Integrative Psychiatry “is an emerging discipline that not only bridges the existing disciplines of psychiatry [and] psychology, but provides a scientifically-based framework that synthesizes the rest of physiology, biochemistry and other health dimensions such as social support and spirituality, which collectively contribute to brain and body health and overall well-being.” (From Integrative Psychiatry and Brain Health, Second Edition, published by Oxford University Press, 2018).
Transpersonal, meaning beyond the personal, refers to development beyond conventional, personal, or individual levels. Transpersonal psychiatry is psychiatry that seeks to foster development, correct developmental arrests, and heal traumas at all levels of development, including transpersonal levels. It extends the standard biopsychosocial model of psychiatry to a biopsychosocial-spiritual one in which the later stages of human development are concerned with development beyond, or transcendent of, the individual (Textbook of Transpersonal Psychology and Psychiatry, eds. Scotten, Chen, Battista 1996). Transpersonal psychotherapy is informed by harm reduction and utilization of non-ordinary states of consciousness.
