Jorge N. Ferrer

Jorge N. Ferrer, Ph.D., was born in Barcelona, Spain. He is a clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker, and educator. After studying Clinical Psychology at the University of Barcelona and the University of Wales, College of Cardiff (U.K.), he traveled to the USA to obtain his Ph.D. degree under the auspices of the prestigious 'la Caixa" Foundation Fellowship Program (Catalonia, Spain). He is a member of the research faculty at the California Institute for Human Science (San Diego) and served for more than two decades as a professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (San Francisco), where he also chaired the Department of East-West Psychology.

He is the award-winning author of several books, including REVISIONING TRANSPERSONAL THEORY: A PARTICIPATORY VISION OF HUMAN SPIRITUALITY (SUNY Press, 2002), PARTICIPATION AND THE MYSTERY: TRANSPERSONAL ESSAYS IN PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATION, AND RELIGION (SUNY PRESS, 2017), LOVE AND FREEDOM: TRANSCENDING MONOGAMY AND POLYAMORY (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), NOVOGAMIA: MAS ALLA DE LA MONOGAMIA Y DEL POLIAMOR (Anaya, 2022), THE PARTICIPATORY WAY: REIMAGINING CONSCIOUSNESS, PSYCHEDELICS, EMBODIMENT, AND CULTURE (Ind. Published, 2026), as well as coeditor of THE PARTICIPATORY TURN: SPIRITUALITY, MYSTICISM, RELIGIOUS STUDIES (SUNY Press, 2008).

Best known for developing the participatory approach to spirituality and consciousness studies, Ferrer is widely considered one of the main architects of contemporary transpersonal psychology. In his international private practice, he offers holistic counseling to individual and couples in both English and Spanish. A former advisor to Religions for Peace at the United Nations and a former leading scholar at the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research, Ferrer received the Fetzer Institute’s Presidential Award for his pioneering contributions to the study of human consciousness.