Volume I: Emerging Therapies

Advance Praise for the Journal of Holistic Psychology

The Journal of Holistic Psychology, a journal devoted to exploring emerging therapies, is a welcome addition to the literature on health care practices. In a world that is rife with conflict and which teems with damaged children and adults, this publication makes a significant contribution to healing and to the restoration of wholeness. Ranging from ecotherapy to equine facilitated therapy to dreamwork to somatic development, this collection of essays presents a bouquet of promising routes for health care workers who deeply care about those who come to them seeking help and comfort.

—Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Humanistic Studies,

 Saybrook University, and Co-author, Personal Mythology

It's heartening to see the next generation of transpersonal, integral, and holistic therapists contributing to the field.

—Roger Walsh MD, Ph.D., University of California at Irvine, author of Essential

Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices and The World of Shamanism

In the Journal of Holistic Psychology we have the privilege of witnessing the inner, generative workings of the therapist in learning mode.  These essays are fecund with vulnerable, self reflective and real processes, failings and breakthroughs. And though this a collection from students, they are palpably wise and insightful scholars. The volume demonstrates again how some of the best work emerges from the freshest of visions and insights only the young can supply. Finally this journal asks a great question: what is it to be a whole human being and what does it take to help oneself and others grow towards it. It is, in short, a delightful and worthwhile volume.

—Robert K.C. Forman, Ph.D., author of Enlightenment Ain't What It's Cracked Up To Be: A Journey of Discovery, Snow and Jazz in the Soul,

 Professor at City University of New York

I greatly appreciate Jonathan Reynolds and Lauren González’s new journal offering, the Journal of Holistic Psychology, which provides fertile ground for the many who are giving voice to the emerging field of East-West psychology to weave their presentations into the world for all of us to read, enjoy, explore, and integrate into our own work in the fields and endeavors we each represent. It’s a great time to be alive and partake in the richness of writings that are enabling this new wave of psychology to fully mature into the world.

—Richard Miller, Ph.D., clinical Psychologist, author of Yoga Nidra: A

Meditative Practice for Deep Relaxation and Healing,

and president, Integrative Restoration Institute

The Journal of Holistic Psychology is a celebration of discovery, hope, and real possibility that melds ancient and emergent wisdom in original ways.  It offers fresh perspectives on the human condition and how all of us can live better and contribute more to realize the richness of life in all its complexity, messiness, and challenge.  The title says it:  this book is an awakening to an embodied embrace of living, with all that that entails.

—Jenny Wade, author of Changes of Mind and Transcendent Sex, and

Executive Core Faculty, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

The burst of "perennial wisdom" known as The Sixties gave rise to a handful of universities in "Holistic" or "East-West" Studies. Fifty years later, thousands of their graduates have changed the world. Meditation, yoga, and holistic healing are now everywhere. The JOURNAL OF HOLISTIC PSYCHOLOGY, a product of this catalytic academic community, brings creative, thoughtful new voices to the most ancient and modern stream of human sharing of experience, research and kindness of the heart. How erudite and poignant that Dave Walcott chose the elusive Sixties bard-genius, Nick Drake as his focus in Finding Spirit Through Music. But, then, the whole first issue was like that. One gem after another... Amazing.

—Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D. (Princeton, CIIS), author of Words From

the Soul, and Your Perfect Lips: A Spiritual-Erotic Memoir

Finally, an anthology of holistic studies practices and perspectives! This collection challenges the appalling superficiality of numbers-obsessed education, career, diet, and psychotherapy by offering studies in far deeper outcomes now growing in environments such as school, work, home, landscape, dream, film, music, and various kinds of therapy, including somatic, meditative, and ecopsychological. Childhood, death, health and illness, incarceration and freedom appear among the existential situations illuminated by eighteen authors boldly ranging the heights and depths of human experience.

—Craig Chalquist, Ph.D., author of Terrapsychology: Reengaging the

 Soul of Place and coeditor of Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind

An exciting and indispensable dialogue between theory and praxis! This inaugurating volume gives voice to students, alumni, faculty, and practitioners of the Holistic Psychologies alike. The collection of articles artfully addresses issues of differentiation and integration across disciplines such as psychology, consciousness, somatics, health, spirituality, ecology, art, culture, social activism, and more. The notion of embodiment – in its widest sense – acts as an underlying thread, as the applied nature of the writings keeps us close to our practices, our experiences, our senses, and to the ground we walk on.

—Theresa Silow, Ph.D., Director of the Somatic Psychology

Specialization at John F. Kennedy University

Throughout history it has often been the case that the collective sharing of ideas and experiences furthers the expansion of knowledge and hopefully of wisdom. This diverse anthology, with its intention of becoming a regular contributor to an open and ongoing dialogue in the field of holistic psychology, is a worthwhile and grand step in that direction. We have so much to share with each other that a new forum like this has great value, both within the academic setting and the psychotherapy community.

—Bill Bowen, MFA, LMT, Founder of Psycho-Physical Therapy, and faculty member in the Somatic Psychology program an John F. Kennedy University

This truly refreshing assemblage of essays thoughtfully weaves together a multi-dimensional tapestry of new investigations in holistic psychology. The reader is taken on a journey through a kaleidoscopic inquiry that coalesces a new apprehension of the modern psyche in the context of the world which we inhabit. Thank you for reminding us that our work as psychotherapists is to consider the places, the bodies, and the natural world in which we move including the dark corners and the points of light.

—Jan Edl Stein, MFT, clinician and director of Holos Institute

It is refreshing to encounter an anthology in holistic psychology that results from cross-fertilization of transpersonal psychology, expressive arts therapy, and ecopsychology.  A simple sampling of the resulting wide array of approaches includes: exploring the light and dark sides of human nature in film; translation of expressive arts therapy into third world contexts; equine therapy as an alternative treatment modality for depression; the role of personal confrontation with mortality as preparation for species death brought on by the ecological crisis; and the incorporation of permaculture principles of synchronization with nature into our cultural arrangements. This book dynamically expands our horizons.

—Karen Jaenke, Ph.D.

Director, Ecotherapy Certificate Program, John F. Kennedy University

Like a garden on a spring morning – the flowering of fresh ideas and a variety of perspectives – this collection of essays well serves the emerging field of Holistic Psychology. In the Journal of Holistic Psychology seasoned professors/clinicians and a wide range of graduate students contribute to an interesting and inspiring read. Enjoy your walk through this garden of delights, remembering to pause and smell the flowers. This book will surely stretch your thinking and imagination.

—Mary Owen, MFT, founder and director of Grateful Heart Holistic

Therapy Center, and Adjunct Faculty, JFK University