Product Description

GROWING WHOLE: SELF-REALIZATION ON AN ENDANGERED PLANET  supports the search for both personal and global transformation through the powerful tools and perspectives of psychosynthesis. Written in a warm, personal style, the book offers structure and techniques for people to find and follow their own path of heart. It explores basic concepts, perspectives, and applications, with stories and examples, interspersed with many exercises the reader can use easily at home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #168111 in Books
• Published on: 1997-02
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 245 pages

From the Publisher
Psychosynthesis is a spiritual psychology first articulated by Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974). Assagioli moved well beyond the reductionistic psychologies of his time, including psychoanalysis. Like his colleague, Carl Jung, he sought an understanding of the human that would recognize the spiritual dimensions as well as the personal and pathological.

Psychosynthesis draws upon many traditions, incorporating principles and practices from Buddhism, yoga, and other Eastern philosophies, as well as from Western spiritual traditions, philosophy, and psychology. This approach is uniquely suited to our times, because it recognizes the many dimensions of our concerns and our potentials: physical, emotional, mental, interpersonal, social, and spiritual (and in this book, Brown specifically includes the ecological). Psychosynthesis coaches each person in seeking his or her unique inner truth and way in harmony with the needs and forces of nature. It offers basic, flexible models and principles for understanding and integrating all the parts of ourselves. It offers a wide variety of tools for discovery and choice.

Please see also, GROWING WHOLE: EXPLORING THE WILDERNESS WITHIN, an audiotape and journal package designed to augment this book.

From the Author
I wrote this book to share the transformative tools of psychosynthesis with a larger number of people than I could reach in workshops and trainings. I see the need for personal growth in the context of service to the larger world, not solely for one's own happiness. We serve in a more effective and loving way when we know ourselves, our hang-ups and our special gifts.

p>I am available for individual consultation with anyone working with the book, via e-mail or telephone. Please check my website at www.mollyyoungbrown.com or email me at: info@mollyyoungbrown.com.

About the Author
Molly Young Brown is an internationally recognized teacher, writer, and counselor in the fields of ecopsychology, ecoliteracy, and psychosynthesis, and a founder of Southwestern Ecoliteracy Project. She has authored two classic books on psychosynthesis and recently co-authored with Joanna Macy the highly-acclaimed "Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World" (1998). Molly teaches in colleges and graduate schools and conducts training programs and workshops across North America and in Europe. She studied with Roberto Assagioli in Italy in 1973.

Customer Reviews

Simple, straightforward, insightful and practical....
In "Growing Whole" Molly Brown does a good job of summarizing the key elements of psychosynthesis as developed by Roberto Assagioli. She explains the essentials and shows how one can apply it to various aspects of life immediately.

This book is written in a simple, straightforward manner and has lots of useful exercises. Many of these exercises build on each other and they use the power of art to access the unconscious. However, you don't need to be an artist to benefit from the drawing exercises; they are more about exploring the psyche through non-verbal means.

In my opinion, psychosynthesis is an underrated tool for personal growth. It is offers a very optimistic, practical and transpersonal model that makes sense. Roberto Assagioli was a psychiatrist and he was respected by Freud and Jung. However, he was very open-minded and integrative. Therefore, this area did not develop into a very formal school with clearly delineated boundaries. That's my only explanation for why it is not more popular.

Psychosynthesis encourages being curious about your own process, working with sub-personalities which are conceptually very similar to Jungian complexes and using lots of visualization, active imagination and drawing techniques to get at one's depth.

One of the more interesting aspects of psychosynthesis is the concept of having repressed areas of the superconscious or higher reaches of the psyche. I think Assagioli has a lot in common with Jung, but in some ways his typology of the psyche is easier to work with in a practical way.

My guess is a lot of people who read this book will rate it a five and wonder why I rated it a four. My answer is that it could have contained more meat and some people might find that they want to know more after reading it. If you fall in that category of reader, I would try to get a copy of Psychosynthesis by Assagioli and branch out from there. Piero Ferrucci and John Firman are also respected authors that write about psychosynthesis.

A "portable mentor" on the journey toward Self realization
In "Growing Whole", Molly Young Brown offers the reader her wisdom, experience and guidance, rooted in the traditions of psychosynthesis and the awakening concern for our planetary environment. This book is a practical, insightful and spiritual "mentor" for a person's journey toward Self-realization. This well written guide is filled with exercises which provide a productive and enlightened model for personal transformation and ultimately leads us to "bring our gifts into action in the world". I highly recommend reading and using this book along with the audio tape companion journal also by the author (Exploring the Wilderness Within)--effective resources for "those who yearn to make a difference".

Support for personal & spiritual growth
This book provides both perspectives and methods for "growing whole" in a world full of crises and challenge. I appreciate the author's perspectives on how "work on oneself" helps contribute to the world; so often personal work and social action are seen as separate and even conflicting. The exercises found throughout are easy to do on one's own, or with others in a group.

I also recommend the accompanying audiotape/journal called "Growing Whole: Exploring the Wilderness Within."