Studies in Non–Deterministic Psychology

By Gerald N. Epstein, M.D.

What is Non-Deterministic Psychology? Or everything you wanted to know about Non-Deterministic Psychology but were afraid to ask. On first meeting my teacher, Colette Aboulker Muscat, in 1974, she immediately asked me what I wanted from her. I replied that I wanted to merge western psychology with eastern thought. Along the way, I discovered that the two were not to be so easily joined, and I abandoned contemporary western psychology in pursuit of what she could offer: The keys to the Imagination and the gateway to western spirituality. Thus she introduced to me Waking Dream Therapy. During the course of my odyssey, I was privileged to meet many fine scientists, philosophers and seekers who shared their visions on a new psychology. Their views of reality were not rooted in the cause and effect – logical, analytic and mechanistic – thinking of the natural scientific model that were the underpinnings of Freudian and dynamic psychology. Instead, they were steeped in the emerging field of the new physics (Kurt Godel), holography, discoveries of left-right cerebral functioning, and oriental meditative practices: All these paradigms shared a non-deterministic, acausal view point of how the universe – from atom to Adam – function in an open system. Here life is not pre-determined by what has happened in the past (linear causality). Rather it is “an undivided flowing movement without borders”; A holographic universe of constant change on a physical (time-space) plane and of revelation on a sacred/spiritual plane. This collection of essays is the fruit of my encounters with remarkable visionaries and clinicians. David Bohm, Ken Wilbur, Ken Phillips, David Shainberg, Swami Dayananda and others present their views of a non-deterministic, acausal psychology in relationship to mental imagery/imagination, healing, Vedanta, Buddhism, I-Ching, myth, dreaming, and clinical applications and research. The book is divided into 4 sections: Principles; Applications; Philosophy; and Research Selections include:

• The Relationship of Healing to Imagination (Gerald Epstein)
• Discerning the Fundamental problem according to Advaita Vedanta (Swami Dayananda Saraswati & Sandra Eisenstein)
• Buddhism and Psychotherapy (Carl Rinzler & Beth Gordon)
• The Enfolded Order and Consciousness (David Bohm)
• The Creative Trance: A Unitive Approach toward Phenomena of Mental Imagery in Therapy (Jacob Stattman)
• Psychotherapy as an Asocial Process (Paul Olsen)
• Non-Deterministic Supervision (Diane Shainberg)
• Psychic Oneness: a Treatment Approach (Warren Wilner)
• Principles, Practices, and Objectives of Non-Deterministic Psychology (David Shainberg)
• Freedom with Darkness and Light: A Study of a Myth (Charles E. Scott)
• Development and Transcendence (Ken Wilber)
• Visual Imagination and Dreaming (Gerald Epstein & George L. Hogben)

First published by Human Sciences Press (1980).