This important new book brings together the work of top scholars and clinicians at leading universities and medical centers on the benefits and risks of transpersonal therapy. After comparing a variety of multicultural approaches—Zen Buddhism, existential phenomenology, and Christian mysticism, among many others—the book offers a wealth of information on specific disorders and the application of transpersonal psychology techniques such as visualization, breathwork, and “past lives” regression.With solid scholarship, wide scope, and accessible style, Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology will become the standard work for students, researchers, clinicians, and lay readers interested in extending psychiatry and psychology into sciences that describe the functioning of the human mind, thereby building bridges between those disciplines and spirituality.
Francis G. Lu, M.D., is the Luke & Grace Kim Endowed Professor in Cultural Psychiatry, Director of Cultural Psychiatry, and Associate Chair for Medical Student Education in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Davis. He is also Assistant Dean for Faculty Diversity for the School of Medicine. Born in 1949 from immigrant Chinese parents, he has devoted his career to cultural psychiatry and psychiatric education, cultural competence and diversity, the interface of religion/spirituality and psychiatry, and the transpersonal as seen in film. He has either co-authored, co-edited, or contributed to the books listed. His Google profile is: www.google.com/profiles/francislumd.
Previously, he was Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Director of the Cultural Competence and Diversity Program, Department of Psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), where he had worked from July 1977 to June 2009.
Dr. Lu has participated on expert panels and advisory committees on diversity, cultural competence, and mental health disparities sponsored by the Office of the Surgeon General, HHS Office of Minority Health, HRSA, SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services, the California Endowment, the Templeton Foundation, the American Psychiatric Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the California State Department of Mental Health, and the University of California.
