Stanislav Grof (born July 1, 1931 in
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
,
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
) is one of the founders of the field of
transpersonal psychologyTranspersonal psychology is a school of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience....
and a pioneering researcher into the use of altered states of consciousness for purposes of analysing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche. Grof received the VISION 97 award granted by the Foundation of Dagmar and
Václav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, former dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
in
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
on October 5, 2007.
Founding transpersonal psychology
Grof is known in particular for his early studies of
LSDLysergic acid diethylamide, LSD-25, LSD, formerly lysergide, commonly known as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family...
and its effects on the
psycheIn psychoanalysis and other forms of depth psychology, the psyche refers to the forces in an individual that influence thought, behavior and personality. The word is borrowed from ancient Greek, and refers to the concept of the self, encompassing the modern ideas of soul, self, and mind...
—the field of
psychedelic psychotherapyPsychedelic therapy refers to therapeutic practices involving the use of psychedelic drugs, particularly serotonergic psychedelics such as LSD, psilocin and DMT...
. Building on his observations while conducting LSD research and
Otto Rank'sOtto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's...
theory of birth trauma, Grof constructed a theoretical framework for
pre- and perinatal psychologyPrenatal and perinatal psychology is an interdisciplinary study of the foundations of health in body, mind, emotions and in enduring response patterns to life...
and
transpersonal psychologyTranspersonal psychology is a school of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience....
in which LSD trips and other powerfully emotional experiences were mapped onto one's early
fetalA fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth. The plural is fetuses....
and neonatal experiences. Over time, this theory developed into an in-depth "cartography" of the deep human
psycheIn psychoanalysis and other forms of depth psychology, the psyche refers to the forces in an individual that influence thought, behavior and personality. The word is borrowed from ancient Greek, and refers to the concept of the self, encompassing the modern ideas of soul, self, and mind...
. Following the legal suppression of LSD use in the late 1960s, Grof went on to discover that many of these states of mind could be explored without drugs and instead by using certain breathing techniques in a supportive environment. He continues this work today under the title "
Holotropic BreathworkHolotropic Breathwork is a psychotherapeutic form of breathwork developed by Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D. and Christina Grof, that followers believe allows access to nonordinary states of consciousness. Holotropic breathing has some similarities to Rebirthing-Breathwork, but was developed...
".
Early life
Grof received his M.D. from Charles University in Prague in 1957, and then completed his Ph.D. in Medicine at the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences in 1965, training as a
Freudian psychoanalystPsychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and continued by others. It is primarily devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior, although it also can be applied to societies.
...
at this time. In 1967, he was invited as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in
BaltimoreBaltimore is an independent city and the largest city in the state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore City in order to distinguish it from surrounding...
, United States, and went on to become Chief of Psychiatric Research at the
Maryland Psychiatric Research CenterUniversity of Maryland, Baltimore, was founded in 1807. It comprises some of the oldest professional schools in the nation and world. It is the original campus of the University System of Maryland...
where he worked with
Walter PahnkeWalter N. Pahnke M.D., Ph.D. was a minister, physician, and psychiatrist who attended Harvard in the early 1960s. He earned an MD from Harvard Medical School, a BD from Harvard Divinity School, a PhD from Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and a Harvard psychiatric residency.He was a...
and Bill Richards among others. In 1973, Dr. Grof was invited to the
Esalen InstituteEsalen Institute is a retreat center in Big Sur, California, United States, for humanistic alternative education and a nonprofit organization devoted to multidisciplinary studies ordinarily neglected or unfavored by traditional academia "in subjects ranging from meditation to massage, yoga,...
in
Big SurBig Sur is a sparsely populated region of the central California coast where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big country...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, and lived there until 1987 as a scholar-in-residence, developing his ideas.
Present position
Being the founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA) (founded in 1977), he went on to become distinguished adjunct faculty member of the Department of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the
California Institute of Integral StudiesThe California Institute of Integral Studies is a private institution of higher education founded in 1968 and based in San Francisco, California. It currently operates in three locations just south of the Civic Center district...
, a position he remains in today.
External links