There are (from my perspective and position) two different schools - one is Transpersonal Psychology and the other is the Psychology of the Transpersonal Experience.

Transpersonal Psychology .. 

In Transpersonal Psychology, one looks from a theoretical perspective - the cognitive process of moving beyond the personality into the Transpersonal self as a sort of mystical spirituality. This provides hope for those struggling in the pre-personal, personal or material life experience for a sense of Self Love or Spirituality.

The sideways shift from this is the Psychology (or mind understanding) of that state of consciousness known as Transpersonal.

I draw the distinction here because the cognitive perspective tends to view and discuss "levels" or dimensions of consciousness and set them as targets .. often theoretically understandable through the comparison of one with the other.

or .. the Psychology of the Transpersonal Experience

But, what happens when this learned explanation and, the whole level structure of concept of separation drops away and one collapses into or falls into a space where there are no levels of distinction; Psychology has no foundation and Spirituality has no roots.

The Transpersonal Self CANNOT be sought with the mind - and once one "falls into it", the mind senses "madness" because it loses control.

Psychosis .. or ..

In this space, the mind tries to grasp or understand what is going on for it, and the loss of identity, divisions, levels, boundaries can be a real scary place to be - especially as, during the collapse, everything that has been learned gets thrown up in your face - often quite literally - and there is nothing in the books that define how you deal with the situation where what was blocking your bowel seems to be coming out of your mouth.

For those who have had the experience, it can be very easy to tell someone to let it go, to flush it down the toilet, to accept that that is the way it is and get on with Life. This only works when the person you are talking to has either a total block against the cognitive process and can just let it go - or when the energy is so fast and furious that there is nothing left that can be identified.

For most of us, however, we have been conditioned into the straight line that joins two points. The process can be a little like getting grass to grow underneath a concrete roadway ..

But, somewhere, there is a memory that once, where now this road exists, there was once an open field. There can be again

The Psychotherapy of the Transpersonal Abyss

Its what we do with our experience that counts. If we judge, define, label, categorize, box, then we have moved our experience out of the Transpersonal into a space where we once again become the victim of what we have worked so hard to try and escape.

There are a couple of "terms" that can be used to describe the experience (for those who like to play with words) -- "Synesthesia" .. "transliminality" .. and I could add - including "alexithymic" - without words for feelings ...

All of these are descriptions for the up close and personal experience of "Transpersonal Consciousness" - that space of consciousness where there are no words for "the experience in the moment" .. and you've got to try and describe the experience that just had you to yourself or to someone else - without seeming psychotic

Some people have these experiences all of the time and they don't need words or explanation. Others seek these experiences and when they have them, it is a real scary place to be - and so, to allay their programmed fears words and explanation are sought ..

and the absolute worst thing that anyone can do is to try and go over the experience and try to put some fancy spiritual terms on it .. 

Personal Experience

My own approach to this work (and to the discussion forum) is not to say .. "This is how you get there" (Transpersonal Psychology) but to look at it from the perspective "This is what you already are .. This is how it manifests .. these are the sorts of things you might (or might not) experience .. and here are a few examples of what it might be like for you because this is what it was like for me and I'm OK talking to you about it".

You can't seek it .. all you can do is remove all of the boundaries of thought that stop your understanding" (The Psychology of Transpersonal .. which is something a little beyond Para Psychology) and yet, even that statement is not Transpersonal as there are no words that can embrace the possibilities.

There are no Rules, 
because at the Transpersonal Point of Consciousness, 
all rules collapse.

It is my own personal experience that a lot of damage can be done to the psyche by Psychology categorizing an Experience and labeling it according to spiritual, religious or quasi-scientific terms and setting it up as "something to be achieved" - thus re-invoking comparison and judgment as boundaries between self and Self.

A Personal Perspective of The Psychology of Transpersonal

My own perspective of Transpersonal Psychology is that humanity could be better served by an embrace of an understanding of the manifestations of these Transpersonal Experiences (which some call "Spiritual Emergence"- explaining that the experience (for example) of tasting a sound, seeing the shape and color of a word, smelling the music is normal as the boundaries between the senses collapse into awareness .. and that's OK and perfectly normal.

In Transliminality, we are living "now" we are "one". We are at that point in consciousness spiritually described as the "Gap in the Ego" - that space between the in-breath and the out-breath - a transitional space where one is in transition yet aware of both the Transients and Transience of the moment.

In this moment, there is eternity ..

And in this space, we see, feel, experience all sorts of shapes and colors - and our own emotions and reactions towards them - all of them past - and we judge them according to our conditioning.

The difficulty is that, for the Psychology of the Transpersonal Self, there is no existent ego for there is nothing for the ego to hold on to. The ego only comes about by separation when one "comes out" of the experience.

Compassion born of Experience

Unless one has had the Transpersonal experience AND understands it, the best one can aspire to is a purely hypothetical Transpersonal Psychology and the best one can hope for is that the learning somehow gained by the understanding of Transpersonal Psychology will hold as an aid to understanding when the memories of all of these levels collapses into Synesthesia and one experiences a state of consciousness where there are no words.

Suffice it to say that in the Consciousness of the Transpersonal Self, spiritual itself loses all meaning and one understands the etymology of Spirit as being the flow of the breath of all life - Hb "Ruarch" ..

For some, it is a step by step process and, as with any learning, we are also taught to compare .. "how am I going" .. "how do I measure up" .. "have I passed this exam" .. "I'll just have a look at the syllabus to see if this fits in with what comes next" ..

Now .. for someone who had this stage of the process taken away (after being catapulted into the Transpersonal Abyss) it can be a little difficult to understand the Cognitive process of some Psychologist or Psychotherapist whose only Knowledge was what he read in the Scriptures under the dichotomy that the "fruits" of this deeply spiritual experience was actually a "blasphemy" against the doctrine or dogma of religion and could get you excommunicated (or even worse).

For the Psychologist him or her self, of course, the deepest Transpersonal Experience is something which could result in your losing the license to practice because, by definition, you are at the very least delusional and at best psychotic.

Yet, once all of these neuroses are got out of the way, one finds that that Consciousness one calls "Transpersonal" is the only true Sanity - and finally, one figures out that you knew this all the time and the regret is that you took so long to loose your mind to come to your senses.

Then, maybe, you may just begin to understand (beyond words) what Transpersonal Psychology doesn't have any words for.

"Transpersonal Psychology .. or The Psychology of the Transpersonal Experience" was written, published and © by Transpersonal LifeStreams®, Tasmania, Australia. The URL's of this page are https://anunda.com/transpersonal/psychology.htm and http://www.lifestreams.com.au/transpersonal/psychology.htm.