Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transendence in Psychotherapy (Suny Series in Transpersonal & Humanistic Psychology) [Paperback]

Stanislav Grof (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1985

Beyond the Brain seriously challenges the existing neurophysiological models of the brain. After three decades of extensive research on those non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs and by other means, Grof concludes that our present scientific world view is as inadequate as many of its historical predecessors. In this pioneering work, he proposes a new model of the human psyche that takes account of his findings.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Beyond the Brain seriously challenges the existing neurophysiological models of the brain. After three decades of extensive research on those non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs and by other means, Grof concludes that our present scientific world view is as inadequate as many of its historical predecessors. In this pioneering work, he 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 perinatal level in which the human unconscious may be activated to a reliving of biological birth and confrontation with death. How birth experience influences an individual's later development is a central focus of the book.

The most serious challenge to contemporary psycho-analytic 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. His reinterpretation of some of the most agonizing aspects of human behavior proves thought provoking for both laypersons and professional therapists.

About the Author

Stanislav Grof was formerly Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is currently Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen Institute. He is the author of Realms of the Human Unconscious, LSD Psychotherapy, and Beyond Death (with Christina Grof). His edited volume Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science is also published by SUNY Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 486 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (August 1, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873958993
• ISBN-13: 978-0873958998
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #577,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A NEW VIEW OF THE HUMAN PSYCHE AND ITS POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH, December 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transendence in Psychotherapy (Suny Series in Transpersonal & Humanistic Psychology) (Paperback)

BEYOND THE BRAIN presents the distilled essence of the lifework of Stanislav Grof, M.D.: the insights and conclusions he has come to as a result of his seventeen years as a
pioneering LSD psychotherapist.

The opening chapter explores the convergence of modern physics with ancient mysticism, and the resulting radical implications for human psychology, thus setting the stage for the rest of the book.

Chapter two, "Dimensions of the Human Psyche: Cartography of Inner Space," describes the stages a person passes through when undergoing a series of low-dose psychedelic therapy sessions; these stages correspond to increasingly deeper layers of the psyche.

During the first few therapy sessions, one relives childhood traumas. Subsequent sessions gradually deepen into a reliving of one's birth, and a confrontation with death. After many such death-rebirth sessions, one experiences the final ego death: a profound psychospiritual annihilation, followed by visions of blinding white supernatural light, with feelings of ecstasy and rebirth. All subsequent psychedelic sessions are transpersonal: embryonic memories, encountering deceased relatives, ESP episodes, etc.

These three levels of the psyche, as revealed by LSD psychotherapy--biographical, death-rebirth, and transpersonal--provide a working model of the psyche.

Chapter three, "The World of Psychotherapy: Towards an Integration of Approaches," describes and critiques about a dozen major schools of psychotherapy from Freud, Adler, and Jung through Maslow and the modern experiential therapies of gestalt, primal scream, and bodywork. Grof feels that each is talking about a different level of the psyche: Freud deals with events occurring since birth, Reich and Rank describe the birth trauma, while Jung and Maslow focus on the transpersonal/spiritual dimension. The author integrates all into a coherent whole: while acknowledging childhood influences, he sees the trauma of birth as primary; he also recognizes the profound healing potential of ecstatic mystical/peak experiences.

Chapter four, "The Architecture of Emotional Disorders," is for me the core of the book. It examines how the birth trauma is the root cause of much psychopathology, from sexual dysfunctions and variations (impotence, sadomasochism, etc.), to extreme violence and aggression (such as serial murders), to neuroses (anxiety, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, and the like), to psychosis. Grof holds out hope of healing for all mental/emotional illness; even with psychosis, he has found that deliberately intensifying symptoms, using experiential or psychedelic therapy, leads to a radical breakthrough and positive resolution.

Chapter five explains why the medical model is ineffective and inappropriate in psychiatry; rather than suppression of symptoms, the author has found that purposefully intensifying symptoms results in spontaneous, autonomous healing.

In chapter six, the various mechanisms of healing are discussed, from abreaction and catharsis, to death-rebirth experiences and reliving fetal traumas, to direct mystical/peak experiences of the divine.

Chapter seven describes hyperventilation therapy as well as other nondrug experiential therapies. It also outlines the basic principles of psychotherapy; Grof Feels that "the psychotherapeutic process is not the treatment of a disease, but an adventure of self-exploration and self-discovery....the client is the main protagonist with full responsibility. The therapist functions as a facilitator" (p. 375).

The book concludes with an epilogue, a fascinating examination of how "in wars and revolutions nations act out a group fantasy of birth" (p. 423), as documented by psychohistorian Lloyd de Mause.

Scattered throughout the book are three dozen or so illustrations, mostly from the author's and others' LSD psychotherapy sessions, which suitably enhance the text and help bring it to life.

This book is not light reading, but to the intellectually curious, motivated layperson or psychotherapist, I believe it will yield its fruits and prove itself well worth reading.

It has served as a guidebook on my own psychotherapeutic journey (involving legal, safe psychedelic therapy complemented by hyperventilation therapy), helping me understand what I am going through, and letting me know what to expect next; it has also helped me understand other people, including their religious fanaticism, sexual preferences, and even, with several persons, their psychotic symptoms.

In conclusion, if I could have only one book in my library (beyond a dictionary and a Bible), BEYOND THE BRAIN: BIRTH, DEATH, AND TRANSCENDENCE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY would be that book.

Other books by Stanislav Grof which I've enjoyed: THE ADVENTURE OF SELF-DISCOVERY, about the author's form of group hyperventilation therapy (which as therapeutic effects similar to psychedelic therapy); LSD PSYCHOTHERAPY, guidelines for psychedelic therapists; and STORMY SEARCH FOR THE SELF, written by Stanislav with his wife Christina, about difficult spontanious psychospiritual awakenings--such as triggered by mystical, near-death, or UFO experiences, and including Christinas's own kundalini/alcoholism crisis--which are often mis-diagnosed as psychosis, and yet have the potential for radical growth and healing.

56 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most useful book for my personal transformation, January 11, 1999

By 

Joni Parker ([e-mail]) (Boulder, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transendence in Psychotherapy (Suny Series in Transpersonal & Humanistic Psychology) (Paperback)

This book is the most marked up, beat up, and well-thumbed book I have. In my opinion, it's the most complete explanation and synthesis of all that has been studied and written about the philosophy of human existence and transformational psychology. It provides a big picture that clearly explains things no other book even approaches.

Because of my severe clinical depression, I've gone through the normal route of countless anti-depressant drugs and psychiatrists. At the end of my rope, I decided that I am the only one who could help me. I turned to books and my own intellect for help, and in so doing I discovered many wonderful books, especially "Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature" edited by Connie Zweig, "The Psychology of Self-Esteem" and "The Disowned Self" by Nathaniel Branden, "Inner Work" by Robert A. Johnson, and "Life Between Life" by Joel L. Whitton. In my opinion, though, Stanislav Grof's "Beyond the Brain" is the best book ever written for expanding one's consciousness so that we can see how far we can go toward discovering our awesome heritage as human beings and beyond. "Beyond the Brain" has been and still is a tremendous guide to my personal evolution.

I also use Grof's "The Holotropic Mind" for my study.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Preverbal Revelation, November 17, 1999

By 

Yves Latorte - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transendence in Psychotherapy (Suny Series in Transpersonal & Humanistic Psychology) (Paperback)

Read it in 1990 at the age of 29 and was not yet ready to be convinced. Reread it in 1999, older, humbler and still ailing, and found it to be a work so absorbing, so obviously true, that I became depressed at how entrenched medical orthodoxy has been and may continue to be. This book rethinks virtually all aspects of human maturation science, paying crucial attention to the simple observational facts of birthing and how they vary individual to individual in contributing to a staggering range of lasting psychopathologies. The result is one of the essential speculative works of the 20th century. It became the key to my own discovery of long harbored and misunderstood neuroses, and marked the beginning of a long campaign of recovery and personal transformation. This is a massive, clinically-worded text for the advanced psychology reader that testfies to the fact that events of lasting developmental significance happen to many people before the dawn of ego and conscious memory(age 3-4). If you've exhausted all other modern medical strategies for healing without finding whats wrong with you, and are ready to open the door to the huge new world waiting, this is the book. Grof is a caring, brave voice that always allows room for every imaginable personal particular. While it does not provide any firm mechanisms which relate transpersonal phenomena to the biochemical level of functioning, it poses many questions crucial to further investigation in the realm of pure consciousness. The one book by Grof that enters the deepest, most complete account of his thought.