A Psychology for the New Age: Quantum Psychology
Bell bottoms, transcendental meditation, love beads, civil rights, protest marches: the 1960s, the Age of Aquarius, a time of radical social change that ushered in the “New Age.” Time passed, and gradually, New Age ideas made their way into the cultural mainstream. Among them is “spirituality,” the notion that beyond organized religion, people can directly experience a metaphysical reality that is greater than oneself. The once “flakey” notion of personal growth, the idea that people have the ability to improve themselves, is now big business. Also, we have come to accept that if we want to know what is really going on, we must view ourselves, our society, the planet and the universe, as a whole, rather than simply examining their individual parts.
You may be familiar with a children’s puzzle that has been around for a long time. The pieces consist of the individual states that make up the United States. When the child puts each piece in its proper place, a picture of the whole country emerges. From its New Age roots, a new, holistic psychology has emerged, which examines the individual parts of our human nature, and then puts them together into one, comprehensive whole. The result is new insights into our human nature and our ability to transform ourselves, the societies within which we live and the planet.
The “puzzle pieces” that make up Quantum Psychology come from Eastern philosophy and Western science. The East contributes the knowledge and practices associated with yoga, meditation, karma and reincarnation. Western science contributes the insights into the natural world that come from quantum mechanics, complexity theory, systems theory and psychology. Fit all the pieces