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| ASPR - Psi, Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Conference |
| Presentations from the Psi, Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Conference are available on video and audio tapes (except where noted). |
Near-Death Experiences and Kundalini
Near-death experiences (NDEs), transcendental experiences on the threshold of death, often lead to personal spiritual growth and have been linked theoretically to evolutionary progress. The biological process responsible for both evolution and awakening underlies the near-death experience. Dr. Greyson presents a study exploring the proposed association between Kundalini and NDEs, in which a sample of near-death experiencers reported experiencing significantly more Kundalini symptoms than did normal control subjects or a sample of psychiatric patients.
Bruce Greyson, M.D. is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Connecticut Medical School and Director of the Inpatient Psychiatry Service at the University of Connecticut Health Center. The author of many scientific articles and co-editor of the scholarly anthology, The Near Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives. He has been a member of the ASPR since 1973 and has served as a member of the Board of Trustees. He was a co-founder and past President of the International Association for Near Death Studies, and currently serves as its Research Director and Editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. Dr. Greyson's research focuses on the personal aftereffects of the near-death experience, including personality transformation and changes in attitudes, beliefs, and values.
When an individual reports a spontaneous psi experience to a researcher, a clinician, or a friend, he or she is often seeking an explanation. The response rarely is that the person in question underwent a still poorly understood, but nevertheless common, creative experience. Instead, we tend to focus on the apparent strangeness of psi, on the ways in which the experience seems to violate our present understanding of the nature of reality, and on the awesome questions that are raised in our minds in encountering that violation. Exploring these questions can potentially lead to our expanding our understanding of psi, or at least may inspire us to expand our vision of our own potential. But focusing on the seeming strangeness of psi and its conceptual implications without responding to the more immediate needs of those who have psi experiences can also lead us to draw premature conclusions and to turn our attention in the wrong direction. In order to develop effective strategies for assisting people to deal with their psi experience, it is essential that we consider the personal and social context within which these experiences occur. By doing so, we may learn more about these experiences while actively facilitating a creative process of personal growth.
Keith Harary, Ph.D. holds a doctorate in Psychology, with emphases in both clinical counseling and experimental psychology. He is Research Director of the Institute for Advanced Psychology in San Francisco and an ASPR Trustee. Dr. Harary is an internationally recognized expert on the psychology of psi experiences and altered states of consciousness. He is the author or co-author of more than ninety professional and popular articles, and co-author of eight books including Who Do You Think You Are? Explore Your Many-Sided Self with the Berkeley Personality Profile (Harper Collins, 1995) and the critically acclaimed St. Martin's Press Altered States of Consciousness Series which currently has six volumes and over half-a-million copies in print in several languages. He is also a frequent contributor to Omni and other national magazines, and often appears in the national and international media discussing contemporary issues in psychology and psi research.
Dr. Krippner contrasts the implicit models of Western psychotherapy, Native American Shamanism, and Latino Curanderismo. This view is especially pertinent in light of the DSM-IV's inclusion of "religious and spiritual problems" in their new supplementary category.
Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology at the Saybrook Institute in San Francisco and as ASPR Trustee. He is known internationally for his important contributions to parapsychology and healing research. He is the author and co-author of numerous articles and books, including Dream Telepathy (McFarland, 1989), Healing States (Simon and Schuster, 1986), The Realms of Healing (Celestial Arts, 1976) and Spiritual Dimensions of Healing (Irvington, 1992).
There have been a number of converging streams of information suggesting that the time has come to redraw the map of what we know about the nature of dreaming consciousness, the role dreaming plays in telepathy and precognition, and, more broadly, the relevance of dreaming to our understanding of psychopathology. Walls between disciplines are becoming more permeable and we are beginning to witness the interplay of new ways of thinking about old problems coming from theoretical physicists, neurophysiologists and psychoanalysts. These findings will be reviewed in their relevance to psi and psychopathology.
Montague Ullman, M.D. is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst internationally renowned for his work with dreams. In 1962 he founded the Dream Laboratory at the Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York. In the mid-1970's he resigned as Director of Psychiatry, Director of the Community Mental Health Center, and Director of the Division of Parapsychology and Psychophysics at Maimonides Medical Center to devote himself to dream research and group approaches to dream work. He is a past President of the American Society for Psychical Research, the Parapsychological Association, and the Society of Medical Psychoanalysts. Dr. Ullman is the author of numerous papers on theoretical and clinical studies of dreams and dreaming. He is the author and co-author of several books, including Dream Telepathy (McFarland, 1989) and Working with Dreams (J.P. Tarcher, Inc. 1979), co-editor of The Variety of Dream Experience (Continum Press, 1988), and co-editor of The Handbook of States of Consciousness (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986).
Psychotherapy is not a simple conversation, it is the ability to communicate using our full range of perceptions, some of which have been referred to as extrasensory. This ability to perceive and communicate is the essence of parapsychology.
Benjamin B. Wolman, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst. Dr. Wolman is the author and editor of over thirty books and has written over two-hundred scientific papers. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the International Encyclopedia of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Neurology, editor of the Handbook of Parapsychology (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977), the Handbook of Dreams (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1979), and co-editor of the Handbook of States of Consciousness (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986).