Journal of Humanistic Psychology

Seven years have gone by since AHP sent its first delegation to the Soviet Union. During that time, over 150 North American psychologists, psychotherapists, and educators have represented AHP as delegates in the U.S.S.R. A smaller but growing number of our Soviet counterparts have visited the U.S. This article describes the events, people, progress, and future of the AHP Soviet Exchange Project. Delegates on the first three trips were truly explorers. Without official invitation, they sought ways to establish ties to prestigious institutes, universities, and schools in the Soviet Union. With each new encounter was the hope that this might lead to more lasting, satisfying, and in-depth relationships. The early visits set the stage for more organized and official relationships with Soviet colleagues and institutions. Strong ties were developed with colleagues in Moscow, Leningrad, and Tbilisi, and more recently in Tallinn, Vilnius, and Kiev. Two areas of collaboration with Soviets have emerged over the years: psychotherapy and humanistic education. AHP psychotherapists have worked with groups in six cities, demonstrating practice and discussing recent trends in humanistic psychology. The humanistic education focus has progressed through two offlcial agreements. In the most recent one (1989), the AHP, Georgia State University, and the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences signed a three-year agreement in which American and Soviet scholars and teachers would work together through a series of exchanges, writing conferences, and field testing to develop teaching materials focusing on global thinking. The work of both sides will culminate in an international conference co-hosted by both sides in Leningrad during the summer of 1992.

The more that the common people contact each other the more our leaders will be obliged to contact each other as well.

-Yulia Siroyezhina

Institute of Adult Education, Leningrad

Humanistic psychology looks toward the healthiest, most fully developed individuals as models for human potential. Dissociation of consciousness has generally been seen as pathological. There is increasing evidence, however, that dissociated states of consciousness can also be components of a healthy developmental path. The phenomenon of dissociation into more than one personality, each with a separate sense of self-identity, allows for complex transformative processes to occur within the "community of selves." Evidence for these processes comes from clinical studies of multiple personality, experimental studies of hypnosis, and introspective accounts by dissociators.

This article sets forth two historically important ways in which the transcendence of the ego has been conceived. These two conceptions are called the "ladder to oneness" and the "spiral to integration." These conceptions are set forth by contrasting them on five critical issues: (1) whether transcendence is a developmental transition that moves straight to higher, transegoic levels or a transition that follows a spiral course that bends back upon itself, (2) whether transcendence is a purely progressive movement or a movement that involves regression at some point, (3) whether transcendence is a wholly immanent process or a process that involves contact with transcendent forces, (4) whether transcendence is primarily a matter of growth from within or transformation from without, and (5) whether transcendence ultimately leads beyond all selfhood or to a point at which a higher form of selfhood is achieved. Drawing on these contrasts, two general conclusions are drawn: (1) the two conceptions of transcendence reflect basic differences in Eastern (ladder to oneness) and Western (spiral to integration) perspectives, and (2) the two conceptions are logically at odds on certain fundamental points, which suggests poor prospects for a unified East/West paradigm of transcendence.

This article is a response to Michael Washburn's "Two Patterns of Transcendence," in which he maintains that there are two dominant but incompatible paradigms in transpersonal psychology: Jung's Analytic Psychology and Wilber's Spectrum Psychology. The conclusion of this article is that the two psychological paradigms are not incompatible, and that the Jungian model can, in essential respects, be incorporated into the spectrum model.

The International Human Science Research Conference has now met annually since 1982, and its 10th meeting is already being planned for next year. This decade of activity on behalf of human science research has reached the point of meriting serious reflection on its significance. In this article, the history of those meetings is reviewed and their future prospects are examined. Lastly, a brief analysis is offered of the place of this gathering within the broad domain of human studies.