“The Dangers of Transpersonal Psychology”
The book titled Why Some Therapies Don’t Work: The Dangers of Transpersonal Psychology co-authored by Albert Ellis (Ellis & Yeager, 1989), the founder of rational-emotive therapy (RET), is entirely devoted to “the dangers of transpersonal psychology.” Ellis asserts that transpersonal psychology is
Antihumanistic (chapter 4)
Sabotages scientific thinking (chapter 5)
Blocks profound philosophic therapeutic change (chapter 6)
Interferes with unconditional self-acceptance (chapter 7)
Increases hostility, damnation, and terrorism (Chapter 8)
Discourages the acceptance of uncertainty and probability (chapter 9)
Discourages personal choice and will (chapter 10)
Blocks insight and awareness (chapter 11)
Aids short-range hedonism and low frustration tolerance (chapter 12)
Aids authoritarianism and blocks human freedom (chapter 13)
Refuses to accept the inevitable (chapter 14)
Favors ineffective psychotherapy techniques (chapter 15).
Ellis equates transpersonal psychology with the study of occult (“hidden”) phenomena including, ESP, UFO’s faith-healing, ghosts, reincarnation, Wicca, neopaganism, astrology, space aliens, tarot-card reading, devils and demons, Atlantis, and even Adam and Eve and Noah’s Ark.
Most transpersonalists honestly believe in the psychic phenomena they supposedly experience – including astral projection, extrasensory perception, encounters with people from outer space, and past-life experiences. Many of these devout believers are psychotic, but most probably neurotically deluded. Wishing very strongly to have supernatural experiences, they creatively manage to have them. (Ellis & Yeager, 1989, p. 44)
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Arguments could be made and evidence brought forward both in support of and against each of the claims that Ellis makes against transpersonal psychology. The intermixing of true and false claims about the field made on the part of Albert Ellis likely derives from the conceptual confusion about what exactly constitutes transpersonal thought that results from the multiplicity of definitions and diversity of subject matter of transpersonal psychology. He even includes Ayatollah Khomeini in the ranks of the transpersonalists against whom he rails and then uses this inclusion as evidence that transpersonal psychology is in favor of violence to promote its views! It is clear that Albert Ellis does not view transpersonal psychology in the same way that transpersonal psychologists do, which may be simply another reflection of the field’s need to clearly define what “transpersonal psychology” is and what it is not (Walsh & Vaughn, 1993b).
Ellis’s cognitive commitments to his own belief system and world view with its theoretical presuppositions and assumptions about the nature of the reality, the self, the world, time, and others that proceed from his theory-ladened RET has clearly biased his readings of the transpersonal literature.
In contradiction to the claims of Ellis and Yeager (1989), transpersonal psychology neither “fosters absolutist and dogmatic thinking,” nor “encourages devote allegiance to, or worship of, leaders and gurus” (p. 149). Transpersonal psychology does not “promise its followers absolute success, perfect performance, universal love, and unalloyed bliss,” nor does it “discourage…disturbed people from receiving more beneficial forms of treatment (pp. 149-150). It does not “promise certainty…[or] promise miracles” (p. 150). Transpersonal psychology does not “encourage…lying, trickery, and cheating,” nor does it “promote authoritarian cults…Satanism, devil worship, and sadistic rituals” (p. 151). It does not “discourage people from accepting themselves fully and unconditionally,” nor “overemphasize social conformity,” nor “refuse to face or accept grim reality” (p. 151).
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