Bio: Stanislav Grof

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Stanislav Grof
Born1 July 1931 (age 88)
PragueCzechoslovakia
CitizenshipCzech
Alma materCharles UniversityCzechoslovak Academy of Sciences
Known forTranspersonal psychology
Spouse(s)Brigitte Grof since April 2016
Scientific career
FieldsPsychologypsychiatry
InstitutionsJohns Hopkins University
University of Maryland, Baltimore
Esalen Institute
California Institute of Integral Studies
InfluencesOtto Rank

Stanislav “Stan” Grof (born July 1, 1931) is a Czech psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of exploring, healing, and obtaining growth and insights into the human psyche. Grof received the VISION 97 award granted by the Foundation of Dagmar and Václav Havel in Prague on October 5, 2007.

Life and career

Grof is known, in scientific circles, for his early studies of LSD and its effects on the psyche—the field of psychedelic therapy. Building on his observations while conducting LSD research and on Otto Rank‘s theory of birth trauma, Grof constructed a theoretical framework for prenatal and perinatal psychology and transpersonal psychology in which LSD trips and other powerfully emotional experiences were mapped onto a person’s early fetal and neonatal experiences.[1] Over time, this theory developed into what Grof called a “cartography” of the deep human psyche. Following the suppression of legal LSD use in the late 1960s, Grof went on to develop a theory that many states of mind could be explored without drugs by using certain breathing techniques.[2] He continues this work as of 2015 under the trademark “Holotropic Breathwork“.

Grof received his M.D. from Charles University in Prague in 1957 and then completed his Ph.D. in medicine at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in 1965, training as a Freudian psychoanalyst at this time.[note 1] In 1967 he was invited by Joel Elkes[4] to work as a clinical and research fellow at the Henry Phipps Clinic, a part of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, United States, and went on to become Chief of Psychiatric Research for the Spring Grove Experiment at the Research Unit of Spring Grove State Hospital (later part of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center where he worked with Walter Pahnke and Bill Richards among others. In 1973 he was invited to the Esalen Institute in Big SurCalifornia, and lived there until 1987 as a scholar-in-residence, developing his ideas.

As founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (founded in 1977), he went on to become distinguished adjunct faculty member of the Department of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a position he remains in as of 2015.

Grof featured in the film Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within, a 2006 documentary about rediscovering an enchanted cosmos in the modern world.[5]

Grof distinguishes between two modes of consciousness: the hylotropic and the holotropic.[6] The hylotropic mode relates to “the normal, everyday experience of consensus reality“.[7] The holotropic has to do with states which aim towards wholeness and the totality of existence. The holotropic is characteristic of non-ordinary states of consciousness such as meditative, mystical, or psychedelic experiences.[8] According to Grof, contemporary psychiatry often categorizes these non-ordinary states as psychotic.[8] Grof connects the hylotropic to the Buddhist conception of namarupa (“name and form”), the separate, individual, illusory self. He connects the holotropic to the Hindu conception of Atman-Brahman, the divine, true nature of the self.[citation needed]

More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Grof

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