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Comment by Helena Benda on March 15, 2010 at 6:15pm

Dear Thomas,
thank you for your 'tribute to the year 1943' on 3/13/2010. Your wise words are followed by the trail of previous posts, ending with your comment on my post, of Oct 1st, 2009, but that actual post is not included in this trail. The "previous page" doesn't lead to it. (Am probably not skilled enough yet to find it on this site.)

Why I am bringing it up now is that today I read on holocert Jim's post and Ken Sloan's reply to Jim, considering/soliciting discussion on how to bring Grof work more intensively into the mainstream, in possibly other ways, in addition to doing it via HB workshops (BTW I am one of the facilitators at Glenn Girlando's wkshop in Seattle on March 20).

Today's holocert-posted intent jibes well with my Oct 1, 2009 post on this site in which I was suggesting development of some offshoots of HB, based on Grof theory, that could help bring HB itself into the mainstream when those attracted to the offshoots would then be interested to go deeper via HB. I will wholeheartedly join in this effort.

On another tangent - Stan posted on this site recently his paper "A brief history of Transpersonal Psychology" - another one of his brilliant contributions to his legacy. His paragraph in it on the significance of Ervin Laszlo's work deepens my awe at his (Stan's) abilities of conceptualization and writing. I heard Laszlo at the ITA conference in Palm Strings and since then I've been thinking about how his work informs my understanding of "where we pull insights/information from" when we enter holotropic states.

I would absolutely love to see discussion along this line here as well.

Love to all,
Helena

Comment by Thomas Merton Brightman on March 13, 2010 at 1:18pm

In first re-reading Stan's paper on the history of Transpersonal Psychology, my first and overriding impression is the 'wonder' full gift of having been born in 1943 and so having lived and participated in the rapid growth from The FIrst to the Fourth Forces: Behaviorism, Freudian Psychology, Humanistic Psychology and Transpersonal Psychology.

As I read, I was ticking off in my mind when my searching began, my educational began, my therapeutic experiences began, my own pragmatic searching began, my merging of Western and Eastern began...etc. recalling the processes, people, places that my single life time has been gifted with...

The challenge has been INTEGRATING the possible awareness range in one lifetime. Then, of course, there is the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, forces yet to emerge.

The names of the various schools of influence, the teachers who traveled so far and led so many experiences, came to my mind. The Centers like Esalen and Omega who concentrated learning opportunities with emerging insight and practice. Reading the article is like looking at a family photo album of the trip my psyche, body, spirit and vision has taken in 67 years.

I am filled with gratitude to have crossed over so many boundaries in one life time--permitted rapid growth of thinking and even more rapid dispersion of exponentially growing transitional knowing.

Perhaps this perspective comes to all in late-life-cycle viewing points, but it seems to me that this time in history has given more opportunity for psychic expansion than at any similar length of time that has come before.

And...the rapid appearance of alternatives and Internet dispersion of the alternatives, and the ability to travel and study, can overwhelm some and scare others... This growth sequence that Stan addresses is symptomatic of a core belief I hold that: more is all ways being revealed.

I am grateful for having lived in a time of so very much being revealed so quickly so that my limited years here have permitted me such varied options of connecting body, mind, spirit and diversity.

So, for me this paper is more than a record of what has transpired over one lifetime, rather an album of feeling mixed with fact that have transpired within the time gifted to me. It's a good time to be alive, not that there is a bad time, but I've been offered so many opportunities to expand and have done more than I imagined would have been possible in early stages of my life, and early stages of the development of the material that Stan discusses.

I did what I could and put some experiences aside so as not to fragment so that I would not integrate and practice new learning. Every time I learned a new talk, I walked it more than I talked it. Every way I experienced led me to another way. Over time I began to see threads from each way that connected to all the other ways and joined to form the fabric of my life and learning.

HB Community is a page in my life album that I relish remembering and lauding.

Waxing nostalgically,
Thomas Merton Brightman
HB Class of 1989

Comment by Thomas Merton Brightman on March 13, 2010 at 11:28am

Ken,

Thank you for your past, present and ongoing service.

In gratitude for life and love, Thomas Merton Brightman

Comment by Kenneth Edwin Sloan on March 13, 2010 at 10:04am

Hello Oliver and Thomas and others.
My deep apologies. Somehow getting this onto the site had dropped off my to-do list at some point. It is available now, in the doctoral dissertation page. Very interesting reading indeed. Please keep reminding me when I miss things! And if there is someone out there with some web skills and an interest in keeping the research base up to dat, let me know!
In Service,
Ken

Comment by Thomas Merton Brightman on March 12, 2010 at 9:43pm

Oliver,

I wonder the same. I do not know. Permission was given. I also sent email contact info to both Dane and Chris in hopes they would connect. Someone who knows the site better than I may know if it was put up...Ken Sloan is the person I communicated with...he ask for the permission...I believe Dane said yes...but I do not know if it was uploaded or not...Let's see what Ken has to say.

Thomas Merton Brightman

Comment by Halvard on March 12, 2010 at 8:57pm

Some valuable historical comments from Stan:
ABriefHistoryofTranspersonalPsychologyGrof.pdf

Comment by Oliver Williams on November 4, 2009 at 11:13pm

Thomas

I am following up on your post in this forum on June 20th in which you tell of receiving permission to post Dan Hewett's study on this site.

Can you tell me if this was successfully achieved as I would like to read it.

Many thanks for any help you can give me.

Best - Olliver

Comment by Thomas Merton Brightman on October 13, 2009 at 1:04am

Helena quote: "Thomas, are you a professional therapist? When you worked with the various groups, did they initially contact you for therapy because of a (family, relationship, personal) crisis?

I am not a therapist. I am a practitioner of Holotropic Breathwork, Integrative Breathwork, MARI Mandala Assessment and GIM (Guided Imagery); and practicing Mentor/Life Strategist. I treat all my process as educational and for depth work, clients sign releases. The sample release is printed in Kylea's book.

The three generations of one family made a special request. I advertised among existing HB clients for those who would like to breath as a consistent group four times a year--once each season of the year. The men only, women only were both happenstance and planned. Same sex groups do, in some ways behave differently than mixed groups. The parent-child HB was for parents and children who had done previous work with me. The gay and lesbian affinity groups were requested; and, some were for those with AIDS in which they wanted small affinity group sessions. I even did a special affinity group for personnel moving out of deep intelligence work back into civilian life for which they required special sitter selection to monitor anytime said or done in the process. I find that the overall HB benefits of large group, small group, affinity group, and individual sessions are universal; however, there are unique manifestations of individual process varying by type of group dynamics created by the focus with those who come to affinity groups as their intentions and material varies. HB is about the process doing you, not you doing the process; yet, affinity groups use the process so that those present when outcomes present themselves are uniquely invested in the breather or a shared relationship. As a comparison, Twelve-Step programs are Twelve-Step Programs, but what happens at SIA, AA, Alanon, Alateen, CODA, ACA, OA, DA, etc., etc., use a core process to access different material for different groups. SIA material would not get raised effectively in AA. SIA meetings are longer to deal with expanded emotional content, etc. My life and professional experience has been enriched by doing HB process in all the aforementioned variations...WITHOUT COMPROMISING ANY CORE HB TENENTS...just putting that core to work in group settings for special safety, requests, etc.

Thomas Merton Brightman

Comment by Thomas Merton Brightman on October 12, 2009 at 10:23pm

Helena...

As a former member of SEN, I know from experience that Spiritual Emergence versus Emergency is well informed by Grof teachings. Set and setting can be spontaneous and 'sitting' can be instantaneous. I followed a person around the streets of a major US city for an entire night keeping that person's space safe for what they were doing through in spiritual emergence. As a non-therapist, not licensed in therapy, there is always some risk of not knowing the depth and breadth of a Spiritual Emergency event, but I have been fortunate to have any and all of my interventions be positive for the person involved and no harm occurred by not accessing emergency care. In fact, over 3000 clients over twelve years of concentrated Breathwork and SEN work the harm I saw occur was when people intervened with medical treatment too soon and left people stuck in emotional cages from which medication induced purgatory, if you will.

Some one just arrived...will pick up this thread later.

Thomas Merton Brightman

When I posed my Q I had the specific angle of 'prevention' in mind - what can we (non-therapists, such as I am) offer the public so that some Spiritual Emergencies (such as the one I experienced in the 1990's) can be prevented via workshops based on Grof-theory (and not necessarily on HB practice), in other words, can we now develop 'methods' (Grof-theory based, Tarnas informed, possibly Laszlo informed as well) that would offer to a segment of the public the 'preventative care' view of Spiritual Emergence so that 'emergency care', when one falls into Spiritual Emergency, will not be needed.

Thomas, are you a professional therapist? When you worked with the various groups, did they initially contact you for therapy because of a (family, relationship, personal) crisis?

Like you, I have taken Grof theory into my life and see it "proven" all the time. After HB helped me personally (from 1999 on) to switch my spiritual emergency into spiritual emergence, my family benefited by understanding Grof theory (as a sense-making tool in looking at experiences and behavior) even though some of them had not done HB.

My granddaughter was born under difficult conditions in 2000 and it has proven to be amazing to see the results of Grof-informed parenting and grand-parenting. We all discussed the Grof take on the "no way out" imprint of the second matrix and tried to make sure that when, from infancy on, she re-experienced those feelings and energies and acted them out, there was a "safe container" embrace for her this time to facilitate healing of that original trauma.

As I hope is understood from what I've said above, I am interested in joining forces with GTT certified non-therapists who offer (or are hoping to offer) Grof-theory based specialized wkshops to present non-standard approaches to various interpersonal (and personal) issues. HB would not be offered in these workshop, even though it would be explained there. It would be left up to the participants whether they then reach out to either certified therapists who offer HB in their practices, or whether they attend experiential HB workshops. In either case Grof work would be advanced.

Helena in Seattle

Comment by Helena Benda on October 9, 2009 at 7:45pm

Thank you, Thomas, for your very thoughtful response to my Oct 1st question.

You say " ...Having said all of this, in Inner Door and Kylea Taylor Holotropic Breakwork book, I did HB sessions with affinity audiences to see how the experience would serve unique audiences, some of which you just named. As example, I did an HB session for three generations of a single family; for couples only; for men only; for women only; for a set group to do four HB sessions a year as the identical group of people. All of these affinity groups reported benefits from HB being done as the affinity group.
Some grist for the discussion mill...
Thomas Merton Brightman "

When I posed my Q I had the specific angle of 'prevention' in mind - what can we (non-therapists, such as I am) offer the public so that some Spiritual Emergencies (such as the one I experienced in the 1990's) can be prevented via workshops based on Grof-theory (and not necessarily on HB practice), in other words, can we now develop 'methods' (Grof-theory based, Tarnas informed, possibly Laszlo informed as well) that would offer to a segment of the public the 'preventative care' view of Spiritual Emergence so that 'emergency care', when one falls into Spiritual Emergency, will not be needed.

Thomas, are you a professional therapist? When you worked with the various groups, did they initially contact you for therapy because of a (family, relationship, personal) crisis?

Like you, I have taken Grof theory into my life and see it "proven" all the time. After HB helped me personally (from 1999 on) to switch my spiritual emergency into spiritual emergence, my family benefited by understanding Grof theory (as a sense-making tool in looking at experiences and behavior) even though some of them had not done HB.

My granddaughter was born under difficult conditions in 2000 and it has proven to be amazing to see the results of Grof-informed parenting and grand-parenting. We all discussed the Grof take on the "no way out" imprint of the second matrix and tried to make sure that when, from infancy on, she re-experienced those feelings and energies and acted them out, there was a "safe container" embrace for her this time to facilitate healing of that original trauma.

As I hope is understood from what I've said above, I am interested in joining forces with GTT certified non-therapists who offer (or are hoping to offer) Grof-theory based specialized wkshops to present non-standard approaches to various interpersonal (and personal) issues. HB would not be offered in these workshop, even though it would be explained there. It would be left up to the participants whether they then reach out to either certified therapists who offer HB in their practices, or whether they attend experiential HB workshops. In either case Grof work would be advanced.

Helena in Seattle

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