The Healing Journey - New Approaches to Consciousness

by Claudio Naranjo

The Healing Journey - New Approaches to Consciousness

Genres: Psychology, Spirituality, Philosophy

233 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Claudio Naranjo was a Chilean psychiatrist. He was co-developer of the Enneagram of Personality. His studies and investigations oftenly focused in the search of spirituality to find mental stability, and also some times, the use of lisergic substance to free hidden and harmful thoughts.

Reviews

[Leonard Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

The version I read is actually a new 40th anniversary edition and was slightly updated with a new preface. It is a fascinating and important book. Anyone interested in real personal transformation and change needs to read this book.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve finally finished this ancient behemoth. Most of it was fascinating and instructive and inspiring, and can apply to ordinary state therapy as well as psychedelic-assisted therapy. (In fact, Dr. N has quite a more directive style than is taught in the field as I’m observing it today, and I associate that kind of directness more with ordinary-state therapy than altered-state therapy, the current practice of which seems to lean more towards less active intervention).

However I was so bummed by reading the description of what sounds like a conversion session towards the end, and of the demeaning language used to describe patients’ visions of people with darker skin than that of the patient or the doctor, that I just can’t give it more than 2 stars. All the above was of an era, so this book is still worth reading and learning from; you just have to pick your way through that stuff.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. This book is both crazily current and dated at the same time. For one, Naranjo's use of entheogens such as MDMA derivatives, ibogaine, and harmaline/DMT to help patients with chronic anxiety and depression has come once more to the forefront of current psychology and science--a lot of his data gathered in the 60s and 70s were surely used by current researchers in their work assessing these chemicals. As cutting edge this book still is, it's still very groovy in its 70's embrace of Gestalt. Overall, though, I found a lot of insight in this book regarding my own psychotherapeutic history over the last few years and my experience with entheogens. It's a relic that's still fresh.

[Sarah]

RC483.5.H3 N37