Christina Grof: Spirituality In Human Nature

Christina Grof was the founder of the Spiritual Emergency Network and one of the creators of holotropic breathing (conscious control of breathing). She was an amazing psychotherapist, head of Count Transpersonal Training and vice president of the International Transpersonal Association.

She wrote many books, but many still know her as the wife of the American psychiatrist Stan Grof – one of the most renowned experts in transpersonal psychology (who deals with the spiritual part of the human mind).

But Dr. Grof’s work would not have been what it is today without Christina. Before she passed away in 2014  , Christina Grof had worked with transpersonal psychology for over 30 years.

She devoted most of her time to holding workshops and conferences around the world. Today we remember her as the pioneer of avant-garde therapeutic techniques. She also coined the term “spiritual emergency” with her husband.

Christina Grof was kind enough to share her story, her experiences and the difficulties she had to face due to her changed state of consciousness which occurred spontaneously. From a young age she was very interested in yoga  and began to have strange mental and physiological experiences. This was a symptom of her “spiritual awakening.”

At the time, she thought that these symptoms indicated some form of psychosis and even that she might be going crazy.

Her doctor treated her with morphine and the drug chlorpromazine to try to reduce the symptoms, but they only made them worse. Anthropologist Joseph Campbell, one of Christina’s mentors, introduced her to the innovative therapist Stan Grof, whom she married shortly thereafter.

After her transpersonal crisis  , Christina Grof and her husband founded the Spiritual Emergency Network (SEN).

This organization helped people with psychospiritual crises for several decades. It was founded so that these people would receive specialized help.

They developed alternative therapies for addiction, unhealthy attachment and spiritual crises, and worked together on holotropic breathing . Holotropic breathing was actually created from breathing techniques that Christina had learned.

Christina and her husband also came up with a way to exchange psychedelic substances in order to put their patients in altered states of consciousness.

This is how they founded the International Transpersonal Association (ITA). Grof developed a complete treatment program for alcoholism and other addictions, which combined the 12-step program with transpersonal psychology.

During this period, Christina Grof wrote several books on addiction and her own spiritual path. Some of her best books are:

• The Thirst for Wholeness: Attachment, Addiction, and the Spiritual Path
• The Eggshell Landing: Love, Death, and Forgiveness in Hawaii

She also wrote three books with her husband:

• Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes Crisis
• The Stormy Search for the Self
• Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy

Christina Grof was a pioneer in transpersonal psychology. This type of psychology has a different way of looking at the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual aspects of human nature. Christina and her husband explored parts of man that classical Western psychology has ignored.

She dared to work with and have faith in people who had a different kind of consciousness; people who would otherwise have been misdiagnosed and in psychiatric centers.

Christina Grof passed relatively unnoticed. She lived in the shadow of her husband for many years, even though they always worked together and she was partly responsible for some of his main contributions to therapy.

Christina’s work and life have inspired many people. She what a brave therapist whose legacy will live on.