Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy

EXcellent book! If I ever need a psychiatrist, I just hope I meet one like Dr. Grof.

'Beyond the Brain' seriously challenges the existing neurophysiological models of the brain. After three decades of extensive research on non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs and by other means, Grof concludes that our present scientific worldview is as inadequate as many of its historical predecessors.In this pioneering work, Stanislav Grof proposes a new model of the human psyche that takes account of his findings. Grof includes in his model the recollective level, or the reliving of emotionally relevant memories, a level at which the Freudian framework can be useful.Beyond that is the perinatal level in which the human unconscious may be activated to a reliving of biological birth and confrontation with death. Beyond this level, again, is the transpersonal level.How birth experience influences an individual’s later development is a central focus of the book. The most serious challenge to contemporary psychoanalytic theory comes from a delineation of the transpersonal level, or the expansion of consciousness beyond the boundaries of time and space. Grof makes a bold argument that understanding of the perinatal and transpersonal levels changes much of how we view both mental illness and mental health.

Stanislav Grof discusses, introduces some great ideas. Many of these would constitute as revolutionary for most of us.My issue with his book-reference to the review title- is that he repeats himself so much that reading the book became less fun than Chinese torture.Also he would like to disprove many of today's traditional psychiatric school's findings, but he has a difficult time to built up a comprehensive argument to support his ideas.I suspect that this is more a sign of bad penmanship than the absence of valuable findings in his field of study.Still I would recommend the book, because it just might wake people up to a brave new world...

Helped me to finally understand how religious beliefs and practices, therapeutic modalities et al relate to consciousness. Most comprehensive book about how to employ a wide diversity of practices to the spectrum of experiential roadblocks, yielding integration, even nondual states of consciousness. An essential prerequisite for embarking on any quest.

Meets all expectations