Virtual Expo: 2007 Keynote Speakers

Stanislav Grof, M.D.

Psychology of the Future:
Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research

In the last four decades, various avenues of modern consciousness research have revealed a rich array of "anomalous" experiences and observations that have undermined some of the most basic assumptions of  modern psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy concerning consciousness and the human psyche in health and disease. Many of these observations are so radical that they question the basic philosophical assumptions of materialistic science. In this (slide-illustrated lecture), we will review these remarkable data and explore the most important major revisions that would have to be made in our understanding of consciousness, of the human psyche, and of the nature of reality to respond to these conceptual challenges. These radical changes in our thinking would fall into the following categories:

  1. Cartography of the Human Psyche
  2. Architecture of Emotional and Psychosomatic Disorders.
  3. Effective Therapeutic Mechanisms
  4. Strategy of Psychotherapy and Self-Exploration
  5. Role of Spirituality in Human Life
  6. The Nature of Reality: Psyche, Cosmos, and Consciousness

Stanislav Grof, M.D., is a psychiatrist with more than five decades of experience in research of non-ordinary states of consciousness. In the  past, he was Principal Investigator in a psychedelic research program at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague , Czechoslovakia , Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center , Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore , Maryland , and Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur , California . Currently, he is Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of  Integral Studies (CIIS) and Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa  Barbara , CA , conducts professional training programs in holotropic breathwork and transpersonal psychology, and gives lectures and seminars worldwide. He is one of the founders and chief theoreticians of transpersonal psychology and the founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA). Among his publications are over 140 papers in professional journals and the books Realms of the Human Unconscious; The Human Encounter with Death (with Joan Halifax); LSD Psychotherapy; The Adventure of Self-Discovery; Beyond the Brain; Books of the Dead; The Holotropic  Mind; The Cosmic Game; The Transpersonal Vision; The Consciousness Revolution (with Ervin Laszlo and Peter Russell); Psychology of the  Future; When the Impossible Happens; The Ultimate ourney; Beyond Death; and The Stormy Search for the Self (the last two with Christina Grof). He also edited the books Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science;  Consciousness Evolution and Human Survival; and Spiritual Emergency (the last with Christina Grof).

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