Aims & Scope
The aim of the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies (IJTS) is to foster the publication of scholarship and empirical research in transpersonal psychology and related fields. Transpersonal is a scholarly orientation that situates its research within relational and process models, systems theories, whole person approaches, and phenomenological frames, while also encouraging quantitative research informed by lived experience. It typically focuses on potentials for optimal human development and transformation.
Transpersonal psychology was the first field within psychology to publish research on mindfulness and other Eastern spiritual practices, the first to pioneer studies on the potential value of psychedelics, and the first to conceptualize spirituality as a human capacity separate from religion. Its concepts and models are uniquely resonant with cultural impetuses toward meditation, yoga, spirituality, holistic health, and social and ecological justice.
In this way, transpersonal complements cognitive, behavioral, and neuropsychological approaches to psychology. Along with humanistic, transpersonal has been a leader in envisioning whole person and muticultural approaches to psychology and related disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, medicine, psychiatry, psychotherapy, education, leadership, feminism, and religion.
Transpersonal approaches typically pay particular attention to states of mind associated with a sense of interconnectedness and with personal and social transformation, and have an interest in mystical and spiritual experiences and the traditions that cultivate these through intentional processes. From these, it acknowledges the value and importance of scientific research, but critiques the uncritical acceptance of conventional Western philosophical assumptions that are at times present within this work.