Stanislav Grof

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
Stanislav Grof, 2009

Stanislav Grof (born July 1, 1931 in Prague ) is a Czech psychotherapist and psychiatrist . In 1978 he founded the ITA ( International Transpersonal Association ) together with the founders of the Esalen Institute , Michael Murphy and Dick Price , and is considered one of the founders of transpersonal psychology . In addition to humanistic aspects, it also takes into account religious and spiritual experiences of the psyche . He also made a contribution to psycholytic psychotherapy .

Life

Stanislav Grof studied medicine and medical philosophy at the Charles University in Prague . During his work at the Psychiatric Research Center in Prague , he researched the effects of psychedelic substances (including LSD ) on patients and on himself. In the 1950s and 1960s in particular, LSD was viewed in medical-psychiatric research as a means of causing a so-called model psychosis and should thus provide knowledge about psychoses in general. After the use of LSD was banned in many countries for research purposes, Grof and his wife developed the technique of holotropic breathing , a technique for the treatment of mental, psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders.

In 1967 he accepted a two-year research fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and then stayed in the United States. He was director of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. From 1973 to 1987 he taught and researched at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur , California . Here, together with his then wife Christina Grof (1941–2014), he developed the technique of holotropic breathing , which he always saw as an inadequate substitute for LSD therapy (see the afterwords to many of his books). Grof has repeatedly spoken out in favor of the legalization of psychedelic substances and is an opponent of the prohibition of drugs. As a co-founder, he was also the chairman of the International Transpersonal Association from 1978 to 1982 .

Stanislav Grof remarried in 2016 and has since lived with his wife alternately in Mill Valley (California) and Wiesbaden , where he continues to work on lectures and seminars.

plant

Grof has made it his life's task to research unusual states of consciousness or "expansion of consciousness" - initially generated by psychotropic substances , later by breathing techniques or caused by mental illnesses (such as psychoses) and in exceptional situations. The patients he accompanied were in particular people with neuroses , drug and alcohol addicts and cancer patients with a poor prognosis, but also people with psychoses.

Grof regards life and therapy as a game. His worldview on which the therapy methods are based has a Hindu background. The cosmos and psyche therefore belong together.

In the course of the many therapeutic sessions he led, Grof discovered patterns of experience that he called perinatal matrices . He categorizes the entirety of the experiences (and thus of experiences that can be therapeutically processed, modified and “transformed”) in clients through special therapeutic methods as part of the “self-awareness training” he leads:

  • Experiences of a psychosomatic nature
  • Biographical experiences
    • they consist in remembering experiences from one's own biography .
  • Perinatal experiences
  • Transpersonal experiences

For Grof, birth and death are the most important experiences in human life.

Before and during the birth, Grof differentiates between four phases of psychological experience:

  1. The fetus feels “being one” with the mother during pregnancy (perinatal matrix 1).
  2. He perceives life as "hell" from the onset of labor and contractions at the beginning of the birth (perinatal matrix 2).
  3. He perceives life as “a struggle” during the expulsion phase of childbirth (perinatal matrix 3).
  4. He feels the “stepping out into the light of life” at the end of the birth process (perinatal matrix 4).

The psyche of the human individual is therefore profoundly shaped for the entire time of life by which of these phases was decisive for the respective person at the very beginning and how it was experienced by the individual (hence the expression “ perinatal matrices ” he coined for it Translated, it means "patterns that come from the time around the birth").

The exit from the birth canal is also interpreted as the first experience of dying .

In a similar way, Grof divides the dying process - following Elisabeth Kübler-Ross - into several successive phases of the psychological experience:

  • "Denial"
  • Anger
  • "Haggling"
  • depression
  • "Reconciliation with Fate"

He is of the opinion that the natural sciences do not offer the tools to explain life and all its phenomena. Therefore, the tunnel vision that results if you limit yourself to this must be overcome. There is a universal spirit that also has a political dimension. Political and economic injustices are overcome in this universal spirit. The Transpersonal Psychology will each through communication passed. You recognize so-called peak experiences ( peak experiences on) which extend beyond the "everyday consciousness". Such experiences would also have described shamans , for example . “Peak experiences” are to be evoked in the psychotherapeutic process through certain drugs or holotropic breathing techniques. The psychotherapist must be a “companion without fear” if the therapy is to succeed.

Grof is co-editor of the journal Transpersonal Psychologie und Psychotherapie and has published extensively. Some of his essays and books have been translated into German.

Awards

On October 5, 2007, Stanislav Grof was awarded the Vision 97 prize from the Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Foundation in Prague for his life's work .

Works

  • Topography of the unconscious. LSD in the service of depth psychological research. (First edition 1975, German translation 1978), with Joan Halifax, ISBN 3-608-95232-2 . Reprint Souvenir Press, 2010.
  • The encounter with death. (1980), with Joan Halifax, ISBN 3-608-94298-X .
  • LSD psychotherapy. (1983), with Christina Grof, ISBN 3-608-94017-0 .
  • Beyond death. At the gates of consciousness. (1984), ISBN 3-466-34090-X .
  • Birth, death and transcendence. New dimensions in psychology. Kösel-Verlag, 1985, ISBN 3-466341175 . rororo 1991-1995, ISBN 3-499187647 .
  • Ancient wisdom and modern thinking. Spiritual traditions in East and West in dialogue with the new science. (1986), ISBN 3-466-34148-5 .
  • The chance of mankind. (1988) ISBN 3-466-34207-4 .
  • Spiritual crises. (1990), ISBN 3-466-34251-1 , with Christina Grof, Roberto Assagioli, RD Laing, John Weir Perry, Holger Kalweit, Lee Sannella, Jack Kornfield, Ram Dass, Bruce Greyson and Barbara Harris, Paul Rebillot, Jeneane Prevatt and Russ Park.
  • The stormy search for the self. (1991) with Christina Grof, ISBN 3-466-34265-1 .
  • The world of the psyche. (1993), ISBN 3-466-34298-8 .
  • The adventure of self-discovery. (1994) with Hal Zina Bennet, ISBN 3-499-19640-9 .
  • Books of the dead. Images of life and death. (1994), ISBN 3-466-34309-7 .
  • Cosmos and psyche. (1997), ISBN 3-596-14641-0 .
  • The psychology of the future. Experiences of modern consciousness research. (2002) with Richard Tarnas, ISBN 3-907029-76-3 .
  • We know more than our brains. Crossing the boundaries of consciousness. (2003) with Peter Fenwick , Michael Grosso, Erlendur Haraldsson, Charles T. Tart, Roger Woolger, ISBN 3-451-05284-9 .
  • Impossible. When the unbelievable happens. (2008), ISBN 978-3-466-34516-8 .
  • Revision of psychology. The legacy of half a century of consciousness research. Translated from English by Dr. Hans Peter Weidinger. Nachtschatten-Verlag, Solothurn 2015, ISBN 978-3-03788-359-4 .
  • Human nature and the nature of reality. Lecture given at the Basler Psychotherapietage 1999.
  • The way of the psychonaut. Encyclopedia for journeys into inner worlds. Volume 1 Translated from English by Chris Heidrich, Nina Seiler. Nachtschatten-Verlag, Solothurn 2019, ISBN 978-3-03788-577-2 .

Web links

Wikiquote: Stanislav Grof  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Memorial page - Stanislav Grof: Memorial Christina Grof. Retrieved October 4, 2017 .
  2. ↑ holotropic.com: Stanislav Grof (emeritus)
  3. ^ Annual Czech award "Vision 97" to "important thinkers" 2006: Speeches for the award ceremony by V. Havel and S. Grof - translated on Klaus-John.de.
personal data
SURNAME Grof, Stanislav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech medical philosopher and psychiatrist
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague