Posted by no way Jose on July 27, 2004 at 23:03:56
In Reply to: Transpersonal Psychology posted by Perry on July 22, 2004 at 13:26:39:
The Grof's are well-know for their "Breath-work" and I have know a psychotherapist who really got into that line of working with people and her own family and it is weird, imo. She was a Masters level Social Worker, a Licensed Marriage and Family Practitioner, and a Licensed Professional Counselor which is not the same as a psychologist or psychiatrist. Grof I believe is a psychiatrist.
First of all to call yourself a "psychotherapist" in some places, you don't necessarily have to have any degrees and it is not a degreed or licensed position in and of itself, although many people that are "psychotherapists" have degrees or certifications of different kinds. Many are licensed counselors. If you see lots of initials behind a person's name, many of those "initials" can be earned by attending courses that are as brief at times as a weekend seminar. Some people have very impressive degrees and, imo, are pretty nutty in some cases.
This is one reason it is so important to interview your therapist should a person go looking for help along that route.
I knew a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor who called herself a "psychotherapist" and she did a lot of alternative "wholistic" treatment on a client and took her off her Dr. prescribed meds. That was in part good as she was over medicated, but because the LCDC was not trained in this area of expertise she was playing with fire and the girl ended up being found in a park with a great amount of blood loss and almost dead.
The breathwork method recently got some bad press after a young girl died in the lengthy process. What a person does is to reach altered states by lengthy bouts of hyperventilating while facilitators play background music that is sort of hypnotic. How do I know this? In the early 90's I had a therapist that went that direction and I was a guinea pig in trying out the method. It was weird. The hyperventilating just made me nauseous. I was not a good candidate as I am not histrionic by nature.
I don't believe that mainstream psychology/psychiatry is moving in this direction at all but sees it as more cultish. At the same time, I do believe that psychology and psychiatry has already recognized the power of human support, power of prayer- regardless of religion, and such.
Here is a link to an article on the rebirthing breathwork:
http://www.aboutbreathing.com/articles/rebirthing-death.htm