The Implications of Stanislav Grof’s holotropic theory on counselling adolescents

Abstract

Counsellors can encounter adolescents who are experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations, disorientation, delusions and extreme vulnerability, and who, in presenting risk-taking behaviours, may be diagnosed as regressively pathological. However, if these young people maintain a capacity for adaptive decision-making combined with transformational insight, then these experiences may be regarded as psycho-spiritual healing processes that Stanislav and Christina Grof (1989, 1990) describe as ‘Spiritual Emergency’ (SE). They believe that symptoms and behaviour that can present as mental illness are, in fact, what they call ‘holotropic phenomena’ and are associated with significant loss. ‘Holotropic’ is described by Grof as ‘oriented toward wholeness’ or ‘moving in the direction of wholeness’ and is from the Greek words holos meaning whole and trepein meaning moving toward, or in the direction of, something.