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Integral Yoga Psychology: Clinical Correlations Michael Miovic Park-Nicollet/Healthpartners, Minneapolis, MN, USA International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Volume 37 | Issue 1 Article 12 9-1-2018 Integral Yoga Psychology: Clinical Correlations Michael Miovic Park-Nicollet/HealthPartners, Minneapolis, MN, USA Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/ijts-transpersonalstudies Part of the Philosophy Commons, Psychology Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Miovic, M. (2018). Integral yoga psychology: Clinical correlations. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 37 (1). http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2018.37.1.199 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This Special Topic Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals and Newsletters at Digital Commons @ CIIS. It has been accepted for inclusion in International Journal of Transpersonal Studies by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ CIIS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Integral Yoga Psychology: Clinical Correlations Michael Miovic Park-Nicollet/HealthPartners Minneapolis, MN, USA This article provides an overview of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga Psychology (IYP), with a focus on relevance to clinical practice. After summarizing recent developments in integrative medicine that have brought transpersonal themes into the mainstream of contemporary healthcare, the transformational paradigm of IYP is used to articulate a spiritually-informed approach to psychology and psychiatry. Topics covered include the soul (psychic being), reincarnation, the chakra system, psychodynamic therapy, ego defenses, positive psychology, CBT, AA, parapsychology, and mind-body medicine. The possession model of illness is addressed in detail, using both case material and the author’s own experience, and is compared to Jung’s method of working with the shadow. Finally, a range of real- world issues are discussed, including cross-cultural considerations, the structure of healthcare systems, the stigma of mental illness, and psychopharmacology. Keywords: yoga psychology, transpersonal, spirituality, ego, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, parapsychology, possession, reincarnation, mind-body, Buddhist, integrative hen transpersonal psychology was programs for help with addictions, and hospice founded in the late 1960s, mainstream and palliative care clinicians discuss spirituality Wpsychology viewed the field’s interest with patients on a daily basis (Markowitz & in spirituality, mysticism, and psychedelics as McPhee, 2006). Ethics committees are interested eccentric and speculative. However, in the last in diversity and respecting patients’ worldviews, two decades a sea change in healthcare has and psychopharmacological research is showing brought transpersonal themes into the mainstream renewed interest in psychedelics (Tupper et al., of clinical practice. Integrative or “whole person” 2015; Ross et al., 2016; Griffiths et al., 2016; medicine, which includes spirituality in its purview, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic is now accepted in many ways within mainstream Studies at www.maps.org). healthcare. Mindfulness-based stress reduction Today, the literature on integrative (MBSR) is widely accepted by both patients and medicine has become so large that it is impossible providers, and a large amount of research shows to summarize it quickly here. Some key sources that meditation is helpful for a wide range of include the World Health Organization (2013) medical and mental health problems (Gotink et al., “Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014–2023,” which 2015). The public devotes significant out of pocket documents the aforementioned trends at a global expenditures to complementary and integrative level, and makes recommendations about how treatments, and the practice of yoga is increasing to incorporate traditional and complementary in the United States (U. S. Department of Health medicine into mainstream practice. In the United and Human Services, National Institutes of Health States, the NIH now has a National Center for [NIH], National Center for Complementary and Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), Integrative Health [NCCIH], 2012). Chaplains which sponsors research on the clinical effects of have become key members of multidisciplinary spirituality and meditation (www.nccih.nih.gov). teams (www.healthcarechaplaincy.org), clinicians In India, the National Institute of Mental Health routinely refer patients to faith-based 12-step and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) is also studying International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 37(1), 2018, pp. 199–225 199 https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2018.37.1.199 yoga and meditation, both clinically and in terms atheistic, and agnostic—and neither science nor of neuroscience (www.nimhans.ac.in). Other philosophy is able to determine which is correct important organizations include the Bravewell (Miovic, 2004a). As result, there is ample room to Collaborative, which promotes the diffusion of interpret psychology and psychiatry from a variety integrative medicine through a broad range of of perspectives. This paper makes no claim on initiatives (www.bravewell.org). “ultimate truths”—its purpose is simply to illustrate Historically, transpersonal psychology how Sri Aurobindo’s worldview has wide-ranging contributed to the rise of integrative medicine, at implications for clinical practice. least indirectly via cultural evolution if not directly via citations, and in turn Sri Aurobindo’s work The Psychic Being and Reincarnation has influenced the development of transpersonal or practical purposes, the essence of Sri psychology from the very beginning. Michael FAurobindo’s approach to psychology is nicely Murphy, founder of Esalen, visited the Sri Aurobindo summarized in the following letter, which serves as Ashram for 16 months from 1956–1957, and this a useful starting point: early experience was likely an influence, among There are, we might say, two beings in us, one others, on his subsequent interest in the spiritual on the surface, our ordinary exterior mind, life, potential of the human body (Taylor, 1999, pp. body consciousness, another behind the veil, 238–246; Murphy, 1992). Haridas Chaudhuri, an inner mind, an inner life, an inner physical a direct disciple of Sri Aurobindo, founded the consciousness constituting another or inner California Institute of Asian Studies in the 1960s, self. This inner self once awake opens in its turn which went on to become the California Institute to our true real eternal self. It opens inwardly to of Integral Studies (CIIS). Wilber acknowledges the soul, called in the language of this Yoga the Sri Aurobindo as an important thinker in the psychic being which supports our successive field of integral studies, and Cortright’s (1997, births and at each birth assumes a new mind, 2007) work on integral psychotherapy is openly life and body. It opens above to the Self or spirit Aurobindonian. While many authors have already which is unborn and by conscious recovery of made comparative studies of Sri Aurobindo’s it we transcend the changing personality and thought and Western psychology in terms of theory, achieve freedom and full mastery over our the developments outlined above warrant a fresh nature. (Aurobindo, 2014, Vol. 30, p. 257) look at what Sri Aurobindo’s insights have to offer the mental health provider in clinical practice. For spiritual development, the central This article focuses on clinical correlations process of IYP is cultivating experiential contact drawn from several of the author’s prior essays on with the true soul, which Sri Aurobindo calls IYP (Miovic, 2004b, 2008, 2011). In framing this the “psychic being.” His emphasis on the role of topic, it is important to note that IYP is primarily the psychic being in transpersonal growth is one an approach to spiritual and transpersonal of the key ways in which IYP differs from those development, not a method of treatment. IYP has schools of Buddhist psycho-spiritual practice that not invented any specific therapy or treatment do not recognize the existence of a true soul (see modality for either mental or physical health Epstein, 1995). Subjectively, the psychic being problems, and there are no systematic studies that is often felt as residing deep within the center of have reported demographic, epidemiological, or the chest, behind the heart chakra, with which it clinical data directly related to IYP. Thus, the views may be confused. Opening to the psychic being set forth here are opinions based on the author’s brings feelings of spiritual devotion, surrender to experience and interpretation of Sri Aurobindo’s the Divine, gratitude, sweetness, quiet joy, love philosophy. of all that is good and beautiful and harmonious, As I have explained in prior work, there and a spontaneous recoil from all that is false, are three large categories of worldview—theistic, evil, dishonest, selfish, or discordant (Aurobindo, 200 International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Miovic 2012, Vol. 28, pp. 102–124; Aurobindo, 2014, and even when one has the true psychic memory, Vol. 30, pp. 337–366). Note that the intuitive tact that fact alone does not solve the problem of or guidance of the psychic being is quite different what to do with one’s present and future lives (for from the intuitions of “psychics” in the West, which comparative views, see Weiss, 1992; Jue, 1996). As usually arise from various parts and levels of the Sri Aurobindo noted succinctly: inner being and are far
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