She said that what happened during the "brainstorming" sessions was somewhat distorted by Bob Woodward in his new book, "The Choice." Then, she said, Mr. Woodward's description was deeply distorted in newspaper accounts.

"We have a media society looking for sound bites," Dr. Houston said. "That gets to the skin but not to the muscle or the heart of anything."

She has spent over three decades as a researcher in psychology and in what she calls human potential, the idea that most human beings could live more intensely. "He's confusing the fringe with the frontier," Dr. Houston said of Mr. Woodward. "My whole life has been devoted to pushing the membrane of the possible, to push the boundaries of human capacity."

When she speaks of reincarnation, for example, she said today, she does not literally mean the reappearance of dead people in different bodies but the idea that the myths and stories of previous generations have a timeless relevance and in that sense re-emerge in experiences of modern generations. She says she uses "dreamworlds" and altered states to bring out human capacities.

Dr. Houston was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of Jack Houston, a comedy writer who wrote gags for Bob Hope, George Burns and Henny Youngman. Her father wrote 350 jokes for Mr. Youngman and sold them for $175 to pay for the incubator that kept Dr. Houston alive after she was born prematurely.