Both Existential and Transpersonal psychologies have this in common, a respect for and utilization of Eastern techniques to reach a state of stress-free maintenance of human psychological health.
But the differences lie in their origins. While Transpersonal psychologies are related to the Eastern or Western indigenous epistemologies, Existential-Humanistic psychologies have a Freudian origin, coming through Freud and his descendents. While Transpersonal psychology is considered to be a "fourth force" in psychology, psychoanalysis, behaviorism and humanistic psychologies are outside of the "transegoic" elements, ignoring insights from the world's contemplative traditions in both Eastern and Western religions. Labeled "Western," Existential and Humanistic psychologies are focused mainly on prepersonal and personal aspects of the psyche.
Existential and humanistic psychologies are based on the writings not only of Freud, but Kierkegaard, Nietzche, Heidigger, Sartre, Camus and other European intellectuals who had experienced European wars and chaos during the twentieth century. Important to them were qualities of survival of the ego in a healthy state. Self-reliance, responsibility, mortality and authenticity were the characteristics that brought humans through suffering and this became an abiding theme in the psychologies that come from this era. (Sartre, 1969)
Rollo May, one of best known of the existential-humanistic psychologists, was influenced by American humanism and was interested in reconciling existential psychology with other approaches, especially Freud's. He described existential psychology as focusing on the "here and now." He went on to describe how:
At each moment, a person is free to choose what he or she will do and be. The most important aspect of a person is not what she has genetically inherited, or how her parents treated her when she was an infant, but how she interprets and responds to the world around her at each given instant, and the kinds of choices she makes about what to do next (May, 1969, p. 114).
But to Rollo May and other existential psychologists, freedom of the will was an action of the centered self and always involved social responsibility, occurring with a perception of limits. These limits to freedom...
The purpose of psychotherapy, suggests May, is to set people free. By choosing which direction one will go, one is saying "I can" or "I will." This is a conscious choice, in the face of hatred, rear, repression or other emotions one feels.
The existential-humanistic psychologies, compared to the transpersonal psychologies may appear the same, but in origin and emphasis they stand apart in the mainstream of psychological studies. In Sartre's Being and Nothingness, (Sartre, 1956) he points out the great differences. Rather than the unconscious of the transpersonal psychologies, the Existential-Humanistic psychologies emphasize the conscious.
Besides, and because of, a difference in origin, conscious choice and responsibility are central to existential psychology and the unconscious is downplayed. A belief that people are afraid of non-existence and meaninglessness in existential psychology contrasts with the goals that transpersonal psychologies seek in their states of "collective unconscious" or deep meditation, where one transcends the earthly, human body and moves into a state of uniting with the entire universe.
References
Cortright, B. (1997). Psychotherapy and spirit: Theory and practice in transpersonal psychology. New York: State University of New York Press.
Daniels, M. (2005). Shadow, self, spirit: Essays in transpersonal psychology. Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic.
May, R. (1969) Love and Will, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.
Sartre, J.P. (1956). Being and nothingness (H. E. Barnes, Trans.). New York: Washington Square Press.
Sartre, J.P. (1965). Essays in existentialism (W. Baskin, Ed. & Trans.). New York: Citadel Press.
Schneider, K.J. (2004). Rediscovery of awe: Splendor, mystery and the fluid center of life. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.
Schneider, K.J., Bugental, J.F.T., & Pierson, J.F. (Eds.). (2001). The handbook of humanistic psychology: Leading edges in theory, research, and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Transpersonal psychologies. (2006) Association for Transpersonal Psychology. Website. Retrieved November 9, 2006 at http://www.atpweb.org/conf2008Position.aspx.
