History and Modern State of Russian Transpersonalism. Sofia University Global Mental Health Conference 2025

Vladimir Maikov (President of the Association of Transpersonal Psychology and Psychotherapy, ATPP) and Eugene Pustoshkin (member of the ATPP Presidium) together with Yuan Jin (Chinese transpersonal psychologist) will speak at the Global Mental Health Conference 2025 (online), organized by Sofia University (formerly known as the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology). Their presentations will focus on the history and current state of Russian transpersonalism.

Date: 17 August 2025, 1:00 PM PDT

Conference website: https://www.sofiaglobalconference.com

Discount 25%: Pustoshkin25

Eugene Pustoshkin, Vladimir Maikov, Yuan Jin. Global Mental Health Conference 2025, Sofia University (formerly the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology)

“The Voices of Russian Transpersonalism: History and Modern State”

The field of transpersonally-oriented studies, psychology, and psychotherapy in Russia is historically rich and based on mutual co-existence of very diverse approaches, encompassing perspectives from all the main world’s religions as well as transrational aspects of more secular non-spiritual approaches.

Being at the crossroads of East and West, North and South, Russian Transpersonalism has exhibited its capacity for both integrating very different paths of transpersonal knowledge and giving birth to its own unique voices (such as Vasily Nalimov, Tonu Soidla, Leonid & Dimitri Spivak, and others).

Transpersonal (or at least proto-transpersonal) disciplines found their way into mainstream art, culture, and science (informing and, one would argue, transforming, for instance, major cultural figures such as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Mikhail Chekhov, and Andrei Tarkovsky).

Currently—in addition to unique local schools of thought and practice—such Western transpersonally-oriented paradigms as Holotropic (Stan Grof), Process-oriented (Arnold and Amy Mindell), Constellation Work (Bert Hellinger), Integral (Ken Wilber), and other approaches as well as indigenous shamanic, non-indigenous neo-shamanic, spiritual (Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Judaistic, etc.) and secular consciousness approaches are considered valuable parts of the collective wholeness that make essential contributions to an overall transpersonal and integral culture in Russia.

Many representatives of these paradigms are in dialogue with each other as well as with other schools of psychology, psychotherapy and consciousness studies, both conventional and postconventional, and form the core of the Russian Association for Transpersonal Psychology & Psychotherapy (ATPP).

A page from the Conference book