Jorge Ferrer
Jorge N. Ferrer (born October 30, 1968) is a Spanish‑American psychologist known for the participatory approach to transpersonal psychology, religious studies, and intimate relationships. He works as a research faculty at the California Institute for Human Science (CIHS) in San Diego and was a longtime professor and department chair of East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco.
Born in Barcelona, Ferrer earned a degree in clinical psychology from the University of Barcelona in 1991 and spent a year at Cardiff University as an Erasmus student, where he won the George Westby Prize for best undergraduate essays. He later conducted doctoral research on mindfulness and its brain effects and earned a PhD from CIIS.
Ferrer helped develop second‑wave transpersonalism, which emphasizes pluralism, relationships, and inquiry‑driven spirituality. He argues that spiritual knowledge grows through participatory, embodied practice across diverse traditions, rather than from any single tradition. He also introduced novogamy, a term for a wide range of intimate relationship styles beyond the monogamy/polyamory binary.
His major books are Revisioning Transpersonal Theory (2001), The Participatory Turn (2008, co-edited with Jacob H. Sherman), Participation and the Mystery (2017), and Love and Freedom (2021), which focuses on sexuality and relationships.
Ferrer has received several honors, including the Fetzer Institute Presidential Award (2000). He has been a scholar at the Esalen Institute and advised Religions for Peace at the United Nations (2009). In 2023, he gave a TEDx talk at TEDxDaltVila in Ibiza. His work has influenced religious studies, psychology, education, sexuality studies, and interfaith dialogue, promoting a more open, plural, and embodied spirituality.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:42 (CET).