WEB SIGHTS-CRITICAL & INTEGRATIVE PSYCHOLOGY ON AHPWEB

–Bruce Wochholz

Value-neutral psychology predisposes the public to accept psychology's assertions uncritically and to regard them as apolitical truisms rather than sociohistorically conditioned statements.
– Isaac Prilleltensky, Psychology and The Status Quo

BRUCE WOCHHOLZ

December 2005 / January 2006

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After a brief hiatus from writing this column, I'm happy to return to this issue of Web Sights. The last 2 issues of the AHP Perspective included some important information for AHP and its members, particularly the subject of integrative psychology. In his President's Message in the April/May Perspective, Bruce Francis focused on ahpweb.org as a premier strategic resource. I'm looking forward to new experiments with interactive capabilities, particularly interactive online courses. The same issue also announced ahppress.org; some of the initial works to be published are those of a number of AHP members who are researchers and thinkers. ahppress.org will publish in a wide variety of subject areas including those related to the principles, practices, applications, and explorations of humanistic, transpersonal, and existential psychology, and the related fields of holistic studies, psychological theory, psychotherapy, counseling, coaching, somatics, education, expressive arts therapy, peace work, eco-psychology, sustainability, healthcare, spirituality, social and cultural issues, the environment, philosophy, meaning, and more.

MEMBERLINKS
In the same issue, April/May, there was an excellent interview by Perspective Editor Kathleen Erickson of long-time AHP member George Leonard about his Integral Transformative Practice (ITP) . After many years' experience in various forms of transformative processes, human potential pioneers George Leonard and Michael Murphy have created a long-term practice for busy people, involving mind, body, heart, and soul; a practice that produces positive change in practically everyone who follows it. The Esalen Institute was founded in 1962 as an alternative educational center devoted to the exploration of what Aldous Huxley called the "human potential", the world of unrealized human capacities that lays beyond the imagination.

In the October/November Perspective on Worldviews, Guest Editor Paul Von Ward, author of Gods, Genes, & Consciousness, a cultural historian, psychologist, ordained minister, and interdisciplinary researcher, integrates several academic fields, suggesting that a cosmology based only on a single discipline (whether physics, astronomy, biology, mathematics, evolutionary theory, or metaphysics) does not cover all areas of the human experience of the universe. Thus, most cosmologies leave out much of what and who we really are.

Integrative Psychology was the theme of the June/July Perspective, revisited in this issue in relationship to the primary theme of Critical Psychology. In the June issue, Kirk Schneider and Don Beck described Integrative Psychology. See Kirk Schneider's Existential-Humanist Institute , existential-humanistic conceptions of resistance, meaning and alignment, existential spirituality, and integrative existential practice; and Don Beck's Spiral Dynamics, suggesting it's not that we need to form new organizations. It's simply that we have to awaken to new ways of thinking. It makes no sense to spend a lot of time attacking the current realities. It is time to create the new models that have in them the complexity that makes the older systems obsolete.

Guest Editor for the June and December issues is Don Eulert, Director of The Center for Integrative Psychology, which promotes theory, research, practice, and collaboration in the field of Integrative Psychology worldwide. Integrative Psychology emphasizes the interdependence of social, cultural, physical, spiritual, and psychological dynamics. Studying "wholeness and health" from a systems perspective combines cutting-edge science with traditional healing wisdoms and new paradigms of social evolution, emphasizing psychology's agency in social contexts.

"In exposing the mechanisms of the prevalent ideology, psychology can make a meaningful contribution to the course of social change. [but] Without an ideal to replace the present social system, we must be able to delineate the "good society". One can only hope that the gradual introduction of the teaching of ethics reflects a level of maturity in which psychology is no longer threatened by a dialogue with philosophy. What the science of human behavior can do, however, is to contribute to the attainment of what is ethically just.–Isaac Prilleltensky, Psychology and The Status Quo.

Annual Review of Critical Psychology, is an exploration of the way everyday 'ordinary psychology' structures academic and professional work, and how everyday activities might provide the basis for resistance to contemporary disciplinary practices. The Radical Psychology Network, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, and PsyACT, Psychologists Acting with Conscience Together reflect political/activist perspectives on these issues, with psychologists, counselors, and other concerned citizens around the world acting together to address issues that affect individual and community well-being through letters to editors, campus actions, teach-ins, & community activities.

Critical Psychology: Critical Links, suggests, for a definition of critical psychology, that we need to develop a cultural-historical account of the emergence of different 'critical' tendencies. Critical Psychology: Values, Assumptions, and the Status Quo, updates Prilleltensky's original descriptions. To "redirect society's values" Prilleltensky & Fox, provide five general questions to ask yourself regarding your own field of interest: 1). Does the field promote the status quo in society? 2). Does the field promote social justice or injustice either for its particular population of interest or for society at large? 3). Is there an awareness of the societal repercussions of the field's theories and practices, or is the field oblivious to its potential negative effects? 4). Do researchers, theorists, and practitioners declare their values, or do they assume what they do is value-free? 5). What are your own cultural/moral/value commitments, and how do they affect your critique?

International Journal of Critical Psychology, Of particular interest is the (spirituality) theme of this issue, the realm of the sacred, and psychology's place as a key knowledge in the delimitation of what counts as 'spiritual'. Contributors focus in particular on the role of humanistic psychology.

The Centre for Critical Psychology web site, is full of useful links to resources relating to Critical Psychology including the Critical Psychology Network and the International Journal of Critical Psychology web sites. The Critical Psychology web ring provides 12 sites that explore the theoretical, methodological, and practical ways of critical psychology. The quest for an integrative psychology, in light of critical psychology, must include philosophical analysis. Unfortunately, the above sites don't address these concerns. However, useful points of departure are included in the following sites. Iris Murdoch's Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, To Love the Good: The Moral Philosophy of Iris Murdoch and Iris Murdoch On the Good, God, and Religion, are, respectively, good primary and secondary sources.

The collective resonance of AHP and ATP (Association for Transpersonal Psychology), continues to benefit realization of the ATP mission: to promote eco-spiritual transformation through transpersonal inquiry and action. Recognizing the reciprocity inherent between our actions and our world, the Association is dedicated to encouraging and enhancing practices and perspectives that will lead to a conscious, sustainable, co-evolution of culture, nature, and society. ATP is dedicating itself to promoting a vision of the universe as sacred. To this end, ATP encourages spiritual democracy; rigorous inquiry into the multiplicity of techniques, disciplines, and methods for exploring personal spirituality and traditional cultural practices; and recognition of how the sacred is imbedded in all experience.

"The connection between art and moral life has languished because we are losing our sense of form and structure in the moral world itself. Linguistic and existentialist behaviorism, our Romantic philosophy, has reduced our vocabulary and simplified and impoverished our view of the inner life. . . . For political purposes we have been encouraged to think of our selves as totally free and responsible, knowing everything we need to know for the important purposes of life. But this is one of the things of which Hume said that it may be true in politics but false in fact; and is it really true in politics? We need a post-Kantian unromantic Liberalism with a different image of freedom." –Iris Murdoch

AHP Members are encouraged to submit their web addresses to WebSights columnist Bruce Wochholz at bwochholz@mac.com for review. Sites should be primarily educational or informational, and relate to AHP’s interests, but member sites may emphasize services, books, workshops, tapes, or other commercial offerings.

All the sites listed above can be reached at ahpweb.org under WEB RESOURCES. AHP Members are encouraged to submit their web addresses to the AHPWEB.ORG webmaster at handy@pacific.net for review. Sites should be primarily educational or informational, and relate to AHP’s interests, but member sites may emphasize services, books, workshops, tapes, or other commercial offerings.