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A Psychotherapy
of Love
psychosynthesis
in practice
John Firman
& Ann Gila
This page intentionally left blank.
A Psychotherapy of Love
A PSYCHOTHERAPY OF LOVE
Psychosynthesis in Practice
JOHN FIRMAN and ANN GILA
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by
S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K P R E S S
Albany
© 2010 John Firman and Ann Gila
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may
be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the
prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact

State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production and book design, Laurie Searl

Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Firman, John, 1945–2008

A psychotherapy of love : psychosynthesis in practice /
John Firman and Ann Gila.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3091-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-3090-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Psychosynthesis. I. Gila, Ann. II. Title.
RC489.P76F57 2010
616.89—dc22
2009033230
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to
ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI
and
CARL ROGERS
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Psychosynthesis Personality Theory 11
2 A Psychosynthesis Developmental Theory 31
3 Spiritual Empathy 47
4 The Death and Rebirth of the Therapist 59
5 Empathic Resonance 77
6 Love, Power, and Ethics 87
7 Stage Zero of Psychosynthesis, Survival 95
8 Stage One of Psychosynthesis, Exploration 107
9 Stage Two of Psychosynthesis, Emergence of “I” 115
10 Stage Three of Psychosynthesis, Contact with Self 121

viii Contents
11 Stage Four of Psychosynthesis, Response to Self 133
12 Psychosynthesis as a Psychology of Love 145
Notes 151
References 173
Index 183
Acknowledgments
It is with great sadness and a broken heart that I, Ann Gila, tell you that
John Firman, my husband and co-author, died on June 23, 2008, four weeks
after we signed the contract with SUNY for the publication of this book.
John was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late March and lived for only
three months beyond diagnosis.
John was passionate about psychology and especially Roberto Assagioli’s
psychosynthesis. In 1968, John had a peak experience that led him to search
for a psychology that spoke of such experiences. He discovered psychosyn-
thesis and a few years later he spent two months in Italy studying with
Roberto Assagioli. John’s heart and mind were committed to the develop-
ment of psychosynthesis theory, to the exploration of the role of the psy-
chotherapist in relationship to his or her client, and to the understanding of
the development and healing of the human person.
John and I had worked together briefly in psychosynthesis in the 1970s
and then parted as we pursued different directions in our lives. When we came
together again in 1987 John was working as a therapist at a Catholic parish in
Los Angeles and I was in private practice in Palo Alto, California. During the
first several years of our renewed friendship we commuted between our two
homes, spending many weekends sharing our personal and spiritual journeys,
reading many different psychological and spiritual approaches, and discussing
psychosynthesis theory. This was the beginning of our twenty years of work
together and led to the writing of our first two books and now the present one.
After our parting in the 1970s and considering the directions we had each
taken, it was improbable that we would come together again, but Spirit called
and our work together began. Our books have been born out of our shared
desire to know the truth of our lives, our love of psychosynthesis and psychol-
ogy, and our commitment to understand and serve our clients.
ix
x Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s
So, now I speak for both of us as we acknowledge people, places, and

creatures that have supported us and our work.
First to be acknowledged are Chuck and Laila Millar who have carried
me through the loss of John and have been there in my darkest hours. They
have made many personal sacrifices for me and I will forever be grateful.
Without them, this book would never have been published. Their love has
held me together personally and their editorial and computer expertise made
it possible for me to complete the final tasks required for publication of this
book. Thank you, Chuck and Laila, from the bottom of my heart, and I know
that John thanks you, too.
I would also like to thank Dal Miranda and Robin Dunaway who both
have spent many hours with me during some of the hardest times, especially
holidays. Their gift of listening to me and requiring nothing in return has
helped me to survive. And thank you, Chris Meriam, for supporting me and
for understanding so profoundly the depth of my loss of John. I am grateful
for your love of me and of John, and we both thank you for the sharing of
ideas over the years.
John wrote some acknowledgments before his death. He wished to rec-
ognize my cousin Gene Parodi and his wife, Bonnie, whose empathic pres-
ence during a trip we made together to Italy in 2003 engaged John in sharing
himself at increasingly intimate levels. This experience reconnected John to
the power and presence of Roberto Assagioli, and this reawakening allowed
us to remember that Roberto’s therapeutic presence was essentially about
empathic or altruistic love. We made a choice then to place this empathic
love, this essence of Roberto, at the center of our book on psychosynthesis
therapy. Thank you, Gene and Bonnie, for providing the love and nurture
that allowed this seed to germinate.
We would like to acknowledge Mark Horowitz whose brilliant study of
the human wounding inflicted by oppressive socioeconomic-political systems
strongly informs this book. Mark has used psychosynthesis to see into the
widespread devastating impact of such oppression and to explore human
resilience and growth in the face of this. Thank you, Mark, for your love and
support, and blessings on your work. Philip Brooks receives our love and grat-
itude for reading this manuscript at various points in its development, a ser-
vice he performed for both of our earlier books as well. His wisdom and con-
siderable clinical experience have informed our teaching and our writing over
the years. We would also like to thank Philip for stepping in and helping us
complete our yearly training program as John became unable to teach.
Many thanks to David (“Pope”) Firman, John’s brother, who not only con-
tributed materially to this book with his clear and elegant drawings, but who
has been a loving brother and faithful friend. Over the years both David and
John were delighted to discover each other beyond their familial roles and pat-
terns, finding that they genuinely loved and respected each other as people.
Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s xi
We wish to acknowledge John’s daughter, Catharine Elizabeth “Cat” Fir-

man, who has a gift for finding her own unique way in the world while at the
same time remaining fully in communion with her intimate circle of many
friends—a key theme of this book. John was so very proud and happy that he
and Catharine had found each other, sharing a love of passionate work and
play, and discovering that their music opened their souls.
We also want to appreciate Ann’s brother, Bob Gila. Bob has been faced
with some significant challenges throughout his life and yet has emerged with
his soul intact. He has been an inspiration, a joy, and a source of wisdom and
love in our lives for which we are eternally grateful. There is much in this
book that he taught us by word and deed.
We want to thank Jane Bunker, editor-in-chief at SUNY, who so com-
passionately responded to our request to have our manuscript immediately
reviewed for possible publication. Her willingness to do this and then offer us
an advance contract within days of receiving the manuscript gave John,
before his death, the gift of knowing that SUNY would likely publish our
book. The joy on John’s face upon receiving this news will always be remem-
bered.
As was true for our two earlier books, this book could never have been
written without our clients, students, and trainees who have trusted us to join
them in their life journeys. They have been our greatest teachers in allowing
us to accompany them to the depths of human anguish and despair; to the
heights of hope, joy, and love; in their efforts to hold this entire range of
human experience in their lives; and, perhaps most important, in their deter-
mination to uncover and follow the wisdom of their hearts.
Finally, we acknowledge the support and inspiration that came to us and
our work over the years from so many different sources in so many different
ways. Among these sources are: Frank Haronian, Yoav Datillo, Massimo and
Susie Rosselli, Skip Gibbs, Roger and Joan Evans, Karyl Hall, Sandra Sweet,
Mai Gilleland, Berget Jelane, Rowan and Nila-Ann Nag, Sr. Carla Kovack,
Fr. Vincent Serpa, Erv and Miriam Polster, Abby Seixas, Didi Firman and Ted
Slawski, Tom and Anne Yeomans, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology,
and the Bornia Boys. And last but not least we recognize some of the impor-
tant animals and places in our lives who have held us: our beloved pets, espe-
cially Abbey, Molly, and Star; Palo Alto, California; and Cortona, San Feli-
ciano, Spotorno, and Magnone, Italy.
And my final acknowledgment: thank you, John Firman, for the gift of
your unconditional love that supported me as a person, as a colleague, and as
a partner, for all these years. You walked your talk.
Introduction
Emphasizing in theory and in practice the central, decisive

importance of the human factor, of the living interpersonal relation
between the therapist and the patient.
—Roberto Assagioli
D eep within human beings is an innate drive to embrace and actual-

ize the whole of who they are. Given proper nurture, a person devel-
ops with the power and direction of a growing seed, synthesizing emergent
abilities, acquired skills, and life experiences into a whole, coherent expres-
sion of oneself in the world.
The recognition of this impulse stands at the very beginnings of Western
depth psychology. Sigmund Freud (1948, 394–395) saw that “psycho-synthe-
sis” within the personality was so fundamental that it need not be addressed
directly but would operate naturally if obstacles were removed; Alfred Adler
(1957) described a basic striving toward wholeness and an “ideal end form”
present in both the human and natural worlds; and C. G. Jung (1960) wrote
of the unification and transformation of the personality initiated by a deeper
Self beyond the conscious ego.
The Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli (1965), a contemporary of
these thinkers, placed the process of synthesis at the very center of the psy-
chology he called psychosynthesis. By psychosynthesis he meant a move-
ment toward organization, coherence, and harmony within the human
personality, among individuals, and among human groups. He, with Jung,
recognized a deeper Self as the ultimate source of this process, and, like
Adler and later Carl Rogers, saw this process operating in the natural
world as well.
1
2 A Psychotherapy of Love
The contemporary fields of humanistic and transpersonal psychology

continue to acknowledge this deep impulse within the human being and have
made it a focal point of their research, theory building, and therapeutic appli-
cations. Whether described by the seminal “organismic theory” of Kurt Gold-
stein (Hall and Lindzey 1978), the “self-actualization” of Abraham Maslow
(1954), the “actualizing tendency” of Carl Rogers (1980), or the transper-
sonal study of human development as it moves into realms beyond the per-
sonal ego (Boorstein 1980; Scotton, Chinen, and Battista 1996; Walsh and
Vaughan 1980), the growing person is widely understood as embracing and
synthesizing unfolding human potential.
In sum, there seems to be long-standing consensus among major schools
of psychological thought that there is a deep and potent process of synthesis,
wholeness, and actualization taking place within the developing human
being; that this process can be respected, trusted, and facilitated; and that
psychological disturbances may occur if this natural process is obstructed or
distorted. But what then are the conditions that allow this unfoldment of
human being? What is the nurture that supports this natural directional
power within the human soul? Looking closely, we can see that a consensus
can be seen forming here as well.
A Special Type of Love
In recent years there seems to be a convergence of views about what facili-

tates the unfoldment of the human person. Study of infant research reveals
that healthy early development occurs as there is an attuned response from
“self-regulating others” (Stern 1985); within object relations theory, “hold-
ing” and “mirroring” from the caretaker allows the emergence of the “true
self” (Winnicott 1987); in self psychology, it is empathic attunement that
catalyzes the “nuclear self” (Kohut 1984); in humanistic psychology the
“structure of self” and “self-actualization” develop as needs for safety, belong-
ingness, love, and respect are met (Maslow 1962; Rogers 1951); in attach-
ment theory, accessible and responsive attachment figures support the growth
of a secure and confident child (Cassidy and Shaver 1999); some recent
thinking in the field of positive psychology points to compassion as key to
healthy human development (Cassell 2005); and finally even current neuro-
science speaks of “the shaping physiologic force of love,” finding that “attach-
ment relationships” and “limbic resonance” with significant others shape the
“neural core of the self” (Lewis, Amini, and Lannon 2001; Siegel 1999).
It appears that all these different approaches perceive, though from quite
different vantage points, that human being flourishes within an empathic,
respectful communion with others, a communion that we believe can be
called “love.” It seems that it is love that facilitates the innate drive of syn-
thesis, wholeness, and actualization; love that supports the human journey
Introduction 3
over the course of a lifetime; love that allows the human spirit to thrive.
Looking even more closely at the operation of this love, however, we can see
that this is a particular type of love. This is a love that can see and embrace
the whole of who we are—in short, an empathic love.
This is a love that can see a baby beyond our hopes and fears for him, see
a child beyond our delight or disappointment with her. A love that can see a
friend distinct from our needs and expectations of him, see a partner and not
simply our ardor or anger toward her. And a love that can see a psychother-
apy client beyond our wish to cure or control, teach or advise him. This love
does not obliterate any of these motivations in us, but remains free of them
and so can reach beyond them.
It is therefore a love that can reach us no matter what our physical
appearance and behavior, no matter what our moods and thoughts, no mat-
ter what the condition of our person. We are touched at a level deeper than
what we feel or think about ourselves, deeper than our gifts and deficits,
deeper than our social roles or personal ego. Again, while none of these
aspects of ourselves is ignored or discounted—indeed these aspects of our-
selves may also be loved—we are yet not reduced to any of them. Loved like
this, we find ourselves free to appear as we are, to feel what we feel, to think
what we think. Free to discover who we authentically are.
To the extent we live in the conscious embrace of this love, our life jour-
ney unfolds gracefully. We are supported in negotiating each life-span devel-
opmental stage as it emerges; feel secure in synthesizing our gifts and devel-
oping skills; and have the wherewithal to engage the joy and the pain, the
successes and the failures, that life brings. Held in this love, we experience a
union with others and the world beyond any sense of dualistic separation or
alienation between self and other. We are thus at home with other people,
the wider world, and ourselves. There is a sense of basic trust and belonging
that invites us into the world to discover and follow our deepest callings.
When Love Is Absent
But without this empathic love, when we are seen for what we have or do,
when we are used as objects for the needs and demands of the environment,
this foundation is undercut. We lose a sense of being a subject in communion
with others and the world and experience ourselves as objects separate and
alienated from others and the world. We then must undertake the desperate
task of surviving as a separate object in the world, to somehow become the
person we must be in order to find belonging and security, in fact, to find any
sort of existence at all.
Most deeply, when we are unseen and unloved for who we are, we expe-
rience emotional abandonment, neglect, and isolation, and ultimately face
the possibility of personal nonexistence itself. Threatened with personal
annihilation, we are not led to embrace and synthesize our unfolding poten-
tial, but are instead forced to truncate and distort this potential—largely
unconsciously and automatically—in order to survive within the nonem-
pathic environment. In this way we are dominated by environmental
demands and inwardly enter a state of profound and often hidden alienation
from self and other.
Living under the threat of annihilation and alienated from the powerful
unfoldment of our natural potential, we may find ourselves struggling with
any number of psychological disturbances: painful patterns of thought and
action, addiction to drugs and alcohol, obsessions with work or play, compul-
sivity in sex or relationships, the torment of anxiety and depression, a lack of
meaning and purpose in life, or perhaps a numbing immersion in daily rou-
tines. This painful inner turmoil may cause major disruptions in our lives
such that we seek professional help, or it may exist quietly and insidiously as
a hidden substrate of our seemingly normal lives, causing us in Thoreau’s
words to “lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Those who become aware of this painful and tragic state of affairs—per-
haps shaken by a life crisis or transformative experience—at some point may
begin to seek a way to face the inner emptiness and bring to life the lost
aspects of themselves. They may begin to seek a way to face the threat of non-
being and regain their footing on their deeper journey of unfoldment, a jour-
ney that has been hidden, misguided, or distorted.
Clearly, a powerful support for such an undertaking would be a psychol-
ogy rooted in the knowledge that the presence of this empathic love nurtures
the human journey and its absence derails it. Such a psychology might offer
a coherent understanding of this love as well as effective, practical ways of
allowing this love to heal and nurture human unfoldment. This book
attempts to present just such a psychology.1
TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE
Given this description of empathic love, it is clear that this love is a crucial
provision for the growth and development of human being. The powerful
thrust of human unfoldment, of “nature,” demands the “nurture” of love, as
an acorn demands sunlight, soil, and water to become a seedling and eventu-
ally an oak.
Remember again, however, that this love is of a very particular kind. This
is not a love that sees the other as fulfilling one’s desires and dreams, not a love
that views the other as something to be changed or managed, not a love
blinded by ideas and images of the other (whether positive or negative). So this
life-giving love must issue from beyond—and at times in spite of—the hopes,
fears, and designs of the personality or personal ego. Although it is somewhat
elusive and difficult to recognize, some psychologists have described it well.
Introduction 5
Existential-humanistic psychologist Rollo May wrote of this type of

love using the traditional term, “agape,” which he described as “esteem for
the other, the concern for the other’s welfare beyond any gain that one can
get for it; disinterested love, typically, the love of God for man” (May
1969, 319). And of course, Carl Rogers’ (1980) term for something quite
like this love was “unconditional positive regard”—a caring for the other
in a “non-possessive way,” a “prizing” of the other in a “total rather than
conditional way.”
This love is also what Roberto Assagioli called “altruistic love” deriving
from a deeper or transpersonal Self beyond the conscious personality. He
wrote that this love may also be called “caritas” or “agape” and involved “a
sense of essential identity with one’s brothers [and sisters] in humanity”
(Assagioli 1973b, 94, 116). He held further that:
Altruistic love is not limited to the members of the human family. It can
also embrace all living things in the animal and vegetable kingdoms of
nature. This inclusiveness is expressed in the Buddhist love for all living
creatures, and by Saint Francis in his “Song of the Creatures.” One might
say that an increasingly conscious sense of this universal brotherhood is
behind the growing trend toward the cultivation of harmonious relations
with the environment. This is the higher and broader aspect of ecology.
(Assagioli 1973b, 117)
Here there is a union of love beyond any sense of separate isolated selfhood,
a union that can be experienced as including all living things and even the
entire cosmos. In such love, the statement “I love you” becomes “We are all
held in love,” or even “We are love.”
It is our contention that the kind of love that nurtures personhood, the
natural unfoldment of human being, is precisely this “disinterested,” “uncon-
ditional,” or “altruistic” love. A psychology that includes a working under-
standing of this altruistic, empathic love—and its absence—would thus be
well suited to address many issues in the field, from psychopathology to pos-
itive human potential, from personal growth to larger social and environ-
mental problems.
The Therapist and Empathic Love

Furthermore, it would seem to follow also that a primary job of psychothera-
pists within a psychology of love—if not the primary job—is to love their
clients in this altruistic, empathic way. No matter what technique or method
is employed, no matter what therapeutic goal one may seek, without this
empathic love, healing and growth cannot occur.
This is why, in our view, research overwhelmingly finds the therapeutic
relationship to be such a significant factor in psychotherapy:
The clear message of five decades of outcome research is that it is the rela-
tionship of the client and therapist in combination with the resources of the
client (extratherapeutic variables) that, respectively, account for 30% and
40% of the variance in successful psychotherapy. Techniques account for
15% of the success variance, comparable to 15% success rate related to
placebo effect. (Bozarth 2002, 174)
Such research findings suggest the viability of intentionally utilizing the

client’s frame of reference, “courting” the client, and going with the client’s
direction in therapy. (176)2
Assagioli was clear about the centrality of the therapeutic relationship

also, as can be seen in this account by psychosynthesis therapist and author
Piero Ferrucci:
Finally one day I went to Roberto [Assagioli] and said that I have concluded
that techniques and diagnosis don’t matter. It’s all about the relationship
between the client and therapist. Roberto said, “I’ve been waiting for you to
figure that out!” (Ferrucci 2005)
Assagioli was perhaps being a bit hyperbolic in this statement—his first

book, Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques (Assagioli 1965),
deals extensively with assessment and technique, among other things. But
Assagioli’s message to Ferrucci is unequivocal and emphatic: compared to the
relationship between therapist and client, all other therapeutic issues must
take a far distant secondary position.
Again, in our view, because empathic love is the essential operative prin-
ciple in psychotherapy, the therapeutic relationship is by far the most impor-
tant element in psychotherapy. Love has been explicitly affirmed in recent
psychotherapy texts:
The naming and practice of these qualities of heart allow clinicians to
reclaim the use of the word love, without overly sentimental, romantic, or
sexual overtones. Psychotherapy is an expression of love—love as compas-
sion, joy, equanimity, and kindness. It gives our profession a chance to renew
and reclaim the deepest elements of our own practice, and the deepest ele-
ments of connection and healing. (Germer, Siegel, and Fulton 2005, 98)
From a spiritual perspective, I believe this is another way of saying that the
therapist nurtures the client’s soul, and through this nurturing the client is
healed. Love is the most powerful healer of the suffering soul, and in thera-
peutic relationship love takes the form of empathy, respect, honesty, caring,
and acceptance. (Sperry and Shafranske 2005, 140)
Interestingly enough, if altruistic love is in fact central to psychotherapy,

and therapists do not realize this, the tremendous power of this love can be
Introduction 7
confused with other types of love such as romantic love (eros), friendship
(philia), or parental love (storge).3 That is, therapists unaware they are expe-
riencing altruistic love may be led into romance, friendship, or parenting
with their clients—all violations of the therapeutic relationship. It is telling
that just such “countertransferences of love” fill the disciplinary lists of
licensing boards.
So therapists seeking to express altruistic love will need a psychology of
love that supports them in doing this. They need a coherent theory and effec-
tive praxis affirming that the love they have is what is most needed in ther-
apeutic work; they need to know why and how loving their clients beyond
clinical diagnosis, powerful technique, or therapeutic agenda is crucial to the
health and well-being of those in their care.
We believe that Assagioli’s psychosynthesis can contribute to such a psy-
chology of love. The elaboration and extension of his work in our prior books,
The Primal Wound (1997) and Psychosynthesis (2002), reveal psychosynthesis
as an approach deeply founded in “the ways and power of love,” to use the
phrase of renowned Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin (1954). In this cur-
rent book we bring an even stronger focus to this empathic love, outlining a
personality theory, a developmental theory, and then an approach to psy-
chotherapeutic practice that all revolve around the central pivot of this love.
Maintaining this focus, we will draw upon aspects of other approaches
that look in the direction of this love as well. These include infant research,
object relations theory, self psychology, depth psychology, intersubjective psy-
chology, attachment theory, neuroscience, positive psychology, and humanis-
tic and transpersonal psychology. While there is no attempt to synthesize
these disparate approaches or present them in their entirety, we will at times
illuminate the salient connections between them and psychosynthesis.
We have written this book for counselors, social workers, spiritual guides,
and psychotherapists; for those training in these callings; for parents, educa-
tors, and religious leaders; for those seeking to understand the nature of love
either personally or professionally; and for anyone seeking a psychotherapy of
love to assist them on their path of healing and growth.
Herein the reader will find experientially based models and theory, prac-
tical examples and applications, techniques and methods, as well as an invi-
tation to the self-reflection, inner work, and commitment necessary to love
and work at this depth. A description of the chapters follows.
Chapter 1 outlines the earliest and most widely known psychosynthesis
personality theory: Assagioli’s oval-shaped or “egg” diagram including the
nature and formation of the middle, higher, and lower unconscious; the rela-
tionship of “I” and the source of altruistic love, Self; and the processes of per-
sonal psychosynthesis, transpersonal psychosynthesis, and Self-realization. In
discussing “I,” “Self,” and “will” we have followed our usual convention of not
using definite articles or possessive pronouns with these terms. We believe
that the use of such articles and pronouns in phrases such as “my ‘I,’” “the
Self,” or “the will” tends to suggest an object of awareness rather than the pure
subjectivity these terms were meant to convey.
Chapter 2 presents a psychosynthesis developmental theory that is
founded in the thought of Assagioli, but is supported by research and insights
from many other approaches. The natural life-span development of personal-
ity is seen as a function of empathic altruistic love, while the absence of this
love—primal wounding—leads to the formation of the adaptive, defensive,
survival personality.
Chapter 3 and the remaining chapters are devoted to a psychosynthesis
clinical theory. This chapter begins by describing the empathic altruistic love
that nurtures human being as spiritual empathy, and outlines how this empathy
impacts the actual therapeutic situation. Here begins too an exploration of
what is involved for the therapist in providing this empathic love for another.
Chapter 4 delves more deeply into the inner world of the therapist who
chooses to express spiritual empathy with clients. It will be seen that thera-
pists need to enter into a process of death and rebirth as they leave their own
experiential worlds in order to join clients within their worlds. Special atten-
tion will be given to the nature and function of empathic curiosity and what
Assagioli referenced as the “mystical unity” between therapist and client
(Kretschmer 2000, 276).
Chapter 5 further develops the theme of spiritual empathy as it explores
the deep mutual rapport or attunement that develops between people within
an empathic field. This empathic resonance is shown to be a powerful dynamic
in therapy that works to expand clients’ experience of themselves and allows
early wounding to emerge and be healed. Also discussed is traumatic reso-
nance, the emergence of the therapist’s wounds within the empathic field.
Chapter 6 addresses power and ethics in therapy beginning with the cru-
cial recognition of the power imbalance in the therapeutic relationship and
the need for altruistic power in a therapy grounded in spiritual empathy. Dis-
cussed are the four uses of therapeutic power that are important to spiritual
empathy. Also addressed here is the relationship of therapy to the oppression
from larger sociopolitical systems that surround the therapeutic endeavor.
Chapter 7 begins the presentation of the stages of psychosynthesis that
can occur within a field of altruistic, empathic love. These stages are based
on those outlined by Assagioli but are extended to the clinical situation,
drawing on case vignettes. This chapter describes stage zero or the Survival
Stage. Here the person’s authentic identity has been replaced by automatic
patterns of thought and action designed to survive early unloving, nonem-
pathic environments. The therapist’s role in facilitating the transition out of
this stage is discussed.
Chapter 8 presents the next stage of psychosynthesis, stage one or the
Exploration Stage. Awakening from the thrall of the survival stage by the
Introduction 9
power of empathic love, the person is free to explore the heights and depths
of their arising experience and spheres of their personalities. Here there is a
quest for the authenticity lost in developing the survival mode. The nature of
this exploration, an extended case example, and the therapist’s task are
described.
Chapter 9 moves to stage two of psychosynthesis, or the Emergence of
“I.” This emergence is understood as the natural blossoming of the person’s
authentic selfhood within the loving, empathic field of the therapeutic situ-
ation. Here is discovered a new sense of self-awareness and freedom that
allows the expression of one’s unique gifts and skills in the world. Again, the
therapist’s role in this emergence is discussed.
Chapter 10 describes the stage of Contact with Self in which one held in
empathic love can move beyond self-actualization toward broader questions
of life meaning and direction in Self-realization. Here, through a variety of
different forms and supported by the spiritual empathy of the therapist, the
person is seen contacting a deeper sense of wisdom—Self—by which to guide
life decisions.
Chapter 11 details the final stage of psychosynthesis that may emerge
within altruistic love, that of Response to Self. Continuing the process of Self-
realization begun in the prior stage, here one responds to the contacted wis-
dom and guidance, and encounters new sets of challenges in living a life in
relationship to deeper Self. Several illustrative cases are presented and the
therapist’s role is described.
Chapter 12 defines psychosynthesis therapy as
quintessentially a psychotherapy of love, in which To love well calls for all
that is demanded by the
there is a deep recognition of our shared union in
practice of any art, indeed
Spirit. We end with a discussion of the “Way of the of any human activity,
Therapist,” the calling to be a psychotherapist of namely, an adequate mea-
love. sure of discipline, patience,
In closing, let us say again that we have and persistence.
attempted here to provide a practical, applied theo- —ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI
retical orientation—drawing upon current thinking
about psychotherapy—that moves toward an
understanding of psychotherapy as an act of love. It is our heartfelt hope that,
in reading and using this book, therapists and prospective therapists will be
supported in uncovering, remembering, and expressing their love for their
clients—the probable reason they have felt called to the field of psychother-
apy in the first place.
Chapter One
Psychosynthesis Personality Theory
This conception of the structure of our being offers us a wider and

more comprehensive understanding of the human drama, and
points the way to our liberation.
I n 1910, a young psychiatrist-in-training named Roberto Assagioli

(1888–1974) conceived of a psychology he called psychosynthesis. By
“psycho-synthesis” he meant to denote the realization of wholeness or synthe-
sis both within oneself and with the world—a counterpoint to Sigmund Freud’s
“psycho-analysis” that implied the analysis of the person into component parts.
Assagioli had been quite active in early psychoanalytic circles, so much
so that C. G. Jung had written to Freud about him as “our first Italian”
(McGuire 1974, 241). However, Freud (1948) felt strongly that “psycho-syn-
thesis” occurred automatically as analysis proceeded, so for him there was no
need to focus on synthesis per se.
For Assagioli on the other hand, synthesis was fundamental to human
nature; it was an intrinsic impulse toward integration, wholeness, and actual-
ization and deserving of study in its own right. While accepting the need for
analytic exploration of the personality, Assagioli sought to understand the
movement of synthesis as it occurs within the individual, among couples and
groups (inter-individual psychosynthesis), and in the world at large. He under-
stood synthesis as a powerful evolution toward “union, beauty, and harmony”
that arose from “links of love” among individualities (Assagioli 2000, 27).
Assagioli subsequently developed psychosynthesis as a broad point of view,
a way of looking at human beings from the standpoint of this evolution toward
integration, relationship, and wholeness. As he wrote, psychosynthesis is “first
11
and foremost a dynamic, even a dramatic conception of our psychological life”

(Assagioli 2000, 26). Psychosynthesis is thus not a particular technique or
method, but a context for technique and method; nor is it a psychotherapy, but
a way of practicing psychotherapy; nor is it a spiritual path, but a perspective
on the experiential terrain of spiritual paths.
This chapter presents a personality theory that recognizes the workings of
this impulse toward synthesis at the very core of the human being, while the
next chapter traces this impulse as it forms the axis of growth over the human
life span. The remainder of the book is then devoted to a psychosynthesis clin-
ical approach that can be called psychosynthesis therapy. Here the nurture of this
impulse toward synthesis is seen as empathic love, and thus the therapeutic task
and the role of the therapist is essentially about synthesis, relationship, and love.
ASSAGIOLI’S MODEL OF THE PERSON
The earliest and most widely known psychosynthesis model of the human per-
sonality is Assagioli’s oval-shaped or “egg” diagram illustrating what he called
“a pluridimensional conception of the human personality” (Assagioli 2000,
14). This model was first published in the 1930s (Assagioli 1931; 1934), later
becoming the lead chapter in his book Psychosynthesis (2000), and it remains
an integral and vital part of psychosynthesis theory to this day.1
Mindful of Assagioli’s statement that this model was “far from perfect or
final” (Assagioli 2000, 14), we here present his model with one change: we
do not represent Self (or Transpersonal Self) on the diagram. While Assagi-
oli’s original diagram depicted Self at the apex of the higher unconscious, half
inside and half outside the oval, the diagram that follows does not do so; in
this rendering, Self is not assigned to any one particular sphere at all, and
instead should be imagined as pervading all the areas of the diagram and
beyond. The need for this change will be discussed later. Figure 1.1 is then a
rendering of Assagioli’s diagram with this one modification.
One general comment about this diagram is that Assagioli understood
the oval to be surrounded by what C. G. Jung termed the collective unconscious
(unlabeled) or “a common psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which
is present in every one of us” (Jung 1969, 4). This realm surrounds and under-
pins the personal levels of the unconscious and represents innate propensities
or capacities for particular forms of experience and action shared by the
species and developed over the course of evolution. Let us now describe each
element in the diagram in turn.
THE MIDDLE UNCONSCIOUS
The middle unconscious . . . is formed of psychological elements similar to

those of our waking consciousness and easily accessible to it. In this inner
P s y c h o s y n t h e s i s P e r s o n a l i t y Th e o r y 13
FIGURE 1.1
region our various experiences are assimilated, our ordinary mental and
imaginative activities are elaborated and developed in a sort of psycho-
logical gestation before their birth into the light of consciousness. (Assa-
gioli 2000, 15)
The middle unconscious is depicted in the oval diagram as immediately

surrounding the field of consciousness and will. This is meant to symbolize
that this area of the unconscious immediately underpins our ongoing daily
awareness and behavior. The middle unconscious is not a repressed area of
the personality dissociated from awareness, but rather an unconscious area
that is in direct association with awareness. The field of neuroscience has
used the term “nonconscious” with much the same meaning:
Huge amounts of evidence support the view that the “conscious self” is in
fact a very small portion of the mind’s activity. Perception, abstract cogni-
tion, emotional processes, memory, and social interaction all appear to pro-
ceed to a great extent without the involvement of consciousness. Most of
the mind is nonconscious. These “out-of-awareness” processes do not appear
to be in opposition to consciousness or to anything else; they create the
foundation for the mind in social interactions, internal processing, and even
conscious awareness itself. Nonconscious processing influences our behav-
iors, feelings, and thoughts. Nonconscious processes impinge on our con-
scious minds: we experience sudden intrusions of elaborated thought
processes (as in “Aha!” experiences) or emotional reactions (as in crying

before we are aware that we are experiencing a sense of sadness). (Siegel
1999, 263)
The phrase, “sudden intrusions of elaborated thought processes (as in

‘Aha!’ experiences),” echoes Assagioli’s statement quoted earlier, “mental
and imaginative activities are elaborated and developed in a sort of psycho-
logical gestation before their birth into the light of consciousness.” Here is a
level of the unconscious that is not in opposition to consciousness, but which
contains the complex processes and structures from which we operate in our
daily lives. It is in direct association with consciousness and supports con-
scious functioning in a number of ways.
Structuralization of the Middle Unconscious

One way the middle unconscious supports consciousness and will is that we
here assimilate our unfolding inherited endowment and our interactions with
the environment to form patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior by which
we express ourselves in the world. Assagioli affirms the neurobiology involved
in this process, referring to it as developing “new neuromuscular patterns”:
This process is apparent in the work of acquiring some such technical
accomplishment as learning to play a musical instrument. At first, full
attention and conscious direction of the execution are demanded. Then, lit-
tle by little, there comes the formation of what might be called the mecha-
nisms of action, i.e., new neuromuscular patterns. The pianist, for example,
now reaches the point at which he no longer needs to pay conscious atten-
tion to the mechanics of execution, that is, to directing his fingers to the
desired places. He can now give his whole conscious attention to the qual-
ity of the execution, to the expression of the emotional and aesthetic con-
tent of the music that he is performing. (Assagioli 1973b, 191)
Assagioli’s “neuromuscular patterns” would in today’s neuroscience be

understood as neurons firing together and so becoming organized into neural
networks: “In a process called long-term potentiation (LTP), excitation
between cells is prolonged, allowing them to become synchronized in their
firing patterns and organized into neural networks (Hebb 1949)” (Cozolino
2006, 42). These neural networks can then interconnect, “allowing for the
evolution and development of increasingly complex skills, abilities, and
abstract functions” (42).
Whether learning to walk, talk, or play an instrument; developing roles
within family and society; or forming particular philosophical or religious
beliefs, we create these complex expressions by synthesizing our innate gifts
and environmental experience into a larger whole. In this way, areas of what
Assagioli (1973b; 2000) so aptly and so early called the “plastic unconscious”
become structuralized into what he called the “structuralized” or “condi-

tioned” unconscious.2 Perhaps one of the most complex expressions of this
structuralization is the formation of what Assagioli called subpersonalities
(Assagioli 2000).
Subpersonalities
Among the most sophisticated of the integrated patterns structuralizing the

middle unconscious are subpersonalities. Subpersonalities are like some of the
“atoms” that make up the “molecule” of the personality, or the “organs” that
make up the “body” of the personality.
Subpersonalities are patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior, devel-
oped in relationship to various environments, that have advanced to the
level at which they can operate as distinct, semi-independent entities. In
neuroscience terms, these are discrete neural networks functioning as “spe-
cialized selves” or “self-states” in which “various modules of the mind cluster
together in the service of specialized activity” (Siegel 1999, 230). Psychiatrist
and author Daniel Stern sums up the current state of thinking on these “mul-
tiple selves”: “It is now largely accepted that there are multiple (context-spe-
cific) selves that can interact with each other, observe each other, and con-
verse together out of consciousness. This is normal, not limited to
pathological dissociative states” (Stern 2004, 128).
Awareness of subpersonalities may occur, for example, in noticing trains
of thought “speaking” inwardly (“You really did well,” “You shouldn’t do
that”), or in characteristic attitudes that arise in some situations and not oth-
ers (“Being with you brings out my playful side,” “When I’m with my father I
feel like a child again”), or perhaps in feeling a strong, discrete impulse to a
specific type of behavior (“Whenever I’m around an authority figure, I want
to rebel,” “On a day like this I really want to be outdoors”). Often too, in
therapy especially, subpersonalities emerge in inner conflicts: “I have a part
of me who wants to do it and another who is afraid,” or, “I feel ambivalent—
part of me likes it and another hates it.”
In carefully exploring all such experiences, we can discover that these are
not simply passing thoughts and feelings, but expressions of discrete com-
plexes characterized by a specific motivation and mode of expression, a con-
sistent worldview and range of feelings, and a particular life history with roots
in our personal history.
Most often subpersonalities do not emerge into awareness because in
normal functioning they are working together seamlessly in the middle
unconscious. But if there is a conflict among them—as between a fearful
child and harsh critic, or a hard worker and a fun-lover, or a solitude seeker
and a social extravert—one will quickly become aware of the inner turmoil
this conflict will produce.
In cases of inner conflict, it can be quite worthwhile to work with the

conflicting parts in an intentional, conscious way, bringing empathic love to
them. We have described subpersonality work in detail elsewhere (Firman
and Gila 1997; 2002). This type of work has been a strong component of psy-
chosynthesis therapy since the 1970s (Carter-Haar
1975; Vargiu 1974), and more recently has been
The recognition of the vari- addressed by other approaches as well (Polster 1995;
ous “selves”; this in the Rowan 1990; Schwartz 1995; Sliker 1992; Stone
sense given to them by and Winkelman 1985; Watkins and Watkins 1997).
William James. We may call So subpersonalities are quite the norm even in
them sub-personalities. psychologically healthy people, and while their
—ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI conflicts can be the source of pain and even psy-
chological symptoms, they themselves should not
be seen as pathological. They are simply discrete
patterns of feeling, thought, and behavior that often operate out of aware-
ness—in the middle unconscious—and that form the “colors” of the “palette”
from which we paint our life. They may also have roots in the higher and
lower unconscious, and in the archetypes of the collective unconscious (Fir-
man and Gila 2002; Meriam 1994).
Unconscious Structuralization of Self and World

Although the middle unconscious can receive patterns that are consciously
formed, it can also be structured without the intercession of consciousness at
all (this holds for subpersonality formation as well). Such unconscious learn-
ing is a function of what neuroscience calls “implicit memory” (Cozolino
2002; Lewis, Amini, and Lannon 2001; Siegel 1999; Stern 2004). This struc-
turalization of the middle unconscious allows us, for example, to learn all the
many complex rules of grammar without ever being conscious of these rules;
that is, when we hear proper grammar we simply know it “sounds right,”
remaining unaware of the complex learning that underpins that knowing. In
fact, this structuralization begins before we are born:
Bathed for nine months in his mother’s vocalizations, a baby’s brain begins
to decode and store them—not just the speaker’s tone, but her language pat-
terns. Once born, a baby orients to the familiar sounds of his mother’s voice
and her mother tongue, and favors them over any other. In doing so, he
demonstrates the nascent traces of both attachment and memory. (Lewis,
Amini, and Lannon 2001, 112)
This unconscious structuralization allows us to automatically and

quickly respond to the environment based on past experience, bypassing the
slower, more deliberate, or unavailable response moderated by conscious-
ness. We here form patterns based on our experience of ourselves in rela-
tionship to our world, unconsciously learning ways of being and acting from
interaction with different environments. This adaptive structuralization of
the middle unconscious can be seen in the concept of the “adaptive uncon-
scious” (Wilson 2002).
Unconscious structuralization is not then experienced as consciously
recalling something that has happened in the past. Instead, it is experienced
simply as “the way things are,” as “reality.” We have, through our connections
with the environment, built up an inner map of the world and of ourselves by
which we live our lives for better or worse (see the discussion of internal uni-
fying centers in chapter 2). So our experience of self and world is profoundly
conditioned by the structuralization of the middle unconscious. Siegel writes
of implicit memory, “We act, feel, and imagine without recognition of the
influence of past experience on our present reality” (Siegel 1999, 29).
This understanding of the middle unconscious becomes crucial for psy-
chosynthesis therapy because it is into this world of the client that empathic
love takes the therapist. Therapists seeking to attune to their client’s world
need to be prepared to enter an idiosyncratic, unpredictable world perhaps
starkly different from their own.
Furthermore, the therapist must realize that since this inner landscape was
gradually built up via early relationships with others, it is only the therapist’s
presence and resonance in the relationship that can allow transformation of
that landscape. For example, a therapist cannot simply talk the client out of a
negative self-image, but must be prepared to be with the client in an explo-
ration of a world experienced from this negative self-image. In the parlance of
neuroscience, “When a limbic connection has established a neural pattern, it
takes a limbic connection to revise it” (Lewis, Amini, and Lannon 2001, 177).
Conscious technique, assigned exercises, interpretations, insight, or the
surfacing of memories does not, then, facilitate healing and growth at this
level; rather, healing and growth can only come by empathically joining
clients in the unique world of their middle unconscious. This will be dis-
cussed more fully in the presentation of clinical theory next.
The Experiential Range
This inner structuring of self and world in relationship to significant others—

this formation of the middle unconscious—also forms the normal range of our
potentially conscious experience. That is, it demarcates those types of expe-
rience that are easily accessible to our normal awareness, that range of expe-
rience we recognize as a part of our lived reality. In neuroscience, this range
of experience is akin to what is termed the “window of tolerance,” that is, the
range that constitutes a person’s experiential comfort zone (Siegel 1999).
Life experiences that we have successfully integrated into the middle
unconscious allow us to be more ready and able to engage these same types of
experience when we encounter them again. If we have integrated various

experiences of, for example, joy and wonder, anger and fear, success and fail-
ure, or loss and grief, we will be able to feel and express these experiences as
life brings them to us. Gradually all of these integrations together begin to
form the range of experience to which we are normally available on a daily
basis—in other words, our experiential range is developing. Experiences along
this range are by definition not foreign and disturbing to us, nor threatening
or overwhelming to our sense of self, but are experiences—pleasant or
unpleasant—that we know how to engage as a part of life.
This structuralization of the middle unconscious is thus like develop-
ing experiential “eyes,” an organ of consciousness, through which we per-
ceive and act in the world. It is not that we are operating along this entire
range at all times, but that we are sensitive and responsive along this
entire spectrum as we meet life events; we are aware when we are loving
or grieving, happy or sad, joyous or scared, tense or relaxed, unitive or iso-
lated, and can by the same token be empathic with others who are hav-
ing these experiences.
Over time, then, we engage and integrate our life experiences such that
our experiential range develops. We find ourselves able to be conscious of,
and respond to, all the various aspects of human experience that present
themselves to us. On the other hand, as we shall now see, relating to non-
empathic environments leaves us with an experiential range that is con-
stricted and broken.
Primal Wounding
The middle unconscious allows learned patterns of perception and action
(consciously learned or not) to remain unconscious so that we may cre-
atively draw upon these patterns in the living of our lives. By remaining
unconscious yet available, the middle unconscious supports our ongoing
functioning.
However there are other layers of the unconscious that are not simply
and naturally unconscious, but are actively repressed. That is, these are sec-
tors of the unconscious that support ongoing functioning by remaining
unconscious and not accessible. But why should one find it necessary to cut
off and disown areas of natural human experience? This is done in response
to what can be called primal wounding (Firman and Gila 1997; 2002):
Primal wounding results from violations of the person’s sense of self, as seen
most vividly in physical mistreatment, sexual molestation, and emotional
battering. Wounding may also occur from intentional or unintentional
neglect by those in the environment, as in physical or emotional aban-
donment; or from an inability of significant others to respond empathically
to the person (or to aspects of the person); or from a general unrespon-
siveness in the surrounding social milieu. . . . All such wounding involves

a breaking of the empathic relationships by which we know ourselves as
human beings; it creates an experience in which we know ourselves not as
intrinsically valuable human persons, but instead as non-persons or objects.
In these moments we feel ourselves to be “It”s rather than “Thou”s, to use
Martin Buber’s (1958) terms. Primal wounding thus produces various expe-
riences associated with facing our own potential non-existence or nonbe-
ing: isolation and abandonment, disintegration and loss of identity, humil-
iation and low self-worth, toxic shame and guilt, feelings of being
overwhelmed and trapped, or anxiety and depression/despair. (Firman and
Gila 2002, 27)
In order to avoid this personal annihilation, we will disown those areas

of experience deemed unacceptable by the environment. By eliminating
these ranges of experience from ongoing functioning, we form a personality
that allows us to survive in the nonempathic environment.3 But what then is
the nature of these disowned aspects of ourselves, these dissociated neural
networks, these lost levels of our experiential range?
THE HIGHER AND LOWER UNCONSCIOUS
The first thing that must be disowned in order to survive within a nonem-
pathic environment is the fact that we are being wounded at all. Our wound-
ing will not receive an empathic ear in such an environment because for the
environment to accept our wounding it would need to acknowledge its role
in this wounding and begin its own process of self-examination, healing, and
growth. (Good-enough parenting, like good-enough friendship and good-
enough psychotherapy, seeks to acknowledge empathic failures past and pre-
sent so the wounding can be held.)
In order to survive in a nonempathic environment, we develop a per-
sonality that eliminates primal wounding from our awareness (what is
called survival personality in the next chapter). We enter a trance that in
effect breaks off our awareness of wounding and any experiences associated
with annihilation and nonbeing, forming what is called the lower uncon-
scious (see Figure 1.1).
The lower unconscious is then the disowned range of our experience that
would normally attune us to experiences most directly related to the pain of
primal wounding—experiences such as anxiety and disintegration; lack of
meaning in self or world; feeling lost, trapped, or buried; isolation, abandon-
ment, banishment; feeling overwhelmed, helpless, or hopeless; emptiness or
hollowness; despair, shame, and guilt (see chapter 2). Under the threat of per-
sonal annihilation, significant sectors of our ability to experience pain and
suffering are here split off from ongoing awareness.
Hiding the Gifts

But there is something else that cannot be held by the nonempathic envi-
ronment and thus must be disowned so as to survive in that environment:
those positive aspects of ourselves, those authentic gifts, that are unseen and
rejected by the nonempathic environment. These gifts are in effect under
attack within the environment, and their possession places us under constant
threat of annihilation.
As with the wounding experiences, these gifts
must be hidden in what psychosynthesis psy-
It is the source of the higher chotherapist Frank Haronian (1974) wrote about as
feelings, such as altruistic the “repression of the sublime.” So we do much the
love; of genius and of the same here. We break off that range of our experi-
states of contemplation, illu- ence related to whatever positive qualities of being
mination, and ecstasy. are threatened by the environment—qualities that
—ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI might include beauty, compassion, courage, creativ-
ity, wonder, humor, joy, bliss, light, love, patience,
truth, faith, and wisdom.4
Such qualities, termed transpersonal qualities in psychosynthesis, are char-
acteristic of the higher unconscious (Figure 1.1). These are the types of quali-
ties that are eliminated from our experiential range, rendering us safe in the
nonempathic environment, but also leaving us with an impoverished sense of
ourselves and the world.
Splitting and Repression

So in primal wounding, if there is not an alternative environment that can
hold the person in both gifts and wounding (in empathic love), these two
very opposed types of experience—experiences of the delight in being and
the terror of nonbeing—cannot be held as a whole, cannot be synthesized.
They are therefore in effect broken away from each other and banished from
the experiential world of the middle unconscious.
Another way to say this is that the gifts and wounds have been split and
then repressed, forming the higher and lower unconscious. One then lives
in a truncated middle unconscious world, overarched by the “paradise” of
the higher unconscious and underpinned by the “netherworld” of the lower
unconscious. Such splitting of “good” and “bad” has long been recognized
in psychoanalytic circles (Fairbairn 1986; Kernberg 1992; Klein 1975; Mas-
terson 1981).5
In splitting and repression of these levels of experience we disown the
heights and depths of ourselves deemed unacceptable by the nonempathic
environment. Note that the unacceptable ranges are not here simply unrec-
ognized by the environment, as, for example, when caregivers may not share
the heights or depths of experience available to the child; here these areas of
experience would remain available to the child and could be easily nurtured
by relationships with others. Rather, splitting and repression occur only when
a particular range of experience represents an emotional or mental threat to
the caregivers—a result of their own wounding. In this case, the child engag-
ing these levels of experience faces not mere puzzlement and curiosity from
caregivers, but active rage, shame, and emotional abandonment.
In the following chapter we shall further explore the nature of primal
wounding, but let us now return to Assagioli’s model of the person and
examine “I,” the mysterious “who” to whom all of these levels of the uncon-
scious belong.
“I” O R PERSONAL SELF
“I” or personal self (with a lowercase “s”), with the attendant field of con-
sciousness and will, is pictured at the very center of the oval-shaped diagram
(Figure 1.1). “I” could also be called “you.” When you are loved beyond the
content and process of your personality, you emerge; you are the one who
can experience all these different inner and outer realms, can make choices
about these experiences, and can blend them into meaningful expressions in
the world.6
But the nature of “I” is profoundly mysterious and by no means self-evi-
dent. As Assagioli points out, “the self, the I-consciousness, devoid of any
content . . . does not arise spontaneously but is the result of a definite inner
experimentation” (Assagioli 2000, 99). “I” needs to be pointed to, under-
stood, and loved; you need to be invited out from among the content and
process of your personality. And a psychology of love would have an under-
standing and a method for seeking, knowing, and loving you in this way. Here
is Assagioli offering one way:
The procedure for achieving self-identity, in the sense of the pure self-con-
sciousness at the personal level, is an indirect one. The self is there all the
time; what is lacking is a direct awareness of its presence. Therefore, the
technique consists in eliminating all the partial self-identifications. The
procedure can be summarized in one word which was much used formerly in
psychology but which recently has been more or less neglected, i.e., intro-
spection. It means, as its terminology clearly indicates, directing the mind’s
eye, or the observing function, upon the world of psychological facts, of psy-
chological events, of which we can be aware. (Assagioli 2000, 101)
He further suggests that such a sustained introspection (an aspect of med-

itation or contemplation in spiritual traditions) focus on three levels of expe-
rience: physical sensations, feelings, and thoughts. He writes of this method,
“This objective observation produces naturally, spontaneously and inevitably
a sense of dis-identification from any and all of those psychological contents
and activities. By contrast, the stability, the permanency of the observer is

realized” (103). The reader is invited to perform this inner experimentation as
we go.7
A Disidentification Exercise
Assagioli first invites you to observe the ever-changing flow of your physical
sensations: the fluctuations of temperature within your body, the passing
experiences of constriction or relaxation, changes in breathing, the parade of
tastes and smells. To each and all of these changing sensations you can be pre-
sent, ergo, you are distinct but not separate from your sensations. Otherwise
you would be unable to be fully present to each new sensation as it arises.
This phenomenon can be called transcendence-immanence (Firman 1991; Fir-
man and Gila 1997; 2002). Something about who you are is distinct from—
transcendent of—sensations, yet you are engaged with—immanent within—
sensations. You are transcendent-immanent with respect to sensations.
Assagioli next suggests becoming aware of “the kaleidoscopic realm of
emotions and feelings” (102). Here you will notice the constant flow of differ-
ent emotions: sadness, joy, grief, calm, arousal, happiness, despair, hope. But
here again, since you can engage each and every one of these, remaining pre-
sent to each successive feeling, you must be somehow transcendent-imma-
nent with respect to feelings too. Or in Assagioli’s words, “After a certain
period of practice we come to the realization that the emotions and feelings
also are not a necessary part of the self, of our self, because they too are
changeable, mutable, fleeting and sometimes show ambivalence” (102).
Lastly, Assagioli invites you to become conscious of your thoughts in the
same way: “mental activity is too varied, fleeting, changeable; sometimes it
shows no continuity and can be compared with a restless ape, jumping from
branch to branch. But the very fact that the self can observe, take notice and
exercise its powers of observation on the mental activity proves the difference
between the self and the mind” (102). In our terms, “I” is distinct-but-not-
separate from, transcendent-immanent with respect to, the thinking process
as well.
In this type of inner exploration, you can begin to plumb the mysterious
nature of “I,” of you. Again, this nature is not self-evident and is realized only
as you are held in empathic love. You must be seen, known, and loved as dis-
tinct-but-not-separate from your experience, and so free to be open to what-
ever arises in you—an invitation to authenticity directly opposed to the trun-
cated experiential range conditioned by the need to survive in a
nonempathic environment.
In other words, you can discover you are “in but not of the world” of
soma and psyche, of body and mind, distinct from both yet engaged in both.
You can begin to realize that you are transcendent-immanent of any and all
experiences you may encounter, that you can remain present and volitional
within all experiences that life can bring you.
So it seems accurate to refer to human being as transcendent-immanent
spirit. This use of the word “spirit” is helpful if it is understood that this does
not refer to another “thing” among “things,” nor a substance or object within
us, nor a tiny homunculus living within the psyche-soma, but rather refers to
our ability to remain distinct-but-not-separate or transcendent-immanent of
any and all experiences of psyche and soma.
“You” Are Not an Experience
Furthermore, disidentification from contents and forms of experience can extend

to deeper and more pervasive structures of the personality as well. These might
include such things as subpersonalities, complexes, habitual feeling states, and
even lifelong images and beliefs about who you are—
all things that tend to become confused with “I,”
things with which “I” can become identified. The inner experience of
(Disidentification at these more ingrained levels may pure self-awareness, inde-
involve psychological work in order to uncover and pendent of any content or
address the wounds underlying the identifications.) function of the ego . . .
Pursued at depth, this disidentification means —ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI
“I” is transcendent of any experience that “I exist” at
all! Disidentifying from any notion of “I,” “me,” or
“self,” we will discover that even the “who” we secretly thought we were behind
all the identifications is not even us. Assagioli writes, “the last and perhaps most
obstinate identification is with that which we consider to be our inner person,
that which persists more or less during all the various roles we play” (107).
So note that “I” is not another experience among others. “I” is the expe-
riencer, never the experience. Even though a particular moment of disiden-
tification may produce an experience of “I don’t exist” and “noself,” of free-
dom and spaciousness, of peace and stillness, of clear light and pure
consciousness, of witnessing and observing, these remain experiences that
“I” may or may not have.8
In fact, it is quite common that disidentification leads not to serene
observation but to chaotic and confusing experiences. This can be seen, for
example, in what we call a crisis of transformation (chapter 7) when one
disidentifies from a long-standing identity and is unsettled by the sensations,
feelings, and thoughts that had been repressed by the identification.
But throughout all changing experience, you are you—“I”—whether iden-
tified or disidentified, peaceful or chaotic, centered or off center. Looked at more
closely, it can be seen that you not only have the ability to remain present to,
and conscious of, ongoing experience, but can be active in affecting these
ongoing experiences as well. That is, “I” has not only consciousness but also will.
Consciousness and Will
One of the two functions of “I” according to Assagioli is consciousness. This

notion is based on the observation that in disidentification from limiting struc-
tures of experience, your consciousness becomes free to engage a much wider
experiential range. That is, when you are identified with a single part of your-
self, your consciousness is controlled by that identification, almost as if you look
out at the world through that single “lens.” If you are identified with the par-
ent part of yourself, for example, you will experience the world as a parent and
be out of touch with perhaps the hurt or playful child in you, the fun-loving
adolescent within, or the spontaneous artistic side of yourself. Here you may
relate to your adult children (and other people) as if they were children or
teenagers, and be unable to bring other parts of yourself into the relationship.
In disidentification from such a role, however, your consciousness is free
to engage these other parts of yourself; you become open to the full richness
of your inner community, and can experience the world unshackled by the
blinders of a single identification. Here it is clear that consciousness partakes
of transcendence-immanence: it can be free to engage any and all experi-
ences, any and all parts of ourselves. So as “I” disidentifies, the consciousness
of “I” becomes free, and you find that an essential fact about who you are
seems to be: “I have awareness (or consciousness).”
Another thing that occurs in disidentification is that you become
increasingly free to make a variety of different choices—this points to the
second function of “I,” will. Trapped in a particular identification, you can
only make choices from within the perspective of that single part of you. If
you are trapped in a constricted people-pleasing role, for example, you will
only make choices that are pleasing to others, and will perhaps have difficulty
making choices to be candid, spontaneous, or self-assertive. In disidentifica-
tion, however, you find you can make choices from beyond any single identi-
fication, that you can make choices from the full range of who you are, draw-
ing on the complete “palette” of your rich human potential.
As with consciousness, you find that your will, your ability to affect the
contents and structures of consciousness, is freed in stepping out of any lim-
ited identification with a single part of yourself. As Assagioli wrote, “Then
the observer becomes aware that he can not only passively observe but also
influence in various degrees the spontaneous flow, the succession of the var-
ious psychological states” (103).
Will too is then transcendent-immanent, potentially able to affect all
the various passing contents of experience without being dominated by any.
So a second important fact about who you are seems to be: “I have will.”
Therefore “I” in the oval diagram is seen as surrounded by the field of con-
sciousness and will, representing these two most intimate functions of our
essential selves.
But be careful here too not to equate the functions of consciousness and
will with the experiences of being conscious and willing. These functions of “I”
may be completely obscured if you are identified with, for example, a strong
part of you that fills your consciousness and dominates your will. Again, you
are still “you” in this state of identification; you still have the functions of
consciousness and will, even though your consciousness and will are presently
submerged within, in a sense possessed by, the identification.
Empathic Love
As you proceed over time with this type of inner observation, you can find
that since you are not any particular experience, you can embrace any and
all experiences as they arise. These experiences can include moments of
ecstasy, creative inspiration, and spiritual insight (higher unconscious); feel-
ings of anxiety, despair, and rage (lower unconscious); as well as ongoing
engagement with various patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that you
have formed over the course of living (middle unconscious). By virtue of your
transcendence-immanence, it would seem there is no experience you cannot
embrace. In the words of one early psychosynthesis writer: “There are no ele-
ments of the personality which are of a quality incompatible with the ‘I.’ For
the ‘I’ is not of the personality, rather it transcends the personality” (Carter-
Haar 1975, 81).
You discover, in other words, that you are fundamentally empathic
and loving toward all aspects of your personality. You can love, accept, and
include a vast range of experience, take responsibility for the healing and
growth of this range, and even over time form these experiences into a
rich, cohesive expression in the world. You have the ability to have “self-
less love” or “agape” toward all of your personality aspects—not taking
sides with any, understanding and respecting all, embracing all. The
tremendous healing and growth of one’s personality from this emergence
of empathic love—from the emergence of “I”—are common occurrences
in psychosynthesis practice; indeed, this is at the heart of psychosynthesis
therapy in general. As Assagioli affirms, “I am a living, loving, willing self”
(Assagioli 1973b, 176).
Note that “I” does not imply the experience of oneself as some sort of
rugged, separate individual as is often the ideal implicit in much of Western
culture. The emergence of “I” (see chapter 9) can manifest in as many differ-
ent ways as there are cultures. You may experience yourself as a free and inde-
pendent agent in relationship to the wider society or, quite the contrary, as
not an “individual” at all but rather an expression of your ancestry, family,
and community. However it is that you do experience yourself, you have the
ability to understand and act from within the subjectivity of your own body,
feelings, and mind.
Finally, in order to complete our discussion of psychosynthesis personal-

ity theory, let us consider the source of this loving, empathic, transcendent-
immanent, willing, and conscious spirit—to wit, loving, empathic, transcen-
dent-immanent, willing, and conscious Spirit, or Self.
SELF
For Assagioli’s contemporaries Freud and Jung the ego was a composite or
complex of various psychological elements that formed over the course of
development. Whereas a Freudian or Jungian might, for example, consider
ego arising from a gradual differentiation of the “id” or a de-integrate of the
“self,” respectively, Assagioli held that “I” was a direct “reflection” or “pro-
jection” of deeper, transpersonal, or higher Self.9
Thus, in pondering the nature of Self, we can begin with an examina-
tion of Self’s reflection or image: we can return to our insight into the
nature of human spirit, of “I.” Since “I” is not “ego,” not an organization of
content within the personality, we cannot logically posit a source that is
composed of content, even a totality of all content. If “I” is loving,
empathic, transcendent-immanent spirit, it would rather seem that the
source of “I” must be a greater or deeper loving, empathic, transcendent-
immanent Spirit (capital “S”).
Thus we may assume logically that Self is simply a more profound
empathic transcendence-immanence than “I.” Just as “I” is distinct-but-not-
separate from the flow of immediate experience, so Self can be thought of as
distinct-but-not-separate from any and all content and layers of the person-
ality, both conscious and unconscious. Self is transcendent and so may be
immanent anywhere, any time, within the entire personality and beyond.
Practically what this means is that we are held in being no matter what
type of experiences we might have. Our life-giving connection with Self is
not intrinsically about any particular experience or state of consciousness but
holds us in being so that we may engage experiences throughout our entire
experiential range.
A loving empathic transcendent-immanent Self can therefore be
thought of as present and potentially active whether one is experiencing a
traumatic memory from the lower unconscious, a peak experience in the
higher unconscious, working with middle unconscious patterns, engaging
existential issues of mortality and meaning, or expressing oneself in the
world. As the direct and immediate source of “I,” Self is always potentially
available to us for dialogue, support, and guidance no matter what our
experience, no matter what our stage of development, no matter what our
life situation.
This profound transcendence-immanence of Self is a reason we have not
followed Assagioli in representing Self at the apex of the higher unconscious.
We believe that his earlier rendering of Self on the oval diagram can lead to
the mistaken assumption that Self somehow belongs to “higher realms” and
is not as directly present to the “lower realms.”10
The notion of Self as more deeply or more broadly transcendent-imma-
nent also allows us to recognize the vast array of forms through which Self
can express—from individuals and groups, to spiritual practices and religious
forms, to the natural world, to inner psychological structures. How might one
describe the empathic, loving, holding power that is manifest through all
such contexts, both inner and outer, animate and inanimate, to empower
empathic, loving, transcendent-immanent “I”? It would have to be some
empathic presence that can express in all of these contexts yet be identified
with none, a transcendent-immanent Source operating through different
forms both inner and outer. The notion of loving, empathic, spiritual, tran-
scendent-immanent Self seems quite useful in this regard.
Just as in the discussion of human spirit or “I,” however, we should be
clear that by “Self” or “Spirit” we are not positing a particular “thing” among
“things.” Self is not an object of consciousness, but the source of conscious-
ness. Self is not “a being,” but the Ground of Being. Thus we shall never dis-
cover an objective Self within different forms any more than we shall find an
objective “I” among contents of the personality. Inasmuch as “I” can be
termed “noself,” so Self can be termed “NoSelf.” Each are no-thing.11
Finally, note that “I” and Self are from a certain point of view one:
“There are not really two selves, two independent and separate entities. The
Self is one” (Assagioli 2000, 17). Assagioli considered this nondual unity a
fundamental aspect of this level of human being, although he also understood
that there could and should be a meaningful relationship between the person
and Self as well. Here is Albert Einstein in a similar vein:
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us “universe,” a part limited
in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as
something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of conscious-
ness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal
desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to
free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to
embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. (quoted
in Levine 1982, 183)
Self-Realization
Many psychological thinkers besides Assagioli have recognized within the
human being a sense of wisdom and direction that operates beyond, and often
in spite of, the conscious personality. This has been called “the inner voice”
and “Self” (Jung 1954), the “will to meaning” (Frankl 1962; 1967), the “des-
tiny drive” (Bollas 1989), the “soul’s code” (Hillman 1996), “the actualizing
tendency” (Rogers 1980), and the “nuclear program” (Kohut 1984). In psy-
chosynthesis, the source of this transpersonal impetus is considered to be Self.
Self-realization then has to do with our relationship to this deeper,
transpersonal wisdom and direction within us, a relationship that can be
characterized as that between the personal will of “I” and the transpersonal will
of Self. Self-realization is the story of our contact and response to Self, our
forgetting and remembering Self, our union and relatedness to Self, our
movement in and out of alignment with the deep-
est currents of our being. Self-realization is the
Sometimes a veritable dia- ongoing, lived, loving relationship between our-
logue occurs between the selves and our most cherished values, meanings,
personal “I” and the Self. and purposes in life.
And if Self is transcendent-immanent through-
—ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI
out all levels of the personality and beyond, then
such an ongoing love relationship may well take us
into any and all levels of human experience. Relat-
ing to deeper Self may, for example, lead us to an engagement with our addic-
tions and compulsions; or to the heights of creative and religious experience;
or to the mysteries of noself and unitive experience; or to issues of meaning
and mortality; or to a grappling with early childhood wounding. But through-
out, whether in union or dialogue, the relationship is the thing. Self-realiza-
tion is not here an arrival point, a particular state of consciousness, not some-
thing we must search far to attain. It is right here. Now.
So the dynamics of Self-realization have to do with how we perceive—
or ignore—the deeper truth of our lives, and how we respond—or not—to
this in the practical decisions of everyday life. It is fair to say that all theory
and practice in psychosynthesis ultimately has to do with uncovering, clari-
fying, and responding to our own deeper sense of who we are and what our
lives are about.
Personal and Transpersonal Psychosynthesis
Understanding Self-realization as a relationship with Self allows Self-realiza-

tion to be distinguished from psychological or spiritual growth. While such
growth can and does occur as we walk our path of Self-realization, it is a by-
product of this journey and not the goal. Accordingly, Self-realization can be
differentiated from two important lines of human development discussed by
Assagioli: personal psychosynthesis and spiritual or transpersonal psychosynthesis.
Assagioli writes that personal psychosynthesis “includes the develop-
ment and harmonizing of all human functions and potentialities at all levels
of the lower and middle area in the diagram of the constitution of man”
(Assagioli 1973b, 121). He is here referring to the oval diagram and to work-
ing with the lower and middle unconscious, a process leading toward a
clearer sense of autonomy, personality integration, and personal power. The

path of Self-realization may well lead us into this type of work because Self
is transcendent-immanent throughout these levels and may invite us to
engage them.
Distinct from personal psychosynthesis is the task of transpersonal psy-
chosynthesis: “arriving at a harmonious adjustment by means of the proper
assimilation of the inflowing superconscious energies and of their integra-
tion with the pre-existing aspects of the personality” (Assagioli 2000, 49).
So transpersonal psychosynthesis is a process of integrating the contents
and energies of the higher unconscious, of learning to contact and express
transpersonal qualities, spiritual insights, and unitive states of conscious-
ness. Here too, our ongoing relationship with Self may lead us to this type
of integration because Self is transcendent-immanent throughout this level
as well.12
As fundamental as personal and transpersonal psychosynthesis are, each
has a limitation—each can leave out the other dimension. For example, an
exclusive involvement with personal psychosynthesis may lead eventually to
the existential crisis (Firman and Vargiu 1996) in which there is a loss of mean-
ing and purpose in one’s personal life. Likewise, an exclusive involvement
with transpersonal psychosynthesis may lead to a crisis of duality (Firman and
Gila 1997; 2002) in which there is the realization that higher unconscious
experience does not automatically lead to a stable, embodied expression of
this higher potential. Each crisis of transformation indicates an imbalance
that is often righted as the missing dimension is included.
The journey of Self-realization will usually involve both personal and
transpersonal growth at some point, and, more often perhaps, include them
both in an ongoing way. But again, Self-realization is distinct from both
types of growth. That is, if we, for example, ask a question such as, “To which
type of growth am I called at this moment in my life?” we are thrown back
on our sense of what is right for ourselves—to our relationship to Self, a rela-
tionship that is more fundamental than either of these two dimensions of
growth. To answer such a question we can consult theories and therapists,
teachers and sages, but even then it is up to us, based on our own sense of
“rightness,” to follow our path as it wends its way through different dimen-
sions of growth.
Expansion of the Middle Unconscious
Over time, it is common to find interplay between personal and transpersonal

psychosynthesis such that both the higher and lower unconscious begin to be
integrated. In this process we may find ourselves enjoying experiences of cre-
ativity, spiritual insight, and joy in our artistic or spiritual practice; then find
ourselves joining a self-help program for a compulsion and thereby increasing
our personal freedom; and perhaps entering therapy to uncover and heal
aspects of experience related to childhood wounding.
All such exploration opens to, and integrates, the higher and lower uncon-
scious into the middle unconscious. These heights and depths of ourselves are
no longer sealed off from us, but begin to find their rightful place as structures
supportive of our ongoing functioning, i.e., in the middle unconscious.
An expansion of the middle unconscious is also then an expansion of our
experiential range. We hereby become more open to being touched by the
beauty and joys of life, more open to the pain and
suffering of ourselves and others, more able to live a
Man’s spiritual development life that embraces the heights and depths of human
is a long and arduous jour- existence. In other words, our window of tolerance
ney, an adventure through is widening.
strange lands full of sur- But even then, while this expansion of the
prises, difficulties and even middle unconscious is often a product of following
dangers. our path of Self-realization, the two processes yet
—ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI remain distinct. Again, Self-realization is about our
relationship with Self, a transcendent-immanent
relationship that abides whether we are identified
or disidentified, entranced or disentranced, on the heights or in the depths,
functioning from an expanded middle unconscious or not. Self-realization
refers to our loving journey with Self, not to any particular terrain the jour-
ney may take us through.
Chapter Two
A Psychosynthesis Developmental Theory
The concept, or rather the fact, that each individual is in constant

development, is growing, actualizing successively many latent
potentialities.
A lthough Assagioli never defined stages of human development, he

did offer an understanding of how developmental stages function
over the course of a life span. He held that human development consisted of
a psychosynthesis of the ages (Assagioli 1973c; 2000) by which no stage or “age”
of life is left behind but rather is included within the developing personality.
As Assagioli said to John Firman in 1973, “You see, the child remains, the
adolescent remains, and so on. Outgrowing does not mean eliminating.” This
view of human development is diagrammed in Figure 2.1 (see also Firman
and Gila 1997; 2002).
The concentric-ring model of human development seen in Figure 2.1
illustrates, as an example, that the stages of infancy, childhood, adolescence,
and adulthood are all included in the mature personality (the stages selected
here are arbitrary). The principle is that stages are not left behind but are all
present and operative in the whole, mature personality.1
In this model, the adult “ring” does not subsume or integrate the earlier
stages. Rather, the growing personality can be envisioned as expanding
through the various ages of the life span with the person embracing—
empathically loving—the human potential that unfolds at each successive
stage or “ring.” In this way, human beings include and express the full range
of their potential and so may discover and respond to their own unique path
in life. Such a personality we have called authentic personality.
31
FIGURE 2.1
Authentic Personality
Authentic personality is an expression of authentic, essential identity via the
inherited gifts and accumulated skills gathered over the course of life. Further-
more, authentic personality implies contact with, and a following of, one’s own
sense of meaning or direction in life—Self-realiza-
tion. So here there is not only possession of one’s rich
An older person can con- human potential, but also a motivation to express
sciously re-evoke, resusci- this meaningfully in the world. In attachment theory
tate and cultivate in himself terms, a “securely attached” individual “feels bold in
the positive characteristics of his explorations of the world” (Bowlby 1988, 124).
all his preceding ages. The unfolding of the successive layers of person-
—ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI ality will of course have their own inherent content
and timing. For example, abilities to perform physi-
cally, or to learn language, or to think and perceive
in certain ways will be conditioned by innate genetic timetables. This is part of
the person’s endowment, the “nature” side of the developmental process. Here
is the unfolding journey of synthesis, wholeness, and actualization mentioned
in the introduction.
A P s y c h o s y n t h e s i s D e v e l o p m e n t a l Th e o r y 33
However, in addition to “nature” is “nurture”—those things needed from

our environment that allow us to include, develop, and express the layers of
potential as they unfold. And among the most crucial of these are being seen,
understood, met, and loved as we truly are.
Again, as mentioned in the introduction, the psychoanalyst D. W. Win-
nicott (1987; 1988), among others, called this type of empathic relating “mir-
roring” and pointed out that this allows the development of the person’s “true
self.” Similarly, the analyst and founder of self psychology, Heinz Kohut
(1971; 1977; 1984), recognized this role of empathy (or “vicarious introspec-
tion”), maintaining that empathy fostered the unfoldment of the unique
direction of the “nuclear self.” Finally, the humanistic psychologist Carl
Rogers echoed these two psychoanalysts: “A finely tuned understanding by
another individual gives the recipient a sense of personhood, of identity”
(Rogers 1980, 154–155). In short, being seen, understood, and loved for “who
you are” allows “who you are” to blossom and include all the unfolding layers
of the personality, all the ages of life, as they emerge.
Authentic Unifying Centers
This being seen for who you are, this empathic love, is the needed environ-
mental nurture that allows the blossoming of authentic personality. Whereas
the providers of this empathy (or their function within the person) were
called “selfobjects” by Kohut (1971) and “holding environments” by Winni-
cott (1987), in psychosynthesis they can be called authentic unifying centers
(Firman and Gila 1997; 2002).
An authentic unifying center sees and loves you for who you are and
thereby can become a focus, a center that allows you to bring diverse inher-
ited abilities and acquired learnings into a unified sense of identity and self-
expression. This empathic love, this mirroring, might be added to the devel-
opmental-ring model as in Figure 2.2.
This diagram illustrates the person being empathically loved by an
authentic unifying center(s) at each stage of unfoldment, and so having the
ability to include each successive stage. By seeing and loving the person
through these unfolding experiences, the empathic unifying center facilitates
an inclusion of each and all unfolding layers of personality and thereby allows
the experience of being whole, volitional, and continuous through time.
This experience describes what Winnicott (1987) termed a “continuity of
being,” what Kohut (1971) called an experience of “cohesiveness in space and
continuity in time,” and what Rogers (1980) called “personhood” or “iden-
tity.”2 Psychosynthesis would put it this way: within a stable, loving, empathic
field, “I” can embrace all the various aspects of the unfolding personality and
express these in line with deeper values—in other words, authentic personal-
ity is expressed.
FIGURE 2.2
Another thing to understand about authentic unifying centers is that they

can be anything—anything or anyone whose presence allows one to feel seen,
held, understood, and loved. In our work with people, we have seen a tremen-
dously wide range of people, places, and things functioning as authentic uni-
fying centers, from parents and neighbors, to pets and teddy bears, to peer
groups and ethnicity, to arts and sports, to imaginary friends and spiritual pres-
ences, to mountains, orchards, beaches, and the animal kingdom as a whole.
In a broader view, authentic unifying centers can and should be also the
larger sociopolitical systems that hold us, absent of any oppression and prej-
udice; these systems, if operating as authentic unifying centers, would support
the human communities within them such that empathic love would flow
freely. In short, relationships that nurture authentic personality are function-
ing as authentic unifying centers.3
Held in Transcendent-Immanent Being
Loved empathically by unifying centers, we are held in being; we experience

a “continuity of being,” a “cohesion of self,” or sense of “I-amness” that allows
us to be open to our full experiential range—not only to life’s wonder and joy,
A P s y c h o s y n t h e s i s D e v e l o p m e n t a l Th e o r y 35
but also to life’s challenges and suffering. We can, for example, be open to the
love felt for others, but also to the agonizing grief at their loss; or experience
the excitement and competence at mastering a developmental skill, but also
engage the many painful failures this may entail; or be intoxicated by the
wondrous flow of creative expression, but also experience the inevitable arid-
ity and tumult of the creative process; or explore
the heights of spiritual insight and also endure dark
nights of the soul. Through all these heights and The possibilities and char-
depths you can be present and responsive—if you acteristics of the preceding
are loved empathically and so held in being. ages are latent in everyone;
So again, this loving empathic connection they can be evoked, and
with another is not in essence blissful or joyful, but made actual and functional.
provides something else: a place to stand in order to —ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI
fully engage all that life brings. One is here seen as
human spirit, as “I” distinct from any particular
experience, not identified with any particular mode of being, and therefore as
one who can fully engage all experiences, who is present in all modes of
being. As Rogers put it, “When persons are perceptively understood, they
find themselves coming in closer touch with a wider range of their experi-
encing” (Rogers 1980, 156).4
This paradoxical “distinct-but-not-separate” characteristic of “I” is what
was called transcendence-immanence in chapter 1, a term that links two tradi-
tional terms referring to spirit. That is, “I” is transcendent in that “I” is not
to be identified with any particular experience or stage of development, while
at the same time “I” is ever engaged or immanent within a particular experi-
ence and stage of development.
Note that if “I” were not transcendent-immanent, then the following expe-
riences would be impossible: reflective introspection, mindfulness meditation
practices, psychoanalytic free association, and cognitive-behavioral monitoring
of thought processes. All of these well-recognized human experiences are
founded in the fact that there is some sense of personal identity that is distinct
from the contents of ongoing experience and so can observe and affect these.
Thus this transcendence-immanence of “I,” this spiritual nature, allows
a profound loving self-empathy, a “loving of oneself.” Transcendent-imma-
nent “I” has the ability to be present to, and be engaged with, any and all
experience that may arise in life. Over the lifespan this transcendence-imma-
nence allows one to include each developmental layer as it unfolds, while
moment-to-moment it allows an openness to whatever may arise in one’s
experience—all without the threat of the dissolution or annihilation of who
one is essentially. There is no threat to personal existence inherent in any
type of experience, from the amazing heights of spiritual, creative, or sexual
ecstasies to the overwhelming depths of shame, rage, and grief. Some hold
that even physical death does not pose such a threat.5
And the authentic unifying center operates with this same transcen-
dence-immanence: such a unifying center functions as distinct from any
agenda, identification, or role—that is, it is transcendent—and at the same
time it is fully present to any and all experience—that is, it is immanent. It
is this transcendent-immanent spirit of the authentic unifying center that
empowers the transcendence-immanence of “I.” This empathic connection
with an authentic unifying center is a transcendent-immanent, spiritual com-
munion; in other words, it is the expression of altruistic love or agape we are
calling spiritual empathy.
Internal Authentic Unifying Centers

Up to now the discussion has been limited to external authentic unifying
centers, those external empathically loving environments that facilitate
human unfoldment. However, there are also internal authentic unifying cen-
ters, empathic presences experienced within the person rather than—or as
well as—outside the person.
The functioning of such internal unifying centers is a key factor in devel-
oping personal autonomy. While the need for unifying centers is never out-
grown (Kohut said that one can no more outgrow the need for selfobjects
than the need for oxygen!), internal unifying centers are formed that provide
this same empathic presence within the person. This formation of internal
unifying centers might be diagrammed as in Figure 2.3.
Internal unifying centers may be experienced as actual inner presences,
as when one inwardly “hears” the encouragement and advice of a friend, par-
ent, or mentor. Relating to such an inner presence, or what psychiatrist
Daniel Stern (2000, 114) called an “evoked companion,” is a continuing
source of nurture for authentic personality. But these internal centers can also
be more implicit beliefs, values, representations of self and other, and world-
views developed in relationship to the external centers over one’s lifetime. As
FIGURE 2.3
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their Russian officers, on condition that the latter are
completely under the orders of the Minister of War. This
arrangement was ratified at a meeting between the commanders
and Colonel Liakhoff. Teheran is quiet, and the Persian
Cossacks are already fraternizing with the Fedai. The Sipahdar
has been appointed Minister of War, and the Sirdar Assad
Minister of the Interior." Being asked if he would represent
to the Russian Government the undesirability of advancing
Russian troops to Teheran, Sir Edward added: "In view of the
declarations already made by the Russian Government as to the
circumstances under which alone Russian troops would be sent
to Teheran and in view of the fact that no troops have been
sent to Teheran during the recent troubles, in spite of the
fact that at one time some apprehension, which happily proved
to be unfounded, was expressed for the safety of Russian
subjects, such representations would be most uncalled for."
On the 17th the Provisional Government gave notice to the

Anglo-Russian legations of the selection of the new Shah, and
asked that he should be delivered to their keeping; whereupon,
wrote the Times correspondent, "M. Sablin announced the
request to the Shah, who replied that he thought his mother
would not consent. The Shah then took M. Sablin to his mother
and an affecting scene ensued. Both the mother and father
broke down at the thought of parting with their favourite son
and offered their second son in his place. M. Sablin replied
that the selection had been made by the people and that he had
no voice in the matter. The boy wept bitterly in sympathy with
his parents and declined to leave his mother. Finally their
Majesties were persuaded to agree. On receiving the Shah’s
assent, the necessary proclamation was immediately promulgated
and it was arranged that the Regent and a Nationalist
deputation would receive the little Shah.
"An interested crowd witnessed his departure this morning from

the custody of his natural guardians. During the morning
Sultan Ahmed wept bitterly at the prospect of becoming a King,
and it required a stern message to the effect that crying was
not allowed in the Russian Legation before he dried his eyes.
Then the little man came out bravely, entered a large
carriage, and drove off alone, escorted by Cossacks, Sowars,
and Persian Cossacks and followed by a long string of
carriages. At Sultanatabad he was met by the Regent and the
deputation and ceremoniously notified of his high position and
of the hope entertained by the nation that he would prove to
be a good ruler.
‘Inshallah, I will,’ replied the lad. Arrangements for the

Coronation will be made hereafter. In the meanwhile the little
Shah, who is guarded by a Bakhtiari, remains with his tutors
at Sultanatabad, where his mother is free to visit him."
At Teheran, affairs settled quickly into quiet, but disorders

were prolonged in various parts of the provinces, being
especially serious at Shiraz. The deposed Shah remained for
weeks at the Russian Legation, while negotiations with him for
a pension or allowance in return for his surrender of jewels
and money to the State went on, and the unhappy child who
occupied his palace had more sorrow than he.
Early in August Colonel Liakhoff returned to Russia and was

appointed to a regimental command. On the 1st of September a
general amnesty, with a few exceptions, was proclaimed by the
new government at Teheran. On the 9th of September the deposed
Shah left the shelter of the Russian Legation and journeyed,
with his queen, four younger children and several friends,
under Russian escort, to a residence in Russia, at Odessa,
which was his choice. Persia was still waiting for the able
and much trusted constitutionalist statesman, Nasr-ul-Mulk, to
return from his exile at Paris and accept the offered
premiership in the government; but on the 21st of September
the report went out that he had definitely declined the post.
He returned to Persia, however, in October. On the 11th of
October the Russian Government made known that it had decided
to withdraw the greater part of the troops it had been keeping
at Tabriz. A new Mejliss, for which the Regent had ordered
elections, was assembled on the 15th of November. On the 7th
of December the Mejliss unanimously approved the proposals of
the Government with regard to borrowing abroad and the
employment of Europeans in executive capacities for the
reorganization of the Finance Department. This, no doubt, will
improve the situation very greatly.
PERSIA: A. D. 1909 (January).

Destructive Earthquake in Luristan.
See (in this Volume)

EARTHQUAKES: PERSIA.
----------PERSIA: End--------
----------PERU: Start--------
PERU: A. D. 1899-1908.
Outline of History.
The leading events of Peruvian history are recorded in Volume

VI. of this work down to the election of President Eduardo de
Romaña, in 1899. "Romaña was a member of a prominent family of
Arequipa, and had been educated in England, at Stonyhurst. He
further had studied for, and taken a degree as, an engineer at
King’s College, London; and whilst he had not acquired much
experience in politics, he nevertheless successfully filled
the Presidential Chair throughout his term. He was alive to
the necessity for the development of the resources of the
country, and, fortunately, his administration was not
embarrassed by disturbances other than some small political
intrigues such as inevitably take place in a country which, as
Peru, was evolving a régime of civil government.
{491}
During this term there was some influx of North American
capitalists, who acquired important interests, in the copper
mines of Cerro de Pasco, and who commenced the construction of
a railway line thereto. … The presidency of Señor Romaña
uneventfully expired at its natural time; elections were held,
and Señor Manuel Candamo, who had already provisionally been
head of the State, was chosen as president in May, 1903.
Candamo had been successful in quieting political animosities
after the revolt against Caceres and in consolidating the
political situation. Peru now showed real evidences of
advancement. The old turbulent element was passing away; those
leaders who had placed purely personal ambition before the
true interests of their country had given place to the natural
talent and ability of the best citizens, whom the times were
calling to the front. Candamo’s rule promised well for the
country. He was surrounded by able men, among whom, as chief
cabinet minister, was Dr. Domingo Almenard, an upright lawyer.
The fiscal revenue was increased by taxes, against which there
were murmurings, but which the country was able to bear, and
the tax on tobacco was set apart for the construction of new
railways. Unfortunately, this able administrator, Señor
Candamo, continued but a short time in office, for he was
overtaken by illness, and died at Arequipa in May, 1904. This
event left the country under the temporary leadership of the
second vice-president, Señor Calderon, for the first
vice-president had died also. An election was at once called
according to law, the two candidates which were put forward
being Dr. Jose Pardo, son of the former president of the same
name, and Señor Nicolas Piérola, who had already been at the
head of the Government on two occasions. Rivalry between the
partisans of these two candidates became acute, and although
it was feared for a moment that some disturbance might occur,
good sense prevailed, and the elections proceeded without
interruption. Both contestants were good men—Piérola
representing the party known as the Democratas, whilst
Pardo headed the Civilistas. There were not very
radical differences of principle underlying these distinctions
of name; both were for civil government and for national
progress. Piérola had done good work during his former term,
whilst Pardo had the prestige of the good name and
administration of his father, the former president of
1872-1876, and was also held in esteem personally among the
best element of the country. The result of the election—held,
probably, more fairly than ever in Peru before—fell to Dr.
Pardo, who took the presidential scarf and office in
September, 1904, and who still guides the affairs of his
country in a manner which has won the esteem of the nation, in
a general sense.
Dr. Pardo’s Cabinet was formed of some of the most capable men
in the country, prominent among whom was the minister of
Finance, Señor Leguia, to whose work is largely due the
improved financial situation. At the present time—1908—the
best elements of Peru are in the ascendant."
G. Reginald Enock,
Peru: Its Former, and Present Civilization,
History and Existing Conditions,
chapter 9 (Scribner’s Sons, New York).
PERU: A. D. 1901.
Broad Treaty of Arbitration with Bolivia.

ARBITRATION, INTERNATIONAL: A. D. 1901 (NOVEMBER).
PERU: A. D. 1901-1906.
Participation in Second and Third International Conferences
of American Republics.

AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PERU: A. D. 1903-1909.
Boundary disputes in the Acre region with Bolivia and Brazil.

ACRE DISPUTES.
PERU: A. D. 1905.
Arbitration Treaties with Colombia and Ecuador.
In a message to the Peruvian Congress, July 28, 1906,

President Pardo communicated treaties of arbitration with
Colombia, one general in its nature, the other special for the
settlement of existing boundary questions. Of the latter the
message said:
"As in former treaties of the same character which have been

heretofore concluded with that Republic, the controversy is
submitted to the decision, to be based upon considerations of
equity, of His Holiness Pope Pius X. But as our question with
Colombia is connected with the one with Ecuador, it has been
agreed that the arbitration with Colombia shall only take
place after the termination of the one in which we are now
proceeding with Ecuador, upon the adjudication by the royal
Spanish arbitrator to Peru of territories which are likewise
claimed by Colombia."
PERU: A. D. 1906.
Decree for the Encouragement of Immigration.

IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION: PERU.
PERU: A. D. 1907.
Diplomatic Relations with Chile reëstablished.
The Tacna and Arica questions remaining open.

CHILE: A. D. 1907.
PERU: A. D. 1908-1909.
Seating of President Leguia.
Attempted Revolutions defeated.
On the 27th of May, 1908, Augusto B. Leguia became President,

succeeding Dr. Pardo. Señor Leguia had previously been Premier
and Minister of Finance and Commerce; prior to which he had
been managing director of a great English sugar company in
Peru. A revolutionary movement had been attempted a few weeks
before, in which Dr. Augusto Durand and Isaias Piérola were
engaged, and which suffered defeat.
A year later, on May 29, a similar attempt was announced from

Lima, and ascribed to the same "agitators," who, said the
despatch, "made an assault upon the palace and seized
President Leguia. The army, however, remained loyal and came
to his support. The revolutionists were obliged to liberate
the President, who immediately took measures to put down the
movement. Within an hour, although firing was still heard in
the streets, President Leguia seemed to be master of the
situation. Many shots were exchanged between the troops and
the revolutionists and it is believed that the casualties will
be heavy."
This was contradicted a week later, so far as concerned Dr.

Durand. "It has been proved," said the later statement, "that
the revolutionary outbreak of last week was engineered
entirely by the followers of the Piérola brothers. A committee
of the Liberal party to-day visited President Leguia, and,
declaring that neither Dr. Durand nor José Oliva had taken
part in the movement, requested that these men be set at
liberty. The country is quiet."
----------PERU: End--------
PETER I., King of Servia: His Election.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: SERVIA.
{492}
PETIT, Archbishop Fulbert.

FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
PETROLEUM:
The Supply and the Waste in the United States.

Conservation of Natural Resources.
PETROPALOVSK, SINKING OF THE.

JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (February-August).
PHAGOCYTES: THEIR DEPENDENCE ON OPSONINS.

SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: OPSONINS.
PHILADELPHIA: A. D. 1905.
A Spasm of Municipal Reform.

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
PHILADELPHIA: A. D. 1909.
Defeat of Reform.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
----------PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Start--------
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS:
Gains to Spain from their Loss.

SPAIN: A. D. 1898-1908.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1900-1902.

The Stamping Out of the Bubonic Plague.

PUBLIC HEALTH.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901.

Second Report of the Second Philippine Commission.
Collapse of the Insurrection.
Peace in all but five Provinces.
Organization of Provincial Governments.
Native Appointments.
Central Civil Government.
Appointment of Governor Taft.
Filipino Members added to Commission.
Down to the capture of Aguinaldo, leader of the Filipino

insurgents, on the 23d of March, 1901, and his submission to
"the sovereignty of the United States throughout the
Philippine Archipelago," as announced in an address to his
countrymen on the 19th of April, the history of American rule
in those islands is recorded in Volume VI. of this work. The
Second Philippine Commission, with the Honorable William H.
Taft at its head, had entered on the performance of its
extensive legislative duties on the 1st of the previous
September, while the Military Governor continued to exercise
administrative powers. The Commission had begun the
organization of provincial and municipal governments, and the
establishing of a system of public schools, as related in the
Volume referred to. From its second report, covering ten
months and a half, ending on the 15th of October, 1901, the
following statements are drawn, to continue the outline of
principal events and most important affairs down to that date:
"The collapse of the insurrection came in May, after many

important surrenders and captures, including that of
Aguinaldo. Cailles, in Laguna, surrendered in June, and
Belarmino, in Albay, on July 4.
"There are four important provinces in which the insurrection

still continues, Batangas, Samar, Cebu, and Bohol. Parts of
Laguna and Tayabas adjoining Batangas in the mountain region
are affected by the disturbances in Batangas. In Mindoro also,
a thinly settled and almost unexplored island, there are
insurrectos. … Outside of the five provinces named there is
peace in the remainder of the archipelago. …
"The work of the commission since it began to legislate in

September, 1900, has been constant. … We have passed since our
last report, in addition to numerous appropriation bills, a
municipal code, a provincial law, a school law, a law
prescribing an accounting system, acts organizing the various
bureaus of the central government, acts organizing the courts,
an act to incorporate the city of Manila, a code of civil
procedure for the islands, and a new tariff act. …
"The general provincial law provides for a provincial

government of five officers—the governor, the treasurer, the
supervisor, the secretary, and the fiscal, or prosecuting
attorney. The governing board is called the provincial board,
and includes as members the governor, the treasurer, and the
supervisor. The prosecuting attorney is the legal adviser of
the board and the secretary of the province is its secretary.
The first function of the provincial government is to collect,
through the provincial treasurer, all the taxes, with few
exceptions, belonging to the towns or the province. Its second
and most important function is the construction of highways
and bridges and public buildings. Its third function is the
supervision, through the governor and the provincial
treasurer, of the municipal officers in the discharge of their
duties. Within certain limitations, the provincial board fixes
the rate of levy for provincial taxation.
"The governor has the power to suspend any municipal officer

found failing in his duty, and is obliged to visit the towns
of the province twice in a year, and hear complaints against
the municipal officers. … Under the act the offices are all to
be filled at first by appointment of the commission. The
governor holds his office until February, 1902, when his
successor is to be elected in a mass convention of the
municipal councilors of the towns of the province. The
secretary, treasurer, and supervisor after February next are
brought under the civil-service act, and all vacancies
thereafter arising are to be filled in accordance with the
terms of that act. The fiscal is appointed for an
indeterminate period, and is not subject to the civil-service
law. …
"The commission reached the conclusion that it would aid in

the pacification of the country; would make the members of
that body very much better acquainted with the country, with
the people, and with the local conditions, and would help to
educate the people in American methods, if the commission went
to the capital of each province and there passed the special
act necessary to create the provincial government and made the
appointments at that time. Accordingly, the commission visited
thirty-three provinces. …
{493}
"The policy of the commission in its provincial appointments
has been, where possible, to appoint Filipinos as governors
and Americans as treasurers and supervisors. The provincial
secretary and the provincial fiscal appointed have uniformly
been Filipinos. It will be observed that this makes a majority
of the provincial board American. The commission has, in
several instances, appointed to provincial offices former
insurgent generals who have been of especial aid in bringing
about peace, and in so doing it has generally acted on the
earnest recommendation of the commanding officer of the
district or province. We believe the appointments made have
had a good effect and the appointees have been anxious to do
their duty. …
"The central government of the islands established in

September, 1900, under the instructions of the President, with
a military governor as chief executive and the commission as
the legislative body with certain executive functions in
addition, continued until the 4th of July, 1901. At that time
Major General Adna R. Chaffee relieved Major-General MacArthur
as commanding general of this division and military governor.
By the order of June 21, previous, in all organized provinces
the civil executive authority theretofore reposed in the
military governor and in the commission was transferred on
July 4 to a civil governor. The president of the commission
was designated as civil governor. …
"By an order taking effect September 1, the purport of which

was announced the 4th day of July, there were added to the
commission, as a legislative body, three Filipinos, Dr. T. H.
Pardo de Tavera, Señor Benito Legarda, and Senor José
Luzuriaga. These gentlemen, the first two of them residents of
Manila and the last a resident of the island of Negros, had
been most earnest and efficient in bringing about peace in the
islands. Dr. Tavera was the first president of the Federal
party, had accompanied the commission in its trips to the
southern provinces, and was most useful in the effective
speeches which he delivered in favor of peace and good order
at every provincial meeting. Señor Legarda had been valuable
in the extreme to General Otis and to all the American
authorities by the wisdom of his suggestions, and the courage
and earnestness with which he upheld the American cause as the
cause most beneficial to his country. Señor José Luzuriaga was
a member of the first government of the island of Negros,
organized while there was insurrection rife throughout the
islands, as an independent government under the supervision of
a military governor, and was most active in preventing the
insurrection from gaining any foothold in that important
island. …
"The theory upon which the commission is proceeding is that

the only possible method of instructing the Filipino people in
methods of free institutions and self-government is to make a
government partly of Americans and partly of Filipinos, giving
the Americans the ultimate control for some time to come. In
our last report we pointed out that the great body of the
people were ignorant, superstitious, and at present incapable
of understanding any government but that of absolutism. The
intelligence and education of the people may be largely
measured by knowledge of the Spanish language. Less than 10
per cent of the people speak Spanish. With Spaniards in
control of these islands for four hundred years and with
Spanish spoken in all official avenues, nothing could be more
significant of the lack of real intelligence among the people
than this statement. The common people are not a warlike
people, but are submissive and easily—indeed much too
easily—controlled by the educated among them, and the power of
an educated Filipino politically ambitious, willing to plot
and use all the arts of a demagogue in rousing the people, is
quite dangerous. The educated people themselves, though full
of phrases concerning liberty, have but a faint conception of
what real civil liberty is and the mutual self-restraint which
is involved in its maintenance. They find it hard to
understand the division of powers in a government, and the
limitations that are operative upon all officers, no matter
how high. In the municipalities, in the Spanish days, what the
friar did not control the presidente did, and the people knew
and expected no limit to his exercise of authority. This is
the difficulty we now encounter in the organization of the
municipality. The presidente fails to observe the limitations
upon his power, and the people are too submissive to press
them. In this condition of affairs we have thought that we
ought first to reduce the electorate to those who could be
considered intelligent, and so the qualifications for voting
fixed in the municipal code are that the voter shall either
speak, read, and write English or Spanish, or that he shall
have been formerly a municipal officer, or that he should pay
a tax equal to $15 a year or own property of the value of
$250."
Report of the U. S. Philippine Commission,

from December 1, 1900, to October 15, 1901,
part 1, pages 7-20.

Report of Governor Taft.
Civil Government established in
all Christian Filipino Territory.
The Moros.
Destruction of the Carabao.
Cholera.
Ladrones.
The Native Constabulary.
"When our last report was submitted there was insurrection in

the province of Batangas, where the insurgent forces were
commanded by General Malvar, and in the adjacent provinces of
Tayabas and Laguna; in the province of Samar, where the
insurgent forces were commanded by General Lukban; in Cebu,
where the insurgent forces were under the insurgent leaders
Climaco and Maxilom; in Bohol, where the insurgent forces were
commanded by the insurgent leader Samson; and in the island of
Mindoro. Vigorous campaigns were begun in November and
December by General Bell, in Batangas, Laguna, Tayabas, and
Mindoro, by General Smith in Samar, and by General Hughes in
Cebu and Bohol. In November and December the insurgents in
Cebu and Bohol surrendered, and conditions of peace were so
completely established that the Commission soon after received
the province of Cebu from the military authorities, and by act
numbered 322, passed December 20, 1901, restored the civil
government in that province to take effect January 1, 1902; in
Bohol the province was delivered over to the Commission early
in 1902, and the commission, by act of March 3, 1902, restored
civil government there to take effect April 1, 1902. General
Lukban, in Samar, was captured in February, 1902, and the
entire force of insurgents in that island under General
Guevara surrendered in April following.
{494}
"By an act passed June 17, 1902, Number 419, the Commission
organized the province of Samar, and established civil
government there. In April of 1902, General Malvar surrendered
with all his forces in Batangas, and by act passed June 23,
1902, the Commission restored civil government to that
province to take effect July 4, 1902. By act Number 424,
enacted July 1, 1902, the province of Laguna was organized
into a civil government. This completed the organization of
all the provinces in which insurrection had been rife during
the latter part of 1901, except Mindoro. There were, in
addition, certain tracts of territory occupied by Christian
Filipinos that had not received civil government, either
because of the remoteness of the territory or the scarcity of
population." The report then details the measures by which
civil government was given to these tracts of territory, and
proceeds:
"The question what shall be done with respect to Mindanao is

one which has not been definitely decided, first, because so
much has had to be done with respect to the northern and
Filipino provinces, and, second, because at present there is
an unsettled condition in the Lake Lanao country. The
hostility to the Americans does not reach beyond the Lake
Lanao Moros. The Moros of the Jolo group, of Zamboanga, and of
the Rio Grande de Mindanao Valley are all quiet, and all
entirely willing to submit to American supervision. It is very
possible that an arrangement can be brought about by which the
Sultan of Jolo can be induced to part with such rights as he
claims to have in the Jolo Archipelago, and in this way
questions which now present very perplexing difficulties with
respect to ownership of privileges, rights, and lands may be
obviated. … I think it wiser on the part of the Commission to
postpone the consideration of the Moro question until we have
passed legislation to meet needs that are more pressing
throughout the northern part of these possessions of the
United States. For a great many years to come there will be no
question of popular government in the Moro country; the Moros
do not understand popular government, do not desire it, and
are entirely content with the control by their dattos.
Possibly far in the future the control by dattos will cease.
There is room for material and industrial development among
the Moros, and with their material improvement may come a
change in their political views. For the present, however, it
is necessary only to provide a paternal, strong, but
sympathetic government for these followers of Mohammed.
"The civil government has assumed responsibility for the

preservation of order and the maintenance of law throughout
the Christian Filipino territory of this archipelago at a time
when the material conditions are most discouraging and present
every conceivable obstacle to the successful administration of
the affairs of 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 people. The war of six
years since 1896 has greatly interfered with the regular
pursuit of agriculture, which is almost the only source of
wealth in the islands. Many years ago there was sufficient
rice raised in the islands not only to feed the people but to
export it to other countries. For a number of years before the
American occupancy rice had been imported. The area of
cultivation of the rice has been much lessened during the war
and many fields which were formerly tilled are grown now with
the cogon grass because of neglect.
"The greatest blow to agriculture has been the loss of the

carabao or water buffalo, upon which the cultivation of rice,
according to the mode pursued in these islands, is wholly
dependent. The war in some degree, and the rinderpest in a
much larger degree, have destroyed about 90 per cent of the
carabaos; and the natives—never very active in helping
themselves—have simply neglected the rice culture, so that
now the islands are compelled to spend about $15,000,000 gold
to buy food upon which to live. The carabao is not so
necessary in the cultivation of the sugar crop or in the
cultivation of hemp. …
"The cholera has swept over these islands with fatal effect,
so that the total loss will probably reach 100,000 deaths.
Whole villages have been depopulated and the necessary
sanitary restrictions to avoid its spread have interfered with
agriculture, with intercommunication, and with all business.
The ravages of war have left many destitute, and a guerrilla
life has taken away from many all habits of industry. With no
means of carrying on agriculture, which is the only occupation
of these islands, the temptation to the less responsible of
the former insurgents after surrender to prey upon their
neighbors and live by robbery and rapine has been very great.
The bane of Philippine civilization in the past was ladronism,
and the present conditions are most favorable for its growth
and maintenance. … Many who were proscribed for political
offences in the Spanish times had no refuge but the mountains,
and being in the mountains conducted a free robber life, and
about them gathered legions not unlike those of the Robin Hood
days of England, so that they attracted frequently the
sympathy of the common people. In the Spanish days it was
common for the large estate owners, including the friars, to
pay tribute to neighboring ladrones. Every Tagalog province
had its band of ladrones, and frequently each town had its
recognized ladrone whom it protected and through whom it
negotiated for immunity. …
"The insurrection is over. It is true that the ladrones,

though they live on nothing but cattle and rice stealing, and
never attack American soldiers, and prey only upon their own
people, do masquerade as insurrectos; but they recognize no
authority and have no characteristics other than those of
banditti. They have stirred up in some of the provinces the
organization of so-called secret societies for the purpose of
securing agencies with which successfully to conduct their
robbery and to sell the fruits of it. … The picture that I
have given of the depressed condition of agriculture, and the
tendency to ladronize in the Tagalog provinces and in some of
the Visayan provinces, does not apply to those provinces in
which hemp is the chief product. They are wealthy and
prosperous."
Report of Governor W. H. Taft

(Report of the Philippine Commission, 1902, part 1).
{495}

Padre Aglipay’s Secession from the Roman Catholic Church.
Organization of the Independent Filipino Catholic Church.
"Gregorio Aglipay is an Ilocano, and was an ordained priest of

the Roman Catholic Church in these islands before the
insurrection. During the insurrection he continued his
priestly functions at Mabolos and took such action as to bring
him into conflict with the hierarchy of the Church. What the
merits of this controversy were I do not know. Subsequently he
assumed the leadership of the insurrecto forces in Ilocos
Norte and carried on a very active campaign in the mountains
of that province. He was one of the last of the leaders to
surrender with his forces in North Luzon. Since his surrender
he has been quite active in spreading propaganda among the
native priests against the so-called Friar domination of the
church in these islands. The definite refusal of the Vatican
to withdraw the Spanish friars from the islands was made the
occasion for the formation of the Independent Filipino
Catholic Church. Actively engaged with Aglipay in this
movement was Isabelo de los Reyes, the former editor of an
insurrecto paper, published in Madrid, called Filipinas ante
Europa, and an agitator of irresponsible and irrepressible
character. … Padre Aglipay has secured the active and open
cooperation of a number of native priests, 15 of whom he has
appointed bishops, himself having the title of archbishop. He
has held mass in many different places in and about Manila;
his services have attracted large gatherings of people. …
"In order to prevent constant recurrence of disturbances of

the peace I have had to take a firm stand with the leaders of
the movement by impressing upon them that forcible
dispossession of a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, for
years in peaceable possession of the church and the rector’s
house, is contrary to law, and would be prevented by the whole
police power. The leaders of the movement assure me that they
have no desire to violate the law and wish to keep within it,
but that their followers at times are hard to control. I have
said to them that if they claim title to the churches they may
assert it through the courts, and if successful will secure
not only the confirmation of their title but actual
possession. …
"I have taken occasion to say, whenever an opportunity

occurred, that the insular government desired to take no part
whatever in the religious controversies thus arising; that it
would protect Father Aglipay and his followers in worshiping
God as they chose just as it would protect the Roman Catholic
Church and its ministers and followers in the same rights. But
that, if the law was violated by either party, it would become
the duty of the government to step in and restrain such
lawlessness."
Governor Wm. H. Taft,

Report, 1902, pages 39-40.

Governmental Purchase of the Friars’ Lands.
"As early as 1898, the Peace Commission, which negotiated the

treaty of Paris, became convinced that one of the most
important steps in tranquilizing the islands and in
reconciling the Filipinos to the American Government would be
the governmental purchase of the so-called friars’
agricultural lands in the Philippines, and the sale of these
lands to the tenants upon long, easy payments. … The Secretary
of War and the President concurred in the recommendations of
the Commission. Accordingly in May, 1902, the writer, as civil
governor of the Philippine Islands, was directed by the
Secretary of War to visit Rome and to confer with the Pope or
such agents as he might designate in respect to the question
of buying the friars’ agricultural lands and other questions
of a similar character which were pending between the Roman
Catholic Church and the Government. The negotiations which
were had on this subject in Rome were set forth in the
correspondence published by the Secretary of War in his report
to Congress for last year. In a word, the Pope approved the
purchase of the agricultural lands of the three great
religious orders that owned agricultural lands in the islands
and appointed an apostolic delegate with as full powers as he
could be invested with to bring about this result. …
"In order to determine the value of the estates, the

representatives of the various companies and other interests
were invited to attend a hearing, when various witnesses were
called to testify. The apostolic delegate was also present. …
"In accordance with the agreement reached in Rome, I sent to

the apostolic delegate a request for a statement of the exact
interests retained by the religious orders in the Philippines
in the lands which were the subject of negotiation. No formal
answer to this letter was ever received, but informally it was
stated to me by the delegate that the authorities in the
Philippines had informed him that they had so disposed of
their interests that they were unable to make a statement of
what their interests were, if any. The value of the lands, as
estimated according to the statements of the agents of the
companies, aggregated a sum between thirteen and fourteen
millions of dollars gold. The estimate of Villegas, the
surveyor employed by the Commission, showed the valuation of
the lands to be $6,043,000 gold, if his value in Mexican
should be reduced to gold at the rate of two to one, which was
the gold rate about the time of his survey and classification,
though the Mexican dollar fell considerably after that.
Considering the bad conditions which prevailed in agriculture,
the loss of cattle, the dispute concerning title, and the
agrarian question that must always remain in the management of
these estates and embarrass the owner, I considered—and I
believe the Commission generally agreed with me—that
$6,043,000 gold was a full price for the lands. The sum,
however, was scouted by the persons representing the owners,
and there appeared to be very little prospect of reaching an
agreement. …
"Not discouraged, however, by circumstances that seemed most

discouraging, the apostolic delegate bent his energies to
bringing the parties to a settlement. After some negotiation
the delegate first stated that he thought he could arrange a
sale for $10,500,000 gold. I told him there was no hope of
bringing about a purchase at that figure. … Then followed a
long and protracted discussion between the parties who were to
be the venders as to how this sum should be divided, and there
was much difficulty in arriving at a solution—so great a
difficulty, indeed, that I was informed that unless $7,770,000
was paid there was no hope of reaching an agreement. With the
approval of the Secretary of War and the Commission, I replied
that $7,543,000 was our ultimatum, and that we would not give
more than that, and this was ultimately the basis upon which
the price was fixed."
Report of the Civil Governor of the Philippine Islands,

William H. Taft
(Fourth Report of the Philippine Commission).
{496}

Report of Committee on Methods of Dealing with the Sale and
Use of Opium.

OPIUM PROBLEM.

Resignation of Governor Ide.
Appointment and Inauguration of Governor Smith.
Complete Tranquility in the Islands.
Change in the Constitution of Provincial Boards.
"On September 20, 1906, the resignation of the Honorable Henry

Clay Ide as governor-general became effective, and on that
date the Honorable James F. Smith was inaugurated as
governor-general of the Philippine Islands. … Since April of
this year complete tranquility has prevailed in every part of
the archipelago, inclusive of the Moro province. In 21 of the
provinces peace has reigned supreme during the entire year. In
Bataan and Batangas there was some disturbance of the public
order, caused in the case of the first-named province by the
escape of some provincial prisoners, and in the second by the
operations of six or seven brigands near the boundary line of
the provinces of La Laguna and Tayabas. All of the escaped
prisoners and all of the bandits with the exception of two in
each party have been captured. …
"The convention of provincial governors held in Manila in

October, 1906, recommended that the then existing law
providing that provincial boards shall be composed of a
provincial governor elected by the municipal councilors and
vice-presidents of the various municipalities of the province
and a provincial treasurer and a third member appointed by the
executive be so amended as to permit of the election of the
provincial governor and third member by direct vote of the
people. This recommendation was submitted to the Secretary of
War, and on receiving his approval thereof the provincial
government act was amended accordingly. This innovation in the
constitution and selection of provincial boards has been an
advantage both to the insular and to the local government. On
the one hand it has removed all cause for friction between the
provincial governor elected by the people and the two members
of the board named by the executive. On the other it has
imposed upon the provincial governor and the third member the
responsibility for the well-being of the province and has
removed from the insular government much of the responsibility
for conditions purely of local concern."
Report of the Philippine Commission,

December 31, 1907
(Abridgment, Message and Documents, 1907, pages 799-807).

The Philippine Election Law.
Election of a Popular Assembly.
Political Parties participating in it.
The first meeting of the Assembly.
Presence of Secretary Taft.
His account of the Assembly and of the Parties
represented in it.
"In January, 1907, the Philippine Commission passed the

Philippine election law. In framing this law the election
codes of Massachusetts, New York, the District of Columbia,
and California were consulted and features adopted from each,
modified in such a way as to meet insular conditions and to
avoid the mistakes and abuses that have arisen in some
provincial and municipal elections in the islands. The aim has
been to provide a law sufficiently explicit and not too
complicated for easy comprehension. Every effort has been made
to afford the necessary safeguards and machinery to insure
purity, secrecy, certainty, and expedition, without causing
too great a drain upon the resources of municipal and
provincial governments. The prominent features of this law as
amended are the division of those provinces not inhabited by
Moros or other non-Christian tribes into 78 assembly
districts, each province to constitute at least one district
and the more populous being divided into more districts, in
the ratio of 1 to every 90,000 of population and major
fraction thereof remaining. In accordance with this
apportionment there will be 80 delegates, two of whom will
represent the city of Manila, which is considered as a
province, within the meaning of the act of Congress, and
divided into two districts."
Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs,

October 31, 1907
(Abridgment, Message and Documents, 1907, page 781).
"On the 28th of March, 1907, the Commission by resolution,

unanimously adopted, certified to the President that for two
years following the publication of the census of the islands a
condition of general and complete peace had prevailed and then
existed in the territory of the islands not inhabited by Moros
or other non-Christian tribes. … By virtue of this certificate
and in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress of
July 1, 1902, the President on March 28, issued a proclamation
directing the Philippine Commission to call a general election
for the choice of delegates to a popular assembly. Accordingly
on the 30th of March, 1907, the Commission passed a resolution
ordering that an election be held for delegates on July 30 and
directing the governor-general to issue a proclamation
announcing the election for that date. The proclamation was
issued on April 1. By a strange coincidence the day of the
month fixed for holding the election was the same as that on
which the first legislative body in America, the house of
burgesses, met in the year 1619. Under the general election
law the delegates to the assembly elected at the elections
held on July 30th, 1907, and seated by the Philippine
assembly, will serve until January 1, 1910. Subsequent
elections for delegates will be held on the first Tuesday
after the first Monday in November, 1909, and on the first
Tuesday after the first Monday in November in each
odd-numbered year thereafter, delegates to take office on the
1st day of January next following their election and to hold
office for two years, or until their successors are elected
and qualified.
"The basis of representation in the Philippine assembly is one

delegate for every 90,000 of population and one additional
delegate for a major fraction thereof: Provided, however, that
each Christian province shall be entitled to at least one
delegate and that the total number of delegates shall at no
time exceed 100. Provinces entitled to more than one delegate
are divided into districts. The law declares Manila to be a
province within the meaning of the act of Congress authorizing
the assembly, and, it is allowed the same representation as
other provinces. Thirty-four provinces are represented in the
Philippine assembly, which is composed of 80 members.
{497}
"The act of Congress requires that delegates to the assembly
shall be qualified electors of the election district in which
they may be chosen, 25 years of age, and owing allegiance to
the United States. The act of Congress prescribes that the
qualifications of electors shall be the same as those
prescribed for electors in municipal elections under laws in
force at the time of the passage of the Congressional
enactment. As the municipal election laws in force at the time
of the passage of the act of Congress have undergone some
change in regard to the qualifications of electors, the
strange anomaly is presented of having certain
qualifications exacted from municipal and provincial officials
which are not required for delegates to the assembly. One of
the results is that felons, victims of the opium habit, and
persons convicted in the court of first instance for crimes
involving moral turpitude, but whose cases are pending on
appeal, are not eligible for election to any provincial or
municipal office, but may become delegates to the assembly.
"As announced by provincial governors the elections for

assemblymen held on the 30th of July, 1907, resulted in the
election of 32 Nacionalistas, 4 Independistas, 7
Inmediatistas, 16 Progresistas, 20 Independents, and 1 Centro
Catolico. The total number of voters registered for the
assembly elections was 104,966. The number of voters
registered for the provincial and municipal elections will be
very much larger than that for the assembly elections. The
difference in registration and votes cast at the two elections
seems to show with considerable certainty that there was far
more interest in the elections for provincial and municipal
officials than there was in the election for assemblymen. …
"The delegates to the Philippine assembly, in accordance with

the call of the governor-general as prescribed by the act of
Congress, met at the Grand Opera House in the city of Manila
on the 16th day of October at 9 o’clock A. M."
Report of the Philippine Commission,
December 31, 1907
(Abridgment, Message and Documents, 1907, pages 810-811).
The Honorable William H. Taft, United States Secretary of War,

former Governor-General of the Philippine Islands, made the
long journey to the Islands on this occasion for the purpose
of opening the meeting of the Assembly and personally
inspecting the state of affairs. After returning, in the
following December, he made an extended report to the
President, in which he discussed the character of the Assembly
and of the parties represented in it at considerable length.
Recurring to the formation of the first political party that
arose in the Islands after they came under the control of the
United States, he said of it:
"It is a mistake to suppose that the war by the Filipinos

against the Americans had the sympathy of all the Filipinos.
On the contrary, there were many intelligent and conservative
men who favored American control and who did not believe in
the capacity of their people immediately to organize a
government which would be stable and satisfactory, but in the
face of a possible independence of the Islands, they were
still. Upon Mr. McKinley’s second election many of these
persons reached the conclusion that it was time for them to
act. Accordingly, they formed the Federal Party, the chief
platform of which was peace under American sovereignty and the
acceptance of the American promises to govern the Islands for
the benefit of the Filipinos and gradually to extend popular
self-government to the people. The Federal Party received
accessions by thousands in all parts of the Islands and in
every province, so that the Commission was enabled during the
year 1901, and under the auspices, and with the aid of, the
Federal Party, to organize civil government in some 32 or 33
provinces, or in substantially all of them. … The main purpose
and principle of the party was peace under the sovereignty of
the United States. In drafting a platform its leaders had
formulated a plank favoring the organization of the Islands
into a Territory of the United States, with a view to its
possibly becoming a State. From this plank it took its name.
In the first two or three years after its successful effort to
bring on peace, many prominent Filipinos having political
ambition became members, and in the gubernatorial elections
the great majority of governors elected were Federals. And so
substantially all who filled prominent offices in the
government by appointment, including the judges, were of that
party. Then dissension arose among prominent leaders and some
withdrew from the party. The natural opposition to a
government party led to the organization of other parties,
especially among those known as Intransigentes
[Irreconcilables]. The Federal Party had founded an organ, the
Democracia, early in its existence. The opponents of the
government looking to immediate independence founded a paper
called the Renacimiento. The latter was edited with especial
ability and with a partisan spirit against the American
Government.
"For two years before the election of the Assembly the

Filipinos who sympathized with the Renacimiento were
perfecting their organization to secure a majority in the
assembly. Many groups were formed, but they all were known as
the Partido Nacionalista. There was some difference as to
whether to this title should be added the word ‘inmediatista,’
but the great majority favored it. The party is generally
known as the Nacionalista Party. During much of these same two
years, the Federal Party was dormant. …
"Some six months before the elections, there sprung from the
ashes of the Federal Party a party which, rejecting the
statehood idea, declared itself in favor of making the
Philippines an independent nation by gradual and progressive
acquisition of governmental control until the people should
become fitted by education and practice under American
sovereignty to enjoy and maintain their complete independence.
It was called the Partido Nacionalista Progresista. It is
generally known as the Progresista Party. …
{498}
"The campaign in the last two or three months was carried on

with great vigor. The Nacionalistas had the advantage of being
understood to be against the government. This, with a people
like the Filipino people, who had been taught to regard the
government as an entity separate from the people, taxing them
and prosecuting them, was in itself a strong reason for
popular sympathy and support. The Progresistas were denounced
as a party of office-holders. The government was denounced as
extravagant and burdensome to the people. In many districts
the Nacionalista candidates promised that if they were
returned immediate independence would follow. There were quite
a number of candidates in country and remote districts where
the controversy was not heated who did not declare themselves
on the main question, and maintained an independence of any
party. They were known as Independientes. Then, there were
other Independientes who declared themselves independent of
party, but in favor of immediate independence.
"The total vote registered and cast did not exceed 104,000,
although in previous gubernatorial elections the total vote
had reached nearly 150,000. The high vote at the latter
elections may be partly explained by the fact that at the same
elections town officers were elected, and the personal
interest of many candidates drew out a larger number of
electors. But the falling off was also in part due, doubtless,
to the timidity of conservative voters, who, because of the
heat of the campaign, preferred to avoid taking sides. This is
not a permanent condition, however, and I doubt not that the
meeting of the assembly and the evident importance of its
functions when actually performed will develop a much greater
popular interest in it, and the total vote will be largely
increased at the next election.
"I opened the assembly in your name. The roll of the members
returned on the face of the record was called. An appropriate
oath was administered to all the members and the assembly
organized by selecting Señor Sergio Osmeña as its speaker or
presiding officer. Señor Osmeña has been one of the most
efficient fiscals, or prosecuting attorneys, in the Islands,
having conducted the government prosecutions in the largest
province of the Islands, the province and Island of Cebu. He
was subsequently elected governor, and by his own activity in
going into every part of the island, he succeeded in enlisting
the assistance of all the people in suppressing ladronism,
which had been rife in the mountains of Cebu for thirty or
forty years, so that to-day there is absolute peace and
tranquillity throughout the island. He is a young man, not 30,
but of great ability, shrewdness, high ideals, and yet very
practical in his methods of dealing with men and things. The
assembly could have done nothing which indicated its good
sense so strongly as the selection of Senor Osmeña as its
presiding officer. …
"As a shibboleth—as a party cry—immediate independence has

much force, because it excites the natural pride of the
people; but few of their number have ever worked out its
consequences, and when they have done so they have been
willing to postpone that question until some of the immediate
needs of the people have been met. I may be wrong, but my
judgment is that the transfer of real power, by giving to the
people part of the legislative control of the Christian
provinces, sobers their leaders with the sense of
responsibility and teaches them some of the practical
difficulties of government I do not for a moment guarantee
that there will not at times be radical action by the
Assembly, which cannot meet the approval of those who
understand the legislative needs of the Islands, but all I
wish to say is that the organization and beginning of the life
of the Assembly have disappointed its would-be critics and

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JOHN FIRMAN and ANN GILA

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

© 2010 John Firman and Ann Gila

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

For information, contact

Production and book design, Laurie Searl

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Firman, John, 1945–2008

1 Psychosynthesis Personality Theory 11

2 A Psychosynthesis Developmental Theory 31

4 The Death and Rebirth of the Therapist 59

6 Love, Power, and Ethics 87

7 Stage Zero of Psychosynthesis, Survival 95

8 Stage One of Psychosynthesis, Exploration 107

9 Stage Two of Psychosynthesis, Emergence of “I” 115

10 Stage Three of Psychosynthesis, Contact with Self 121

11 Stage Four of Psychosynthesis, Response to Self 133

12 Psychosynthesis as a Psychology of Love 145

So, now I speak for both of us as we acknowledge people, places, and

We wish to acknowledge John’s daughter, Catharine Elizabeth “Cat” Fir-

Emphasizing in theory and in practice the central, decisive

D eep within human beings is an innate drive to embrace and actual-

The contemporary fields of humanistic and transpersonal psychology

A Special Type of Love

In recent years there seems to be a convergence of views about what facili-

When Love Is Absent

TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE

Existential-humanistic psychologist Rollo May wrote of this type of

The Therapist and Empathic Love

Such research findings suggest the viability of intentionally utilizing the

Assagioli was clear about the centrality of the therapeutic relationship

Assagioli was perhaps being a bit hyperbolic in this statement—his first

Interestingly enough, if altruistic love is in fact central to psychotherapy,

Psychosynthesis Personality Theory

This conception of the structure of our being offers us a wider and

I n 1910, a young psychiatrist-in-training named Roberto Assagioli

and foremost a dynamic, even a dramatic conception of our psychological life”

ASSAGIOLI’S MODEL OF THE PERSON

THE MIDDLE UNCONSCIOUS

The middle unconscious . . . is formed of psychological elements similar to

The middle unconscious is depicted in the oval diagram as immediately

processes (as in “Aha!” experiences) or emotional reactions (as in crying

The phrase, “sudden intrusions of elaborated thought processes (as in

Structuralization of the Middle Unconscious

Assagioli’s “neuromuscular patterns” would in today’s neuroscience be

become structuralized into what he called the “structuralized” or “condi-