About Stephen Larsen

Stephen Larsen received his B.A. (1964) and M.A. (1968) from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from the Union Institute (1975). He completed clinical Internships at Maryland Psychiatric Research Center with Stanislav Grof, M.D. and in New York with Edward C. Whitmont, M.D. (Director of training at the C.G. Jung Institute). He also trained extensively with professor Joseph Campbell in understanding the psychological dimension of mythology, until the latter's death in 1987.

He is Psychology Professor Emeritus from the State University of New York SUNY Ulster, where he held a faculty appointment from 1968-1996. While at SUNY he directed a program in consciousness studies and biofeedback, that for twenty-five years gave students a hands-on opportunity to train themselves and do research on the health benefits of biofeedback training. During the years 1978-85 he was a staff psychologist for Ulster County Mental Health Department. From 1975 to 1989 he was also consulting psychologist and staff member for the Green St. Center, a humanistic private practice in Kingston NY.

In 1990 he opened his own center for psychotherapy, biofeedback and training called Stone Mountain Counseling, PC, for which he continues to serve as director. The center specializes in LENS neurofeedback in which Dr. Larsen was certified in 1996. In 2003 he was certified in HeartMath, after training in Boulder Creek CA. Dr. Larsen is also certified in Qi Gong, the Chinese energy discipline, by Master T.K. Shih. He also holds a second degree black belt in So Ryu Karate Do, and taught both karate and yoga for many years. He has been an avid rock climber and trapeze amateur.

Stephen Larsen is author of The Shaman's Doorway, The Mythic Imagination, and with his wife Robin, A Fire in the Mind: The Life of Joseph Campbell, and The Fashioning of Angels: Partnership as Spiritual Practice, as well as many scientific and scholarly papers, articles in journals, and book introductions. In 2006 he published The Healing Power of Neurofeedback: The Revolutionary LENS method for restoring Optimal Brain Function. In 2007 he published The Fundamentalist Mind: On how Polarized thinking Imperils Us All.

(You can learn more about Dr. Larsen's work at stonemountaincenter.com, symbolicstudies.org, or stonemountainfarm.org)