Journal of Meditation based Psychological Counseling (J Medit Psychol Couns)
Indexed in KCI
OPEN ACCESS, PEER REVIEWED
pISSN 2289-0823
eISSN 2671-6119
Research Article

An Inquiry of Transpersonal Therapy Methods: Focused on Welwood’s and Boorstein’s Views

Professor, Department of Meditation Psychology and Counseling, Dongbang Culture Graduate University

Correspondence to Moon, Jinkeon, E-mail: redhorse273@gmail.com

Volume 32, Pages 111-123, December 2024.
Journal of Meditation Based Psychological Counseling 2024, 32, 111-123. https://doi.org/10.12972/mpca.20240017
Received on December 06, 2024, Revised on December 28, 2024, Accepted on December 31, 2024, Published on December 31, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 Meditation based Psychological Counseling Association.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0).

Abstract

Transpersonal psychotherapy proposes a series of systematic diagnoses and treatments in the integration of spiritual psychology. This study aims to analyze the treatment cases of John Welwood and Seymoor Boorstein, who are renowned transpersonal psychotherapists, to identify the specific treatments they used in their treatment cases with clients/patients and to reveal common diagnostic assessment methods and treatment methods of transpersonal psychotherapy.
The results of the study showed that Welwood and Boorstein’s transpersonal psychotherapy commonly applied the assessment methods of existing psychotherapy and used meditation as the main transpersonal psychotherapy technique. However, the two psychotherapists had different opinions on spiritual practice and growth. While Welwood carefully examined spiritual detours, Boorstein actively used spiritual practice as a tool to resolve psychological disorders. Welwood warned of the damage that transpersonal therapy can cause by introducing a method to deal with spiritual detours. Boorstein is positive about meditation groups, but Wellwood warns against the reinforcement of defenses that meditation groups can provide to clients. This study can be used as a resource to provide specific methods and treatment principles of transpersonal psychotherapy in a reality where there is a lack of specific and detailed theoretical explanations for the assessment and treatment of transpersonal psychotherapy.

Keywords

Transpersonal psychotherapy, spiritual practice, spiritual bypass, psychodynamic assessment, meditation

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