I did a quick search and found these two posts that mentioned Stanislov Grof:
[That appears to be all that I could find directly mentioning his name.]
Hotkafka, posted to someone:
This is a potentially tricky situation. Being a trained psychotherapist who is interested in this subject matter, I have to caution you - no matter what direction you choose to go to for support or to seek out an opinion on your experiences, there is always going to be a certain degree of "reframing" going on. And this simply means that those who consider themselves experts on anomalous experiences will file them away according to their main frameworks of interpretation. For example: A Jungian psychologist might see them as Transpersonal in orientation, a Psychiatrist as potentially psychotic delusions, a shaman as initiation episodes, a Hindu Yogi as "siddhi", a Dr. Stanislov Grof as experiences of non-material realms, and a Budd Hopkins type as precursors or indications of abduction-related phenemenon. The path you chose to take is an important one, for your experiences can only be validated ultimately by you. I'd say there's a few steps one might consider - First, do your best to rule out that there isn't any neurological disorder -schedule an appointment and avoid describing the backstory to your present experiences. Reveal your concern in the framework of "unexplained" phenemenon, but unless you want to be on the high road to neuroleptics, be frugal with the details. I say this only upon the assumption that you are not a potentially dual-diagnosis candidate, i.e. experiencing said phenemenon with the addition of depressive episodes, substantial mood swings or changes in energy, and or delusions of reference and hearing voices. If your psychological state happens to fit with dual symptomology, well, do consider quite seriously the option of seeing a psychiatrist. Additionally, consider the option of seeing a psychotherapist. Take the time to learn about yourself and the implications of your family of origin as well as subconscious and higher conscious activity. Do this only if you feel comfortable devoting yourself to such an enterprise, because it does demand a great deal of energy and fortitude. Therapy may stand to provide you with a clearer picture of why these things may be happening. Practically, maintain a healthy amount of skepticism and continue to investigate the phenomenon, but be sure to involve a system of checks and balances - i.e. bounce some of your findings/ideas/conclusions off someone close to you who is level headed and whom is someone you can trust. This forum is a good expression of that, but there is a considerable amount of "reframing" you will face on this board.
justcurious replied:
Hotkafka,
About re-fraiming and referring to your list of possible approaches, I'd say that I am not likely to embrace solely any of the views in the list or any other "single focus" approaches as I see them exactly as you qualified them: "frameworks of interpretation". I have read and am interested in all of them as they are all different and more or less relevant view points. To me they all make sense in their own way but are too narrow to encompass totally the "reality" of the phenomenon, if there is any. Does that make sense ? This "all but none" approach is a re-framing in itself, isn't it ?
Regarding the neurological disorder and psychiatric angle, I am not considering it (yet) since the phenomenon, as it occurs to me, is always also seen by persons accompanying me if any, and is phenomenal enough to be photographed. I have not once been in the situation of pointing it out to people with me and having them not seeing it. I do not have mood swings or depressions of any unusual scope or intensity and have a normal life, very active with two professions, some studies and time consuming activities. The phenomenon seemingly manifest itself regardless of my mood or mental state, I had wondered about that and been careful to verify it, mostly because I wanted to see if I could provoke manifestations.
On skepticism and conclusions, I am also careful not to include in the sightings count anything that is not absolutely unusual. There seem to be "psychic" effects accompanying the events, as defined by the
Vallée-Davis model, but I really take this aspect as an observer (at least consciously) and I do not have any conclusions or belief system other than acknowledging that there is something certainly very unusual happening and worth studying. I tend not to favour the ETH as far as my experiences are concerned and lean toward Vallée's line of questioning since I find it to be fairly open and not prematurely conclusive, compared to other theories.
Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it for its professional and open content. If you have a more clear-cut opinion about this topic that you have refrained to express to avoid participating in the discussed re-framing, I would still like to hear it.
