Initiation into a life's calling: Vocation as a central theme in personal myth and transpersonal psychology

This three-part study investigates the experience of discovering a sense of vocation, the initiation into a sense of life calling or a central life task. Vocation is approached as a narrative theme linking social expression, individual development, and spiritual or transpersonal concerns.;Part One explores the centrality of the experience of vocation in rites of passage, dreams, inner voice experiences, and personal mythology. Eastern concepts of dharma in Hinduism and Buddhism are contrasted with the Protestant concept of vocation, giving particular attention to contemporary meanings of dharma in the context of engaged Buddhism. Jungian and Psychoanalytic perspectives on vocation are discussed, as well as the views of Ira Progoff and Roberto Assagioli, and Dane Rudhyar's concept of "transpersonal activity." Jungian and Psychoanalytic perspectives on vocation are also discussed. A central concern is to demonstrate the complexity of contemporary psychotherapy as a process that is often expected to encompass three levels of initiation that have been separated traditionally: enculturation, individualization, and transpersonalization.;Part Two criticizes contemporary theories of transpersonal psychology on the grounds that they provide an inadequate foundation for guiding initiatory processes in the context of psychotherapy. Nevertheless, the significance of the field of transpersonal psychology is affirmed. The findings of Donald McAdams and Stanley Krippner are summarized to demonstrate the centrality of narrative to the formation of personal identity and to explore the relationship between spiritual or transpersonal phenomena and the construction of personal mythology. Broader questions are raised regarding the relationship between personal and transpersonal growth in human development.;Part Three describes a research study utilizing a qualitative methodology emphasizing description of narrative data. In-depth interviews of 15 subjects were conducted, and data were analyzed in order to explicate the major narrative themes operative in some contemporary experiences of discovering vocation. Three basic operative levels of vocation were identified: societal, individual, and transpersonal. The study found that discovering vocation is in most cases experienced as a narrative with eight major themes: preparation, illumination, development, confirmation, interpersonal issues, problems and pitfalls, spiritual or transpersonal dimensions, and meaning and implications. The discovery of a sense of vocation was shown to be what McAdams calls a "critical episode" in the life story, an episode that leads in many cases to major transformations of identity.