At an early stage Assagioli had a clear feeling that the human being was not just a high-ranking animal or a machine. This was in opposition to the ruling concept, namely that medicine and psychology could be understood in the same way as other technical fields. In 1911 he began formulating the concepts of Psychosynthesis, and he continued to dedicate his entire professional life to this task. We pay far more attention to the higher unconscious and to the development of the transpersonal self. In one of his letters Freud said, “I am interested only in the basement of the human being.” Psychosynthesis is interested in the whole building. We try to build an elevator which will allow a person access to every level of his personality. After all, a building with only a basement is very limited. We want to open up the terrace where you can sunbathe or look at the stars.” Already while working in Zürich, he was absorbed in psychological studies with a special interest in the works of William James and Henri Bergson. Here he met with Carl Gustav Jung and befriended him. According to Assagioli himself, it was Jung’s psychology which was closest to Psychosynthesis. (Read the article: Jung and Psychosynthesis) In 1928 he gives a series of lectures at the institute, called “The Energies Latent in Us and Their Use in Education and in Medicine”, which in time come to shape the theoretical basis for the work with opposites. In short, Psychosynthesis works with the hypothesis that any emotion or reaction has an opposite, and the task is to unite and create a synthesis between the two. What brings about the synthesis is the active I, the observer, the controlling factor in the human being, and later the higher Self. Assagioli agreed with Freud that healing childhood traumas and the development of a healthy ego were necessary goals. But in broad outline his work tried to show that human development does not stop there, and that the healthy person has a potential for growth, which Maslow later gave the name “self-actualization”. Assagioli went further and tried to show that human potential also holds a possibility of experiences with spiritual and transpersonal dimensions. “Psychosynthesis does not aim nor attempt to give a metaphysical or a theological explanation of the great Mystery – it leads to the door, but stops there.” Assagioli’s fundamental view includes both the individual and society, with a focus on synthesis and unification rather than analysis and splitting into smaller parts. Assagioli attempts to create a psychology with synthesis between Eastern mysticism and philosophy, and Western psychoanalysis and logic. It was important to Assagioli that Psychosynthesis remained scientific. Assagioli also has several references to Western mystics, like John of the Cross and Saint Francis of Assisi. Within Western psychology there is no doubt that William James, C. G. Jung and Viktor Frankl were spiritually related fellows. All his life, in his understanding of the pathological conditions in the lower unconscious, he drew on many of the psychodynamic theories. He believed that before spiritual development there had to be a psychoanalysis – not in the classic sense of the word – but a deep psychological transformation. psykosyntese.dk/a-146/ psykosyntese.dk/a-194/
Posted on: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 00:03:24 +0000
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