A L C H A N G E

REVIEWS

Multicultural Psychology & Changing Social Character

Interview with Irv Yalom

Experience in Central America

Woman Creates Man

POEMS

At the Pet Market of Baghdad

Impress ions of el pueblo

~ The Root of All Evil, on gender imbalance, by Sharon Mijares

~ This I Believe, the personal philosophies of remarkable people

~ The Ultimate Journey, Grof ’s treatise on death

~ Love’s Embrace, the Autobiography of Brian Thorne

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NEWS & COLUMNSCALENDAR OF EVENTSJOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY Spring 2007Contents and Editor’s Commentary . . . Kirk J. Schneider

SOCIAL CHANGELooking Out to Look In: Multicultural Psychology andChanging Social Character . . . Andrew BlandPoem: At the Baghdad Pet Market . . . Tom GreeningExperience in America Central . . . David C. LavraShe Created Me . . . Jean-Claude Gerard KovenInterview with Irv Yalom, M.D. . . . Bob Edelstein

REVIEWSThe Root of Al l Evil : AN EXPOSITION OF PREJUDICE, FUNDAMENTALISM, AND GENDER IMBALANCE BY SHARON MIJARES . . . Stanley KrippnerTHE ULTIMATE JOURNEY: CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE MYSTERY OF

DEATH BY STANISLAV GROF . . . Rubye CervelliLOVE’S EMBRACE: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PERSON-CENTRED

THERAPIST BY BRIAN THORNE . . . James DillonPoem: Impressions of el pueblo . . . David LavraTHIS I BELIEVE: THE PERSONAL PHILOSOPHIES OF REMARKABLE MEN AND WOMEN edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman . . . David Ryback

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KIRK SCHNEIDER

JOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY


VOL. 47, NO. 2, SPRING 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITOR’S COMMENTARY

This issue opens with another sterling con-tribution by a Saybrook graduate student, Scott Kiser. Kiser joins a growing cadre of students who are reading and contributing

to JHP (see past articles by Kiser, vol. 44, fall, 2004; Scott Gibbs, vol. 45, spring, 2005; Angela Pfaffen-berger, vols. 45 and 46, Summer, 2005, 2006; and Swend Brinkmann, vol. 46, winter, 2006). The focus of Kiser’s article is Rollo May, who undoubtedly would appreci-ate Scott’s elaboration on two of his most prized in-quiries, “will and being.” In this innovative piece, Kiser demonstrates that far from being remote theoretical

dimensions, will and being are central, not just to the cultivation of authenticity but to a “revolutionary way of existing in the world, involving individual, cultural, and global implications.” David Crenshaw and James Garbarino show us how will and being can be cultivated in one of the most trying populations of our era—violent youth. In their incisive study, the authors unveil the hidden traumas—but also latent potentials—that underlie the youthful offender’s menacing veneer. By taking a fine-grained, person-centered approach to their work, the authors show us that deep facilitation of grief coupled

Editor’s Commentary Kirk J. Schneider

Become Who You Are: Integrating the Conceptions of Will and Being in the

Psychotherapeutic Theory of Rollo May Scott Kiser

The Hidden Dimensions: Profound Sorrow and Buried Potential in Violent Youth

David A. Crenshaw and James Garbarino

Practical Rationality and the Questionable Promise of Positive Psychology

Jeff Sugarman

Are We Having Fun Yet? An Exploration of the Transformative Power of Play

Gwen Gordon and Sean Esbjörn-Hargens

Archetypal Synchronistic Resonance: A New Theory of Paranormal Experience

Jeffrey Mishlove and Brendan C. Engen

Approaching Worldview Structure with Ultimate Meanings Technique

Dmitry A. Leontiev

International News Page Edward Hoffman



with concerted support help debilitated youth find their “true essence” and untapped talents. Instead of taking a “quick-fix” manualized approach, the authors depict how kids can face and rechannel abysmal pain. In his astute reflection on practical rationality—the “questionable promise of positive psychology”—Jeff Sugarman anatomizes yet another angle on the “good” or authentic life. By exposing its methodological biases, Sugarman shows how trends in the contemporary posi-tive psychology movement distort the traditions out of which they emerge. The result of this distortion, according to Sugarman, is an “unreflective” philosophy. Tracing the Aristotelian tenets of the good life to the contemporary training programs of positive psychol-ogy, Sugarman explains how “happiness” has trans-formed into a commodity; and wisdom an “expertise.” Undoubtedly, play is an integral element of posi-tive living. In their novel exploration, Gwen Gordon and Sean Esbjörn-Hargens show how play not only entertains, but grows and deepens as people mature. For example, the authors elaborate on what they term pre-personal, personal, and postpersonal forms of play, and if you are like me, you will be highly engaged by these scenarios. Among them are the kinds of play ex-hibited by spiritual masters (haven’t you always wanted to know?) as well as the dynamic, creative, and even ethnocentric types that typify most of the rest of us. The ultimate question, of course, is what kind of play is most attractive to you? We move from play to the paranormal with our next fascinating feature on “Archetypal Synchronistic Reso-nance.” Lest you put the journal down at this moment and run for the TV, I can assure you that you will be making a profound mistake. Jeffrey Mishlove (of PBS TV’s Thinking Allowed fame) and Brendan Engen’s study is a groundbreaking inquiry into reincarnation (or what is more commonly called the “rebirth” experi-ence); it is also one of the most riveting narratives we have conveyed. The story begins with the first of a series of uncanny correspondences between Mishlove and Engen regarding a past-life resonance with the Ro-man philosopher Seneca. Although neither author knew each other at the time, their shared resonance over this figure inspired them to investigate further. The result is Mishlove’s archetypal synchronistic resonance theory, which methodically provides a basis for the aforemen-tioned phenomenon. Although I was skeptical about this piece at first, eventually I was won over. It is both provocative and phenomenologically restrained. We close this issue with Dmitry Leontiev’s keen and timely elaboration of his “Ultimate Meanings Tech-nique.” This is a pioneering assessment device that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative dimen-sions. Developed over a ten-year period in his native

country of Russia, the Ultimate Meanings Technique is a profoundly sensitive tool for reconstructing people’s belief systems about the goals and meanings of human life. Although there are analogous instruments available in the United States, few of them appear to have the depth and scope of Leontiev’s device, and his creative questioning of participants is a highly informative dis-covery process, both for investigators and participants alike. I strongly recommend this article for any readers who are interested in the big questions about life, about ways to formulate those questions for therapeutic effect, and about ways to tap people’s core beliefs—toward both themselves and the world. Finally, please make a note on your calendars that Division 32 (Humanistic Psychology) of the Ameri-can Psychological Association (APA) will have its first annual conference, entitled Humanistic Psychothera-pies for the 21st Century, August 14–16, just before the 2007 APA convention in San Francisco, California. The conference will be held at the San Francisco Air-port Marriott and feature many humanistic luminaries. Please see the Division 32 website (http://www.apa.org/divisions/div32/) for more details. This promises to be a major event in the history of our field. Also note that The International Human Science Research Conference, coordinated by one of our es-teemed board members, Dr. Steen Halling, will be held in Italy at the University of Trento, Rovereto Branch, June 13-16, 2007. The theme of the conference is New Frontiers of Phenomenology: Beyond Postmod-ernism in Empirical Research, and the deadline for abstracts is January 31, 2007. For further information, please go to http://www.unitn.it/events/ihsrc07 or the IHSRC newsletter website http://www.seattleu.edu/artsci/psychology/ihsr.asp. In closing, I would like to welcome Dr. Donadrian Rice, the Chair of the University of West Georgia psychology program, and a great mentor of mine, to the JHP editorial board. I have known and deeply ap-preciated Don since I met him as a fledgling graduate student back in 1978, and he had just returned from a wondrous visit to R. D. Laing’s Philadelphia Associa-tion clinic in London. Don and I have shared many rich experiences together and his input will be invaluable in leading-edge areas of humanistic psychology. On a final note, I’d like to heartily welcome Dr. Kev-in Keenan to our Editorial Board. Like Dr. Rubin, our Managing Editor, Dr. Keenan is on the faculty of the Michigan School of Professional Psychology, and he has already provided us with excellent editorial reviews. His areas of interest include ethics and assessment. He has a half-time private practice and enjoys integrating the research traditions of qualitative and quantitative psychology as well as the clinical traditions of human-istic and depth psychology. — KIRK J. SCHNEIDER


— Andrew Bland

Understanding requires a recognition of common values.

For so long as [people] cannot think with other peoples,

they have not understood, but only known them. — Ananda Coomaraswamy

COVER STORY

Looking Out to Look In: Multicultural Psychology

and Changing Social Character

In addressing the broad topic of social change, I feel it is important (and excit-ing!) to acknowledge that our genera-tion may be the first to bear witness to

and to participate in the unfolding of a genu-inely multicultural society and global con-sciousness, not merely as an abstract ideal but

as an everyday reality. In turn, I am willing to suggest that a number of our contemporary social problems may be regarded as a sort of natural feedback, a “systems check,” which may provide us with clues to some areas that may require attention and further improve-ment. My intention here is not so much to

offer solutions but rather to consider the issues themselves in light of the greater sociological–psychological–ecological context from they arise and the values upon which they are based. I begin by challenging American psychology’s customary focus upon a model of adjustment. Such an emphasis seems to reflect an effort in mainstream America’s social char-acter to uphold an insular attitude, one which may prevent us from le-gitimately addressing relevant social concerns that may serve as catalysts for our healthy growth, both as in-dividuals and as a culture. I then provide examples of some contem-porary issues which seem to express an emerging expansion of aware-ness—one which takes on a more human appearance and seems to be devoid of strictly cultural or nation-alistic overtones. Finally, I conclude that in spite of such challenges we need not panic. Rather, as long as we


MULTICULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

maintain the courage to face human realities in all their complexity, I feel that our efforts may offer a great deal to the progressive glob-al conversation of ideas. BEYOND THE ADJUSTMENT MODELAs we venture further into the 21st century, American psychology has the responsibility of addressing and further amending itself to suit the realities of cultural diversity and a global society. We, psychology’s practitioners, can no longer afford to insist solely upon an “adjustment” model—one which seems to sustain the status quo of mainstream Ameri-can culture rooted in values of materialism, pragmatism, and standardization. There is sufficient evidence of the limitations and psychological consequences of emphasizing individual autonomy and competition at the expense of intimacy and cooperation, of the wheels of technological progress spinning out of control, of revering profit at the expense of education and quality of life, of using fear and manipulation to influence public opinion and policy, and so on. (I am referring here to “psychology of adjustment” in the sense of conformity, social control, and Social Darwin-ism—i.e. how to manipulate without being manipulated. I acknowledge that there is a more constructive use of the term, one which encourages healthy means of dealing with change and impermanence in life. However, in my experience I have found that the latter form seems understated in mainstream psychology.) On a clinical level, moreover, insisting on a psychology of adjustment with clients of other cultures, religions, and backgrounds may only perpetuate an atti-tude of us-versus-them which breeds defensiveness and may ultimately turn counter-thera-peutic. To illustrate, Hispanics prefer to keep personal busi-ness in the family and may

tend to view the therapist as an intruder. How can we help without appearing patronizing?

OUT OF OUR SHELL AND INTO OUR SHADOWJust as American psychology historically has tended to insularly ignore questions that do not fit neatly into its operational categories, American society has a reputation of estrang-ing itself from various ways of knowing and behaving that do not support its immediate economic or political interests or its empha-sis upon free enterprise and family values. In spite of our efforts since the second half of the 20th century to reform our history of aggressive imperialism and racial and sexual inequalities, I find it troubling in the midst of our current political climate (both domes-tic and international) to observe a sense of regressive reactivity that echoes our not-too-distant past: the continued expectation that

ANDREW BLAND



immigrants should adjust and conform to our customs while we remain defensively resistant to change; an increase in homophobia, reli-gious fundamentalism, and literalistic think-ing; a minority of the people controlling and often hoarding the majority of the resources; our government’s minimizing of substantial social, psychological, and environmental prob-lems and the public condemning of those who challenge its practices; the unethical actions of people and corporations being rationalized under the premise of legality. On the other hand, we learn from post-Freudian psycho-analysis that regression tends to precede a quantum leap in development. It is here, then, that we may more clearly recognize not only the danger but also the opportunity inherent in our crisis. In turn, psychology may play a vital role in addressing these problems.

EXPANDING DIVERSITY AND DEMOCRACYAs the 2005 film Crash illustrates, our nation which prides itself on its egalitarian principles still abounds with racial and ethnic prejudices and injustices, issues which are often swept under the rug in the name of political correct-ness. I believe that psychology is responsible for helping usher in a societal transition out of merely “teaching tolerance” to confront this reality head on. That is, psychology could promote a better understanding and validation of the experi ences, perceptions, and world-views of other cultures from their points of view, and then integrate them as potentials we all share but may not have actualized (in Piag-et’s terms, assimilation and accommodation). I believe this expansion of awareness has pro-found implications for dealing better with our current crises—both domestically (i.e. exces-sive political polarization) and internationally (maintaining sustainable relationships with our global neighbors)—while it also ties in directly with healthy development. As percep-tual psychology theory demonstrates, human growth stems from the broadening and deep-ening of fields of perception (i.e. from self to

family to community to nation to world and beyond) (Combs AW, 1999, Being and Becom-ing: A Field Approach to Psychology, Springer). Such an expansion of awareness has a pro-found impact upon our values and the choices and decisions that we make. In turn, as we come to embrace and ex-perience our alternatives, we may better understand our social construction and the contributions we can offer to a collaborative global dialogue (i.e. completing the herme-neutic circle). Moreover, we may work toward a greater understanding of our essential hu-man unity inherent among cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity, a unity that may serve to prompt actualization of our latent human potential, as well as to help us better confront our shadows.

CATALYSTS FOR GROWTH: SOME CURRENT

SOCIAL PROBLEMSI do not deny that American psychology has put forth a good deal of effort to act as a bet-ter role model for the society it serves, and that progress has been made (such as the APA’s endorsement of cultural anthropol-ogy as part of clinical training). But I feel it necessary to stress that American psychology continue broadening its borders of inquiry to better suit the needs and interests of a wider variety of populations and not resort to back-to-basics movements under political pressures. American psychology is now faced with a plethora of new questions that positivistic methods and theories of adjustment may not be capable of handling. For instance, how may we address identity crises in biracial individu-als or young Latinos who may be criticized by their elders for not learning Spanish? How may we encourage young African-Americans to transcend the defensiveness of thug cul-ture while acknowledging their ancestor’s hardships, yet without suggesting that they “act white”? How may we help girls cast away their culturally reinforced self-image as sex objects without resorting to religious dogma or blaming the media? How may we better understand the role of Islamic culture and



history in addressing terrorism? How may we better educate our children about global citizenship? How may we convince students that it is unacceptable to beat up Arab class-mates, despite the President’s claims on tele-vision that Muslims are fascists (a situation I have faced in my clinical work)? Assuming that cultures, like individuals, tend to embody characteristic ways of knowing and behaving, how may the American social personality be described in relationship with, say, France or Japan? According to Erikson’s 1994 theory (Identity and the Life Cycle, Norton), what de-velopmental crisis (or crises) is America cur-rently tackling? Are we just acting our age, or do we need to reflect upon those tasks we may not have fulfilled in the past in order to better focus on how to use our resources to create a more sustainable future?

CONCLUSION: FAITHFUL TO THE PROCESSI daresay that the emerging popularity and resonance of these questions in the context of current events seems to demonstrate that we are undergoing a shift in attitude to in-clude a wider range of perspective. To be more specific, just as America managed to transcend out of Fromm’s 1976 To Have or to Be? (Harper and Row) hoarding orientation to the marketing orientation during the course of the 20th century, I am willing to suggest that we are presently witness-ing the natural birthing pains that accompany the process of shifting into a fuller pres-ence of the productive orien-tation—or, in Kegan’s terms (1982, The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development, Harvard Uni-versity Press), the emergence from the interpersonal to the institutional to the inter-indi-vidual balance. Such developmental models describe a maturation of at-

titude marked by one’s relatedness with—rather than to—others, an emphasis upon the inter-play between personal and social character, rather than individual (or national) success. Historically, evolution in consciousness has typically been met with resistance (Dubos R, 1981, Celebrations of Life, McGraw-Hill). In spite of all the danger, let us remind ourselves to be mindful of and faithful to the pro-cess—and to be cautious of radical revolution, as premature birth often leads to problems. Rather, let us remain open to the challenge and adventure of continuing to transform possibilities into realities (which naturally, and necessarily, involves healthy tension). It is here, then, that we are faced with an im-portant choice. Do we cling to a comfortable attitude, although it may be rooted in fear? Or dare we embrace and integrate a fresh perspective, one which transcends our present obstacles yet validates their significance as the prima materia for shaping our future? ANDREW BLAND serves as Expressive Therapist at Tanner Behavioral Health in Villa Rica, Georgia. He earned an M.A. in humanis-tic–transpersonal psychology from the University of West Georgia in 2003. His research interests include the interrelationship among creativity, hu-man development, and history of psychology. This fall he will begin doctoral studies in Counseling Psychology at Indiana State University, and hopes to eventually teach psychology.


INTERVIEW WITH IRV YALOM

— Bob Edelstein

Interview with Irvin Yalom, M.D.

Over the last half cen-tury, Irvin D. Yalom, M.D., has been one of the pioneers and leaders

in developing existential psycho-therapy, group psychotherapy, and psychotherapy-based literature. He has authored numerous books and articles, both nonfiction and fiction, including The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy and Existential Psychotherapy, both main sourcebooks in their field. He has also written three novels, the most recent being The Schopenhauer Cure. He is currently writing a novel about death anxiety.

EDELSTEIN: As I understand it, a core of your existential psychother-apy is the need for human beings to deal with the conflicts that grow from the individual’s confrontation with the four ultimate concerns that are the givens of existence—death, freedom, isolation, and meaningless-ness. How did you choose these four concerns? Can there be other ulti-mate concerns?

YALOM: How I arrived at those I’m not even sure, as I wrote Existential Psychotherapy 25 years ago. I used Paul Tillich’s term ultimate concerns. There are lots of other ways to slice these things, and I simply selected concerns that seemed to be ger-mane to my practice at the time. I don’t know of any other significant concerns that enter into the litera-ture. Of the four, probably death is the overarching one; it’s a hallmark of the existential approach, and we really have to focus on how we come to terms with mortality. The con-cern of meaning is somewhat inde-

pendent of death, and at the same time very much related. Because if everything is going to vanish and we’re going to vanish, then what purpose can there be in life? Again, my sense is that death is the major concern. I’m writing a book now about death anxiety, so in a sense it’s expanding that part of the existen-tial psychotherapy book.

EDELSTEIN: I am interested about your own death anxiety. Given that you are in the latter part of your life, what gets evoked for you?YALOM: In this new book, I do have a long personal memoir of my own issues. I have myself interview-ing myself, and in fact that’s one of the questions I ask myself. Is it any coincidence that I’m returning to these issues at this time in my life? I used to write about other issues, the sexual ones or the prestige ones. I’ve been struggling with death anxiety for a long time. My protagonist in Lying on The Couch is writing a book on death and psychotherapy. In The Schopenhauer Cure the protagonist is dealing with a malignant disease, a melanoma. Exploring death anxiety is the most important question we can ask. It’s present in our clinical practice far more than we think, if only we have the vision to look for it.

EDELSTEIN: I believe you have a Jewish heritage?

YALOM: I have a Jewish heritage stapled over an atheistic worldview.

EDELSTEIN: Do you think your Jewish heritage has something to do with your passion for exploring

death anxiety, given the cultural his-tory of the Jewish people?

YALOM: No, I don’t think so. In my house, as is pretty common in Jewish families, the children aren’t given any kind of education about death. They never go to funerals. At least no one in our family had children go to funerals. Death was never talked about. I left the reli-gious way of thinking very early, immediately after age 13. There is really very little that the Jews say in regard to death.

EDELSTEIN: I’m thinking there hasn’t been much of a direct deal-ing with death anxiety in terms of World War II and the genocide.

YALOM: My father’s response to World War II and the Holocaust was, “How could you possibly be-lieve in God given the Holocaust?” He really lost his belief after that.

EDELSTEIN: Can existential psy-chotherapy coexist with spirituality and religion? I was a clinical super-visor of chemical dependency treat-ment agencies early in my career. In those agencies, the 12-Step ap-proach was utilized, which included a strong emphasis on surrendering to a higher power. I’m aware of how much you emphasize the importance of using personal will effectively. Can using personal will effectively coexist with surrendering to a higher power?

YALOM: It’s a hard question. I think, on quite a theoretical basis, that religion is something that



makes good men do evil things and that it will do us all in, eventually. It’s hard to look at what’s happen-ing in the world today without thinking about that very question. I think we’d be far better off with-out religion. As Dawkins put it in The God Delusion, what would a world without religion be? There wouldn’t be a 9/11, there wouldn’t be any Near Eastern struggle, there wouldn’t be an Irish civil war, there wouldn’t be a Hindu–Moslem struggle. When I work clinically, my major priority is the care of the patient. So, if the patient has religious beliefs and they have served him or her in good stead, it would be unthinkable for me to try to strip those beliefs away, even if I could. Rather, I would want to try to reinforce them. If a person had a great deal of faith and got a great deal out of it, I’m much more likely to wonder why he is not doing that now or what stopped him from get-ting this kind of comfort. I will move patients into using whatever has been useful to them. Certainly the 12-Step belief in a higher power is very useful for a lot of people if they are in a state where that’s what they have to use. Secretly, I feel like maybe it’s a kind of an infantilization, maybe it is enhancing delusion because God is a delusion, but that’s what they need at this stage of their life. The 12-Step programs are immensely valuable to a lot of people. I know some people would get more out of 12-Step groups if they weren’t turned off by the religious aspect. They search for meetings where there is a de-emphasis on religion, and generally find meetings that have more highly educated people. There is a very direct relationship between the level of education and the level of disbelief.

EDELSTEIN: Do you see any dif-ference between religion and spiri-tuality?

YALOM: I have a lot of trouble with the concept of spirituality, and every time someone uses the term I can’t discuss it with them until I find out exactly what they are thinking. Everybody talks about something very different. Some people talk about a sense of awe and magic in the universe, looking at the skies and the cosmos, their sense of smallness, and the glory of the heavens. You don’t need religion to have that. So I want to find out exactly what spiritualism is for that person. It comes in a rainbow of flavors, so I need to find out what they mean.

EDELSTEIN: This would fit with the phenomenological base of existentialism, getting to the lived experience of what the person is talking about.

YALOM: Exactly. Thinking about deeper issues may be looked at as a kind of spirituality. I had a lot of contact with the therapist and good friend of mine Rollo May. He said my book Existential Psychotherapy is a very religious book. I think he got very annoyed at me for not see-ing it that way. I believe he meant the same thing that the American Psychiatric Association did when it gave me the Pfister Award for con-tributions to religion and psychiatry a few years ago. I was amazed that they did this, and I told them how odd it is that you gave this award to a card-carrying atheist. Their response was no, you’re asking religious questions. I think ques-tions about being and death, what it means to be facing death, and what it means to be thrown into the world and leave the world alone are existential questions. Even though religious people tend to examine these same things, I don’t think of them as religious questions.

EDELSTEIN: I think existen-tialism is sometimes viewed as pessimistic. It deals with issues that are really hard for people to

face—death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. On the other hand, I experience your work as being optimistic in that it engages these critical issues.

YALOM: It’s a big error for people to think that an existential perch is pessimistic and leading to despair. I think it is exactly the opposite. I feel if you face these issues clearly, if you face and confront death very openly, you can enrich your life. There is a 2,500 year line of phi-losophers who have said very much the same thing. When you have a confrontation with death, it can wake you up and move you out of your everyday state to a more ontological state. That’s Heidegger’s term, it’s used in philosophical literature. Death makes you wonder more about the world, the creation of the world, and where our place is. Psychologi-cal literature used to call it a bound-ary experience, but I don’t like that term—it gets mixed up with boundaries and it doesn’t mean that. I’m using a new phrase. I’m calling it the awakening experience. I feel that confronting death can enrich life, not deplete it. Constantly denying death, compartmentalizing it, not thinking about it, or being frightened by it all the time is a way of diminishing yourself.

EDELSTEIN: So would you look at your nature as optimistic?

YALOM: I would certainly look at it this way. Optimistic for how you can live this life in this world, which is the only life you’ve got. Other-wise, there is a big inferential leap without a scrap of evidence.

EDELSTEIN: One way that I’ve heard spirituality defined is mak-ing heaven on earth, embracing what we have right here right now, not looking for the afterlife for salvation. Would that fit with what you’re saying?

YALOM: That’s right. The error of



devaluing this current life started back with Plato and Socrates, who were convinced that there was a bet-ter life after this one and you need to direct your energies toward that life. That’s why Nietzsche hated Socrates so much. He thought Socrates was leading everybody in the wrong di-rection. Ultimately the teachings of Plato were incorporated in the Neo-Platonists which became the founda-tion for the Christian belief in the afterlife. I much prefer Nietzsche to Plato in that regard.

EDELSTEIN: It seems like you hold your contributions to group psychotherapy and interpersonal process as separate and distinct from your contributions to existen-tial psychotherapy and the ultimate concerns of being human.

YALOM: I do. I have two separate parallel streams of interest. One has been group therapy, which is based very much on interpersonal theory. And then there is another stream, an existential approach which has its greatest fruition in individual therapy. I don’t know what an existential therapy group would be, so I need groups which are inter-personally based and work on the here-and-now interactions, trying to help people alter the way they relate to other people. I led groups of cancer patients that dealt with issues around death for many years, but these were support groups with occasional forays into looking more directly at death.

EDELSTEIN: It seems to me that one could tie together your con-tributions to group therapy and interpersonal process with existen-tial psychotherapy and the ultimate concerns of being human. Interper-sonal process deals directly with the ultimate concern of isolation, and remedies that by allowing the client to move into genuine and meaning-ful relationship. Group psychother-apy seems to be a methodology to

explore this ultimate concern, and in that process the client can also explore the other ultimate concerns of death, meaninglessness, and freedom.

YALOM: I think it’s true in groups that there is a real effort to dimin-ish interpersonal isolation, which is loneliness and not having meaning-ful relationships with others. But that is not the same kind of isolation that I’m talking about in Existential Psychotherapy. I’m talking about something else entirely. I’m talking about existential isolation: we are thrown alone into the world, and we die alone in the world, and there is a separation between us and the world, and when we die our world disappears too—the world that we built. Every person is a constituting entity. Reality is a very relative thing. We’ve known that since Kant. That’s what Hei-degger was talking about when he talked about dasein, the person who is there, but also creates the world about him. You don’t see existential isolation very much in life. When you really see it is when you have to confront death. A lot of my patients in the cancer group had a lot of interpersonal isolation issues; people didn’t know how to talk to them and avoided them sometimes. But existential isolation—the awareness that the whole world is going to disappear, the world that you’ve created, you take that whole world with you—that’s the kind of separation I don’t think is really bridgeable by any kind of relationship. It can be eased and comforted, but that gap isn’t bridgeable.

EDELSTEIN: How is that isola-tion dealt with? Is that an individual confrontation?

YALOM: Yes, it’s an individual confrontation. I think it’s dealt with primarily through recognizing it, being with the comfort we get from other people who are dealing with the same issues, and being aware of

how much of our lives we consti-tute ourselves.

EDELSTEIN: What moves me about what you’re saying about death and death anxiety is the importance of constituting as rich a life as I can, even if it’s going to disappear. Or even more so because I know it’s going to disappear.

YALOM: Yes, because it is going to disappear. This idea is frightening. One can lose meaning because it’s all going to disappear. But I think it’s preferable to take just the op-posite view—because life is going to disappear, it makes it all the more poignant and all the more beautiful and all the more meaningful. There won’t be an afterlife, where you go into another world, so we have to create this world as richly as we can. Enjoy the moment. Don’t be so distracted by things. Appreci-ate what’s going on around you. Appreciate the really important things in life. That’s what a lot of my patients learned as a result of confronting their own cancer. They made some significant changes.

EDELSTEIN: I’m thinking there is choice. For instance, being nihilistic would go in the other direction . . . why bother?

YALOM: Right, that would be nihilistic and there would be no particular rational view for that idea. Of course, everything is going to disappear. The solar system will disappear, it will lie in ruins one day.

EDELSTEIN: Which goes back to the existential humanistic perspective’s emphasis of being in the present moment, because that’s what we have.

YALOM: Yes, I agree.

EDELSTEIN: I’ve been impacted tremendously by Jim Bugental and his work in existential humanistic psychotherapy. As I see it, his lens



focuses on the exploration of the lived experience of the client in the here-and-now. I think of this as a process orientation, wherein we are focusing on how the client is present with him or herself in the moment. As I see it, your lens fo-cuses on the four ultimate concerns of being human, which I think of as more of a content orientation. There is an emphasis on these four themes that we continually confront throughout our lives. I’m curious about how you see it. Are these two ways of viewing existential psycho-therapy? And, if so, how do they relate to each other and fit together as a whole?

YALOM: I can’t tell you that I’m crystal clear about the major differ-ences between Jim and myself. I’ve worked with a lot of Jim’s students and I know he does a lot more in-ner integration as parts of the self than I do, and I’m doing much more interpersonal work.

EDELSTEIN: You do so much with the interpersonal, and Jim does so much with the intrapsychic. I’m fascinated by this, because they are both effective and powerful ways to support human beings to grow, and yet they are clearly different ap-proaches. Will you talk more about that?

YALOM: I want to use myself as fully as possible with the patient. I want to examine everything that goes on between the patient and myself in the hour with microscopic detail. I’m doing a great deal of work on our relationship, which means that I strive to have an au-thentic relationship with the patient, where I’m as genuine as possible. I’m self-disclosing. I’m not hiding behind my degrees, or any other subterfuges. I don’t deny that I am facing many of the same exigen-cies in life, because I am facing the same destiny that they are. So we

are together on that. Those are my emphases during each therapy hour, during each therapy hour I’ve had today. I work with dreams very much in that way, too.

EDELSTEIN: What do you see as the primary component of healing? Is it the relationship between client and therapist, the therapist’s au-thenticity including self-disclosure, the client’s receptivity to his or her own subjectivity, or something else?

YALOM: I do a lot of work on how clients relate to me and what does it mean, and what are the thoughts they have about me, and in which ways do they think, as many of them do, that I might be critical of them for some reason, or judging them. I try to look at that. I ask if there are any questions they want to ask me, and I try to be very open about my answers. So if I do that fully and thoroughly, I’m really changing the person’s way of relat-ing to other people. That’s often the process of what I do. I’m examining the way that we’re relating. But from a standpoint of exis-tential content, there may be many hours that go by without talking about any of the ultimate concerns. The process of what goes on be-tween me and the patient is an ex-istential view, meaning that I am a fellow traveler. I’m facing the same things. I have to be genuine. I have to be authentic. I’m not an authority figure. I’m simply taking this path along with you and it goes with ev-ery single hour that I see a patient. I don’t know if that answers your question, but that’s a difference that I make.

EDELSTEIN: Is being a fellow traveler separate from being a fel-low sufferer?

YALOM: Schopenhauer says fellow sufferer. That’s putting it a little too darkly. Everyone suffers. Everyone has panics and anxiety, some more than others. Schopenhauer had it in spades.

EDELSTEIN: Is there a danger that you can lose your professional objectivity, if there is even such a thing, by identifying too much with your client as a fellow traveler?

YALOM: It’s never happened to me. I don’t quite know how that would happen. You do have to go inside yourself and reach the parts of yourself that are troubling the patient. You have to find that in yourself. For some therapists, it gets to be very anxiety-provoking, which is why the therapist has to be in therapy and has to do as much work as he can with himself or herself. But no, it doesn’t cause me to lose my equilibrium at all. When I first started working with patients who were facing death it sure did. It got me very anxious. I went back into therapy for a long time because of that, even though I had a very long analysis during my training. Many years later, when I was working with a lot of cancer patients, I grew anxious once again, which led me to work on things in therapy that I’d never touched before.

EDELSTEIN: Do you look at clients as having resistances? If so, how do you therapeutically engage and work through client resis-tances?

YALOM: Oh, yes, all the time. I have a patient who is married to an alcoholic wife and I met with him several times before I even learned she was alcoholic. He has a lot of resistances to talking about that, be-cause number one he is too ashamed that he has been in this relationship for so long. And number two, he’s afraid that if he talks about it that I might break up the marriage. So there is terrible resistance in that he is settling for a lesser state of being by staying in this relationship, feel-ing shamed all the time, not being able to talk about it to anyone, and feeling he is not fulfilling himself at all. That’s certainly the patient with



whom I’m dealing with the most resistance right now. I have another patient who feels that he needs to be perfect, and he thinks I’m constantly grading him on not doing this process correctly. He gets more and more uptight about being with me, and he search-es for ways to divert my attention. Resistances are a pleasure when you can move the client through them, and they’re not a pleasure when that is not happening quite as much.

EDELSTEIN: What do you see as your strengths and your vulner-abilities as an existential psycho-therapist?YALOM: Well, I think that I am a vastly better therapist than I was in the past. Now I feel like I can do things and talk about things I could not have done before. I have a very small practice, I’m just working quarter time. I see a smaller number of patients, so naturally I select my patients very carefully. I’m at the age where I want to work with people who are pretty well moti-vated. At my age, I think I would probably become very impatient with people who need to be taught the ABCs of how you relate, how you identify feelings, that kind of thing. So, I have to do some screen-ing of patients, even on the phone before I see them in the first ses-sion. Also, at my age I’m not going to be undertaking therapy which I know is going to be five years in duration. I need to make sure that I can be useful to them in a relatively short period of time. I will gener-ally say to patients when I see them that I am going to make a one-year commitment to be with them and see what we can do in that one year.

EDELSTEIN: How do you feel about the state of existential psychotherapy and depth psycho-therapy in terms of the political and cultural climate?

YALOM: Well, it’s ghastly. I’d

rather speak of depth psychology because I don’t know where the enclave of existential psychotherapy is. I work very much in isolation, I don’t have a lot of contact with other therapists. This is the just the way I’ve always worked. I’m appalled at what’s going on in the field. When I work with psychi-atrists at Stanford, they are graduat-ing with extremely little knowledge of psychother-apy. It’s really stunning to me. I can hardly do much with them if I see them in their last year and try to super-vise them in some way. I ask them, “Why not ask patients this type of question or that question about their in-ner life.” Their answer stuns me: “We don’t know what to do with the answers when we get them.” I’m getting equally concerned about the education of psychologists who are finishing up years of training and having nothing but a cognitive behavioral approach and they know very little about what it means to offer a deeper psychotherapy to patients. That’s one of the motives for why I keep on working. I feel group therapy is totally misused in the country today. Man-aged care has finally understood that groups might actually save a little bit of money. But, they are rushing in and offering groups to everyone without any kind of preparation, and all of the groups are lecture groups or psychoeduca-tional groups. So, I have been trying to demonstrate how therapy can be useful and show what you can do with it. That has been a big moti-

vation in my work. In a sense the answer to your question is, I’m so concerned about it that I’m really writing far past the age I should be writing.

EDELSTEIN: I think depth psy-chotherapy is so needed because there is too often a lack of depth in our culture and our political climate generally.

YALOM: I agree en-tirely.

EDEL-STEIN: In terms of group psy-chotherapy, existential psychother-apy, and psychother-apy-based literature, do you have a mentor in each of these categories? If so, how have they impacted you?

YALOM: I think we have a tenden-cy, a wish, a need to have some wise person in our life. I feel sometimes we exaggerate how much we owe to our mentors. That’s backhand for my answer. But I think I owe a lot to Jerry Frank, who was my teacher at Johns Hopkins [University]. He was the one who introduced me to group therapy. I learned a lot from Jerry. I knew him for the next 30 years; he died about two years ago, in his nineties. As for existential therapy, I think the person who really opened that possibility for me was Rollo May, when I was a student [medi-cal] resident in Baltimore. I was very dissatisfied with both the ana-lytic approach and the biological ap-proach, which were the two wings



of the Hopkins’ system. Rollo’s book, Existence, came out. It’s a very good book, at least his part of the book—the first three or four chap-ters, were eye-opening. That got me thinking, well there is another way. Here’s a way that somehow literature can come into play. So many philosophers have turned to writing fiction. I think at that point, in my second year at Hopkins, I really decided I better undertake an education in philosophy and started taking courses, which I continue to the present day. As for a mentor in fiction, nobody alive. Just writ-ers. I’ve been a voracious reader of fiction ever since I can remember. I didn’t have any mentor or teacher in writing.

EDELSTEIN: I want to switch gears and ask you about your psy-chotherapy-based literature, your novels. Are all the characters you, or some aspect of you? If so, how does it feel to expose yourself so deeply and vulnerably to your read-ers? YALOM: At this time I don’t have a lot of concerns about exposing myself. I’m so old now that I’m not going to be meeting older thera-pists who are going to criticize me in some way. People treat me with a lot of respect. In my early nov-els, for example Lying on the Couch, my wife thought I sometimes was showing too much of myself. But I have no concerns about it really. In novels, your characters do come from within. Lots of my characters have pieces of myself in them, and those are the characters that I think I write about most truly.

EDELSTEIN: Is it a reflection of your comfort with yourself ?

YALOM: I think so. I have more comfort and more tranquility in my life now than I had when I was younger.

EDELSTEIN: In your novels it seems to me there’s an emphasis on addressing the value of both ex-istential psychotherapy and group psychotherapy. For instance, in The Schopenhauer Cure, the book opens with a psychiatrist, Julius, finding out he is dying of cancer. A large part of the book describes the group psychotherapy process led by Julius. It powerfully impacts all members of the group—most dra-matically, Phillip, a major character. I’m curious about what you wanted to reveal about existential and group psychotherapy in this novel.

YALOM: I wanted to show how both approaches play out. So, I very deliberately decided to write a book on group therapy, because I was getting more and more appalled at the extremely inaccurate ways groups were depicted in our lit-erature. They’re awful. Any of the groups in mass media and movies—they’re so terrible. The Bob Newhart Show was a total catastrophe. And there is one new one now, The Ted Danson Show. Maybe it’s good for entertainment, but they are a total distortion of what the group thera-py process is. There was a book, The Group, published a few years ago, that was a New York Times bestsell-er—but it was totally inaccurate. So I thought I would write a book that could convey to therapists and also to the general public how a group really does work. I also wanted to convey the power that gets gener-ated in a hard-working therapy group. That’s why I started writing the group in The Schopenhauer Cure. And then the other theme in that book was to take a look at the whole question of how you face mortality. I wondered what would happen to a therapist who decided that he really wanted to continue seeing patients, as long as he could in some way enrich his work as a result of his facing death. There are some therapists who do this. I’ve known therapists who, as soon as they get a [fatal] diagnosis, totally quit their practice. On the other

hand, there are therapists who work right through it and deal with it with their patients, and maybe teach them a deeper lesson than they might have gotten anywhere else. I had the psychiatrist, Julius, being helped by Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal return—how would he like to live this life if he had to live the same life that he’s living now throughout all eternity? How would he feel about that? I had Ju-lius decide that he was comfortable with it. He thought he was living a good life, that he was spreading a lot of good, helping a lot of people, so he decided that he would spend his last year doing exactly what he had been doing. Philip, the primary client char-acter, is a clone of Schopenhauer. I constructed him deliberately to take on all the characteristics of Scho-penhauer. Philip had done major bibliotherapy, where he had really assimilated Schopenhauer’s ideas. I wanted to get Philip in a therapy group and I wanted to point out how he might have been affected by a powerful therapy group led by someone whom he had come to respect. I wanted to point out that psychotherapy is more than ideas. Psychotherapy is the synergy of relationships plus ideas. So I wanted to have Philip be able to relate and have other people matter to him. The title, The Schopenhauer Cure, is a double entendre, a double mean-ing. It means Schopenhauer’s cure, but there is also a cure for Schopen-hauer. Schopenhauer offers a cure, but also Schopenhauer, like Philip, needs a cure.

EDELSTEIN: I read The Schopen-hauer Cure and was really touched by the transformation of Philip. I was so taken by his character that I cried. It was beautiful.

YALOM: Thank you. A lot of people told me that toward the very end, something in that last chapter, really moves them. I’m very glad about that. I don’t think there’s ever been a book which combines a novel


INTERVIEW ITH IRV YALOM

and a psychological biography of a writer. I spent a lot of time doing research to get the psychobiogra-phy right. I think I’m contributing something on Schopenhauer. So, I’ve got two things—I’ve got a novel and a psychobiography.

EDELSTEIN: In reading both your nonfiction and your fiction, your combination of head and heart impresses me. You are very lucid and clear in your mind, and very heartfelt in your feelings and in the importance of relationships. In terms of head and heart, I’m won-dering if you struggle more with one than the other and if you lead with one more than the other.

YALOM: I can’t answer that. I don’t really know if I struggle or lead with one more than the other. I try to combine them. I try to say, “Let’s figure this out” but I’m also convey-ing an implicit, “Look, I’m with you and I’m going to be with you and I’m not going to abandon you and I’m going to stay with you until we work this out.” I can’t really sepa-rate them.

EDELSTEIN: Your book Love’s Ex-ecutioner and Other Tales of Psycho-therapy made the New York Times Bestseller list. I believe there have been very few case study books that have made it to this list—Oliver Sachs and yours are the only ones I know of. I’m curious about your thoughts as to why this case study book was so well-received.

YALOM: I think they’re good sto-ries. It also offers people—patients, would-be patients, and people who have been in therapy—an opportu-nity to eavesdrop into the process and see what it’s like. But maybe it is also because of my skills as a sto-ryteller. That’s my major talent. I recognize my limitations as a writer, but by and large I can tell a story.

EDELSTEIN: And also because of

your own self-disclosing process?

YALOM: That’s right. I try to make myself the character. I am the same doctor in the stories so the stories are all interconnected. They’ve all got the same protagonist.

EDELSTEIN: What are the differences and similarities for you between writing fiction and nonfic-tion? What do you like or dislike about each of the genres?

YALOM: I think that I like writing fiction better. It really gives me free reign to work, in that I don’t need to use any kind of outline. The books are extremely organic; I have no idea where the next chapter is going to go or can go. Some people write fiction and want to outline the whole book first. For me that would be a ter-rible mistake. It’s much fresher if I just let things develop. For example, I had no idea where the book, When Nietzsche Wept, was going to end. There’s a movie of When Ni-etzsche Wept. I just saw it on DVD. It’s neat. It is a small budget movie, not in the theatres yet, but it’s be-ing shown at Sundance and other festivals.

EDELSTEIN: Congratulations. In wrapping up, I want to ask you how would you like to be remembered by the world?

YALOM: I’ve been thinking about this in the book I’m writing. This may seem a little unbelievable, but it really doesn’t matter much to me. So maybe the next generation will know my name. So what? You know the following one won’t. To make that a major motif in your life, that doesn’t matter. I hope that the things I write about or do will influ-ence some people, who will then in-fluence others. I hope I have started

some ripples that will be useful. I am writing a lot about the concept of rippling in this new book.

EDELSTEIN: Will you elaborate about rippling?

YALOM: It’s the idea that you’re passing on bits of yourself to others. Not necessarily your personal iden-tity, but the acts you do, the acts of help-ing people explore themselves or acts of charity or virtue that get passed on

from person to person. We all know that certain patients we treat are highly influential. For example, we treat schoolteachers who change something in school and then look what that can do for so many other generations.

EDELSTEIN: You say it doesn’t matter much how people remember you. It seems to me that would fit in with what you’ve been talking about—that the most important things are how you feel about your life and how you’re living it.

YALOM: Right. When you’re dead, you’re dead. I don’t know how other people will look at me or think about me in the future. It doesn’t matter. I just try to do the best I can and the thing that I feel best about myself is probably that I’m a writer, I’m a storyteller.

EDELSTEIN: Thank you very much for this interview.

BOB EDELSTEIN, LMFT, MFT, is an existential-humanistic psychotherapist based in Portland, Oregon. He also provides con-sultation, supervision, and training for other professionals, including a one-day workshop entitled “How to Deepen Your Therapeutic Work Using the Existential Humanistic Perspective.” Bob can be reached at (503) 288-3967, [email protected], or through his website www.BobEdelstein.com.

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“Move over Eric Berne’s Games People Play!Welcome to the fi rst book in decades to put the day to day frustrations, arguments, power plays, and social manipulations to which we all are treated to by friends, lovers, bosses, and spouses, under a big magnifying lens. There, to our delight, they are ruthlessly dissected, while we say, ‘Yes, yes; it’s true; it’s true!’ ” —Allan Combs, Ph.D., Professor of Psy-chology, University of North Carolina and author of TheRadiance of Being

A novelist and short story writer turned psycho-therapist, Alper uses fi lms as a stepping stone, window and metaphor to explore fundamental in-terpersonal issues.

The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy

Prendergast, Fenner, and KrystalSeasoned clinicians explore critical issues at the interface of psychology and spirituality from a nondual perspective

“This is the best presentation that I have ever read of both the theoretical reasons for introducing non-dual spiritual understanding into psychotherapy as well as descriptions and instructions on how to do it.”—Seymour Boorstein, author, Transpersonal Psychothera-py and Clinical Studies in Transpersonal Psychotherapy

“...introduces us to the most expansive of all human possibilities—the wisdom of the unconditioned mind.”—Stephen Cope, LICSW, author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self

“There is a wealth of insights that point the way for-ward for psychotherapists and spiritual seekers.”—Christopher Titmuss, author of An Awakened Life

The Ghosts of Consciousness:Thought and the Spiritual Path

Herbert S. DemminA clinical psychologist whose work refl ects the microdynamics of think-ing and self-awareness

“This challenging and delightful book is a gem for all who are interested in phenomenology, trans-personal psychology, Buddhism, and the evolution of consciousness.... Recommended.”—Choice, Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, April 2004

“...a serious book that deserves a wide audience.” —Ken Wilber, author, A Brief History of Everything

“...sheds light on the subtle ways in which thinking binds us and holds us captive, even torments us by its ‘ghosts’.” —Kaisa Puhakka, Ph.D., California Institute of Integral Studies

“...you will be rewarded by an increase in your understanding of yourself.”—Jeffrey Eisen, Ph.D., author of Oneness Perceived

Available from Bookstores, Amazon.com, BN.com and Paragonhouse.com


and the future of their world.

The Root of all Evil examines human history from the onset of patriarchy, which they claim sup-planted more egalitarian societies about 4,000 BCE. In my opinion, this assertion could have been developed more fully, as patriarchal societies did not sweep the planet at one time; further, the authors could have discussed the role of ecological disasters in the rise of patriarchies. But, for what-ever reason, the emerging hierarchical ordering was at the core of patriarchy. Hence, an ethnic group, nation, or re-ligion felt that it had to be superior to its counterparts. The authors point out that patriarchy is a primary example of prejudice and disregard for others and that patriarchal systems soon initiated a continuous pattern of violence and dominance over others. In my own readings about the Neolithic Age, I have found little mention of warfare and mass violence, both of which emerged when hunting and gath-ering gave way to [agricultural] settlements, when these settlements erected walls, and when metal was turned into weapons instead of into artwork. Organized religion took the place of shamanism and local spiritual rituals. Each founder or prophet spoke of peace and goodwill; both Jesus and Mohammad demonstrated equality and exemplified gender balance. Nevertheless, their follow-ers established patriarchal religious institutions. In addition, codification of religions reinforced this patri-archy; the oldest religious texts,

the Rig Veda and the Old Testa-ment, encourage ethnic and racial prejudice as well as denigration of anything feminine. Females are considered to be less significant than males in patriar-chy. In fact, ongoing violence has been enacted by males against both women and children throughout recorded history. The authors point out that patriarchy is not necessari-ly evil in itself, but its focus on hier-

archal order and domination has opened the door to “prejudice, fundamental-ism, and gender imbalance” (the book’s subtitle). Its ongoing de-struction of the other (in this case women), there-fore, has made it the root of all evil.

Do those words sound familiar? They are the title of Richard Dawkins’ British television series about organized

religion. Although Dawkins has had trouble finding a US distributor for his film, the video has been shown in a few theaters and at group meetings. Mijares, Rafea, Falik, and Schipper wrote their book before the Dawkins program was aired, but their position is a backdrop for Dawkins. If organized religion is the root of all evil, it resulted from the patriarchy that spawned it. Readers of this book will be exposed to considerable statistical evidence regarding violence and genocide. For example, its authors note that “Terror of the more powerful over masses is shocking. According to J. Rummel, during the first eighty-eight years of the twen-tieth century, almost 170,000,000 men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed,

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL: An Exposition of Prejudice, Funda-mentalism, and Gender ImbalanceBY SHARON MIJARES, ALIAA RAFEA, RACHEL FALIK, JENNY EDA SCHIPPER Imprint Academic, 2007, 250 pp., $35, ISBN 10: 1845400674.

Reviewed by Stanley Krippner

The Root of All Evil: An Exposition of Preju-dice, Fundamentalism, and Gender Imbalance

begins with a Foreword from Dr. Ismail Serageldin, the Director of the Library of Alexandria, Egypt. He notes that “Our times are times of paradox. Great wealth coexists with extreme poverty. Exceptional educational and scientific achieve-ments coexist with prejudice and quackery. Unprecedented recognition of human rights coexists with discrimination. In these times, where hatred is being actively nurtured, where the clash of civilizations is advocated as an inevitability, and where those who see threats in every ‘difference’ are increasingly vocal, it is not only refreshing but also inspiring to see this work by four women who have little in common except their well-attuned consciousness of their common humanity, and their willingness to speak out.” This perceptive statement sets the stage for a book that gives a provocative, perhaps outrageous, response to the world problematique. The book is co-authored by Sharon Mijares, a psychologist and Sufi minister with a background in mystical Christianity; Aliaa Rafea, a Muslim and anthropologist from Egypt; Rachel Falik, an Israeli Jew currently living in the US; and Jen-ny Eda Schipper, an American Jew and practicing Yoga teacher. These women were able to transcend their ethnic and religious differences in the common quest for a better life for their families, their countries,

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governance need to undergo a dra-matic shift; if this occurs, women will need to be at the helm of this change. Mijares, Rafea, Falik, and Schipper have made a persuasive, challenging, but discomforting case, one that needs to be widely read, discussed, and implemented.

STANLEY KRIPPNER, Ph.D., is a fac-ulty member at Saybrook Graduate School and a former AHP president.

THE ULTIMATE JOURNEY: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death BY STANISLAV GROF

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, 2006, 356 pp., $20, ISBN 10-0966001990.

Reviewed by Rubye Cervelli

It is doubtful that Stanislav Grof, M.D., needs an intro-duction to the audience of the Association for Human-

istic Psychology, so I will be brief. Grof has been in the forefront in exploring the beneficial effects of transpersonal states of consciousness beginning with his groundbreaking research in psychedelic therapy that led to his cartography formation of prenatal and peri-natal matrix CO-EX systems and Holotropic Breathwork. With Grof ’s (2006) most recent book, The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death, it is now possible that he will be known for authoring a modern-day book of the dead. This book is a must-read for anyone on a spiritual path or who has a near-death experience in their life. Not only does Grof traverse the essence of all known ancient texts and ceramic codex through Ti-betan, Egyptian, European, Greek, and Mayan traditions, but brings to

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worked to death, buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens or foreigners….Our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague—a plague of power rather than germs.” Needless to say, this horrific statistic has multiple causes including geopolitical, demographic, ecological, economic, and psycho-logical. The authors, of course, would see the plague’s virus as pa-triarchy but no single causal agent operates in a vacuum. In short, the authors conclude that “the root manifestation of evil is any calculated act intended to demean or harm another human being, and that the inherent gender imbalance found within patriarchal hierarchal systems perpetuates this crime.” Nonetheless, they do go on to offer hope. The authors cite re-search supporting female leadership, in that the character and particular qualities inherent in the female are less prone to political corruption and more concerned with egali-tarianism and the well-being of the entire human family. Women are more concerned with education, health, and social welfare, as has been demonstrated in Scandinavia and selected other countries. How-ever, there is no comparable list of accomplishments from the leader-ship of organized religions. Returning to Dr. Seralgeldin’s Foreword, he writes that the au-thors “demonstrate by their words and deeds that the essence of love and tolerance at the core of all religions, of all great traditions, is universal. They follow their hearts and their minds to a conclusion that much of what is wrong with the world around us is due to funda-mentalism, prejudice, and gender imbalance.” This book is a mani-festo of what the authors see as the next stage in our human evolu-tion—a gender-balanced, egalitarian human family. Religion and political

light poignant insight from person-al experience—his and others. Grof introduces the link between these ancient texts and ceramic codex to human consciousness by taking his reader on a tour of the cultural heritage of the archetypal hero’s journey. Grof points out that for time im-memorial, the hero moves through an initiatory cycle that has distinct characteristics of birth, death, and rebirth. Grof distinguishes Western man’s alienation from an important aspect of the hero’s jour-ney, that aspect being death, from the Shamanic ritual that emphasizes the hero’s journey, which includes death. The hero’s journey perme-ates Shamanic-oriented cultures and traditions. Grof runs the gamut, touching on Christian, Egyptian, and Greek religious traditions and mythology reflecting themes of the hero’s journey that carry a healing quality. Grof eloquently introduces parallel descriptions of the hero’s journey, reports of the afterlife, and physical characteristics of the birth

process as described by the author in his perinatal birth matrix cartogra-phy. Providing numerous examples, Grof emphasizes that the ma-jor themes of an afterlife are not dissimi-lar between

spiritual and religious traditions. Common threads hold the prom-ise of heaven or paradise and hell. Occasionally limbo enters into the equation. Distinctions between religious and spiritual traditions and mythology can be seen in the details, but not in the essence of their meaning. Grof continues


by illuminating and gleaning the essence of these traditions. Due to its highly consistent and cohesive nature, the Tibetan Book of the Dead is concentrated on by Grof. The author provides such a lucid description of the realms of the afterlife described by the Tibetan Book of the Dead that the descrip-tion leaves the reader with the impression that Grof is not just reporting on this book, but has had direct experience of these realms. Reflecting the essence of this book of the dead, Grof provides a taste and sense of what to expect in the afterlife. The author’s words carry a sense of support and guidance through the Tibetan’s view of the process of dying as well as tran-scendent experiences of the living. Grof brings home the terror of leaving the familiar as well as the intense, vibrant beauty of tran-scendent states of consciousness that can be experienced and known in life and death. Grof elucidates the pivotal reason for bringing knowledge of death states into our consciousness as a central part of our life in that it “offers a unique opportunity for instant spiritual lib-eration” (p. 87). Grof continues the adventure through the Tibetan Book of the Dead Bardos, and what is to be faced at each stage of the dying process, its associated consequences, and central lesson—knowing that all form is the creation of the mind and has no substance—with Nirvana as the ultimate, paradisean destination. Crafting a valid argument for the validity of transpersonal states of consciousness, Grof includes research for and descriptors of near death experience (NDE) including out-of-body experiences (OBE). Grof inserts the fact that reported experiences by participants in psychedelic therapy parallel the descriptions of NDE. Grof em-phatically clarifies the fact that OBE challenge the beliefs that tie con-sciousness to the brain and physical

body. Additionally, such NDE and OBE findings point to functioning of consciousness independent of the physical body in death as well as in life. Grof ’s brilliant synthesis of sup-porting evidence for transpersonal consciousness independent of the physical body is all-inclusive as he moves into the realm of déjà vu and déjà vecu, clear knowledge of various past-life situations. Grof re-views the various traditions where karma and reincarnation are inte-gral parts of the belief system. The déjà vu and déjà vecu experiences are thus seen as one of many forms of evidence substantiating beliefs in karma and reincarnation as em-pirically true. Grof emphasizes the fact that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the fact that reincarnation is a reality and goes on to provide examples and research substantiating that evidence. Grof provides further compelling evidence for life after life through examples of contact with the dead, including his experience with Luiz Gasparetto’s channeling of famous painters who have passed on and Raymond Moody’s psychomanteum process of contacting the dead. Grof brackets his presentation of experiences with afterlife spirits indicating that hard evidence is un-available, but scientific procedures cannot provide explanations. After laying the foundational support for his personal experi-ence, Grof shares his unique life experience by bringing psychedelic therapy research to the forefront: As we conducted this research we repeat-edly witness an astonishing process that closely resembled the initiation practices in the ancient mysteries of death and rebirth and often involved experiential sequences similar to those described in the Tibetan or Egyptian Book of the Dead (p. 208). Grof emphasizes the sacred characteristics of psychedelics, as cousins to substances used in Shamanic rituals, when used to assist terminally ill patients and

to enhance awareness of death as a transition from familiar life. The view of death as a natural transition brings dignity to the process rather than fear and repulsion. Grof leaves no stone unturned in his logical progression toward support for psychedelic therapy, and its respectful use with terminally ill cancer patients. He includes a fascinating chronology of events leading up to his heading up the Spring Grove psychedelic research including an account of widely publicized misinformation about psychedelics and the Spring Grove research. Cohen, Marinelli and Bach’s (1967) corrupted findings regarding psychedelics effecting changes in chromosomal structure were appropriately invalidated by empirical research, but not before having damaging effects on psyche-delic therapy research. Amidst spiritual reveling, the flip-pant use of psychedelics comes with a warning of caution. The value and depth of the experience can be lost to superficiality and casual use of psychedelics. Grof is emphatic about respecting the process, and his respect can be seen in his atten-tion to the details of the environ-ment in which psychedelic therapy is conducted. Through Grof ’s description of the care taken before, during, and after psychedelic thera-py, the reader feels the depth of his respect and the perspective needed to glean value from the process. Ad-ditionally, Grof provides quantita-tive research data as well as potent, personal accounts of seven cancer patients that back the salubrious effects of psychedelic therapy. Grof summarizes his findings by stating that “psychedelic therapy has an extraordinary capacity to alleviate, both in dying individuals and their survivors, the emotional and physi-cal agony of what is potentially the most painful crisis in human life” (p. 275), and then he addresses the inhuman stance on the illegal quali-fication of psychedelics by political and administrative factions. Grof continues to provide the

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reader with a bird’s-eye view of his Spring Grove psychedelic therapy research with terminally ill can-cer patients. Grof ’s psychedelic therapy research uncovered pro-found insight into the link between biographical issues and types of cancer. Overwhelming evidence points to the benefits of psychedelic therapy for cancer patients, includ-ing accessing self-healing energies, a full array of spiritual insight, knowledge of life beyond life, and preparation for a positive, even joy-ful death. Grof brings to light the practicality of psychedelic therapy in that it condenses years of work in depth psychology into less than a twenty-four hour period. Psyche-delic therapy proves to be effective in reducing the negative impact of antedated biographical issues by opening up the psyche to access a broader range of conscious-ness—transpersonal and perinatal. An important consequence brought up by Grof is that there is a shift from negative to positive influence of the personality, not necessarily elimination. Grof again brings up the warning on the holding and orientation when entering into a psychedelic experience. Grof says that a poorly resolved session can lead to the reverse of the hoped-for effect. Hence it is crucial to enter psychedelic therapy with respect and knowledge of an appropriate, supportive orientation to the pro-cess. He states that his psychedelic therapy research “clearly constitutes a new and powerful mechanism for eliciting profound therapeutic changes and deep restructuring of the personality” (p. 285). His deep compassion can be seen in his understanding and desire to address the depth of pain a termi-nally ill patient sustains. Grof sees additional benefits in psychedelic therapy through the shift in the pain experience. Cancer patients involved in psychedelic therapy were often able to move from total absorption in the pain to other interests that

enhanced the quality of their lives and orientation toward death. As Grof further describes the salubrious effects of psychedelic therapy, the reader feels an explo-sion of contribution and possibility that could become available if psy-chedelic therapy were more gener-ally available. This is an extremely important book for all those who desire a deepening of insight and wisdom into human consciousness and a vital support for the dying as well as the living process. The strength of Grof ’s argument for surviving consciousness after death is unmatched. He concisely and methodically proceeds with a bril-liant synthesis of facts supporting consciousness independent of life and the body. He pulls this evidence from a plethora of cultures, tradi-tions, religions, and research. The Ultimate Journey reflects a precise, clear, and all-encompassing support for decreasing the current modern trend of maintaining a distance from the knowledge of death, and unparalleled support for the legalization and use of psychedelic therapy.

RUBYE CERVELLI is a third-year Clinical Transpersonal Psychology Doctoral student at The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California. She is a lover and seeker of the Truth which led to an immersion in Diamond Heart and Siddha Yoga practices. Currently she participates in the Grof Teacher Training Holotropic Breathwork program. You may contact Rubye at [email protected].

LOVE’S EMBRACE: The Autobiography of a Person-Centred TherapistBY BRIAN THORNE

PCCS Books, 2006, hardcover, 250 pp., $38, ISBN 1 898059764.

Reviewed by James Dillon

With the publication of works such as Jerome Bruner’s Acts of Meaning

(1990), Paul Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative (1988), and similar books over the past two decades, psychol-ogy has seen the introduction of narrative and autobiography as legitimate and attractive subjects of study. Various academic conferences

and scholarly journals such as Nar-rative Inquiry (Erlbaum), Biography (University of Hawaii), and Auto/Biography (University of North Car-olina) testify to the value many in the profession see in examining the ways people use (and are used by) narrative in making sense of their lives. It is thus a curious event when the psychologist, particularly one who has taken an interest in stories, steps back from his or her focus on other people’s use of narrative and tells the story of his or her own life. Readers perhaps expect some special insight into the human condition from those of us who have spent so much time working with others. Often we are not disappointed in this expectation. One thinks here of Jung’s Memories, Dreams, and Reflec-tions, and Carl Rogers’ A Way of Be-ing. Brian Thorne’s Love’s Embrace: The Autobiography of a Person-Cen-tred Therapist (2005) stands in this same tradition of the psychologist-turned-autobiographer.


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Brian Thorne began his career with the study of languages and literatures, then turned to teaching education at the university level, and subsequently found his way into counseling. While he retained his involvement in teaching, much of Thorne’s career has been devoted to working with students and clients in the context of counseling. He eventually went on to found the Norwich Center in England and has done yeoman’s work advancing the cause of the person-centered approach to counseling all around the world. His many publications include the controversial paper “Be-yond the Core Conditions” (1987), The Mystical Power of Person-Cen-tered Therapy (2002), and Infinitely Beloved (2003). As we learn from his autobiography, Thorne has been a practicing Christian his whole life who sees a deep connection between Christianity and person-centered counseling. This unique perspective has often set him at odds with many of his colleagues in the person-cen-tered world, including his mentor Carl Rogers. In fact, Thorne alludes to (though doesn’t include) a series of exchanges with Rogers over Christianity and religious matters. While Rogers was not convinced by Thorne’s arguments, Thorne is sure he had helped Rogers see Christian-ity in a more sympathetic light than he had before. One is left wondering what Thorne and Rogers actually said. Thorne was also a happily married man with three children and several very close friends and colleagues. He comes across in these pages as a delightful, intelligent, energetic man who deeply cares for others. It is difficult to argue with au-tobiographies in the same way you would engage a book about World War II or the nature of language. Autobiographies are very public self-disclosures, gifts of an inti-mate kind. This places the reviewer of autobiography in the rather awkward position of judging a gift.

What can one really say to an au-tobiography other than, “Thanks”? Surely more can be said, but only with the caveat that there is a vital distinction to be made between the actual life lived by the author, which is priceless and quite beyond judgment, and the life as organized and narrated by the author, a process that can be evaluated, hopefully in a gentle and charitable way. What follows is my brief assessment. Generally speaking, there are two major forms of autobiography: intensive and extensive. Extensive autobiographies employ the brick and mortar of deeds and events in composing the account; inten-sive autobiographies employ inner experience as the central building block. In the extreme, extensive autobiographies are merely chron-icles, simple lists of events that have taken place over time; while extreme intensive autobiographies are diaries, intensely personal re-cordings of emotional experiences.

What keeps good autobiography from lapsing toward either of these extremes is the element of story, the narrative thread that weaves its way through the outer events and inner experiences, holding them together into a coherent, integrated account. Love’s Embrace surely falls on the “extensive” side of the autobio-graphical continuum. This is both its strength and its weakness. On the one hand, it is refreshing and even a little ironic that a life story from a person-centered therapist would be so organized around the factual happenings of life. This touch gives the work grounding that works such as Jung’s Memories lack. On the other hand, Thorne’s attention to factual detail leaves the reader with little beyond an inti-mate familiarity with the biographi-cal minutiae of his life. Here is one of many examples from the text:Judy and Campbell are not the only two who have stayed with the [National

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Health] Service since their training days. Jean Ashby was also a member of the first FDI course and she, too, has a record of almost continuous service since those early times. . . . Another early trainee (from the second FDI (PCT) course) was Louise Young, herself a UEA graduate, who has not only established herself as a counselor and trainer in the University where for many years she has coordinated extramural courses in counseling skills but has also developed a private counseling network which provides counselors for GP practices and other agencies (p. 201). This tendency to highly detailed chronicling recurs throughout the work. This is fine to a point, but there comes a time when the reader asks, “Well, what does all of this stuff mean? Where is this headed?” At the beginning of the book, Thorne speaks of how his goal in Love’s Embrace is to “track the factual course of events in my life” and “to recapture the emo-tional quality of much that I have experienced” (p. i). This is precisely how it feels to wind one’s way through this book: we are treated to an impressive store of factual accounting followed by a brief, intense emotional reaction (usually praise or gratitude) to these facts. For example, immediately follow-ing the passage cited above, Thorne writes,

Nothing gives me more satisfac-tion—and pride—these days when I visit the University than to see Judy, Campbell, Jean, and Louise displaying the professional capabilities, and the personal graciousness which have made them such a powerful influence for good in the University and the wider com-munity (p. 201). Beyond this event-followed-by-emotional-reaction pattern, there really is no clear thread that weaves together the disparate events of Thorne’s life into a coherent story. The closest he comes to doing this is when he recounts at the very beginning of the book a mystical experience he had as a very young child of an all-loving divine pres-ence. The reader can infer from what follows in the rest of the book that this experience had a profound influence on Thorne’s subsequent devoted practice of religion, his career choice of person-centered counseling, even his liberal politics. But he merely mentions this experi-ence at the beginning of the work rather than showing throughout the work how this “embracing love” has come to comprise the inner dimen-sion of the unfolding of his life over time. In addition, the details themselves that Thorne goes to such pains to recount are highly factual, in many cases simply trivial. We don’t really learn from this book what makes Thorne tick from the inside, what he struggles with, what it’s like to

be in therapy with him, what it’s like for him to be in therapy, what it’s like from the inside to have him as a father/husband, or what it’s like from the inside for him to be a father/husband. We learn that he was “privileged” or “proud” to work with clients, or to have such-and-such colleagues, or to have the wife he did, but really not much more. There is a deeper dimension to this man’s life that simply has not been brought to the page as yet. It is the story in autobiography that transports the factual details of an individual life into the realm of enduring meaning value beyond one’s self and one’s immediate circle of friends and acquaintances. At times it seems that Thorne is writing this work simply to recall events for himself and to thank the people he directly knows and loves. Unfortunately, this tendency leaves the work with rather limited appeal and value beyond this narrow circle of people who have been blessed to know Brian Thorne as a friend, congregant, father, colleague, or counselor.

JAMES J. DILLON, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of West Georgia, where he teaches on hu-man development, myth and symbol, and the foundations of humanistic psychology. He has articles on children’s and adult growth and development in Encounter, The Journal of Adult Development, Hu-manistas, and The Journal of Aging and Identity.

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