The Adventure of Self-Discovery

Download or read book The Adventure of Self-Discovery written by Stanislav Grof and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1988-01-31 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here Grof presents a useful model of the psyche—a model extended by his thirty years of studying non-ordinary states of consciousness. It is useful for understanding such phenomena as shamanism, mysticism, psychedelic states, spontaneous visionary experiences, and psychotic episodes. The model is also useful in explaining the dynamics of experiential psychotherapies and a variety of sociopolitical manifestations such as war and revolution. This book might have been entitled Beyond Drugs. The second part describes the principles and process of the non-pharmacological technique developed by the author and his wife, Christina, for self-exploration and for psychotherapy. Grof explores in detail the components of this technique. He describes its method, its effective mechanisms, as well as its goals and potential. Its practice is simple, since it utilizes the natural healing capacity of the psyche.