History of the Institute of Psychosynthesis, London

The Development of the Institute of Psychosynthesis, Italy

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Roots of Psychosynthesis

The founder of psychosynthesis, Roberto Assagioli, was an Italian psychiatrist and neurologist. Born in 1888, Assagioli was a highly accomplished scholar, fluent in seven or eight languages including Sanskrit. He was also a serious student of eastern philosophies and religions, becoming a student in esoteric studies in the second half of his life. In the psyche of the man himself lay the contradictions that were to effect the development of the psychology he founded; on the one hand he was a scientist bound by rules of empirical study and on the other, a mystic with a profound interest in the healing arts. Assagioli’s abiding passion and lifelong search was an empirical study of the underlying spiritual nature of the human being as a willing Self within the complexity, disturbances and sufferings of the human condition. In an interview with Sam Keen, a journalist for Psychology Today said: “I believe the will is the Cinderella of modern psychology, it has been relegated to the kitchen...Because modern psychology has neglected the centrality of will it has denied that we have a direct experience of the Self. This is the existential experience of the ultimate connection between the Will and the Self.” (‘The Golden Mean of Roberto Assagioli’ December 1974).

Out of his own search for something beyond his psychiatric training, Assagioli persuaded his doctoral committee in 1910 to allow him to do his thesis on psychoanalysis. He went to Zürich to study with Eugen Bleuler and although he never met Freud, he corresponded with him and on his return to Italy became the first Italian to practise as a psychoanalyst. Within his context of synthesis and his search for understanding the whole person, Assagioli also began to see the limitations of Freud’s theories. “Assagioli told me that in one of his letters Freud said, ‘I am only interested in the basement of the human building’ and Assagioli replied ‘Psychosynthesis is interested in the whole building, we try to build an elevator which will allow a person access to every level of his personality.’ ” (Sam Keen, ‘The Golden Mean of Roberto Assagioli’, Psychology Today, December 1974).

During this time he met and corresponded with Carl Jung as Jung also began to differentiate from Freud. Of all the modern psychologists, he felt that Jung was the closest in theory and practice to psychosynthesis. Assagioli describes the similarities and differences between Jung and his psychology in the following way, “In the practice of therapy we both agree in ‘rejecting’ pathologism, that is, concentration upon morbid manifestations and symptoms of a supposed psychological ‘disease’. We regard man as a fundamentally healthy organism in which there may be a temporary malfunctioning. Nature is always trying to re-establish harmony, and within the psyche the principle of synthesis is dominant. Irreconcilable opposites do not exist. The task of therapy is to aid the individual in transforming the personality, and integrating apparent contradictions. Both Jung and myself have stressed the need for a person to develop the higher psychic functions, the spiritual dimensions. Jung differentiates four functions: sensation, feeling, thought, and intuition. Psychosynthesis says that Jung’s four functions do not provide for a complete description of the psychological life. We hold that imagination or fantasy is a distinct function. And we place the will in a central position at the heart of self consciousness.” (Ibid).

From this perspective what is also important is the juxtaposition of the emphasis of science in Freud’s work and the mystical implications in that of Jung. As the twentieth century gained momentum, so the world of science became centre stage. The work of Freud became the benchmark for the depth psychologists, with Jung and the more mystical tradition in the background. “It was not until after the second world war in the 1950s that Jung’s work began to be more fully recognised.” (Jacobi, Jolande, The Psychology of CG Jung, Routledge, Kegan & Paul, 1962, 6th ed.).

From these early days as modern psychology was developing, Assagioli began to give form and structure to psychosynthesis. In 1926, he founded an Instituto di Psicosintesi in Florence and the focus of his work for the next thirty years was the development of psychosynthesis in Europe. In many ways he was a man before his time and psychosynthesis as a force in psychology remained somewhat hidden and invisible, except in Italy, until the emergence of the new experiential psychologies and psychotherapies of the Human Potential Movement in the early 1960’s. This movement was built on the work of Maslow as he explored the healthy functioning of self-actualising human beings.

“Maslow was the first to create a truly comprehensive psychology sketching, so to speak, from the basement to the attic. He accepted Freud’s clinical method without accepting his philosophy. Maslow saw human nature as naturally self-transcending. Healthy satisfied people seek naturally far wider horizons, rather than the near. Freud was unable to go beyond ego satisfaction.” (Wilson, Colin, New Pathways in Psychology, New Amsterdam Library, 1972).

Humanistic practitioners determined that the focus and responsibility for healing and therapy lay with the patient or client themselves; that the healing and self-regeneration process could be more fully accessed through their own direct personal experience and perception of their emotional life as well as through the mind with insight therapy relating to the past.

At the same time, Humanistic Psychology practitioners became more aware that they were also limited in any real description or understanding of the vast realm of human potential which we in psychosynthesis would describe as spiritual.

“One of the reasons for the slow growth and inadequacies of our psychology is that it is culture-bound; it is linked to and frequently limited by the multitudes of (implicit) assumptions that create the consensus reality of the Western World in the twentieth century. It particularly fails to deal adequately with human experience in the realm we call the spiritual, that vast realm of human potential dealing with ultimate purposes, with higher entities, with God, with love, with compassion, with purpose.

“In spite of the fact that science has not dealt adequately with these vital aspects of human experience, I have a deep conviction that science, as a method of sharpening and refining knowledge, can be applied to human experiences we call transpersonal or spiritual, and that both science and our spiritual traditions will be enriched as a result. In particular we will create a scientific transpersonal psychology, or psychologies, a truly Western understanding of the spiritual.” (Tart, CT, Transpersonal Psychotherapies, Harper and Row, 1975).

At more or less the same time the development of Transpersonal Psychology was beginning to emerge in the United States as a force in psychology: “Transpersonal Psychology is the title given to an emerging force in the psychology field by a group of psychologists and professional men and women from other fields who are interested in those ultimate human capacities and potentialities that have no systematic place in positivistic or behaviouristic theory – first force, classical psychoanalytic theory – second force, or humanistic psychology – third force. The emerging Transpersonal Psychology – fourth force, is concerned specifically with the empirical scientific study of, and responsible implementation of the findings relevant to becoming.” (Sutich, Anthony, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, Spring 1969)

A major turning point in the international development in psychosynthesis came after 1957 when two significant events changed the profile of psychosynthesis as a depth psychology. First, the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation was created in New York under the patronage of the Dupont family which supported research and developed and disseminated the ideas of psychosynthesis and the work of Assagioli. Second, Assagioli’s first book, Psychosynthesis: a Manual of Techniques (Hobbs, Dorman & Co, 1965) was written and published in English. At the same time practitioners of the Humanistic and Transpersonal disciplines began to study with Assagioli and many went on to found their own centres of psychosynthesis in the United States.

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Assagioli and Psychosynthesis

‍Assagioli did not give his name to Psychosynthesis, and one does not talk of Assagiolian psychology. Rather it is a context for the integration of that which is experienced as immanent – the soul, and that which is experienced as transcendent – spirit. Most of his work was transmitted orally with very little written down from which to interpret the ‘master’. He provided the essential framework – he always said that psychosynthesis is a concept, a way of looking at the human being, it is not a thing, an ‘ism’. He believed that it was up to each generation to create the forms, to take the theories and develop them, to give substance to the framework and to embody the idea.

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A Parallel Process

Essentially, psychosynthesis has the context to synthesise the great contradictions. Perhaps a starting point for looking at the development of psychosynthesis is to remember the contradictions in its founder, Assagioli himself. In his own quest for meaning, he, like all humankind, had ‘religious’ yearnings and ‘spiritual’ experiences which he explored through his studies in the Eastern religions as well as being a medical doctor trained in the objective sciences.

Although psychosynthesis in his own words, is ‘a synthesis of many traditions’, he himself kept his two methods of inquiry separate and distinct. He even went as far as ‘erecting’ a wall of silence between his own mystical journey into the unconscious and his explorations as a medical doctor and neurologist. There is a value in things being kept separate so that thought can differentiate coherently within its own context. However, if consciousness and information is suppressed, it will attempt to find different ways to come to the surface, often in ways which were not intended by those who originally suppressed it.

This had its effect in the early years, where attempts to break the wall of silence deflected psychosynthesis from being an important pioneer of transpersonal psychology. Those who followed courses of esoteric teachings attempted to identify Assagioli as a spiritual teacher and ‘threatened’ psychosynthesis as a psychology in its own right which was developing alongside psychoanalysis (Freud), analytic psychology (Jung), and the humanistic and existential psychologies.

Perhaps it was this ‘secretiveness’ that contributed to psychosynthesis being so hidden in the years when it might have influenced more positively the development of modern psychotherapy. We find ourselves today having the dialogue with our professional colleagues that Assagioli himself could have had with Freud and Jung. On the other hand it is probably only now, given the spirit of our times, with the humanistic and transpersonal psychologies gaining recognition, that the ground is fertile enough for its reception. We are, therefore, now potentially poised to heal and integrate the contradictions within Assagioli and others of his time. Modern man with all his outer riches, experiences a barren inner world, one where, with the demise of religion, he seeks other references around which meaning can be made.

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The London Institute of Psychosynthesis, 1973-1976

In the 1960’s and early 70’s the United States, and California in particular, was the melting pot for the new psychologies while in Europe, psychology was still held in a tight medical model. The Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology movements were being birthed in a culture that was exploring the synthesis between East and West which brought the mystical and the psychological into relationship.

In 1965 Dr William Ford Robertson, a psychiatrist, created the Psychosynthesis and Education Trust to promote psychosynthesis in the UK. Assagioli was a lecturer and presenter at some of the seminars and this was an important early period providing an intellectual platform for the further development of psychosynthesis. Initially, the ground was not receptive to this psychological approach. The newer therapies of the humanistic movement had not begun and psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and the psychoanalysts were pre-eminent in this field. The Psychosynthesis and Education Trust ceased to run its activities after three years and until the founding of the Institute of Psychosynthesis, London five years later, during that period there was no centre which acted as a base for psychosynthesis in the UK.

In 1972, the most coherent training programme was being organised by the Psychosynthesis Institute in San Francisco. Psychosynthesis and how it was taught in this programme was a revelation. Here was a context which opened to depths of human suffering and traumas of the past and at the same time honoured the spiritual dimensions of human experience. What was particularly striking was the teaching methodology which combined experiential exercises designed to access unconscious emotional and mental material, with rigorous didactic teaching. It was the beginning of an extraordinary journey.

Early in 1973 we (Roger and Joan Evans) met with Bill Ford Robertson in London who recommended that we travelled to San Francisco to attend the month-long Basic Training being offered by the Psychosynthesis institute. This we did and were frankly blown away by the context of the work and by the depth of the psychospiritual journey that was possible. Immediately after this training we offered to create a UK platform for psychosynthesis and we talked to Frank Hilton in New York, head of the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation (PRF) who asked us to go to Florence to meet with and consult with Roberto Assagioli. This we did 2 months after our training in San Francisco.  

Roberto was delighted that we were willing to build psychosynthesis in the UK and we spent time working with him in Florence creating a charter for the Institute in London.

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We have consulted and worked with this group in London and today are in accord. The gist of our discussions are contained in this brochure which could be called, in a sense, the Charter of the Institute; of course subject to development and changes as should happen in every living organism, because I consider that each Institute or Centre of psychosynthesis is not an organisation in the formal sense of the world, but a living centre of light and radiation.

First Institute Brochure 1974

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“The Institute is set up with the encouragement and support of Roberto Assagioli to provide in-depth experience in the principles and practice of psychosynthesis through courses, training programmes and publications for the lay and professional public. We are committed to a programme of research as to how the principles of psychosynthesis can be applied to different fields of expression. One of our major objectives is to support and encourage those who are taking initiatives in relation to their spiritual values in service of the larger community.”

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During our meetings with Roberto Assagioli during the 2 years before he died, he felt it would be more beneficial for us to train in San Francisco , which we did for the next three years, and also worked with him as often as we could. This we did until his death in 1974. In the United States, particularly in California, the mind was opening and the new paradigms in science were being explored. In Europe, the thinking around psychology was still more crystallised within scientific doctrines.

We held our own first Basic Training in 1975 in the UK, with practitioners from the humanistic psychology field. This became the first part of a three-part training programme and our first ‘crop’ were graduated in 1978. Concurrent to the training programme in London in 1976, we started to deliver a programme in Holland comparable to the scale and size of that in the UK. This we continued over the next twelve years until we handed over to a group whom we had trained.Our professional training programme in psychosynthesis was a departure from the way the majority of humanistic psychology programmes were developing which was through a series of workshops. The Institute was one of the first groups to start a professional development programme. At the same time, we also started developing the professional ground for our counselling and psychotherapy training, becoming members of the Standing Conference for the Advancement of Counselling (SCAC), the forerunner of The British Association of Counselling.

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1976-1987

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Roberto Assagioli died in July 1974 at the age of 87 and the next years saw us sinking the foundations and building the platform for our psychotherapy training. We experimented with different forms, different teachers and different modules. It was a time of outpouring, a period of research, expression, and international connections:

• As well as Holland, we supported the development of the Institute of Psychosynthesis in Dublin, Eckhart House, training their students who were to become its faculty. In practice we were coordinating about 250 people all of whom came together to attend an annual International Summer School
• We started a Research and Publishing project. Final year students presented their learning about psychosynthesis and its applications to their professional lives. Their papers were published each year in an annual Year Book, which developed into the forerunner of both the Applied Psychosynthesis Programme and the basis for the final thesis of the psychotherapy training
• A Psychosynthesis Monograph series was published and we presented papers at International Psychosynthesis conferences which were held during that time in Italy and Canada
• We developed a highly competent cadre of trainers which spawned other psychosynthesis training centres in the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand and Scandinavia
• The core psychosynthesis psychotherapy courses were fleshed out and tested, and thematic programmes were woven together to provide the basic infrastructure of the training. These were not only the building blocks and foundations of the training programme, they became the fabric of the crucible in which the alchemical process of becoming a psychotherapist is fired. This programme gave a context and a framework which still underpin our psychotherapy training today. In retrospect, it was the beginning of the central theme of what we were later to call a psychospiritual psychology 

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1988-2002 

We began to integrate insights and values from other schools of psychotherapy, seeking to resolve and understand our own contradictions. It was the beginnings of a specific statement by the Institute in the articulation of psychosynthesis which we saw as a psychospiritual psychotherapy. “The notion of soul-making demands more precision, however, when it is used by a therapeutic psychologist rather than a romantic poet. It is not enough to evoke soul and sing its praises. The job of psychology is to offer a way and to find a place for soul within its own field.” (Hillman, James, Revisioning Psychology, Harper Colophon, 1975).

We returned to the foundations of psychosynthesis and psychotherapy and integrated the Freudian perspective and the depth psychologies with the perspective of Jung and Hillman on which we had been more focussed. By the early 1990s Jarlath Benson, a Group Analyst and Psychoanalyst, and Danielle Roex, a Humanistic and Gestalt Psychotherapist, joined the Academic Staff and became Directors of the Institute, thus broadening our Academic and Clinical base. By 1995, Anne Welsh joined the Directorate, contributing enormously to the Institute’s development.

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Relationship with Professional Organisations 

The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). The widening of our context came at a time when the United Kingdom Standing Conference for Psychotherapy (UKSCP) as it was then called had formed itself as an organisation distinct from the British Association for Counselling. We had spent the previous nine years exploring the identity and boundaries of psychosynthesis psychotherapy and had much more confidence to participate and network in forums with the more traditional psychotherapies. Joan was elected Treasurer and Secretary of the Humanistic and Integrative Section (HIPS) and in 1996, to the Chair, which gave her a seat on the Governing Board of the UKCP for a further three years.

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The European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP)‍

1990 saw the founding of the European Association for Psychotherapy. The Institute then came together with other psychosynthesis centres in Europe to form the European Federation for Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy and again Joan was elected as its first Chair, taking this organisation through to membership of the EAP.

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Association for Accredited Psychospiritual Practitioners (AAPP)

‍A useful model for cooperation between centres may be seen in The Association for Accredited Psychospiritual Psychotherapists, which Joan initiated in 1990. In many training organisations there is no differentiation in membership between students and graduates, which sometimes perpetuates transference issues. Given this those members from HIPS who shared a similar context for their work formed an organisation which would go beyond these issues. This was a truly synthetic endeavour. At the level of our training centres there is autonomy and our accredited graduates come together as members of AAPP to appear on the National Register.

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The United Kingdom Association for Therapeutic Counselling (UKATC)‍

‍A further differentiation occurred with the founding of this Association whereby therapeutic counsellors could also be regulated and registered. The Institute was one of the founding members and its delegates, particularly Anne Welsh, have been active in its development.

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Middlesex University – The Synthesis of the Academic and the Experiential; the Scientist and the Mystic

‍There is in the world today an overwhelming human need for a psychological education, not education in psychology but a psychological education. This means evoking a different type of learning borne out of a psychological awareness, a perception which is not only about the world outside but about the inner world of emotions and feelings as well. By integrating this level of perception, we recognise a dimension of mind beyond the rational and the intellectual, which David Bohm calls the “implicate mind” (Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Routledge, 1980).

The question we have asked ourselves over the years is: who is it who is learning? Traditionally education either trains the mind (academic) or is a training in skills (technological). A Psychotherapy education is a training of the person, which requires both clinical and cognitive skills. It is therefore neither the mind nor the body which learns, but the ‘inner body’, the one who experiences and who learns to distinguish and discriminate between the outer and the inner. In Psychosynthesis terms, the one who experiences is the soul, and a training through the Institute is a journey of the soul who suffers (undergoes) the process of being trained and who makes meaning of the experience.

At times the bringing together of different theoretical biases from many traditions, both philosophical and psychological, also brings out their contradictions. As a psychology, psychosynthesis provides a context for containing these differences, and comparative study of other schools of psychotherapy serves to illuminate the central thesis of psychosynthesis. In this way psychosynthesis can take its place in the world with its theses strongly supported and open to discussion. With the step into the academic world within a research-based programme, students at the Institute have an opportunity of synthesising these two cultures.

In line with this, in February 1996, we decided to apply to the Middlesex University for validation at the MA level for our psychotherapy programme. To have found a University which honoured work-based learning was important and exciting as it would, we hoped, give academic recognition to the experiential learning methodology which we had developed. In the June of the same year we completed the process and received the validation – this was revalidated in 2001. At the same time the Applied Psychosynthesis Programme was validated, also at MA level, giving students the possibility of studying at the Institute and applying its principles to their field of service. This brought us full circle in relation to our original intentions and commitment to Assagioli in relation to supporting empirical research and evidence-based study.

Every stage of our story poses the question, how do we transcend the contradictions of the past and step beyond our history? That does not mean repressing or denying history, but integrating the learning and therefore redeeming it.

In terms of the spirit of our times, the platform we are establishing is one of a psychospiritual psychotherapy, moving the debate on beyond even the transpersonal psychologies. We believe that tomorrow’s world is going to demand a psychology which gives guidance on how we educate our children, on the one hand to help them to look outward to the planet to see their interconnectedness with it and on the other, to look forward towards their future as they seek to understand the aspirations of the human spirit.

We have come to understand more deeply that a psychotherapist is not a spiritual teacher. A spiritual teacher within the contemplative religions prepares the student for psychological and spiritual growth through the received wisdom of the tradition in which he or she is studying. Psychotherapists travel with their clients and prepare the ground for them to receive direct perception of the Self through the integration of their objective and subjective experiences.

As thinking and practice has developed during this century, especially with the new scientific paradigm, psychosynthesis with its principles of Synthesis, has come into its own: “...ideas developed in the West of the individual, his selfhood, his rights and his freedom, have no meaning in the Orient...nor for any earlier civilisations. They are the truly great (new thing) that we do indeed represent to the world and that constitutes our Occidental revelation of a properly human spiritual ideal, true to the highest potentiality of our species.” (Campbell, Joseph, Myths to Live By, Souvenir Press, 1973).

In March 2003, we will celebrated our 30th Anniversary. We will have put in place organisational systems to try and ensure ongoing development in the Institute which will continue, hopefully, beyond our own professional lives. The principles which have come out of our learning are:
To have an organisation which is both radiatory and magnetic, that has an identifiable central organising principle as well as one which is open to joining with others in cooperative endeavours

• To uphold within the organisation that all members – from students to staff – are understood at the level of their deepest aspirations and are given the opportunity to explore and express them, while at the same time being personally accountable to the organisation in both its limits as well as its potential
• To participate actively in research and development projects in the field of transpersonal and psychospiritual psychology and to actively defend the value to humanity of a psychology of the Self
• To participate actively in research and development projects in the field of transpersonal and psychospiritual psychology in which ‘becoming a moral being’ is the outcome of psychotherapy

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2003-2022

The past twenty years have seen a deep flowering of psychosynthesis in the UK through this Institute and our sister centre The psychosynthesis in Education Trust (reinstituted in 1977).

The consequences of this flowering is a momentum for psychosynthesis that is reaching many people including therapists, counsellors and professionals who want a different way of working.

In 2006 the Institute completely reframed its training context based on working with the context of Self and its psychological disturbances. This shift transforms the work inasmuch that we no longer use the sequential process of Personal Psychosynthesis first then Spiritual Psychosynthesis. As a consequence, we revalidated our programmes with the Middlesex University and for the first time had validated an MA in Psychosynthesis Leadership and Organisational Coaching. A first of its kind globally.

The coaching MA has heralded a whole coaching stream of training at the Institute which complements the other programmes in Psychology, Counselling and psychotherapy. It meets the needs of many professionals who want to work within the burgeoning coaching market and want an in-depth psychological ground for their coaching work.

During these years we have been so very fortunate to build a superb faculty of trainers, right relations leaders, Fundamentals leaders and supervisors (both coaching and psychotherapy). Their training beyond their first post graduate qualification is rigorous, usually a further apprenticeship of 3 years before qualifying to teach. We now have a faculty of 30.

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New Validated programmes

In 2014 we designed two additional diploma programmes that were validated as PGCerts by the Middlesex University.

• The PGC Psychosynthesis Leadership Coaching  is a 6 month training and development courses for coaches who want to work at greater depth and recognise the whole human being in the way they work with clients. some text
  • Our approach is based upon the psychology of Psychosynthesis, which serves to integrate systemic, somatic, mindfulness and developmental perspectives.
• PGC Psychosynthesis Leadership and Organistional Coaching Supervisionsome text
  • This programme is run over 4 months of taught components although the clinical part (live group supervision practice) may well extend it beyond 6 months. It focuses on:
  • What it means to work, develop and qualify as a leadership coach supervisor dealing with the person and their personal mastery while dealing with their management and leadership dilemmas 
  • How to supervise coaches working with the context of 5DL^{Five Dimensions of Leadership} in simple and complex organisational settings 
  • How to supervise existential questions individual leaders have about purpose, meaning and values; mid-life dilemmas and turning points and what it means to bring love, respect and a psychospiritual context to their coaching work 

Compliance

In terms of the rigour of compliance with validating bodies we have a quintennial review with The Middlesex University and with The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.

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Our 40^th Birthday 2013

In September we convened a residential 40th birthday celebration at Latimer Hall in Berkshire. Approximately 160 people attended with many from overseas. These participants represented all decades from the 70s through to 2013. A phenomenal experience of reconnection and an exhibition of the initiatives taken by so many graduates. As a result of this meeting we published in 2013 a collection of psychosynthesis papers. These are under the title Essays on the Theory and Practice of a Psychospiritual Psychology vol1, by Joan Evans, Steve Simpson, Roger Evans, and are available on Amazon. Volume 2 was published in 2014 and is also available on Amazon.

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Serving Humanity in Transition

INNER CHANGE = SOCIAL CHANGE

In 2015 after much discussion, as a board of directors we agreed that the context for our work should go way beyond our clinical offerings. It had become clear that this focus was restricting our identity as a Centre for Psychosynthesis and had been for a long time. Roberto had always wanted Psychosynthesis to be a relevant psychology for the ‘time’. We began to see how much more we could do with a powerful life changing offering to many different groups way beyond those who wanted to be coaches, counsellors or psychotherapists.

Today many people are asking questions about new ways to live their personal and professional lives. They want to bring a spiritual context to their own lives and make a difference in society and the world at large. Some seek career change, some want to do what they do from a different context – beyond conflict, beyond blame – bringing compassion and an open heart to their worlds. To do so they know they need to transform themselves and their histories and learn different ways to be with themselves and in relationship to others. This is an inner journey of development, a journey to evoke the person that I really am!

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“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”  Martin Luther King, Jr

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Today, we not only train coaches, counsellors and psychotherapists, we have broadened our constituency to include those who want to use a psychospiritual context for that they do both personally and professionally to make a difference to our world.  Our training is about learning to see with the heart, both personally and professionally.  To these folk, we offer an MA in Psychosynthesis Psychology, which includes our core training modules 1&2, plus a thesis module, providing them with strong inner ground and a serious academic qualification in order to support change and serve humanity in transition.

In shifting our context in this way we believe we are at the beginning of a new psychological paradigm, a paradigm based on what is emerging in terms of aspiration and serving humanity as a whole.  As with Roberto’s wishes for Psyschosynthesis, the Institute will continue to develop Psychosynthesis organically aiming to meet with the ‘spirit of our times’ and to be of service.

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Joan and Roger Evans (founders of the Institute of Psychosynthesis, London)