The Canon / Pillars / Transpersonal & Somatic
Pillars · 1965
Psychosynthesis
Transpersonal & Somatic PsychologyPsychosynthesis sets out Roberto Assagioli's holistic depth psychology, which integrates the personal unconscious with a higher or transpersonal unconscious—the source of inspiration, intuition, will, and the experience of a unifying "Self." Its central claim is that the human being possesses not only conflicts to be resolved but an innate drive toward synthesis, meaning, and self-realization.
The method maps the personality around an "I," the conscious self, reaching toward the transpersonal Self, and offers practical techniques for harmonizing the many "subpersonalities" around a stable center—disidentification, guided imagery, training of the will, and subpersonality work. Therapy aims to cultivate positive states and direction, not merely to excavate pathology.
The book helped seed the transpersonal movement by giving the perennial claim of a "higher Self" a clinically structured, developmental form. Its techniques became staples of humanistic therapy, coaching, and later self-development.
In its words
We are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified. We can dominate and control everything from which we dis-identify ourselves. In this principle lies the secret of our enslavement or of our liberty.
Practices it teaches
Disidentification — 'I have a body, but I am not my body'
Disidentification is the foundational exercise of Psychosynthesis, the system created by Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli. Its premise: "We are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified.
Evocation of a Desired Quality — the 'Serenity' exercise
This is Assagioli's method for deliberately growing a specific inner quality — his worked example is serenity, but the same template builds courage, patience, compassion, joy, and so on.
Disidentification & Self-Identification — 'I have a body, but I am not my body
Roberto Assagioli — Italian psychiatrist and founder of psychosynthesis — taught that "we are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified, and we can dominate and control everything from which we…
The Ideal Model — imaginatively rehearsing your next self
Assagioli observed that we already carry images of ourselves — often unconscious, often negative or imposed by others — and that we tend to become what we picture ourselves to be.
The Evening Review — the day replayed by the detached observer
A short nightly practice of replaying the day in your mind as a calm, detached observer — registering what happened without re-living it or judging it.
Lineage
The author
Roberto AssagioliPsychosynthesis, the higher Self
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Key terms
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