Clinical Psychology:
Eastern philosophy had been assimilated into several of the psychotherapies that developed during this century, including Jungian, Gestalt Therapy, and Transpersonal Therapy: Jungian Therapy through its emphasis on mythology and the collective unconscious; Gestalt Therapy through its mistrust of intellectualization and through its use of experiential awareness exercises; and Transpersonal Therapy through its appreciation of the mystical experiences offered by the Eastern approaches.
Physiological Psychology:
Operations performed in the 1950's and 60's to separate the two hemispheres of the brain to alleviate systems of epilepsy led to the surprising discovery that the two halves of the brain can operate successfully and independently. The relative skills of the two sides reflect a verbal, intellectual side and a spatial, intuitive side. This finding provided support for 'upgrading' the role of spatial/intuitive thinking to that of being an equal partner to rational thinking, replacing the older view of intuition as being inferior.
Scientific investigation into practitioners of yoga verified that people can have conscious control over aspects of their physiology that had long been believed to be totally unconscious. This led to the development of biofeedback, a technological approach to learning conscious control of 'autonomous' physiology.
Experimental Psychology:
Once the scientifically respectable and mechanistic realm of
physiological psychology had opened the door to Eastern Philosophy,
a few psychologists felt comfortable bringing the philosophy
into the Human Information Processing paradigm. The most notable
and influential contribution was by Robert Ornstein in his book
The Psychology of Consciousness (1972) In this book, and others,
the processes of intuitive thought were brought back into the
realm of consideration by experimental psychologists.