The Figure-8 Model of a Complete Transformation: An Empirically-Based Understanding of the Integration of Transformation

Abstract

The Figure-8 Model of a Complete Transformation draws upon and corroborates with literature of 13 disciplines and is the result of over fifteen years of analysis seeded in this presenter’s doctoral research. Using a qualitative method called cooperative inquiry, coresearchers analyzed the lived experience of integrating transformative experiences that occurred during international travel facilitated as sacred play. The intent of the seminal study was to discern through cycles of embodied activities and critical discourse, if there is an underlying archetypal pattern to integrating life-changing, spiritual experience. The result produced a figure-8 pattern, which is illustrated in a book written by this presenter called, The Map to Wholeness: Real-life Stories of Crisis, Change, and Reinvention. Specifically, the research indicates that integration involves nine distinct phases that in total, clarify the necessity of struggle, strife, loss, and emotional anguish during integration. The outcomes further affirm why the majority of people who have had a STE struggle with depression, substance abuse, and other problems. In this session you will learn The Model of a Complete Transformation, it’s two cycles and 13-phases, and the aspects of self that the biopsychospiritual system integrates.

Presenter Bio

Susan Ross is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Recreation Therapy in the Department of Health Science and Recreation at San José State University. Her primary research examines psychospiritual transformation from transdisciplinary perspectives and is the subject of her book, The Map to Wholeness: Real-Life Stories of Crisis, Change, and Reinvention. Her research on the subject of transformation and integration is fundamentally informed by personal experience of transcendent realms that transpired while leading backpacking trips for youth in the mountain-tops of Colorado. Her current research investigates experience of swimming with humpback whales. In partnership with indigenous elders, she co-leads study abroad designed as transformative travel where students learn traditional energy healing practices called pujillay, or sacred play. As a consultant and speaker, Suzy helps agencies, groups, and individuals to recognize their location in the process of transformation so they can normalize their present circumstances as an integral part of transformation (i.e., of their own becoming) and be informed about how to take control with their circumstances and grow consciously.