ABSTRACT

A comprehensive approach to self-realization, psychosynthesis was developed between 1910 and the 1950s by the Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli. Assagioli like Jung, diverged from Freud in order to develop an understanding of human nature that took account of spiritual dimensions. This book, originally published in 1987, is an exploration of psychosynthesis and the depth of mystical and scientific ideas behind it. It will be of great value to all those interested in personal integration and spiritual growth in general, and psychosynthesis in particular.

Focusing on psychosynthesis as transpersonal psychology, Jean Hardy describes how the ideas behind psychosynthesis spring both from scientific study of the unconscious and from the long mystical tradition of both the Easter and Western world. She shows how the roots of a modern spiritual, or transpersonal, psychology lie in a split tradition within the Western world – while psychology aspires to be scientific, religion or mystical knowledge is currently studied within the discipline of theology. The two have up till now been very little related, and the special achievement of psychosynthesis as a therapy is that it relates the soul and theology to the personality and psychology, and perceives personal and developmental patterns as a microcosm of larger social and historical patterns.

chapter |5 pages

General introduction

part I|86 pages

Psychosynthesis: History and Concepts

part II|98 pages

The Split between Scientific and Religious Knowledge

chapter |2 pages

Introduction

chapter 10|7 pages

The influence of Plato

chapter 11|11 pages

The gnostic and the neoplatonic traditions

chapter 12|8 pages

The Kabbalah and the Jewish tradition

chapter 13|7 pages

The influence of Dante

part III|34 pages

Developments in the Twentieth Century