Stanislav grof psychology. Stanislav Grof: Parents "get" completely formed personalities. What is transpersonal psychology

Stanislav Grof - M.D., American psychologist of Czech origin. His name is associated with the discovery of a new, transpersonal direction in psychology.

According to the theory of Stanislav Grof, a person's character is formed even before his birth. A passionate desire to have a child, a successful pregnancy, natural childbirth, the first feeding - this is what will provide a happy and harmonious future for a little person.

It is not true that a newborn is a blank sheet of paper! Parents, despite all their efforts, “get” completely formed personalities, Grof believes. With his attitude to this world, parents and what is happening around them. If you want to correct something, you have at your disposal pregnancy, a day after childbirth and the first hours of feeding. Will you have time?

Stanislav Grof believes that at the moment when you put a tiny body to your chest for the first time, and dad is filming this event on camera, the formation of a child's personality is completed. All further, including upbringing and education, will work with the effectiveness of a bactericidal adhesive plaster.

This is a fact proven by the majority of Grof's patients, who, in the course of research, remembered not only the circumstances of their birth, but also the previous nine months.

During this time, the fetus goes through four stages of psychological development, corresponding to the period of pregnancy, labor, childbirth and the first feeding. The information that comes "inside" is "uploaded" into the matrices (in other words, it is sorted into the subconscious), in order to then become the lifelong basis of a person's actions. And let his relatives argue over whose ears and nose he has. You managed the most important thing - to participate in the formation of the character of the baby!

Matrix 1. Paradise or the matrix of love

It "fills up" when the baby is in the womb. At this time, the baby receives his first knowledge about the world, basic and deep. With a successful pregnancy, the child formulates for himself: “The world is OK, and I am OK!”. But for a positive position, this period must be really prosperous. And not only for medical reasons, but also from the point of view of the unborn baby.

And for him, first of all, it is important to be desired.

If a mother flutters throughout her pregnancy at the thought of the upcoming replenishment, her feelings will certainly be transmitted to the baby as the setting “everything is fine with me” for any life situation. By the way, a child's sexual self-awareness is also directly dependent on "internal" information. For example, if the girl's mother strongly desires a boy, in the future the baby may have serious problems with the female nature, up to infertility.

It is also very important that the mother's body works like a Swiss watch. A healthy pregnancy is a sure guarantee that the baby will feel comfortable, expecting only pleasant surprises from life.

Your task: to lay in the subconscious of the child a positive attitude towards the world and towards oneself.

Time to decide: your pregnancy.

Correct result: self-confidence, openness.

Negative result: low self-esteem, shyness, a tendency to hypochondria.

• Emotional discomfort experienced by the mother;
• Expecting a child of a strictly defined gender;
• An attempt to terminate a pregnancy.

Matrix 2. Hell or victim matrix

This matrix is ​​formed in contractions, during the first acquaintance of the child with environment. The child experiences pain and fear. His experiences are: “The world is ok, I am not ok!”. That is, the child takes everything that happens at his own expense, believes that he himself is the cause of his condition. Labor induction causes irreparable damage to the formation of the second matrix. If during this period the child experiences too much pain caused by stimulation, then the “victim syndrome” is fixed in him. In the future, such a child will be touchy, suspicious and even cowardly.

It is in fights that the child learns to cope with difficulties, to show patience and resistance to stress.

Having coped with her fears, mom can control the course of contractions. This will give the child a great experience. independent solution problems.

During the period of contractions, the baby simply needs to feel the support of his mother, her empathy for him.

After all, now he must learn to look boldly into the future. If the result of the struggle was his benevolent acceptance into a new, kind, glorious world, then he again returns to paradise. The child can experience these feelings only in the mother's stomach. Where you can feel her warmth, smell, heartbeat. Then the newborn is applied to the breast, and he once again receives confirmation that he is loved and desired in this world, that he has protection and support.

If the mother demands “to do something, only as soon as possible!”, Then the baby will, if possible, avoid responsibility. There is also an opinion that the use of pain relief, which is almost always combined with stimulation or is done on its own, lays the foundation for the emergence of various kinds of addictions (including alcohol, drugs, nicotine, food). The child remembers once and for all: if difficulties arise, doping is needed to overcome them.

Your task: form the right attitude to difficulties and patience.

Time to decide: contractions.

Correct result: patience, perseverance, perseverance.

Negative result: weakness of spirit, suspiciousness, resentment.

Possible errors in solving the problem:

• Stimulation of labor activity
• Cesarean section
• Mom's Panic

The result of this may be the problems of self-realization in a competitive environment that a person will experience in the future.

It is believed that if the caesarean section was planned, and the baby did not pass the contractions test conceived by nature, then he will try to escape from problems, and not solve them on his own.

Matrix 3. Purgatory, or the matrix of struggle

The third matrix is ​​laid down as the baby passes through the birth canal. In terms of time - a short period, but do not underestimate it. After all, this is the first experience independent action baby. Because now he is fighting for his life himself, and his mother only helps him to be born. And if you provide him with proper support at this critical moment for the child, in overcoming difficulties he will be quite decisive, active, not afraid of work, will not be afraid to make a mistake.

The problem is that doctors are often involved in the birth process, and their intervention is not always justified. For example, if a doctor puts pressure on a woman in labor to advance the fetus (as often happens), the child may develop an appropriate attitude towards work: until prompted, pushed, the person will not move in indecision and will miss happy opportunities.

The third matrix is ​​also related to sexuality.

Birth Clue: A woman in labor who is in an altered state of consciousness tends to re-enact the scenario of her own birth. And what did our mothers see in Soviet maternity hospitals? With rare exceptions, alas, nothing good.

You can change this picture:

• Signing up for special courses to prepare for childbirth
• Picking up a good maternity hospital in advance. Moreover, you need to pay attention not only to the big name and technical equipment, but also to the willingness of the staff to support your desire to give birth naturally and preferably without medical intervention.
• By correlating the decision on caesarean section or anesthesia with information on perinatal matrices. If such manipulations are not due to medical indications, but to the desire for comfort, you will deliberately harm the child's psyche.

Your task: develops efficiency and determination.

Time to decide: childbirth.

Correct result: determination, mobility, fortitude, diligence.

Negative result: fearfulness, inability to stand up for oneself, aggressiveness.

• Possible errors in solving the problem:
• Medical pain relief
• Epidural anesthesia
• Containment of contractions
• Unwillingness to participate in childbirth (“I can’t - that’s all!”).

Matrix 4. Paradise again, or the matrix of freedom

The first hours of life are the time to reap laurels after trials. And you are obliged with all generosity, love and cordiality to provide them to the baby. After all, now he must learn to look boldly into the future. If the result of the struggle was a benevolent acceptance of him into a new, kind, glorious world, then he returns to paradise again: "The WORLD is OK, I am OK." The child can experience these feelings only on the mother's stomach, where you can feel her warmth, smell and heartbeat. Then the newborn is applied to the breast, and he once again receives confirmation that he is loved and desired in this world, that he has protection and support.

Such a ritual has long become traditional in Europe, as, indeed, in many domestic maternity hospitals. However, there are still quite a few where mother and baby are separated from each other, which, from the point of view of Grof's theory, is very dangerous. After all, this is how a child learns that all his labors and sufferings are in vain. And since there is no need to wait for a reward, then the future awaits him gloomy.

Amendment for "caesareans": These babies are usually even less lucky: immediately after giving birth, they can be separated from their mother for a long time. Therefore, for the correct formation of the fourth matrix, psychologists recommend that women choose epidural anesthesia in order to take the newborn into their arms immediately after birth.

Your task: formation of the child's attitude to life prospects and full-time acquaintance with the world.

Time to decide: first hours of life.

Correct result: high self-esteem, love of life.

Negative result: laziness, pessimism, incredulity.

Possible mistakes:

• Cutting the umbilical cord at the stage of pulsation
• Birth trauma of the newborn
• "Separation" of the newborn from the mother
• Rejection or critical attitude towards the newborn
• Careless treatment of doctors with a newborn

• To stimulate the child to achieve the goal from infancy;
• Give breastfeeding, which is harder than bottle feeding;
• Teach to reach for toys and other necessary things;
• Do not limit his activity by constant swaddling and the walls of the arena;
• In the future, find a psychotherapist who will help the child “work through” the moment of his birth;

• Take the baby in your arms as often as possible;
• Take him for a walk in a backpack - "kangaroo";
• breastfeed;

• Before demanding independent results from the child, patiently help him
• Do not rush the baby when he is trying to solve some problem.

In psychology encyclopedias, the name of Stanislav Grof is third, after Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, among the greatest innovators in the science of the secrets of the human soul. The revolutionary discoveries of Grof, still ignored by official medicine, inspired the cult directors of the Wachowski brothers to create the film trilogy "The Matrix". The world famous scientist gave Pravda.Ru an exclusive interview.

Dear Stanislav, let me thank you for taking the time to have such a serious and large-scale conversation with us in the year of your 75th birthday. Even Carl Jung argued that the baby's psyche is not "tabula rasa". Based on many years of clinical research, you have come to the conclusion that our unconscious contains perinatal (that is, prenatal) and transpersonal areas. But why does official medicine ignore these discoveries?

Modern research in the field of consciousness has brought a lot of evidence that the models of the human psyche that dominate today in official psychology and psychiatry are superficial and inadequate. Based on years of data from psychedelic research, I had to create an extremely expanded model of the psyche by adding two large areas - perinatal and transpersonal.

The perinatal area refers to memories of intrauterine life and biological birth. This area consists of four basic perinatal matrices corresponding to the four stages of childbirth - from blissful rest in the uterus to birth. The transpersonal realm contains the experience of identification with other people, other biological species, episodes from the life of our ancestors, both humans and animals, as well as the historical collective unconscious, as Jung interpreted it.

My cartography of the psyche bears a strong resemblance to Jung's, except for a fundamental point. I was surprised and disappointed that Jung vehemently denied that biological birth had any psychological significance, that it was a major trauma. Even shortly before his death, in an interview, Jung denied any possibility of such significance.

Traditional psychiatrists, both in America and in your country, are well aware of the existence of perinatal and transpersonal experiences, since they spontaneously appear in some patients. But, unlike me, these physicians do not consider them a normal part of the human psyche, but consider them as the results of unknown pathological processes that affect the brain. That is, people whose unconscious has reached the perinatal and transpersonal levels are considered to be suffering from psychosis, mentally ill.

Do you remember your first transpersonal experience? The resistance of a large part of the academic community to the discoveries of modern consciousness research is understandable. New revolutionary data require a radical revision of all psychological and psychiatric thinking, similar to what physicists had to go through at the beginning of the 20th century, when they moved from the Newtonian understanding of matter to the quantum-relativistic picture of the world. New information in the field of consciousness research calls into question the basic philosophical provisions of Western science, undermines its materialistic orientation. Based on clinical evidence, transpersonal psychology offers a worldview similar to that of the world's great religions and Eastern spiritual philosophies.

He was so unusual and amazing that it is simply impossible to forget him. This happened in November 1956 in the laboratory of the Czech Research Institute of Psychiatry, when I volunteered to participate in an LSD session. The idea of ​​the experiment was to expose me to a powerful stroboscopic lamp at the climax of my LSD experience. My consciousness left the body, and all the boundaries of the universe dissolved. I experienced the awe-inspiring experience of the Cosmic Mind to this day, ceased to be a separate being and became the Universe itself.

I describe this experience in my book When the Impossible Becomes Possible. Adventures in unusual realities”, soon to be published in Russian translation. The experience of half a century ago was so strong that it aroused my lifelong interest in non-ordinary states of consciousness. Of course, he could not immediately destroy my materialistic worldview, which was instilled by my studies in communist Czechoslovakia. It took years of daily observation during psychedelic sessions, both of my own and of patients, and later in sessions of holotropic breathwork and non-drug therapies developed by me withChristina. Today, I repeat, I am absolutely convinced - modern system views and concepts needs a radical revision.

After twenty years of official research, which was also carried out in the USSR by Maria Telashevskaya, psychedelics were banned. Are you not embarrassed by the accusations that the unusual states of consciousness in which the perinatal and transpersonal levels manifest themselves are associated with psychoactive substances?

For many years I thought that non-ordinary states of consciousness require strong psychoactive substances, such as L SD . And I was surprised to discover how profoundly psychic effects such simple methods as faster breathing or evocative music can have. But shamans and aboriginal cultures have known this for millennia and used sacred technologies in healing, ritual and spiritual practices. Scientific observations, including anthropologists, have shown that the gap between the so-called. "normal state of consciousness" and the unusual state is not as great as it was commonly thought. Moreover, for many people, such states can be spontaneous, occurring right in the middle of everyday life.

But isn't traditional psychiatry still treating conditions like psychosis that require mostly medication?

This is the essence of the problem. When we realize that perinatal and transpersonal experiences are a normal part of the human psyche, we will start asking and answering questions about such episodes in a completely different way. After all, the question now is not how the brain generates unusual experiences and what supposedly pathological processes cause them. It is clear to me that the experiences that arise in such states are normal components of the human psyche. The question is - why do some people need psychedelic substances or powerful non-drug techniques to plunge into the depths of their unconscious, while others spontaneously arise?

Transpersonal psychology believes that when non-ordinary states of consciousness are properly understood and maintained, they can be healing, transformative, and evolutionary. Christina and I call them "spiritual emergencies" because they represent not only a crisis, but also an opportunity to get out on your own. highest level consciousness and psychological action.

Your assertion that the mystical experience is available to every person has caused fierce controversy...

Our advances in psychedelic research and holotropic breathwork have convinced us that the capacity for mystical experiences is a fundamental human right from birth. In principle, anyone can have them, only some people find it easier than others. There are people who find it difficult, despite all their desire, to enter into such states, and they try to cause them. different ways. But there are also those for whom mystical states arise right in the middle of the day, sometimes against their will, and it is difficult for them to relate themselves to ordinary reality. By the way, my great predecessor Carl Jung belonged to the second category. He used his easy access to the unconscious as the source of a new, revolutionary psychology.

In your book "Psychology of the Future", also published in Russia, you again raise the question of the need to discuss the legal, social and medical aspects of psychedelics. Such a discussion began last year in the UK scientific community. Maybe it is worth holding it at the level of the World Health Organization in order to remove a layer of secrecy from this topic?

I believe that for specialists with many years of experience, the fallacy of such a definition is obvious. Research has shown that when used correctly and in a controlled manner, psychedelic substances have great therapeutic potential and, from a psychological point of view, are not addictive. Moreover, dissatisfaction with official psychiatric therapy, which boils down to the standard suppression of mental symptoms with tranquilizers, is growing everywhere. Symptoms are suppressed, but underlying psychological problems are not resolved. In addition, people are becoming more aware of side effects - the World Health Organization plays an important role in the control of psychoactive substances, and all WHO member countries are obliged to comply with its recommendations. Psychedelic substances, including LSD, are currently included in the "List No. 1" with the definition of "drug without therapeutic value and with a high potential for abuse"used outdated methods.

It is encouraging that the scientific climate has begun to change in recent years. The desire to find alternatives to the dead-ended methods of traditional psychiatry led to the official approval of research programs for psychedelic therapy in some centers in the United States, Switzerland, Israel and several other countries. As far as I know from articles in the Western press, particularly in the Guardian newspaper, research programs have officially begun on therapies using LSD, psilocybin, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MMDA), and ketamine.

That is, researchers are returning to the experience of research in the 50s of the last century?

I think that Western society is now better equipped to accept psychedelic therapy than it was half a century ago. As I remember, then all psychotherapy was reduced to verbal, that is, verbal communication between the doctor and the patient. Strong emotions and active behavior during the session were called "external expression of subconscious mental processes" and were assessed as violations of the rules of therapy.

Psychedelic sessions, on the other hand, evoked psychomotor agitation, dramatic emotions, and vivid cognitive changes. They looked more like scenes from anthropology films depicting healing ceremonies and rituals of indigenous cultures than what was traditionally seen in a psychotherapist's office.

In addition, many observations obtained after psychedelic sessions threatened materialistic ideas about the human psyche and the structure of the Universe, based on the Newtian-Cartesian paradigm. I remember that back in the period of work in Czechoslovakia, one of the patients Richard told me after an LSD session that during the “journey” he received information from certain entities with a request to tell the relatives of a certain Ladislav that everything was fine with him in the other world. They dictated to him the name of the city of Kromerice, in Moravia, where relatives live, and even a telephone number. I recorded this information in a medical record and, as a person of then still materialistic views, left it unattended. When curiosity got the better of me and after a couple of weeks I called the number I had recorded in Kromerich and called the name the patient had heard, sobs and the words sounded on the other side of the receiver: “We lost Ladislav three weeks ago…”

Yes, there has been a real revolution in psychotherapy in recent decades. Powerful experiential techniques have been developed that emphasize deep regression, direct expression of strong emotions, and exercises that produce a burst of physical energy. Among the new approaches, I would single out Gestalt practice, bioenergetics, primitive therapy, rebirthing (rebirth through breathing) and holotropic breathing. And for physicians practicing in these areas, the introduction of psychedelics would not be a sudden change in practice, but the next logical step. I hope that a resurgence of interest in psychedelic research, which certainly requires careful legal and medical work, will put this unusual tool back in the hands of reliable doctors.

But will this help save humanity, which every year seems to be sinking more and more into a chaotic quagmire of destructiveness, greed and animal instincts?

Psychedelic research and experiments with holotropic breathing, the treatment of people in "spiritual accidents", absolutely confirmed Jung's teachings about the black and sinister sides of the human psyche. Jung aptly called them the Shadow. I myself have written extensively about the perinatal and transpersonal roots of human cruelty and greed. In particular, in the book "Psychology of the Future" there is a chapter "The evolution of consciousness and human survival: a transpersonal perspective of the global crisis."

Based on many years of clinical research, transpersonal psychology has come to the conclusion that all aspects of the current global crisis - economic, political, military, religious, environmental - have one common denominator.

And this is the denominator. The roots of human cruelty and greed lie deep in the perinatal and transpersonal areas of the unconscious. That is, much deeper than classical psychiatry imagines. Traditional forms of verbal (verbal) psychotherapy operate exclusively at the level of postpartum biography and do not reach the level at which true problems arise. If a person reaches these levels spontaneously, as a result of a "spiritual accident", then he is declared suffering from psychosis and the natural process of transformation is delayed.the use of tranquilizers.

That is why, for the survival of the human species, systematic work is needed on the spiritual revelation of the personality, first of all, of those who are in a state of psycho-spiritual transformation.

Stanislav, your views on the decisive role of the spiritual, and not the animal, dominant in the human psyche are in many ways similar to the views of the great Russian philosophers and writers. Who would you choose from them for yourself personally? And how close are your revolutionary ideas to our mentality, which prove the complete bankruptcy of pure materialism? It seems that we are involved in a terrible race for time, the precedent of which was not in the history of mankind. If we stick to the old strategies that are monstrously destructive, then the human race will not survive this century. We can only be saved by a deep inner transformation of a sufficiently large number of people, and official psychology and psychiatry have shown their complete inability here.

When Christina and I were officially invited to Soviet Union, we were shocked how open our Russian colleagues were to new ideas, including those in academic circles. People came to meet us from distant places - from Georgia, from Siberia ... I was very touched when they approached me for an autograph with a translation of "Regions of the Human Unconscious", released thanks to underground printing houses in samizdat. Of course, since I was brought up in a communist country, samizdat was not a novelty for me. But it was not a political book, but a purely scientific one! I kept such a book as an expensive memento of my visit to Russia. But, unfortunately, it burned down in February 2001 during a fire in our house, along with all my library and other property.

I think there are many reasons for the openness of Russians to transpersonal psychology. And above all, the deep spirituality inherent in the Russian people. My close friend and eminent psychologist in Russia, Vladimir Maykov, included in his book on the history of transpersonal psychology a huge number of people of Russian origin who played an invaluable role in the development of a new science of the human soul. Among them are many famous names such as Helena Blavatsky, George Gurdjieff, Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Leo Tolstoy and Vasily Nalimov.

Another reason for the growing popularity of transpersonal psychology in Russia is that, under Soviet rule, psychology and psychiatry were limited to a small number of philosophically acceptable approaches, such as those based on the work of Ivan Pavlov. When the old system fell, a spiritual vacuum arose, and Russian specialists showed a sincere desire to join the latest achievements in the study of consciousness.

And unlike American universities, in most of which psychology and psychiatry departments have been headed by biological, neo-Freudian and behavioral conservatives for many decades, in Russia there are much more scientists who support transpersonal psychology. I felt it during my trip to St. Petersburg in the summer of 2001. I really hope to visit great Russia again soon and I am ready to take part in the most heated and frank discussions on the topics of studying the human unconscious, psychedelic and holotropic therapy.

Reference:

Stanislav Grof was born on July 1, 1931 in Prague. From 1956 to 1967 was a practicing psychiatrist and clinician. In 1961-66, he headed the laboratory for research on the use of LSD and other psychedelics for the treatment of mental disorders at the Research Institute of Psychiatry of the Ministry of Health of Czechoslovakia. In 1959, Grof was awarded the Küffner Prize - an award from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences "for the most outstanding contribution to the field of psychiatry."

In 1967, Stanislav Grof left for the USA to study at Johns Hopkins University. From 1968-1973, he directed the psychedelic research laboratory at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, the only place in the United States where LSD research was officially continued.

From 1973 to 1987, Stanislav Grof and his wife Kristina work at the world famous Esalen Institute (Big Sur, California), where they create a unique holotropic psychotherapy based on special breathing techniques, body work and specially selected music. Currently, Grof conducts trainings on holotropic breathing, gives lectures, takes an active part in the work of the International Transpersonal Association.

Great fame to Stanislav Grof brought him scientific works- "Regions of the Human Unconscious", "Beyond the Brain", "Journey in Search of Self", "Psychology of the Future" and others. , which were recorded in terminally ill cancer patients during sessions with LSD-25. This book turned out to be in the center of attention of many religious figures - for example, references to it are in the famous book of the greatest Orthodox thinker Father Seraphim (Rose) "The Soul after Death".

For the first time Grof visited our country in 1963, he also came in the 70s to get acquainted with the studies of neuroses in monkeys in the Sukhumi nursery. But the real sensation was the arrival of the Grof spouses in April 1989 at the invitation of the USSR Ministry of Health. At the Psychoendocrinological Center on Arbat, Stanislav and Kristina gave lectures on holotropic breathing in front of thousands of fans of their ideas who came from all over the Union. At the same time, the publishing house of the USSR Academy of Sciences published a number of Grof's books with a circulation of 500 copies. At present, almost all the works of the scientist have been published in Russian, with the exception of LSD Psychotherapy. TNT is finishing work on a four-episode documentary about the life and work of the great innovator, which will see the light of day this year.

From the editor: Please note that the psychoactive substances mentioned by Stanislav Grof (LSD, psilocybin, DMT, MDMA and ketamine) are currently officially prohibited internationally for production, distribution and consumption in any capacity. According to the data and conclusions of official medicine, the use of these substances, especially uncontrolled, poses a threat to human health, can cause mental disorders and destructive behavior.

Stanislav Grof - without exaggeration, the Freud of the XXI century. Live classic. Some even believe that Grof is the founder of a new religion that allows its adherents to avoid physical death.

We will hardly meet soon.
Behind the pain, pain
For the distance - the distance.
V. Pelevin

In fact, everything is not so fantastic: it just gives people the opportunity to remember the circumstances of their birth. And he sees in this the future of psychiatry, and more broadly - in general, the spiritual evolution of mankind, which, in his opinion, has now reached a dead end.

He still personally gives trainings all over the world (he recently completed such a training in Moscow - "The Adventure of Discovering Yourself") and teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He looks much younger than his 78 years. At the sessions of the so-called "holotropic breathing" Grof was "born" again more than four thousand times. This is the number of sessions that the pioneering psychiatrist has conducted in his more than 45 years of practice. Thousands of times returned to the mind of a newborn - maybe that's why he looks so young?

I like Grof because he introduced the concept of “spiritual experience” into psychology. Previously, a person who experienced a revelation was placed in a madhouse, his condition was extinguished by tranquilizers. Now there is a rightful place for such moments in a person's life, and he will not even be considered crazy.

Grof has written more than ten scientific and educational books, created a successfully functioning International Transpersonal Organization, trained more than one hundred thousand certified teachers ... Millions of people around the world have attended his trainings. The owner of the highest scientific degrees and prestigious awards, Grof is, in addition, a very wealthy person. It would seem that you can already “retire” and rest on your laurels! But no.

One of Grof's books is called "The Frantic Search for Oneself" (1990): here, it seems, what he realizes in his own example is an "eternal fight" with a shadow, a search for perfection. But if you look at it, in Grof's system the notorious "frantic search for oneself" is a problem that confronts only spiritually fragmented individuals, and then only until a cure. In the course of practice, it turns into another task facing mentally healthy people - the super-task of expanding consciousness, spiritual evolution. And the first stage in this struggle, which Grof, with his characteristic optimism, called “adventure”, should be overcoming the invisible “last frontier” - the human barrier, behind which lie mysterious areas about which little can be said in words, except that “here they can there are tigers”, as in the famous story by R. Bradbury.

As Grof points out, based on his own "journeys" into the unconscious (or, more accurately, "superconscious") and his observations of thousands of "journeys" taken by his patients, there are three states that allow us to go beyond this limit: the use of LSD (which is an illegal drug), the method of holotropic breathing proposed by Grof and the psycho-spiritual crisis, or “spiritual exacerbation i“. What these three situations have in common, as Grof writes in the preface to Call of the Jaguar (2001), is that they induce non-ordinary states of consciousness, including the subspecies he calls "holotropic" ii , that is, beyond, in contrast to ordinary experience, which he calls "hylotropic", that is, earthly.

Grof notes in "The Call of the Jaguar" that in psychedelic therapy (now banned, but legal in Grof's younger years), such states were induced by the use of psychoactive drugs, including LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, tryptamine, amphetamine derivatives (DMT, ecstasy and etc.). In the method of holotropic breathing, developed by Grof and his wife Christina in 1975, a combination of the so-called connected breathing is used to change consciousness (when there is no pause between inhalation and exhalation, exhalation and inhalation) and music that introduces into a state of trance (often ethnic, tribal : African drums, Tibetan pipes, etc.); sometimes additional work with the body is applied. In the case of "spiritual exacerbations," holotropic states occur spontaneously, Grof notes, and their causes are usually unknown. Thus, the third method is uncontrolled, the first is illegal: only holotropic breathing remains.

Grof conducted his research for more than forty-five years. He began with experiments with LSD. After the discovery of the psychotropic properties of the drug in 1943, it was assumed for some time that it causes symptoms similar to schizophrenia (and therefore was recommended for use by psychotherapists), but this hypothesis was subsequently refuted. After the prohibition of this drug in the United States in the late 1960s, Grof began to use the method of special holotropic breathing in his research, in which he actively used the experience gained during experiments with psychoactive drugs (including precautions).

Perhaps the prototype of the specific breathing used in the holotropic method was the rapid breathing of Grof's patients under LSD - in the case when the problem that emerged from the depths of the subconscious could not be immediately worked out, integrated into a healthy psyche. Such breathing helped them to remain in an expanded state of consciousness and discharge the psychological material that manifested itself in the form of unpleasant symptoms. So the "bad trip" turned into a method of psychotherapy.

First of all, acid brought liberation, the greatest freedom to comprehend the incomprehensible, to travel in worlds hidden from modern man. The priority system was completely replaced, boring routine pictures of ordinary life modern man seemed like a vulgar mockery of oneself, because, having once tasted an apple of paradise, it is rather absurd to try to believe that this is the real thing, that it is for this that you came into this world. It is no coincidence that the first opponents of the substance tried to associate the nature of the acid trip with a schizophrenic seizure.

Grof never spoke of this, but a natural conclusion from his medical practice would be to speculate - just speculate - that Grof himself may have been under the influence of LSD when he invented his holotropic method. Similarly, for example, Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winner in 1962, discovered the famous double helix of the molecular structure of DNA under the influence of LSD. One way or another, Grof's experiments with LSD date back to the period when this drug was completely legal.

Research in the field of psychedelic therapy and personal experience of holotropic breathing allowed Grof to make the discovery that beyond the "last frontier" of human consciousness - the consciousness of the embryo - there is no blank wall (as a materialist might assume, based on the assumption that human life is limited by the interval between conception and death ). Behind this “wall”, as Grof found out, there is also life, more precisely, many forms of life. There lie "superhuman" worlds where time and space, the limitations of brain memory and the current human birth in general cease to be limiting factors. Namely, they stop holding back what always lives inside us and conducts its “frantic search” both before and after our physical death. In some philosophical and religious systems, this “something” is called “soul”, “consciousness”, “true Self”.

But even this, empirical, accessible to everyone proof of the existence of the notorious "life after death", is the most surprising in Grof's experiments. The main thing, from the height of spiritual, superhuman consciousness, it becomes obvious: the boundaries of the human and those psychological barriers that cause various pathological effects that prevent a person from becoming himself, and then go further, rise above himself - these boundaries are not created by the whim of fate and are fueled by no one - by an evil will, but by the person himself - more precisely, by his false, limited self-identification.

That is, it turns out that we ourselves - with all our might - keep our “doors of perception” locked, preventing true health, prosperity and freedom from entering them. As he told his students, as he wrote in his books - and as Grof proves with his medical practice - a person spends very significant forces on maintaining his mental barriers (much more than he can afford!). And these forces can be used much more rationally and profitably. For example, these forces, with which a person keeps his "doors of perception" shut, could help him in his journey through these doors, and therefore, allow him to become a happy and spiritually developed person. And even more than that - to step further, beyond the boundaries of the human, which we, it turns out, have established for ourselves. Ultimately, Grof "frantically seeks" superman- and encourages each of us to join in this search.

In fact, during his long life, Grof created a whole new direction not just in psychoanalysis, but in total super-humanistic psycho-correction, which can be useful not only for mentally ill people, but for everyone. From Stan's point of view, it would not hurt us all to "treat" according to his method - after all, it must be admitted that even the most healthy people are far from the ideals that spiritually developed personalities, teachers of humanity, enlightened mystics demonstrate in terms of the level of consciousness. Stan Grof is not a mystic, he just sets the bar higher, much higher than is usually done in psychotherapy.

He draws our attention to the tragic gap between what mankind aspired to and the post-humanistic, mechanistic society that it has now arrived at. Grof, himself a professional physician, doctor of medicine, a psychiatrist with fifty years of experience, who grew up in the school of traditional psychoanalysis, notes that modern science sins with one-sidedness, bordering on blindness. Traditional medicine stubbornly turns a blind eye to the fact that the problem of a person's mental health is organically connected with the problem of his spiritual development, even more than that, it actually opposes these processes. Everything that goes beyond the traditional worldview, limited by very narrow limits, receives the label of "abnormality". In one of his interviews, Grof notes: from the point of view of modern medicine, it turns out that if rituals are discarded, leaving only specific behavior and unusual states of consciousness, then any religion and spirituality in general is a pure pathology, a form of mental disorder. Buddhist meditation, from the point of view of a psychiatrist, is catatonic, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a schizophrenic, St. John the Baptist was a degenerate, and Gautama Buddha - since he was still, so to speak, capable of adequate behavior - at least stood on the verge of insanity ...

One of the problems of modern medicine, according to Grof, is that it tends to consider any altered states of consciousness that occur under certain circumstances in perfectly healthy people as pathological manifestations or even one of the symptoms of schizophrenia. In fact, medicine is now powerless to distinguish between prophetic vision (of which the scriptures offer us examples different peoples world: Bible, Koran, Torah, Bhagavad-Gita, etc.) from painful schizophrenic delirium, narcotic trance - from religious trance. Where, then, to draw the boundary of "normal"? And the question that follows from here is: where to draw the border of the “real”, what is the reality in which we live in general? And who are we really, what can and what can not the so-called "man"?

The antipsychiatric movement, fueled by the same ideas of resistance to the use of psychiatry in the interests of power and violence against patients, has grown, gone beyond the original intent, and included other protests against discrimination against Others - primarily the gay movement. Sas, ranked among the founders of antipsychiatry, did not participate in its further development. He was minding his own business.

Grof began his medical career with traditional psychoanalysis according to Freud, but soon, in the course of his practice, he realized the one-sidedness of the traditional approach: after all, the Freudian is forced to reduce everything to sexual desire, libido, supposedly the main driving force of man. But the most important thing that did not suit Grof was that the method of verbal-oriented “speaking” on a leather couch, although it leads, if successful, to making an accurate diagnosis and identifying the event that caused the pathology, is not always effective for actually ridding the patient of the yoke of this events and actual pathological symptoms. Gradually, Stan came to understand that not just formal recall, but direct experience rediscover these key events iii - including the most traumatic event in any person's life - his own birth! - much better able to help both in the cure of the disease, and the expansion of consciousness.

It should be noted right away that modern medicine does not confirm the fact that a person can remember his own birth, and even more so intrauterine experience. In fact, on the contrary, there is evidence that the human brain is not able to remember anything that happened to the body up to two years. However, the experience of Grof and millions of people who use holotropic breathwork suggests otherwise. To understand "how deep the rabbit hole" that Grof pointed out, it must be noted that people's experiences in holotropic breathing sessions are not limited to perinatal (experienced at the time of birth) or even prenatal (embryonic, intrauterine) experiences. It includes in the highest degree vivid and unusual experiences, experiences that, before the invention of this technique, were available only to advanced mystics and saints of various denominations, as well as people who took LSD. In particular, this is the activation of the chakras, experiences of past incarnations, foresight, clairvoyance and clairaudience, identification with other persons, with animals, plants, objects and even all creations at once (Mother Nature), the entire planet Earth, moreover, experiences of meetings with superhuman and spiritual, divine, as well as alien beings, beings from other universes...

In order, bypassing resistance, to reach true reasons symptoms, Freud initially used hypnosis. Being immersed in this twilight state, the patient could easily discover the connection of his illness with the events of the past, during which a repression occurred and some not very comfortable desire was replaced. (Hypnosis was necessary because in a normal, waking state, the patient could not remember anything of the kind due to the strength of resistance.) Having experienced his secret desires under hypnosis, the patient was cured, experiencing a state of catharsis akin to that experienced by spectators of ancient Greek tragedies. Freud called this "cathartic cure".

All this may sound like fantasy or, again, the delirium of a madman or a drug addict. Indeed, unlike prenatal and perinatal memories, which in a number of cases were actually confirmed, it is not possible to refute or confirm such experiences. Just as, say, it is impossible to find out whether the Catholic saint, the founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius de Loyola, in his meditations really comprehended the torments of Christ on the cross! Science, as mentioned above, in such cases simply cannot fix the fundamental difference between “true” and “false”.

As one of the researchers (and followers) of Grof, Vladimir Maikov, notes in his article “The World of Stanislav Grof”, the same law of the uncertainty relation that the outstanding German physicist W. Heisenberg discovered in the quantum world is applicable to the world of psychology, the world of human souls: the more precisely we try to determine the coordinates of an event, the more uncertain becomes our knowledge of what actually happened.

Moreover, physics has now come to understand that at the most microscopic level it is impossible to conduct research without making changes in the properties of the material. If, for example, a bar of gold can be measured as much as one likes without prejudice to the "subject", then, say, one quark of gold will inevitably undergo significant changes. In addition, microscopic particles, the constituent parts of matter, are more of a process, a wave, than a material particle ... The same with deep research of the human psyche - with a sufficiently deep immersion in this question, a person, as it were, ceases to be a person, but appears as a kind of evolution of consciousness, taken in a certain approximation, and only in this approximation is he a person.

For example, someone begins to practice holotropic breathing in order to get rid of psychological trauma or to overcome a life crisis. Finally, he sees and with more than available in ordinary life He clearly experiences, say, his own birth, that is, as it were, is born again. Having survived and integrated (that is, dissolved) this trauma, he goes deeper and deeper, revealing other - perinatal - traumas. Experiences, integrates and them. The possibilities of "remembering" in this particular body are, as it were, exhausted; psychological trauma, it would seem, too. But then strange things begin to happen: a person plunges into experiences outside the body, outside this life, experiences other incarnations, experiences of planetary, non-human consciousness, and finally, the experience of the birth of the Universe, then ... An infinity of perspective opens up to him - which actually existed always and everywhere. In fact, everything that made him human disappears, V. Maikov concludes, noting the paradox: often, Grof's patients experienced complete mental healing only after having experienced precisely these "beyond", out-of-body and extraterrestrial experiences ...

In general, it turns out that the whole focus is on what we identify ourselves with - the key point, by the way, in Yoga. It is curious in this regard that Grof's wife Kristina, who is the co-author of the holotropic breathing method and Grof's latest books, was a student of Swami Muktananda Paramahamsa, the leader of the Siddha Yoga tradition, until his death (going into mahasamadhi) in 1982.

But let's get back from the scientifically unprovable phenomena of the holotropic method and yoga, which may seem like fantasy to some, to the reality of Grof's medical practice. The fact remains that hundreds of thousands of people have found healing for their mental illnesses and emotional problems during Holotropic Breathwork sessions. And Stan Grof - perhaps the greatest "psychonaut" of the planet - does not slow down the pace of his research and psychotherapeutic work, which is essentially a "frantic search" for the superhuman: the eternal search for the Divine. As the notorious Heisenberg liked to repeat, "The atheist takes the first sip from the glass of natural science, but God waits at the bottom of the glass." After all, the truth is somewhere out there, at the bottom of the rabbit hole.

Coming out August 1st A new book Grof, co-authored by him with his wife Kristina, Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy iv .

_________________________

i Originally Spiritual Emergency, a term coined by Stan and Christina Grof. They co-wrote the book "Spiritual Crisis" ( Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes A Crisis (1989))

ii The term "holotropic" is derived from the Greek roots holos, which means "whole", and trepein, which means "to move in a direction". Together they mean "to move towards wholeness."

iii What K. Castaneda calls the “remembering” technique, which has nothing to do with rational verbal analysis, and, by the way, also, like Grof, includes special breathing. Castaneda repeatedly emphasizes in his books and interviews that remembrance the main, most emotionally rich and fateful events of one's life - a necessary preliminary stage for a person to gain integrity and - then - the development of superpowers.

iv The book is coming out on English language. Original title: Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-exploration and Therapy.

Stanislav Grof gained worldwide fame thanks to his studies of the effects of LSD, altered states of human consciousness. Being one of the founders of transpersonal psychology, he is also its main theorist. Author of over 20 books translated into 16 languages. Behind him are numerous therapeutic sessions and training seminars on holotropic breathing held in different countries.

"Mystical" direction of modern psychology

Transpersonal psychology began to take shape in the 60s in America. The focus of research in this area is altered states of consciousness, near-death experiences, as well as features of the experiences of being in the womb and at the time of birth, the memories of which are stored in the depths of the human subconscious.

Spiritual and religious practices are included in psychotherapeutic work. In order to solve intrapersonal problems, remove physical blocks, clamps, a person is offered techniques for experiencing transpersonal experience. It can be achieved thanks to in a special way breathing, hypnosis and self-hypnosis, dream work, creativity, meditation.

Participation in the experiment provoked a steady interest in the study of expanded states of consciousness

Volunteered in 1956 while participating in a scientific experiment using psychedelic drugs, Stanislav Grof experienced an expanded state of consciousness. Already a practicing psychiatrist-clinician with a scientific doctorate by that time, he was stunned by the experienced state.

For the scientist, it became obvious that consciousness is something much more than described in the literature on medicine and psychology. This determined the further course of his scientific activity. He actively engaged in the study of expanded states of consciousness. Beginning in 1960, Stanislav Grof was engaged in legal work with psychedelic drugs for several years. Until 1967, he studied their effects in Czechoslovakia, then in America until the moment when psychedelics were banned - until 1973.

During this time, the scientist conducted about 2500 sessions with the use of LSD, and collected more than 1000 protocols for conducting such studies under the guidance of his colleagues. Stanislav Grof devoted all his books to the results of these and subsequent studies in the field of an altered state of consciousness.

"Esalen" - the center of humanistic alternative education

The Esalen Institute was founded in 1962 by Stanford graduates Michael Murphy and Dick Price. Their goal was to support alternative methods of studying the human mind. This educational institution is located in the area where the Indians of the Esalen tribe once lived, on the coast of Central California. This is a very picturesque place: on the one hand, the Pacific Ocean, on the other - the mountains.

The Esalen Institute played a key role in the flourishing of the public "Movement for the Development of Human Potential", the ideological basis of which was the concept of personal growth and the realization of extraordinary potentialities that everyone has, but not fully disclosed. Innovation, a focus on the connection between mind and body, constant experimentation in terms of personal consciousness led to the emergence of many ideas that later became mainstream.

In 1973, Grof received an advance fee that enabled him to write his first book. At the invitation of Michael Murphy to work on it, he moves to Essalen. He was offered to settle in a house on the ocean. From there, there was a beautiful view with a panoramic view of 180 degrees. He came there for one year, and lived and worked there for 14 years, until 1987.

1975 was marked for Stanislav by the fact that he met Christina, his future wife. From that moment began their personal relationship, closely intertwined with the professional.

Holotropic Breathwork

Between 1975 and 1976, Stanislav and Christina Grof worked together to create an innovative method called holotropic breathing. This made it possible to enter an expanded state of consciousness without the use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs.

At the same time, they began to use the new method in their seminars. Between 1987 and 1994, the couple performed Holotropic Breathwork sessions for approximately 25,000 people. According to the authors, this is a unique way of self-knowledge and personal growth.

Subsequently, this method served as the basis for holotropic therapy, the sessions of which the scientist actively practiced. He also taught training courses for practicing transpersonal psychologists.

Together with his wife, Grof traveled the world with his seminars and lectures, talking about transpersonal psychology and the results of consciousness research. Over the years, he has supported people who have experienced a psycho-spiritual crisis - episodes of expanded consciousness.

Books about the conscious and the unconscious

Stanislav Grof in the book "Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy" summarizes the results of the author's research, carried out over 30 years of his scientific activity. It talks about extended cartography of the psyche, the dynamics of perinatal matrices, psychotherapy and spiritual development.

Grof suggested that most of the mental conditions classified in psychiatry as illnesses, such as neurosis and psychosis, are crises of a person’s spiritual and personal growth that almost anyone can face.

The reason may be a spontaneously experienced spiritual experience, which you could not cope with on your own. The author offers psychotherapeutic approaches based on the use of the human body's ability to self-heal.

Stanislav Grof's book "Space Game: Exploring the Limits of Human Consciousness" offers readers a synthesis of modern science and ancient wisdom, psychology and religion. The theoretical views of the author are based on extensive clinical studies.

In the book "Call of the Jaguar", the results of many years of research are presented by the author in the form of a work of art - a science fiction novel. The plot is based on real experiences of transpersonal experience both of the author himself and those observed by other people.

20th century: books by Stanislav Grof in chronological order

1975 "Regions of the Human Unconscious: Evidence from LSD Research".

1977 "Man in the Face of Death", co-authored with Joan Halifax.

1980 "LSD-Psychotherapy".

1981 "Beyond Death: The Gates of Consciousness", co-authored with Christina Grof.

1984 " ancient wisdom and Modern Science", edited by Stanislav Grof. The book includes articles by many speakers who spoke at the 1982 conference of the International Association for Transpersonal Psychology in Bombay, India.

1985 "Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy".

1988 Human Survival and edited by Stanislav Grof and Marjorie L. Valer. A total of 18 contributors contributed to this book.

1988 "Journeys in Search of the Self: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy".

1989 "Spiritual Crisis: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis", co-authored with Christina Grof.

1990 "The Frantic Search for Self: A Guide to Personal Growth Through a Transformational Crisis," co-authored with Christina Grof.

1992 "Holotropic Consciousness: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives," co-author Hal Zina Bennett.

1993 " Books of the dead: Guides for Life and Death".

1998 "Transpersonal Vision: The Healing Possibilities of Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness".

1998 "Space Game: Exploring the Frontiers of Human Consciousness".

1999 "Consciousness Revolution: A Transatlantic Dialogue", co-authored with Erwin Laszlo and Peter Russell. Wrote the preface to the book

21st century: books by Stanislav Grof in chronological order

year 2000. "Psychology of the Future".

year 2001. "Call of the Jaguar".

2004 "Dreams of Lilibite". The book was written by Melody Sullivan, and the role of the illustrator went to Stanislav Grof.

2006 "When the Impossible is Possible: Adventures in Extraordinary Realities".

2006 "The Greatest Journey. Consciousness and the Mystery of Death".

2010 Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy, co-authored with Christina Grof.

year 2012. "Healing Our Deepest Wounds: A Holotropic Paradigm Shift".

Probably to be continued...

Achievements and contribution to the development of science

Known throughout the world as a modern reformer of psychiatry and the brightest representative of transpersonal psychology. His innovative ideas influenced the interpenetration of Western science and the spiritual dimension. The books he authored have been translated into several languages. He has been researching the healing and transformative potential of expanded states of consciousness since the 1960s.

In 1978 Stanislav Grof founded the International Association for Transpersonal Psychology. The goals for which it was created were to encourage education and research in this area, sponsoring global conferences.

October 5, 2007 in Prague, he was awarded the prestigious award "VISION-97". It was provided by the Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Foundation, established to support innovative projects of great importance for the future of mankind.

Stanislav Grof continues his professional career at the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco, as well as at Wisdom University in Oakland. He lectures and teaches professional training programs in Holotropic Breathwork and Transpersonal Psychology. And also takes part in practical seminars, traveling around the world.

The holotropic approach in psychotherapy represents an important and effective alternative to traditional depth psychology approaches based on verbal exchange between therapist and patient, says Stanislav Grof.

The term "holotropic" means "aimed at restoring wholeness" or "moving towards wholeness. The basic philosophical premise of holotropic therapy is that the average person in our culture lives and acts at a level far below their potential. Psychologist Stanislav Grof successfully develops this direction in psychology. According to Stanislav Grof, this impoverishment is due to the fact that a person identifies himself with only one aspect of his being, with the physical body and Ego. Such a false identification leads to an inauthentic, unhealthy and devoid of accomplishment lifestyle, and also causes emotional and psychosomatic disorders of a psychological nature.Stanislav Grof's Transpersonal Psychology considers such cases.The development of symptoms of distress can be seen as an indicator that a person based on false premises has reached a critical moment.

The duration and depth of such a breakdown is quite correlated with the development of psychotic phenomena, as Stanislav Grof points out. The resulting situation turns out to be a crisis or even critical, but at the same time very fruitful. According to Stanislav Grof, the symptoms that appear reflect the body's effort to free itself from stress and trauma and return to natural functioning.

The main goal of experiential techniques in psychotherapy is to activate the unconscious, to release the energy associated in emotional and psychosomatic symptoms. Holotropic therapy, Stanislav Grof's transpersonal therapy contribute to the activation of the unconscious to such an extent that it leads to unusual states of consciousness. This principle is relatively new in Western psychotherapy, although it has been used for centuries in the shamanic and healing practices of many peoples and in the rituals of various sects. According to Stanislav Grof, for psychotherapy, which uses such powerful means of influencing consciousness, the personalistically and biographically oriented ideas of modern academic psychology are completely insufficient.

In this kind of work, for Stanislav Grof it often becomes clear already at the first session that the roots of psychopathology extend much further than the events of early childhood and go beyond the limits of the individual unconscious. Empirical psychotherapeutic work reveals, behind the traditional biographical roots of symptoms, deep connections with non-biographical areas of the soul, such as elements of encountering the depths of death and birth, with characteristics of the perinatal level with a wide range of facts of a transpersonal nature. As Stanislav Grof says, transpersonal vision can explain many things.

Practical work shows that the dynamic structure of psychogenic symptoms contains exceptionally powerful emotional and physical energies. Therefore, any attempt to seriously influence them is extremely problematic. A therapeutic context is required that provides and enhances direct experience in order to produce noticeable results in a relatively short time. In addition, bearing in mind the multilevel nature of psychogenic symptoms, the physician's conceptual framework must include the perinatal and transpersonal levels of the psyche, without which therapeutic work cannot be fully effective. If the unfinished gestalts of serious mental trauma If the process of practical therapy focuses on the biographical level, then its results are usually incomplete.

The immediate and long-term effects are dramatized as the introspection deepens, reaching the limits of birth and death. Claustrophobia and other types of anxiety states, depression, suicidal tendencies, alcoholism, drug addiction, asthma, migraines, sadomasochistic tendencies and many other problems can be worked through in depth through perinatal experiences. However, in cases where the problems are rooted in the transpersonal realm, the final result cannot be obtained until the person agrees to the specific experiences of the transpersonal experience. There may be intense experiences of past incarnations, plots of the racial and collective unconscious, as well as many other topics. The various schools of psychotherapy differ greatly in their understanding of the nature and functioning of the human psyche, in their interpretation of the origin and dynamics of psychogenic symptoms, and in their attitudes towards a successful psychotherapy strategy and technique. This fundamental disagreement on fundamental issues is one of the reasons why psychotherapy does not have the status of a scientific procedure. One can support the idea, first put forward by Carl Gustav Jung, that the psyche has a powerful potential for self-healing, and the collective unconscious is the source of autonomous healing forces. Hence, the task of the doctor is reduced to helping to get to the deep layers of the psyche, without engaging in rational consideration of problems using any specific methods of changing the mental situation of a person according to a predetermined plan.

Healing is the result of the dialectical interaction of consciousness with the individual and collective unconscious. The technique of psychotherapy, developed on the basis of modern consciousness research, relies primarily on direct experience as the initial transformative means. Verbal options are used at the preparation stage and then at the end of the session to enhance the integration of experiences. The therapist shapes the course of work, creates a welcoming working environment, and suggests a technique that activates the unconscious through breathing, music, and body work. Under such conditions, the existing symptoms intensify and pass from a latent state into a manifested one, becoming accessible to consciousness. The physician's task is to facilitate this spontaneous manifestation, with full confidence in this autonomous healing process. Symptoms are blocked energy and highly concentrated experiences. And here the symptom is not only a problem, but an opportunity in equal measure. When the energy is released, the symptom is transformed into a conscious experience and thus can be processed. It is very important that the doctor promotes involuntary disclosure without interfering with the process and the specifics of experiences, no matter what nature they acquire - biographical, perinatal or transpersonal.

The main credo of holotropic therapy is to recognize the potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness capable of transformation and evolution, and having a healing effect. Since in these states of consciousness the human psyche is capable of spontaneous healing activity, holotropic therapy uses methods of activating the psyche and inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness. This, as a rule, leads to a change in the dynamic balance of the original symptoms, which are transformed into a stream of unusual experiences that disappear in the process.

It is very important that the therapist contribute to the disclosure (development) of this process, even if he does not understand it at some point. Some experiences, despite their powerful transformative power, may not have any specific content; they can represent intensely expressed emotions or physical tensions, followed by deep relief and relaxation. Quite often, insight and specific content emerge later or even in subsequent sessions. In some cases, the resolution (result) is manifested at the biographical level, in others - in the perinatal material or in the themes of transpersonal experiences. Sometimes a dramatic healing process and personality transformation, accompanied by long-term results, are associated with an experience that is not amenable to rational understanding.

The procedure of holotropic therapy itself includes: controlled breathing, stimulating music and various forms of sound use, as well as focused work with the body. It has been a known fact for centuries that by means of breathing, regulated in various ways, it is possible to influence the state of consciousness. The procedures that were used for this purpose in the ancient cultures of the East varied quite widely - from active (violent) interventions in the respiratory process to sophisticated methods of spiritual practices (traditions). profound changes in the mind can be caused by a change in the frequency of breathing - hyperventilation and, conversely, slowing down, as well as a combination of these techniques.

From the generally accepted physiological point of view, hyperventilation leads to excessive release of carbon dioxide from the body, the development of hypocapnia with a decrease in the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the alveolar air and oxygen in the arterial blood, as well as to respiratory alkalosis. Some researchers have traced the hyperventilation chain of changes in homeostasis even further, down to the biochemical processes in the brain. It turned out that the changes here are very similar to those that occur under the influence of psychedelics. And this means that intense breathing can be a non-specific catalyst for deep mental processes. Numerous experiments by S. Grof revealed that in pneumocatharsis, it is not the specific breathing technique that is of primary importance (there are a great many of them in different approaches), but the very fact that breathing for 30-90 minutes was performed at a faster pace and more deeply than usual . In this case, many participants in a psychotherapeutic session experience profound transformative experiences. Most of them symbolically experience the process of death-rebirth, or even literally remember their own birth. Many examples can confirm the correctness of Wilhelm Reich regarding the fact that psychological resistance and defense use the mechanisms of breath restriction. Respiration is an autonomous function, but volitional influence can be exerted on it; the increase in the rhythm of breathing and the increase in its effectiveness contribute to the release and manifestation of the material of the unconscious (and superconscious).

Indeed, until you testify at the session or experience this process personally, it is difficult to believe, based on theoretical foundations, the strength and effectiveness of this technique. The nature and course of experimental sessions using the hyperventilation method varies significantly in different people, so this experience can only be described in general and average terms. Sometimes prolonged hyperventilation enhances relaxation, a sense of expansion (consciousness) and comfort, causes visions of light. There are powerful experiences associated with an exciting feeling of love and oneness with all people, nature, the cosmos and God. Experiences of this kind have an exceptionally healing power, they should be encouraged and encouraged in every possible way to develop them; this is discussed in advance at the preliminary conversation.

It is amazing how many people, influenced by Western culture or for some other reason, are not able to accept ecstatic experiences without suffering and hard work, and sometimes even under these conditions. Perhaps this is due to the feeling of undeserving of such an experience and the feeling of guilt that arises in connection with this. If this can be clarified, and the person accepts such experiences, then the session from beginning to end proceeds without any intervention from the therapist and turns out to be extremely beneficial and productive / As the number of sessions accumulates, the likelihood of such a smooth flow increases. However, in most cases, hyperventilation first causes quite dramatic consequences in the form of intense emotional and psychosomatic manifestations.

Let us briefly dwell on those erroneous ideas about hyperventilation that have taken root in the medical model of the West. In respiratory physiology textbooks, the so-called "hyperventilation syndrome" is described as a standard and obligatory physiological response to rapid breathing. This primarily includes the famous "carpopedal spasm" - involuntary twitching and spasm of the arms and legs. The symptoms of hyperventilation syndrome are usually viewed in a pathological context and are explained in terms of biochemical changes in the composition of the blood, such as an increase in alkalinity and a decrease in calcium ionization. It is well known that some mentally ill patients are prone to developing forms of hyperventilation with dramatic emotional and psychosomatic manifestations; this is especially characteristic of patients with hysteria. Usually, when signs of hyperventilation appear, they begin to give tranquilizers, give intravenous infusions of calcium, put a paper bag on the face to prevent a decrease in carbon dioxide in the lungs. This understanding of hyperventilation is not entirely correct. There are many people who do not develop the classic "hyperventilation syndrome" even after extended sessions; on the contrary, they experience a sense of increasing relaxation, intense sexual feelings, and even mystical experiences. Some of them develop tensions in various parts of the body, but the nature of these tensions is very different from "carpopedal spasm". Moreover, prolonged hyperventilation not only does not cause a progressive increase in tension, but leads to a critical climax, followed by deep relaxation. The nature of this sequence is comparable to an orgasm. In addition, in repetitive holotropic sessions, the overall amount of muscle tension and dramatic emotion tends to decrease.

Everything that happens in this process can be interpreted as the desire of the body to respond to a change in the biochemical situation by bringing to the surface in a rather stereotyped form various obsolete, deeply hidden tensions and releasing them through peripheral discharge. This usually happens in two ways. The first of these takes the form of catharsis and responsiveness, which includes tremors, twitches, dramatic movements, coughs, gasps, gagging, screams, and other auditory manifestations or increased activity of the autonomic nervous system. This mechanism is well known in traditional psychiatry from the works of Z. Freud and D. Breuer, devoted to the study of hysteria. It is used in traditional psychiatry in the treatment of traumatic and emotional neuroses, as well as in new experimental psychiatry, such as Neo-Reichian practice, Gestalt practice and Artur Janov's primary therapy. The second mechanism is fundamentally new for psychiatry and psychotherapy and seems to be much more effective and interesting than the first. In this case, deep tensions manifest themselves in the form of prolonged contractions and prolonged spasms. By maintaining such muscle tension for a long time, the body wastes a huge amount of accumulated energy and, freeing itself from it, facilitates its functioning.

A typical result of a holotropic session is a deep emotional release (unloading) and physical relaxation. Thus, prolonged hyperventilation is an exceptionally powerful and valid stress reliever that promotes emotional and psychosomatic recovery. Spontaneous cases of hyperventilation in people suffering from mental illness can therefore be seen as an attempt at self-medication. We find a similar understanding in the literature describing the technique of spiritual development, for example, Kundalini yoga, where manifestations of this kind are called "kriya". It follows from this that spontaneous hyperventilation must be supported in every possible way, and not suppressed. The nature and course of a holotropic session depend on the individual characteristics of the person and change during the session. Sometimes the session can proceed from start to finish without any emotional or psychosomatic failures.

However, in most cases, everything starts with a rather dramatic experience, which, after some time, individually significant, is replaced by strong emotions and the development of stereotypical patterns of muscle tension. The emotional manifestations observed in this context are wide-ranging; the most typical of them are anger and aggression, anxiety, sadness and depression, feelings of failure, humiliation, guilt and worthlessness. Physical manifestations include, in addition to muscle tension, also headaches and pains in various parts of the body, breathlessness, nausea, vomiting, choking, increased salivation, sweating, sexual sensations and a variety of motor movements. There are people who remain perfectly calm, almost motionless; they can experience very deep experiences, and at the same time it seems to an outside observer that either nothing is happening to them, or they are just sleeping. Other people are very aroused and show increased motor activity. They are shaken, twisted in some complex movements, rolled from side to side, they take uterine positions, behave like babies fighting in the birth canals, or look and act like newborn babies. It is also quite common to observe movements resembling crawling, swimming, digging, climbing, and the like. Often, movements and gestures are surprisingly refined, complex, specific and diverse. You can see strange animalistic movements imitating snakes, birds and other representatives of this world, accompanied by the corresponding sounds. AT certain parts body during the breathing session, physical tension develops. Not being simple physiological reactions to hyperventilation, they are complex psychosomatic structures that depend on individual characteristics and, as a rule, have a specific psychological content characteristic of a given person. Sometimes they are an increased version of habitual tensions and pains, manifested as chronic problems or in the form of symptoms that occur during moments of emotional or physical stress, fatigue, insomnia, weakness caused by illness, alcohol or drug use. In other cases, they can be seen as a reactivation of old problems that arose during infancy, childhood, puberty, or as a result of severe emotional stress. Regardless of whether a person recognizes in these physical manifestations the specific events of his biography, it is still interesting to consider them in terms of psychological significance or content. For example, if a spasm develops in the arms and legs ("carpopedal spasm" in traditional terminology), then this indicates a deep conflict between a strong desire to perform certain actions and an equally strong trend containment (braking) of this action. The resulting dynamic balance is the simultaneous activation of flexor and extensor muscles of the same intensity. People who experience these spasms usually report that throughout their lives, or at least most of them, they have felt repressed aggressiveness, held back the urge to lash out, or experienced unsatisfied sexual desires.

Sometimes painful tensions of this kind are unfulfilled creative impulses, such as, for example, painting, dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, some kind of craft or activity carried out with the help of hands. This approach allows one to penetrate into the essence of the conflict that generates these tensions. As a rule, the process, having reached the culminating point of tension, is replaced by deep relaxation and a feeling of removing the barrier that prevented the free circulation of energy in the hands. Often people who experienced this discovered in themselves various Creative skills and achieved amazing success in drawing, writing, dancing or crafts.

Another important source of muscle tension is memories of past surgeries or traumas. In periods that cause pain and suffering to a person, one has to suppress, sometimes for a long time. Emotional and physical reactions to pain. And if the trauma is healed only anatomically and not emotionally integrated, it remains as an incomplete gestalt. Therefore, a physical injury is fraught with serious psychological problems, and, conversely, its elaboration in therapeutic sessions can contribute to emotional and psychosomatic recovery. The tension of the leg muscles has the same dynamic structure, only less complex; this reflects the fact that the role of the legs in human life is simpler than that of the arms (hands). Many related problems are related to the use of the legs and feet as tools of aggression, especially in early life. Tension and spasms in the hips and buttocks are often associated with sexual protection, fears and inhibitions, especially in women. The archaic anatomical name of one of the muscles of the thigh actually sounds like a "guardian of virginity" - musculus custos virginitalis. Many muscle tensions can be correlated with physical injuries. At a deeper level, the dynamic conflicts that cause tension in the muscles of the limbs and many other parts of the body are related to the "hydraulic" circumstances of biological birth. At this stage of the birth process, the child, often for many hours, finds himself in a situation that is fraught with horror, anxiety, pain and suffocation. This causes powerful neural stimulation that receives no peripheral output, as the child cannot breathe, scream, move, or escape from the situation. The blocked energy accumulates, as a result, in the body, it is stored equally in the flexor and extensor muscles. If this dynamic conflict comes out for a discharge (late in time), it proceeds in the form of intense and purely painful spasms. Sometimes it is possible to trace the deeper causes of tension in the arms and legs in the realm of transpersonal experiences, in particular with various past life memories. It is interesting to note that many tensions in other parts of the body are observed in those places that the tantric system calls the centers of mental energy of the "subtle body" - chakras. This is not surprising, since the techniques of holotropic therapy are similar to the exercises used in the tantric tradition, which attaches great importance to breathing. During a typical breathing session, tensions and blockages intensify and become more apparent. Prolonged breathing promotes dynamic development, reaching the climax of the process with resolution and release.