Reflections

Welcome to the Institute’s thirty-fifth anniversary year. The Institute was born out of the explosion of consciousness characterised in the late 1960s and early 70s when Roberto Assagioli and the system of thought he created - psychosynthesis – were central players in the divergence from traditional psychoanalytic thinking about the transpersonal, human soul, its dilemmas and its evolution.

This emergence resulted in the Transpersonal Psychology movement of which members of the faculty at the Institute have played an important part in its development both professionally and clinically.

Today there is now an overwhelming need for a psychological education rather than an education in psychology. This means realising the inner world of emotions, connecting to a sense of values and deepening a search for meaning. By integrating this way of learning, as a way of living, we open to a level and dimension of mind beyond the intellectual to what David Bohm describes as the ‘Implicate Mind’ and Assagioli calls the field of the Self.

In recent years, psychosocial events suggest that humanity is making significant shifts in social conscience towards right living. These shifts create social disturbances which are often hard to understand. We have to learn how to deal with those shifts, not in a reactive way but as a ‘call to community’. A transpersonal and psychospiritual education equips one with the where-with-all to respond to that call where humanity is gradually awakening to its greater potential.

What is it that stirred a million people in the UK alone to march against going to war? Perhaps deep within there is an awakening to call for a different authority to determine our actions.