Keeping in mind that every "alternative" therapy ever invented have positive effects on some people (and that even in the absense of any kind of therapy there are spontaneous cures), I think I´ll risk pointing to the other side of the story. The one that holds Dr. Grof and some of his highly questionable work as "pseudoscience":

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"Holotropic Breathwork (Grof breathwork, holonomic breathwork, holonomic therapy, holotropic breath therapy, holotropic therapy): Psychotherapeutic technique developed in the 1970s by Czechoslovakian-born psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, M.D., and his wife, Christina Grof, author of The Thirst for Wholeness. It involves breathwork (hyperventilation), sound technology (mainly loud music), and the drawing of mandalas (aids to meditation), and it may include "focused bodywork." Holotropic Breathwork is an alleged access to one's "natural healing energies." It purportedly can induce "transpersonal experiences," which, according to Dr. Grof, can provide information about any "aspect" of the universe in the present, past, and future"

Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, the codeveloper of Holotropic Breathwork, coined the name "transpersonal psychology."

Dictionary of Metaphysical Healthcare Unnaturalistic Methods: H, T © 1997 Jack Raso, M.S., R.D.

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"The evidence, such as it is, is exhaustively examined by Edwards. Much of it comes from seemingly credible witnesses who claim to have seen the projected "astral bodies" of others at the time of the latter's death, or from children who seem remarkably precocious, or who "remember" people, places or events that they seem unlikely to have known about if they had not actually experienced them in a previous life. Edwards shows that the empirical evidence, like the supporting arguments put forth by past-life explorers such as Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, Stanislav Grof, Raymond Moody, and Ian Stevenson are far less compelling than the tabloid headlines would have you believe. As with most anecdotal evidence of this sort, examination reveals that tales retold by the faithful have a way of becoming tidier and more convincing as they pass from mouth to mouth."

A Cogent Consideration of the Case for Karma (and Reincarnation)

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"So, what kinds of naturalistic explanations might there be for all of these NDEs? One of the earliest explanations was offered by Stanislov Grof in 1976. Grof argued that these experiences were actually memories from when each of us went through something very similar: birth. Even if this explanation were accurate in some cases, it still would fail to explain why people delivered through cesarian section have such NDEs and why so many people are able to retain such accurate infantile memories. This explanation might explain a few NDEs, but is generally rejected."

Shermer, Michael. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and other Confusions of our Time. Freeman: New York, 1997. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/2850/NDE.html

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"Grinspoon's own commitment to the use of psychedelic drugs as part of spiritual psychotherapy was detailed in a 1986 article in the American Journal of Psychotherapy entitled "Can Drugs be Used to Enhance the Psychotherapeutic Process?" in which he argues that LSD can and should be used to trigger spiritual conversion as a psychotherapeutic treatment. The central "evidence" he presents is a late 1960s experiment run by a paranormal New Age mystic named Stanislav Grof at the Spring Grove State Hospital in Maryland. Grof subjected terminally-ill cancer patients to horrendously nightmarish LSD-induced hallucinations as part of an "experiment" in stress reduction.(12, 13)

12. E. Patrick Curry, "Carl Jung, Stanislav Grof and New Age Medical Mysticism," to be published in the Spring 2002 issue of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine.

13. A chapter on the paranormal, mystical Dr. Stanislav Grof is included in Paul Edwards' Reincarnation: A Critical Examination, Prometheus Press, 1996. Dr. Grof's mystical ideas can also easily be determined by simple Web searches. He is a major champion of New Age mysticism."

E. Patrick Curry