stanislav Grof, M.D.
Stanislav Grof is one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of exploring, healing, and obtaining growth and insights into the human psyche.
Grof is known for his early studies of LSD and is one of the founders of the field of psychedelic therapy. Based on his experience with patients in over 5,000 sessions, Grof has articulated a theoretical framework for prenatal and perinatal psychology and transpersonal psychology in which LSD trips and other powerfully emotional experiences are mapped onto a person's early fetal and neonatal experiences.
When LSD become inaccessible, Grof developed a practice through which many states of mind could be explored without drugs by using a breathing technique known as "Holotropic Breathwork".
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Stan is one of the most influential psychedelic practitioners and his work and influence is legend. MAPS, USONA, Compass Pathways and most research studies all follow his non-interventive sitter protocol for holding space during a session. He was the first to articulate the concept of the "inner healer" that resides in each individual's consciousness and provides every person with the capacity to know what they need for their healing.
We bring you Stan in candid conversations discussing his approach to conducting psychedelic sessions. Few people have heard Stan speak about his protocol to conduct more than 5,000 LSD sessions. Most people assume that his LSD sessions were done in the same manner as his Holotropic Breathwork sessions (spoiler alert: this is NOT the case). He provides us with an essential download about his non-interventive approach to holding space for psychedelic sessions and provides us with some history of what he was doing in sessions in the 1960's before prohibition.
Grof received his M.D. from Charles University in Prague in 1957 and then completed his Ph.D. in medicine at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in 1965, training as a Freudian psychoanalyst at this time. He was the Chief of Psychiatric Research for the Spring Grove Experiment at the Research Unit of Spring Grove State Hospital (later part of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. In 1973 he was invited to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, and lived there until 1987 as a scholar-in-residence.
As founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (founded in 1977), he went on to become distinguished adjunct faculty member of the Department of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
He is the author of over 150 articles and 20 books.