Bethany Butzer, PhD

Assistant Director, PhD Programme

Email: bethany.butzer@aleftrust.org

Personal website: bethanybutzer.com

Biography

Bethany writes, teaches, and conducts research in the fields of positive psychology and transpersonal psychology, which emphasize the development of human strength and potential. She received her MA in clinical psychology and her PhD in social psychology from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Bethany has worked in the corporate world and in academia, and she has also spent several years as an entrepreneur. From 2013 to 2015 she was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School, where she studied the effects of yoga in school settings. Bethany currently lives in Prague, where she was a Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of New York in Prague from 2016 to 2022. As a core faculty member for the Alef Trust MSc programme in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology, Bethany is the Module Leader for the Approaches to Consciousness module, a Lecturer on the Research Design and Learning Through Integrative Practice modules, and a Personal Tutor. Bethany is also the Assistant Director for the Alef Trust PhD programme in Applied Transpersonal Psychology. Bethany supervises MSc and PhD students, and her research focuses on yoga and mindfulness for youth, as well as transpersonal topics such as synchronicity, parapsychology, and ecopsychology.

Research interests

Bethany’s research interests span a range of topics within the fields of positive psychology and transpersonal psychology, and her career has focused on conducting empirical research within a variety of fields. For several years she studied school-based yoga and mindfulness interventions, thus she has expertise in implementing and studying contemplative practices in real-world contexts. She has a growing interest in studying synchronicity, parapsychology and ecopsychology, and she has recently published several peer-reviewed articles on these topics. She also has an overarching interest in post-materialist science and the ways in which we might expand the current scientific paradigm.

Key publications

Butzer, B. (2021). A consideration of transpersonal research methods for studying yoga and mindfulness in schools. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 40(2), 31-49. https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2021.40.2.31

Butzer, B. (2021). Does synchronicity point us toward the fundamental nature of consciousness? An exploration of psychology, ontology, and research prospects. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 28(3-4), 29-54.

Butzer, B. (2020). Bias in the evaluation of psychology studies: A comparison of parapsychology versus neuroscience. Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing, 16(6), 382-391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2019.12.010

Butzer, B., LoRusso, A., Shin, S. H., & Khalsa, S. B. S. (2017). Evaluation of yoga for preventing adolescent substance use risk factors in a middle school setting: A preliminary group-randomized controlled trial. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 46, 603-632. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0513-3