Stanislav Grof, M.D., is a psychiatrist with an experience of over fifty years of research of non-ordinary states of consciousness. He was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where he also received his scientific training — an M.D. degree from the Charles University School of Medicine and a Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy in Medicine) degree from the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences. His early research was in the clinical uses of psychoactive drugs conducted at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague. There he was Principal Investigator of a program systematically exploring the heuristic and therapeutic potential of LSD and other psychedelic substances.
In 1967, he was invited as Clinical and Research Fellow to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. After completion of this two-year fellowship, he remained in the United States and continued his research as Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Henry Phipps Clinic of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. In 1973, he became Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, where he lived until 1987. He spent this time writing books and articles, giving seminars and lectures worldwide, and developing with his wife Christina Holotropic Breathwork, an innovative form of experiential psychotherapy.
Stanislav Grof is one of the founders and chief theoreticians of transpersonal psychology and founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA). In this function, he has organized jointly with Christina large international conferences in the United States, India, Australia, Czechoslovakia, and Brazil. At present, he is Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), teaching in the Department Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. He lives in Mill Valley, CA, writes books, conducts training seminars for professionals in holotropic breathwork and transpersonal psychology (Grof Transpersonal Training), and gives lectures and seminars worldwide.
At the 25th Anniversary Convocation of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology (ATP) held in August 1993 at Asilomar, CA, Stanislav Grof received a Honorary Award for major contributions to and development of the field of transpersonal psychology. On October 5, 2007, he was granted the prestigious Award >Vision 97< from the Vaclav and Dagmar Havel Foundation in Prague and on November 13, 2010, the Thomas R,Verny Award for his pivotal contributions to pre- and perinatal psychology. He also was invited as special consultant for the Hollywood movies Brainstorm and Millenium produced by MGM.
Among his publications are over 150 articles in professional journals and the books Realms of the Human Unconscious; LSD Psychotherapy; Beyond the Brain; The Adventure of Self-Discovery; Beyond Death; The Stormy Search for the Self; Holotropic Breathwork (the last three with Christina Grof); Books of the Dead; The Cosmic Game; The Transpersonal Vision; The Consciousness Revolution (with E. Laszlo and P. Russell); Psychology of the Future: The Ultimate Journey; When the Impossible Happens, and Healing Our Deepest Wounds. He also edited the books Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science; Human Survival and Consciousness Evolution; and Spiritual Emergency (the last one with Christina Grof). His science fiction novel Call of the Jaguar has been published in Russia and in Denmark.
The above books have been translated into German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Russian, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Estonian, Latvian, Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
Books – http://www.stanislavgrof.com/booksmedia.htm
Events – http://www.stanislavgrof.com/events.htm