Transformational Psychology

Psychotherapy started out as a means of curing mental illness and helping people with severe emotional problems. Since then it has been continually extended in a variety of ways to cover a wider range of people, issues, and contexts. First it was extended to cover groups and families. Then in the 1960’s, humanistic psychology expanded it to provide help with ordinary problems of living and personal growth. The community mental health movement extended psychotherapy into community work with people of various economic strata. The self-help movement, led by the various 12 step programs, has expanded therapeutic work beyond the province of professionals. Organizational development extended psychological work into the workplace and the corporation. Feminist therapy expanded the scope of field to include gender issues. Transpersonal psychology expanded it to include spiritual experience. When nuclear war was a major threat, peace psychology was born. As we became aware of ecological dangers, ecopsychology emerged to remind us of our relationship to the natural world.

Now there are many cross-fertilizations of the above ideas and practices. Ecopsychology tends to have a spiritual sensibility. Many spiritual traditions have spawned socially oriented variants, such as engaged Buddhism. First humanistic psychology became interested in helping to create a healthier society, and now transpersonal psychology has followed suit. “Organizational transformation” and “spirituality in the workplace” are the latest trend in the corporate world. These are signs that a new integration is emerging, which I call Transformational Psychology. It includes all of the above mentioned types of work and more. It is interested in transforming the person, psychologically and spiritually, and also transforming the various contexts in which people live—the family, the workplace, the community. It is aimed at education and prevention, at creating a culture that is psychological aware and sophisticated. Practitioners of Transformational Psychology are interested in transforming themselves as well as their clients and they don’t assume such a large gap in functioning between psychologist and client. Ultimately Transformational Psychology is interested in transforming society in fundamental ways which include peace and ecological health and much more.