Psychology is a relatively young science and is still developing and growing today. This growth process is described as happening in waves or forces of thought,as new ideas replace the old with more in depth research bringing us to greater awareness and new conclusions.
The first force was psychoanalysis headed by the father of psychology himself Dr. Sigmund Freud23. His pioneering work was to lead the whole area of mental health in a new direction but as this began in the eighteen hundreds,Freud worked with the medical model of the time. This was restrictive for the subject matter and could only explore the potential of a person to a point,seeing the human person as essentially an animal and instinctually driven. This was the ground from which all other branches of psychology emerged and is still an essential force in psychology today.
The second force to have emerged from the now formed field of psychology was the behaviourist movement,which still used the medical model as the foundation for its theories and places the emphasis on pathological behaviour. “Skinner called his theory one of ‘natural selection by consequence’ and drew parallel between behaviourism and Darwin’s natural selection”24. Classical behaviourism was characterised by a strict determinism based on the belief that behind every response,lies a stimulus that elicits it. Watson argued,“That behaviour,is determined primarily by forces in the environment of each individual”25
It was not until the sixties that the uniqueness of each human being was taken into consideration by people like Rogers and Perls26 and the work of Abraham Maslow,(who himself coined the phrase) Third Force Psychology (to differentiate it from the two that had preceded him),had great influence with the psychologists of the time manifesting as the humanistic movement. This abandoned the medical model and no set model took it’s place,instead there was a wide range of views and practices with a commonly held the view that a person was a responsible being,who chooses freely their own actions from among all possible options. They believed that a person was never static and was always in the process of becoming. This meant that each person was responsible for his own self-actualisation or for the actualisation of his own potentialities.
The fourth force is ‘transpersonal psychology’27,which includes that which is beyond the normal experience of phenomena. This does not seek to exclude the personality or the world but tries to come to terms with what is relative and what is permanent in the atomic structure of man,what is structurally identical to that great energy which permeates the universe. Man is seen as a microcosm in a continuous state of development,endued with the responsibility of the consciousness,which animates his being.
The fifth force is as I see it,is pychospiritual psychology,which not only includes the spiritual dimension of our being,but also recognises it as a guiding force that seeks expression through every level. This is the stage we are currently exploring,where the expression of the spiritual being is acknowledged and synthesized in our consciousness.
At this point I would like to introduce Roberto Assagioli,M.D. (1888-1974).
Combining methods and teachings of spiritually oriented eastern traditions with western psychology Roberto Assagioli,built a framework that was to foster the evolution of consciousness towards wholeness,which he perceived to be essential to our Nature. His great contribution to human understanding was Psychosynthesis;a comprehensive approach to self-realisation,which combines a convincing theory of human psychology with a practical therapy to achieve one’s full potential. Essentially what he had to offer us was a pathway to discover a centre of Self-identity.
Assagioli’s worked spanned the greater part of the evolution of psychology and he was constantly developing his idea which first appeared in an embryonic form in a doctoral dissertation as far back as 1910. He was one of the forward thinkers in the realm of psychology and the expansion of consciousness. As a close contemporary of Freud and Jung his focus was to point in a very different direction.
“While Freud was sounding the depths of the mind and Jung was glimpsing the splendours of human destiny in the shadows of the past,he was setting out to discover the ‘permanent atom’ of man,describing its structure and pointing out the means of access thus opening up a whole new area to that inner seeking after the divine. Psychosynthesis actually provided a new pathway for self-realisation in keeping with the hypotheses and methods of the new science and based on action and direct responsibility:life passes through our hands and each of us takes control of it,accepting the present as the inevitable corollary of the past,and conscious of the fact that at any given moment we are shaping our own future”28 (Sergio Bartoli 1993)
When considering the map Assagioli gave us it is important to understand that psychosynthesis accepts that energy is considered to form a bridge between the psyche and matter,a view shared by other schools of psychology. Using this map of the consciousness,Assagioli has developed techniques for directing,transforming and sublimating psychological energies,such as aggression,but it also recognises the reality of higher energies,which have no need of sublimation,that can descend into the conscious personality with regenerating effects.
The will is important to psychosynthesis as a psychology because during the process of Self-awakening there is an increased awareness of the different identifications that have served us over time and perhaps are now seen as limiting. Awareness of this alone does not transform how we act in the future. It is only the dynamic energy of will that can ensure this transformation takes place.
I have described the will as the dynamic energy that animates the human being. The essential Being has subjected itself to the limitations of embodiment and in the process loses its connection with the universal reality that it is. Will is the closest expression and experience of Self.
It is always expressing the Self at whatever level we are identified with or experiencing. The essence of will is the means whereby spirit expresses itself so it is not seen as purely physical drives,emotional desires or a mental function but rather that which was prior to all of these and like the Self acts on and through each level.
Psychosynthesis is a psychology of will. What does that statement really mean and why is it important to Psychosynthesis as a psychospiritual psychology?
Let me answer the last of these questions first by saying that psychosynthesis acknowledges the Self,the essential ‘I’,the very best of ourselves that is being encouraged to come into consciousness and therefore be used creatively and to good purpose.
This Will directs rather than imposes action and does not expect us to be able to respond to it immediately but rather is lovingly patient and sympathetic to our humanness,accepting our illusion of separation and holding the tension of that space. The idea that there is a higher self immediately creates the illusion that there are two selves in conflict or opposed to each other and as the ego uses strong will to define itself,so the conflict or split is experienced. The reality of our holographic nature escapes our consciousness and we experience the call from the future and the cry from the past as different sounds,but heard from the heart one is merely an echo of the other. The Self is not confined to space and time as the ego self is,but rather it has a sense of what is eternal while inhabiting the now.
“The eternal now is a paradoxical expression,which must be appreciated intuitively;but it provides us with a key to a fundamental truth,and that has to do with the relation between the transcendent and the immanent,between being and becoming. Both of these should be present,conscious and at work in us”32. (Assagiloi 1993)
The identification of the will is considered now in three phases,the first being the recognition that will exists. The will is the power source that initiates the whole person and what we might experience as no will,is in fact no conscious awareness of will. In reality,will is a direct function of the Self and may simply be latent within a person. Assagioli compares the discovery of the will to the awakening to beauty. I love this analogy,as there is the sense of being called home in both the experience of beauty and will. In his book “Divine Beauty”,John O’Donohue describes it thus:
“The beautiful stirs passion and urgency in us and calls us forth from aloneness into the warmth and wonder of an eternal embrace. It unites us again with the neglected and forgotten grandeur of life. The call of beauty is not a cold call into the dark or the unknown;in some way we know that beauty is no stranger. We respond with joy to the call of beauty because in an instant it can awaken under the layers of the heart a forgotten brightness”33.
All this can be said of the awakening to the will. Whether the discovery comes about through a crisis situation when you have a vivid and unmistakable inner experience of its reality or it comes through meditation and contemplation,that the small voice inside urges us towards an action we know in our hearts to be right. Either way we experience a willingness that feels like it comes from the core of our being. The simplest way to discover our will is of course through our own determined actions. The power we feel rising up in us is the experience of ‘willing’.
Second phase is a realisation of ‘having a will,’ this is experienced and evoked by our NO. At certain times when we may expect ourselves to comply with the will of another,something deep within us surges up and we stand by our convictions. This discovery of the power to choose,to relate,to bring about changes in our own personality as well as circumstances in our lives gives us a new vision.
However marvellous it feels at the time,this new awareness of will soon becomes submerged in the business of everyday life with all its desires,emotions and impressions. In order to make the initial attainment a constant possession there is a need to strengthen and cultivate it but this is where we meet resistance.
Assagioli defines the will as,“…a directive and regulatory function;it balances and constructively utilises all the other activities and energies of the human being without repressing any of them”34
This idea of the will being a guiding force that acts like a helmsman directing our lives while also including the whole being,leads me to the third realisation about the will;that of the close and intimate connection of the will and the Self.
This is the phase of being a will,when we have the existential experience of pure self-consciousness,the direct awareness of the Self and the discovery of the ‘I’. The experience is often veiled by the contents of our consciousness and may be distorted or seem nebulous so it becomes necessary to dis-identify from these transient contents and identify purely with the Self.
The Self has purpose,and this Transpersonal Will is the directing or guiding force towards it. Strong will or personal will is stimulated to act in service of the Transpersonal Will but can be hijacked by the personal will until it becomes more skilful. By this I mean that we can achieve our goals with the least possible expenditure of energy. In order to use our will skilfully we need to understand our own inner dynamics and how to activate them to produce the specific action or condition we are aiming for. “The will is capable of achieving its purpose provided it is not only strong but also skilful”35 (Assagioli 1998)
It is not enough to develop only the aspects of strong and skilful will as these can and have been used for evil as history has shown us with leaders like Caligula and Adolph Hitler. For the will to be fulfilling it must also be good,as learning to choose right goals is an essential aspect of training the will.
The last aspect of the will is the will of the Transpersonal Self. The relationship between the personal self and the Transpersonal Self leads to a growing interplay between,and eventual fusion of,the personal and transpersonal selves and in turn their relationship to ultimate reality,the Universal Self which embodies and demonstrates the Universal Transpersonal Will. We could call this the will to good.
Psychosynthesis is a psychology of will and awareness and may have a substantial role in the emergence of a new and dynamic time of human cooperation.