KRIPPNER, STANLEY

Professor of psychology and director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco, and past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the Parapsychological Association. Krippner has written profusely on empirical research relating to the efficacy of shamanic and other forms ofhealing, as well as on the broader, related topics of parapsychology, psychotherapy, and consciousness studies. He is the coauthor ofTheRealms of Healing(1977) andHealing States:A Journey into the Worldof Spiritual Healing and Shamanism(1986), both with Alberto Villoldo, as well asSpiritual Dimensions of Healing:From TribalShamanism to Contemporary Health Care(1992) with Patrick Welch. Krippner’s psychological approach to shamanic healing insists that the human mind has an innate ability to heal (itself, the body, and the mind and body of other people) and that shamans, as the “first psychotherapists,” are exemplars of this technique. Such an approach represents shamanism in a form accessible (both intellectually and experientially) to modern Westerners as well as to scientific analysis. Shamans themselves understand their practices rather differently, focusing on engagements and relationships withother-than-human peoples, yet the psychological metaphor has increasing currency among some at the interface of indigenous shamans andneo-shamans, where it enables cross-discourse dialogue and understanding.