Holotropic Breathwork. A new approach to self-exploration and therapy

Holotropic Breathwork- the most effective of the three breathing techniques used in modern psychology and psychotherapy (the "big four" - holotropic breathing, waving, rebirthing, free breathing).

Holotropic Breathwork was developed in the 1970s by Stanislav Grof, an American psychologist born in Czechoslovakia, and his wife Kristina, as a legal alternative to psychedelic therapy.

Stanislav Grof, MD, is a physician and scientist who has spent over forty years researching non-ordinary states of consciousness and spiritual growth. He was born in Prague on July 1, 1931. In 1956 he received a medical degree from the Medical School of Charles University in Prague and a doctorate from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. From 1956 to 1967 S. Grof was a practicing psychiatrist-clinician. During the same period, he actively studied the basics of psychoanalysis and took part in innovative research projects. In 1959, he was awarded the Küfner Prize, a national Czechoslovak award given annually for the most outstanding contribution to the field of psychiatry. Since 1961, he has led research into the use of LSD and other psychedelics in the treatment of mental disorders. In 1967, as a Fellow of the Psychiatric Research Encouragement Foundation (USA), he received the opportunity to complete a two-year fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Then he continued his research activities at the Maryland Center for Psychiatric Research. From 1973 to 1987 S. Grof lives and works at the Esalen Institute (Big Sur, California, USA). During this period, together with his wife Christina, he develops the technique of holotropic breathing - a unique method of psychotherapy, self-knowledge and personal growth. Stanislav Grof is one of the founders of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), and has been its president for a long time. He has also acted as an organizer and coordinator of international conferences in the USA, India, Australia, Czechoslovakia and Brazil. Currently, S. Grof is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the California Institute for Integral Studies, where he teaches in two departments: psychology and intercultural studies. In addition, he conducts training seminars for professionals. Grof Transpersonal Training("Grof's Transpersonal Trainings"), and also gives lectures and seminars around the world. Stanislav Grof is the author and co-author of more than one hundred articles and sixteen books. His texts invariably attract the attention of both professionals and all those who are interested in self-exploration and spiritual growth. Stanislav Grof's books and articles have been translated into twelve languages, including German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Russian, Czech, Polish, Chinese and Japanese. Stanislav Grof began his medical career as a classical psychoanalyst who believed that psychedelic drugs used in psychiatry under controlled conditions could greatly speed up the process of psychoanalysis. However, the unprecedented richness and range of experiences during LSD psychotherapy sessions soon convinced him of the theoretical limitations of the Freudian model of the mind and the underlying mechanistic worldview. The new cartography of the psyche that emerged as a result of these studies consists of three areas: 1) the (Freudian) personal and biographical unconscious; 2) the transpersonal unconscious (which also includes Jung's narrower ideas of the archetypal or collective unconscious); 3) the perinatal unconscious, which is a bridge between the personal and transpersonal unconscious and filled with symbolism and concrete experiences of death and rebirth. This area of ​​the unconscious carries the greatest transformative potential. In his recent works, Stanislav Grof constantly emphasizes that the perinatal is not limited to intrauterine life and the process of childbirth, but forms a more all-encompassing structure of psycho-spiritual transformation, valid for all stages of the development of consciousness. The vast clinical experience of Grof himself and his students, as well as the recorded experience of world spiritual traditions, indicates that regression to perinatal level is often necessary condition to access the transpersonal. Grof himself assisted in about four thousand sessions of psychedelic psychotherapy, and tens of thousands of people in all countries of the world and of all nationalities have passed through his seminars on holotropic breathing.

The history of the creation of holotropic breathwork is amazing. Even before the prohibition in the United States (and then throughout the world) of psychoactive substances, it was noticed that at the end of a psychotherapeutic psychedelic session, if the problem had not been worked through to the end, patients began to breathe intensively in order to continue to remain in an altered state of consciousness and finalize that psychological material that has risen from the unconscious.

After the ban on the use of psychotomimetics for psychotherapeutic purposes, Stanislav and Christina Grof began to use intensive breathing in their work. At first, a group of patients breathed heavily, and S. Grof was an instructor leading the process and helped the participants. But one "beautiful" day, he pulled his back and could not help breathing. Then he had the idea to split the group into pairs and conduct not one, but two breathing sessions: during the first session, one person breathes (holonaut), and the second one helps him (sitter, nurse, assistant), during the second they change places. The result exceeded all expectations. The experiences of the participants in the process turned out to be much more intense, and the psychotherapeutic effect of the sessions was stronger.

Holotropic breathing was officially authorized and registered by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation in 1993 as one of the 28 methods of psychotherapy.

Basic concepts of holotropic breathwork

Theoretical basis of holotropic breathing - transpersonal psychology. The main elements of holotropic breathing are:

• deeper and faster connected breathing than normal
• motivating music
• assisting the holonaut in releasing energy through specific techniques of working with the body

These elements are complemented by creative self-expression of the individual, such as mandala drawing, free dancing, clay modeling, therapeutic sandbox play.

The best thing about holotropic breathing is probably in the book Frantic Search for Self by Stanislav and Christina Grof:

In the mid-seventies, Stanislav and Christina Grof developed a method of deep experiential self-exploration and therapy, which we now call holotropic breathwork, and began to systematically use it in seminars.

Holotropic Breathwork combines such means as accelerated breathing, music and specially selected sounds, as well as certain types of body work, is capable of generating the full range of experiences that are usually observed during psychedelic sessions. In Holotropic Breathwork, these experiences tend to be milder and the person is more able to control them, but they are essentially the same in content as those that occur during psychedelic sessions, although they are obtained without the help of any whatever it was chemical substances. The main catalyst here is not a powerful and mysterious psychoactive substance, but the most natural and fundamental physiological process imaginable - breathing.

Theoretical Provisions
Stanislav and Christina Grof

Broad understanding human psyche, which includes biographical, perinatal and transpersonal areas. Phenomena belonging to all these areas are considered as natural and normal components of the psychological process, they are accepted and supported as a whole.
Understanding that non-ordinary states of consciousness caused by holotropic breathing, as well as similar states that occur spontaneously, mobilize the internal healing forces of the psyche and body.
As this process unfolds, the "inner healer" manifests therapeutic wisdom that transcends knowledge that can be derived from the cognitive understanding of the individual practitioner or any particular school of psychotherapy or bodywork.

Practical Approach

Main elements Holotropic Breathwork are: deeper and faster breathing, stimulating music, and helping to release energy through specific bodywork techniques. This is complemented by creative self-expression such as mandala drawing and discussion of the experience. Holotropic Breathwork can be carried out both one-on-one and in a group situation, where participants change places: either in the role of breathing (holonauts), or in the role of sitting (sitters).
Before the first experience Holotropic Breathwork participants receive in-depth theoretical training, including the main types of phenomena that occur in holotropic breathwork sessions (biographical, perinatal and transpersonal), as well as technical instructions for both breathers and sitters. In addition, physical and emotional contraindications are discussed, and if they concern any of the participants, these people receive recommendations from specialists.
Holotropic Breathwork is more frequent and deep than usual; as a rule, no other specific instructions are given before or during the session, such as the speed, mode, or nature of breathing, for example. The experience is entirely internal and mostly non-verbal with minimal interference during active breathing. Exceptions are throat spasms, problems of loss of self-control, strong pain or fear preventing the continuation of the session, as well as a direct request of the breather for help.
Music (or other forms of acoustic stimulation - drums, tambourines, natural sounds, etc.) is an integral part of the process Holotropic Breathwork. As a rule, the choice of music supports the characteristic stages that reflect the most general features of the unfolding of the holotropic experience: at the beginning it is stimulating and stimulating, then it becomes more and more dramatic and dynamic, and then it expresses a breakthrough. After the climax, the music gradually becomes more and more calm and at the end - peaceful, flowing, meditative. Since the development of the process described above is statistically average, it should be changed if the dynamics of the group energy proceeds differently.
Sitters during the session Holotropic Breathwork should be responsible and unobtrusive, concerned about effective breathing, the safety of the environment, respecting the natural unfolding of the experience and providing assistance in all necessary situations (physical support, help if you need to go to the toilet, get a napkin or a glass of water, etc.) For sitters it is important to remain concentrated, accepting the full range of possible emotions and behavior of the breather. Holotropic Breathwork does not use any type of intervention that comes from intellectual analysis or is based on a priori theoretical constructs.
It is very important to have enough time for the session. It usually takes two to three hours. During this time, the process, as a rule, comes to its natural end, but in exceptional cases it can last several hours. At the end of the session Holotropic Breathwork the facilitator offers work with the body, in the case when all the emotional and physical tensions activated during the session have not been resolved through breathing. The basic principle of this work is to understand what is happening to the breather and create a situation that will exacerbate the existing symptoms. While energy and awareness are being held in the area of ​​tension and discomfort, the individual should be encouraged to fully express himself, whatever form it may take. This bodywork is an essential part of the holotropic approach and plays an important role in the completion and integration of experiences.
Facilitators Holotropic Breathwork must be aware that when they use a method that induces non-ordinary states of consciousness in a client, there is the potential for unusually intense projections, including regressive lust for nourishment, sexual contact, or spiritual connection. These projections are often focused on the facilitator. In these cases, the facilitator should be sensitive to imbalances in the client's roles and take care to help clients who experience such experiences. Facilitators agree to practice holotropic breathing ethically.
Group discussion takes place on the same day after the break. During the discussion, the facilitator does not give any interpretations of the material based on any theoretical systems, including the system Holotropic Breathwork. It is better to ask the holonaut to continue working through and clarifying his experiences, returning to his insights received in the session. During the discussion, mythological and anthropological references in line with Jungian psychology can be useful, and mandalas can also be useful. On occasion, references to the personal experiences of the presenters or other people are possible.
There are many approaches that complement holotropic breathing. However, whatever you use, be clear that it is not part of the Holotropic Breathwork. And if the practice of conducting a breathing session differs significantly from what is described above, for such practice no need use the name " holotropic breathing". We ask replace it with another term not related to our names.(

SITER AND HOLONAUT REMINDERS

Memo sitter (sitting)

Make a contract with the breather, discuss his wishes and preferences.

Minimize talking while breathing, as this can interfere with the breathers being in their process.

Focus on the breather with all your attention, sitting next to his head, and do not be distracted by what is happening in the hall. Don't delve into your own process. Breathers need the undivided presence and attention of those sitting and can be very sensitive to the lack of this attention.

Stay with the breather in the same space of experience, attend to this space, but do not invade it. If the breather is calm, it is easier for you to feel it while remaining equally calm. If the breather is active, sometimes his condition is better felt, with a slight movement in the same rhythm.

Guard the space of experience of the breather. Protect your ward from the activity of other breathers or any other interfering and risky activities that occur.

Resist the temptation to apply your knowledge from the experience of various spiritual traditions to help the breathers. Examples of such help would be "clearing the aura" or the use of crystals.

Don't leave the breathers alone. If you need to go to the toilet, call one of the presenters for this time.

Be aware of any weak spot on the breather's body and inform the facilitator, if they are working with your breather, of such areas.

Help the breather if he asks for something. If the breather needs to go to the toilet, walk him to the toilet door and back. Help him dry off with a towel, bring a glass of water. Be ready to provide any support.

If you have questions about what is happening, raise your hand to call the facilitator.

Make sure your breather is checked by the leader before leaving the room after the process is over.

Ask to leave food for you and the breather if he is still in the process by the time lunch (dinner) starts.

Tidy up your seat in the breathing room after guiding the breather into the mandala drawing room.

Memo holonaut (breathing)

Come to the hall in advance so that you can prepare the place without haste, concentrate and calm down. The time indicated in the schedule is the time of the beginning of the breath itself.

Wear comfortable, loose clothing and remove anything that is constricting or likely to injure you (belts, bras, jewelry, etc.). If you are wearing contact lenses, also remove them before the session.

If you're breathing today, eat very lightly or don't eat at all. In this case, breathing is easier.

Visit the toilet before the session. If you want to go to the toilet while you're breathing, don't be shy. Better to do this than be distracted by a full bladder.

If you have doubts about choosing a partner, ask yourself if this is the best option in this situation, do you feel safe with this person?

Do not leave the room in the middle of a session. Make an internal commitment to attend the entire workshop (including all breathing sessions and group process discussions) in order to have a holistic, unfragmented experience and support each other.

Breathe more deeply and often for an hour. Breathing is the most important catalyst for non-ordinary states of consciousness. Keep your eyes closed to focus on inner experiences.

Remain in the supine position - the open position. The desire to lean on one's hands, sit down or stand up can be a way of controlling the experience or a way of escaping from it. If you have completed it, try to return to the starting position as soon as you are ready for it.

Sign a contract with a partner that includes the following items:

How to remind you to breathe;

What kind of physical contact is most acceptable for you;

What kind of support do you need from a partner;

What are the features of your manifestation in the session;

Agree on non-verbal communication cues:

How will you tell your partner to stop reminding you to breathe if the reminder interferes with your experience;

How do you tell your partner that you want something.

Avoid talking, respect the experiences of other participants. Conversations bring people out of an unusual state, because they are associated with ordinary consciousness.

Remain silent while drawing mandalas and (preferably) throughout the day. It helps to be in a meditative mood.

Ask for help if you feel severe blockages, pain, or tension in your body and continuing to breathe does not provide relief. This can be done at any time during the session.

Know that you are always in control. If you want to stop working with you, say the word "STOP" and any treatment will stop immediately.

If you find yourself too caught up in your thoughts, bring your attention to your body and focus on your breath or music. If you find yourself analyzing music, allow its vibrations to enter your body and focus on your breath.

If you have a strong emotion (e.g. anger, annoyance, etc.) and it seems to be caused by events in the audience (e.g. you don't like music or something), shift your attention to yourself and to the sensations in your body. Instead of being distracted by something external and engaging in endless emotional projections, it is better to get in touch with the energies you are experiencing, express them, and release them.

Do not program experiences, let what arises be a spontaneous act, unexpected for yourself - a free dance of body, energy and thought.

Be the perfect actor: being completely in the role, in the experience, at the same time be above every role, beyond all experience.

You decide when to end your breath. As a rule, the session comes to its natural end within 1.5-2.5 hours. The music continues until everyone is done, so there is no need to wait for it to finish.

You should not start a new session at the end of a session. The job at this point is not to discover all the new problems, but to complete any material that comes up and needs to be integrated.

Before you leave the hall, call the host to check if everything is in order. This test is necessary to see if the breathers need further work and feel the complete completion of the experience.

Try drawing a mandala even if you think you can't draw. The point here is not in the quality of the drawing itself, but in the ability to use drawing as a means of integration and self-understanding.

You are free to talk about your experience only what you see fit. As you do this, don't analyze, but abide in the energies of the process itself. Refrain from analyzing and evaluating someone else's experience or mandala.

Sleep is a continuation of the integration of manifest experiences. Be attentive to his messages. In the following days, find time for drawing, contemplation, journaling, and dream work.

Generalized material on Holotropic Breathwork

History of the development of holotropic breathwork

• Sensory barrier
• Individual unconscious
• Region of birth
• Transpersonal level

How does a Holotropic Breathwork session work?

• Deep and rapid breathing (holotropic breathing)
• uplifting music
• Specific bodywork techniques to help the holonaut release energy

The most powerful and effective of the breathing techniques used in modern psychology and psychotherapy, among which the well-known techniques are rebirthing, waving and free breathing techniques.
It was developed in the 70s by Stanislav Grof, an American psychologist born in Czechoslovakia, and his wife Kristina, as a legal alternative to psychedelic therapy.
The only respiratory psychotechnics for which a serious psychological theoretical base has been developed. This is due to the fact that S. Grof, in contrast to the founders of rebirthing L. Orr and vending D. Leonard, is a professional in the field of medicine and psychology.

Ours offers classes on holotropic breathing in the basic course program in Moscow and St. Petersburg; Offsite with immersion in picturesque places remote from the city (Leningrad, Tver region), Individual sessions on holotropic breathing; Instructor courses.

1.1. Story

Stanislav Grof, being a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, began to conduct research activities with LSD in the mid-1950s. Quite quickly, he was convinced of the great psychotherapeutic effect of psychedelic sessions. Continuing his research, Grof was faced with the need to revise the Freudian model of the psyche in which he was brought up, and build a new cartography of consciousness to describe the effects that occur during psychedelic sessions. Having created such a model, he described it in his numerous works. When experiments with psychoactive substances were closed, Grof began to look for a technique similar in therapeutic effect. And in 1975, together with Christina Grof, he discovered and registered the breathing technique.

Since 1975, this technique has gained more and more popularity among psychotherapists and people interested in personal growth and spiritual development.

In 1973, Dr. Grof was invited to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, where he lived until 1987, doing writing, giving lectures, seminars, including seminars to which he invited interesting specialists from various scientific and spiritual directions.

While working at Esalen, Stanislav and Christina Grof developed the holotropic breathing technique. Against the background of a political ban on the use of psychoactive substances (PS) for psychotherapeutic purposes, Stanislav and Christina Grof used intensive breathing in their work. The prototype of the breathing technique of S. and K. Grof was the breathing methods that existed in various spiritual and psychological practices, as well as breathing similar to that observed in patients during a psychedelic session if the problem was not worked out to the end and the patients began to breathe spontaneously and intensively. Such breathing was necessary in order to continue to remain in an altered (expanded) state of consciousness and to refine (discharge) the psychological material that had risen from the unconscious and reacted in the form of symptoms.

Once, while working in Esalen, Grof pulled his back and was unable to conduct the process as usual. Then Stanislav came up with the idea to split the group into pairs and hold not one, but two breathing sessions and let the participants of the seminar help each other. During the first session, one person breathes (holonaut), and the second one helps him (sitter, nurse, assistant), during the second they change places. This practice proved to be the most effective.

It was officially authorized and registered by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation in 1993 as one of the 28 methods of psychotherapy.

1.2. Technique

The elements of technology are:- Rapid breathing(“In Holotropic Breathwork, we encourage people to begin the session by breathing faster and somewhat deeper, linking inhalation and exhalation in a continuous process of breathing. Once inside the action, individuals find their own rhythm and way of breathing.” - evocative music(“Carefully chosen music seems to have a special meaning in holotropic states of consciousness, where it performs several important functions. It sets in motion the feelings associated with repressed memories, brings them to the surface and facilitates self-expression.” [It is very important to surrender to the musical flow , let the music resonate throughout the body, respond to it spontaneously and involuntarily .... - Energy-releasing work of the body. This element must be applied if the respiratory process has not come to a favorable conclusion, and either unresolved emotions or residual tension remain. “The general strategy of this work is to ask the breather to focus his attention on the place where he is having difficulty and do something to increase the physical sensations. And in this case, if an appropriate external influence is required, the assistant helps to strengthen these sensations. Also, as a rule, holotropic breathwork sessions take place in large groups, where participants are divided into pairs, and each breather, during the session, has a siter, a person who helps to maintain safety, maintain breathing, and sometimes perform body work. Sessions of holotropic breathing can last 3-4 hours, then time is given to draw mandalas and discuss what happened.

1.3. The Purpose of Holotropic Breathwork

From the name of the technique it follows that the goal of holotropic breathwork is integrity. Holos - a whole, integral, tropos - movement, aspiration, in total - breathing, leading to integrity. Unfortunately, Sten Grof nowhere in his numerous writings speaks directly about what integrity is. At the same time, he talks quite a lot about healing and the healing effect of holotropic states of consciousness. As a rule, the healing effect is to reunite the repressed part of the consciousness with the conscious. “…and what happens during the session is that rapid breathing, extended over a long period of time, causes chemical changes in the body in such a way that the blocked physical and emotional energies of the body associated with various traumatic memories are released and become suitable for external discharge and processing. This makes it possible for the previously repressed content of these memories to arise in consciousness and be reunited with it. Therefore, what is happening is a healing event that should be supported…..” Thus, it can be concluded that the goal of holotropic breathwork is psychic healing, which, as a rule, is formed through the release of emotional and physical tensions and repressed memories, and their reunification with consciousness. Grof pays much attention to emotional and psychosomatic disorders, finding their place and describing them in detail in the cartography of consciousness he developed. But where exactly is mental health in his model, and what it is, what the cartography of the consciousness of a healthy, healed person will look like on the basis of his works is difficult to determine.

1.4. Therapeutic Mechanisms of Holotropic Breathwork

In the theory of holotropic breathing, the therapeutic mechanisms of the breathing technique are considered in more detail than in the description of other styles, so we considered it appropriate to include this chapter here.
1. Activation of repressed memories, due to the weakening of the defenses of the psyche, which arose due to the ASC. “Non-ordinary states of consciousness, as a rule, significantly change the relationship of the conscious and unconscious dynamics of the psyche. They weaken defenses and psychological resistances. Under these circumstances, not only repressed memories usually arise, but the person fully experiences emotionally significant events of the past in a state of age regression.

2. Reacting: “Therapeutic options for re-living emotionally significant childhood episodes include several important points. Psychopathology draws its dynamic power from the repositories of repressed emotional and psychic energy. In psychedelic and holotropic therapy, the release of these energies and their peripheral discharge play a very significant role. Traditionally, such a liberation is called acting out if it is associated with a certain specific biographical content. “For a response to be fully effective, the therapist must facilitate its full implementation………. This reaction can take quite dramatic forms and lead to temporary loss of control, uncontrollable vomiting, choking cough, temporary loss of consciousness (prolapse) and other similar situations.

3. Awareness of the manifested material from the point of view of an adult.

4. Full living of the traumatic experience. Grof considers the question - why should the living of a painful situation of the past become therapeutic, and not traumatic again? And he answers it as follows: the traumatic situation was not fully lived at the moment it occurred and therefore it was not psychologically “digested” and integrated, therefore, during holotropic breathing, it can be fully experienced for the first time and thanks to this it is completed and integrated.

Stanislav and Christina Grof

PRINCIPLES OF HOLOTROPIC BREATHING(Theoretical positions)

A broad understanding of the human psyche that includes the biographical, perinatal, and transpersonal realms. Phenomena belonging to all these areas are considered as natural and normal components of the psychological process, they are accepted and supported as a whole.
Understanding that non-ordinary states of consciousness caused by holotropic breathing, as well as similar states that occur spontaneously, mobilize the internal healing forces of the psyche and body.
These healing powers manifest spontaneously and are not limited to the experience of established schools of psychotherapy or body work.

Practical Approach

The main elements of holotropic breathing are: deeper and faster breathing, stimulating music, and assistance in releasing energy through specific bodywork techniques. This is complemented by creative self-expression such as mandala drawing, clay modeling, spontaneous dancing, and discussion of experience. Holotropic breathing work can be carried out both one-on-one and in a group situation, where participants change places: sometimes as holonauts, sometimes as sitters.
Before the first breath experience, participants receive an in-depth theoretical training that includes the main types of phenomena that occur in holotropic breathwork sessions (biographical, perinatal, and transpersonal) as well as technical instructions for both the experiencer and the seated. In addition, physical and emotional contraindications are discussed, and if they concern any of the participants, these people receive recommendations from specialists.
Breathing is more frequent and deeper than usual; as a rule, no other specific instructions are given before or during the session, such as, for example, the speed, mode, or nature of breathing. The experience is entirely internal and mostly non-verbal with minimal interference during active breathing. Exceptions are throat spasms, problems with loss of self-control, severe pain or fear that prevents the session from continuing, and a direct request from the breather for intervention.
Music (or other forms of acoustic stimulation - drumming, tambourines, natural sounds, etc.) is an integral part of the holotropic process. As a rule, the choice of music supports the characteristic stages that reflect the most general features of the unfolding of the holotropic experience: at the beginning it is stimulating and stimulating, then it becomes more and more dramatic and dynamic, and then it expresses a breakthrough. After the climax, the music gradually becomes more and more calm and at the end - peaceful, flowing, meditative. Since the development of the process described above is statistically average, it should be changed if the dynamics of the group energy proceeds differently.
Sitters during the session should be responsible and unobtrusive, this role guarantees efficiency, safety of the environment, respect for the natural unfolding of experience and provides assistance in all necessary situations (physical support, help if you need to go to the toilet, get a napkin or a glass of water, etc.). e.) It is important for sitters to remain focused, accepting the full range of the breather's possible emotions and behaviors. Holotropic Breathwork does not use any type of intervention that comes from intellectual analysis or is based on a priori theoretical constructs.
It is very important to have enough time for the session. It usually takes two to three hours. During this time, the process, as a rule, comes to its natural end, but in exceptional cases it can last several hours. At the end of the session, the facilitator offers work with the body in the event that all the emotional and physical tensions activated during the session have not been resolved through breathing. The basic principle of this work is to understand what is happening to the breather and create a situation that will exacerbate the existing symptoms. While energy and awareness are being held in the area of ​​tension and discomfort, the individual should be encouraged to fully express himself, whatever form it may take. This bodywork is an essential part of the holotropic approach and plays an important role in the completion and integration of experiences.

The group discussion takes place on the same day after a long break. During the discussion, the facilitator does not give any interpretations of the material based on any theoretical systems. It is better to ask the holonaut to further work through and clarify through reflection his insights received in the session. During the discussion, mythological and anthropological references in line with Jungian psychology can be useful, and mandalas can also be useful. There may be references to the personal experiences of presenters or other people.

The European School of Breathing conducts educational, therapeutic seminars; group and individual sessions on holotropic breathing in the form in which this technique was originally created by S. Grof. You can find out about the next Holotropic Breathwork Seminar

The method was developed by the Czech-born American psychologist Stanislav Grof and his wife Kristina in the 1970s as a replacement for the banned LSD.

This technique is widely criticized among specialists for its danger to the brain (nerve cells die due to hypoxia), as well as for its claims to be connected with the real experience of birth. According to S. Stepanov, the leader of the holotropic breathing group himself imposes on practitioners associations with the experience of birth, because of which practitioners have experiences of this type.

The term "holotropic" is derived from other Greek. ὅλος "whole" and τρόπος direction, way.

Story

Stanislav Grof

Stanislav Grof, being a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, began to conduct research activities with LSD in the mid-1950s. Quite quickly he became convinced of the great psychotherapeutic effect of psychedelic sessions. Continuing his research, Grof was faced with the need to revise the Freudian model of the psyche in which he was brought up, and build a new cartography of consciousness to describe the effects that occur during psychedelic sessions. Having created such a model, he described it in his numerous works. When experiments with psychoactive substances (surfactants) were closed, Grof began to look for a technique similar in therapeutic effect. And in 1975, together with Christina Grof, he discovered and registered a breathing technique, which he called "holotropic breathing."

Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof

In 1973 Dr. Grof was invited to the Esalen Institute. Esalen Institute ) in Big Sur, California, where he lived until 1987, doing writing, giving lectures, seminars, including seminars to which he invited experts from various scientific and spiritual areas. While working at Esalen, Stanislav and Christina Grof developed the holotropic breathing technique. Against the background of the ban on the use of psychoactive substances for psychotherapeutic purposes, Stanislav and Christina Grof used intensive breathing in their work. The prototype of the breathing technique of S. and K. Grof was the breathing methods that existed in various spiritual practices, as well as breathing similar to that observed in patients during a psychedelic session in case the problem was not worked out to the end and the patients began to breathe spontaneously and intensively. Such breathing was necessary in order to continue to remain in an altered (expanded) state of consciousness and to refine (discharge) the psychological material that had risen from the unconscious and reacted in the form of symptoms.

Once, while working in Esalen, S. Grof pulled his back and could not conduct the process as usual. Then Stanislav came up with the idea to split the group into pairs and hold not one, but two breathing sessions and let the participants of the seminar help each other. During the first session, one person breathes (holonaut), and the second one helps him (sitter, nurse, assistant), during the second they change places.

Human impact

The theoretical substantiation of the method is Stanislav Grof's transpersonal psychology and cartography of the unconscious.

The method, which combines elements such as accelerated breathing, ethnic, ritual and trance music, as well as certain forms of body work, generates a whole range of experiences that were observed during other types of deep self-examination [ unknown term] .

Proponents of the method claim that the experiences evoked by holotropic breathing have a healing and transformative effect. They also state that many holotropic sessions have brought to the surface difficult emotions and unpleasant physical sensations of various types, and the full manifestation of these emotions and sensations makes it possible to free the person from their disturbing influence.

Physiological mechanism

The psychophysiological effect of holotropic breathing is based on the fact that prolonged hyperventilation leads to a decrease in the concentration of carbon dioxide, which leads to vasoconstriction. Hemoglobin begins to bind oxygen more strongly and red blood cells transfer it less efficiently to tissues - tissues begin to suffocate from a lack of oxygen. As a result, from lack of air, a paradoxical oxygen starvation, due to which inhibition of the cerebral cortex begins, the subcortex begins to work more intensively, releasing experiences previously repressed from consciousness, and the practitioner sees hallucinations

Contraindications for use

The method has a number of contraindications:

• Heavy chronic diseases, primarily cardiovascular, in the phase of decompensation;
• Psychotic conditions;
• Epilepsy;
• Glaucoma;
• Pregnancy;
• Osteoporosis;
• Recent surgeries and fractures;
• Acute infectious diseases;

experiences

The phenomenology of the experiences received during the breathing session S. Grof combines in 4 areas:

1. Sensory barrier (aesthetic level). Various visual, auditory images that do not have a specific content (asterisks, lights). bodily sensations (cold-warmth, tension-relaxation).
2. The level of the individual unconscious (memories from one's biographical past).
3. perinatal level. Consists of 4 so-called basic perinatal matrices (BPM), in accordance with the period of childbirth, which they describe. BPM-1 before the onset of labor. Absolutely comfortable existence. Description of Paradise. BPM-2 The beginning of labor while the uterus is not yet open. Strong squeezing, hopelessness. BPM-3 Continuation of compression, but the uterus is already open, so a goal appears, upon reaching which everything becomes safe. Death-Rebirth Struggle. BPM-4 birth in a new quality.
4. Transpersonal level (transpersonal).

Experiences of the transpersonal level are diverse and have their own classification: Going beyond spatial boundaries:

Going beyond linear time:

Physical introversion and constriction of consciousness: Empirical transcendence of conventional reality and space-time:

Psychoid transpersonal experiences: Synchronic connections between consciousness and matter. Spontaneous psychoid phenomena:

• supernormal physical abilities;
• Spiritual Phenomena and Physical Mediumship;
• repetitive spontaneous psychokinesis (poltergeist);
• unidentified flying objects (UFO phenomena).

Intentional psychokinesis:

• ritual magic;
• healing and witchcraft;
• laboratory psychokinesis.

The integration of the material of the practice sessions begins in the process itself, continues through body-oriented therapy, mandala drawing and discussion. individual processes in a group . Further integration is completed in dreams and in ordinary life. The integration of the material can take up to six months.

Technique

Holotropic breathing is more frequent and deeper than normal breathing; as a rule, no other specific instructions are given before or during the session, such as the speed, mode, or nature of breathing, for example. The experience is entirely internal and mostly non-verbal with minimal interference during active breathing. Exceptions are throat spasms, problems with loss of self-control, severe pain or fear that prevents the session from continuing, and a direct request from the breather for help.

Music (or other forms of acoustic stimulation - drumming, tambourines, natural sounds, etc.) is an integral part of the holotropic process. As a rule, the choice of music supports the characteristic stages that reflect the most general features of the unfolding of the holotropic experience: at the beginning it is stimulating and stimulating, then it becomes more and more dramatic and dynamic, and then it expresses a breakthrough. After the climax, the music gradually becomes more and more calm and at the end - peaceful, fluid, meditative.

The process takes place in pairs "sitter-holonaut". Usually 2 breathing sessions are performed in one day. In one session, the participant acts as a breather, in the other as a sitter.

The duration of the process depends on the qualifications of the leader, warm-up, qualitative and quantitative composition of the group.

On average, the process ends naturally within one and a half to two hours. If there are signs of incompleteness of the process, additional focused work with the body is carried out. The session ends with drawing mandalas and group conversation (sharing).

Criticism

Holotropic Breathwork has come under considerable criticism. In particular, some researchers question the holotropic breathing technique as such. Without denying the presence of unusual (mostly hallucinogenic) images and states that arise under the influence of hyperventilation, the presence of any connection with the real situation of birth is called into question. According to this point of view, the leader of the holotropic breathwork group (and the technique is taught only in group forms) influences the participants, as a result of which their states do not arise by themselves, but are modeled from the outside.

According to this point of view, holotropic breathing does not lead to development, but, on the contrary, to a deterioration in the functioning of the brain. In fairness, it should be noted that the Buteyko technique leads to radically opposite results - a decrease in the level and an increase in the level of CO 2 in the blood, which also leads to negative consequences. .

At the same time, it is noted that the loss of carbon dioxide during a session of holotropic breathing is 2-3 liters, which, according to currently accepted views, is considered an extremely severe degree of hypocapnia, fraught with cerebral edema and death.

Some of S. Grof's clients have Negative consequences holotropic breathing, some "sit down" on it, the technique is widely practiced by people who have not mastered it well and are simply charlatans. True, unlike LSD, holotropic breathing is not prohibited. It is worth noting that in Switzerland, as part of an experiment, LSD is allowed to be taken by terminally ill patients as a means of relieving or significantly reducing the fear of imminent death.

see also

Notes

1. JOSEPH P. RHINEWINE & OLIVER J. WILLIAMS Holotropic Breathwork: The Potential Role of a Prolonged, Voluntary Hyperventilation Procedure as an Adjunct to Psychotherapy // THE JOURNAL OF ALTERNATIVE AND COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE. - 2007. - V. 7. - T. 13. - S. 771–776. - DOI:10.1089/acm.2006.6203
2. "Myths and dead ends of pop psychology" // S. S. Stepanov. - Dubna.: Phoenix +, 2006. pp. 97-98
3. Scott O. Lilienfeld & Wallace Sampson The Skeptical Inquirer Journal editors criticize MDMA study as nonscientific, unethical // The Skeptical Inquirer. - Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, 2003. - V. 27.
4. Joseph P. Rhinewine and Oliver J. Williams Holotropic Breathwork: The Potential Role of a Prolonged, Voluntary Hyperventilation Procedure as an Adjunct to Psychotherapy // The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. - September 2007. - V. 7. - T. 13. - DOI: 10.1089
5. Buteyko method website
6. DELIGHT OF THE WEAK AND SATATED
7. Stanislav Grof. Areas of the human unconscious. Evidence from LSD research
8. V. Maykov. Pair flight of holonauts: principles of work in sessions and circles of integration
9. V. Maikov The Essence of the Holotropic Approach.
10. Yu. A. Bubeev, I. B. Ushakov, State Research and Testing Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Mechanisms of respiration in conditions of prolonged voluntary hyperventilation // Aerospace and environmental medicine. - 1999. - T. 33. - No. 2. - S. 22-26.
11. Vladimir Emelianenko - certified psychotherapist of the European Transpersonal Association (EUROTAS)
12. Stanislav Grof. Journey in search of yourself. Ed. AST, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, K. Kravchuk Publishing House, 2008 ISBN 978-5-17-054421-9
13. Tev Spax. The structure of the musical and noise design of the holotropic session
14. Colorado governor signs "rebirthing" ban
15. CANDACE NEWMAKER: Death Through "Rebirthing" Therapy
16. Lecture by K. N. Buteyko on the dangers of deep breathing
17. LIFE: Hallucinations from Nothing
18. Sergey Kardash
19. Yuri Bubeev, Vladimir Kozlov

Links

• Association for Transpersonal Psychology and Psychotherapy
• Legal Issues Related to the Holotropic Breathwork Method

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

Ecology of health: Stanislav Grof is called without exaggeration a living classic, Freud of the 21st century. He still personally conducts trainings around the world and teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He looks much younger than his 78 years. During sessions of "holotropic breathing" Grof was "born" again more than four thousand times. This is the number of sessions that the pioneering psychiatrist has conducted in his more than 45 years of practice.

Stanislav Grof, without exaggeration, is called a living classic, Freud of the 21st century.

He still personally conducts trainings around the world and teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He looks much younger than his 78 years.

During sessions of "holotropic breathing" Grof was "born" again more than four thousand times. This is the number of sessions that the pioneering psychiatrist has conducted in his more than 45 years of practice. Thousands of times returned to the mind of a newborn - maybe that's why he looks so young?

About Holotropic Breathwork

Grof has written more than ten scientific and educational books, created a successfully functioning International Transpersonal Organization, trained more than one hundred thousand certified teachers ...

Millions of people around the world have attended his trainings. The holder of the highest scientific degrees and prestigious awards, Grof is, in addition, a very wealthy person. It would seem that you can already “retire” and rest on your laurels! But no.

One of Grof's books is called "The Frantic Search for Oneself" (1990): this is what he realizes in his own example - "eternal fight" with a shadow, the search for perfection. According to Gorf, the "frantic search for oneself" is a problem only faced by spiritually fragmented individuals, and then only until a cure. In the course of practice, it turns into another task facing mentally healthy people - the super-task of expanding consciousness, spiritual evolution.

As Grof points out from his own "journeys" into the unconscious (or, more accurately, "superconscious") and from his observations of thousands of "journeys" taken by his patients, there are three ways to go beyond this limit: taking LSD (which is an illegal drug), the method of holotropic breathing proposed by Grof and the psycho-spiritual crisis, or "spiritual exacerbation".

Common to these three situations, as Grof writes in the preface to The Call of the Jaguar (2001), is that they cause unusual states of consciousness, including the subspecies of them that he calls "holotropic", that is, beyond, in contrast to ordinary experience, which he calls "hylotropic", that is, terrestrial.

The term "holotropic" is derived from the Greek roots holos, meaning "whole," and trepein, meaning "to move in a direction." Together they mean "move towards wholeness".

Grof notes in "The Call of the Jaguar" that in psychedelic therapy (now banned, but legal in Grof's younger years), such states were induced by the use of psychoactive drugs, including LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, tryptamine, amphetamine derivatives (DMT, ecstasy and etc.).

In the Holotropic Breathwork method developed by Grof and his wife Kristina in 1975, to change consciousness, a combination of the so-called bound breathing is used(when there is no pause between inhalation and exhalation, exhalation and inhalation) and music that puts you in a state of trance(often ethnic, tribal: African drums, Tibetan pipes, etc.); sometimes additional work with the body is applied.

In the case of "spiritual exacerbations" holotropic states arise spontaneously, notes Grof, and their causes are usually unknown.

Thus, the third method is uncontrolled, the first is illegal: only holotropic breathing remains.

Grof conducted his research for over forty-five years.. He began with experiments with LSD. After the discovery of the psychotropic properties of the drug in 1943, it was assumed for some time that it causes symptoms similar to schizophrenia (and therefore was recommended for use by psychotherapists), but this hypothesis was subsequently refuted.

After the prohibition of this drug in the United States in the late 1960s, Grof began to use the method of special holotropic breathing in his research, in which he actively used the experience gained during experiments with psychoactive drugs (including precautions).

Perhaps the prototype of the specific breathing used in the holotropic method was the rapid breathing of Grof's patients under LSD - in the case when the problem that emerged from the depths of the subconscious could not be immediately worked out, integrated into a healthy psyche.

Such breathing helped them to remain in an expanded state of consciousness and discharge the psychological material that manifested itself in the form of unpleasant symptoms. So the "bad trip" turned into a method of psychotherapy.

Research in the field of psychedelic therapy and personal experience of holotropic breathing allowed Grof to discover that behind the "last frontier" of human consciousness - the consciousness of the embryo - there is no blank wall(as a materialist might assume, on the assumption that human life is limited to the interval between conception and death).

Behind this “wall”, as Grof found out, there is also life, more precisely, many forms of life.. There lie "superhuman" worlds where time and space, the limitations of brain memory and the current human birth in general cease to be limiting factors. Namely, they stop holding back what always lives inside us and conducts its “frantic search” both before and after our physical death. In some philosophical and religious systems, this “something” is called “soul”, “consciousness”, “true Self”.

But even this, empirical, accessible to everyone proof of the existence of "life after death", is the most surprising in Grof's experiments. The main thing, from the height of spiritual, superhuman consciousness, it becomes obvious: the boundaries of the human and those psychological barriers that cause various pathological effects that prevent a person from becoming himself, and then go further, rise above himself - these boundaries are not created by the whim of fate and are fueled by no one - by an evil will, but by the person himself - more precisely, by his false, limited self-identification.

That is, it turns out that we ourselves - with all our might - keep our “doors of perception” locked, preventing true health, prosperity and freedom from entering them. A person spends very significant forces on maintaining his mental barriers, much more than he can afford! And these forces can be used much more rationally and profitably.

For example, these forces, with which a person keeps his "doors of perception" shut, could help him in his journey through these doors, and therefore, allow him to become a happy and spiritually developed person. And even more than that - to step further, beyond the boundaries of the human, which we, it turns out, have established for ourselves.

In fact, Grof for his long life created a whole new direction of not just psychoanalysis, but total superhumanistic psycho-correction, which can be useful to everyone.

From the point of view of Stanislov Groff, it would not hurt us all to “treat” according to his method- after all, it must be admitted that even the most healthy people in terms of the level of consciousness are far from the ideals that demonstrate spiritually developed personalities, teachers of humanity, enlightened mystics. And he is not a mystic, he just sets the bar higher, much higher than is usually done in psychotherapy.

He draws our attention to the tragic gap between what mankind aspired to and the post-humanistic, mechanistic society that it has now arrived at. Grof, being himself a professional physician, doctor of medicine, a psychiatrist with fifty years of experience, who grew up in the school of traditional psychoanalysis, notes that modern science sins with one-sidedness, bordering on blindness.

Traditional medicine stubbornly turns a blind eye to the fact that the problem of a person's mental health is organically connected with the problem of his spiritual development, even more than that, it actually opposes these processes. Everything that goes beyond the traditional worldview, limited by very narrow limits, receives the label of "abnormality".

In one of his interviews, Grof notes: from the point of view of modern medicine, it turns out that if we discard rituals, leaving only specific behavior and unusual states of consciousness, then any religion and spirituality in general is pure pathology, a form of mental disorder. Buddhist meditation, from the point of view of a psychiatrist, is catatonic, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a schizophrenic, St. John the Baptist was a degenerate, and Gautama Buddha, since he was still, so to speak, capable of adequate behavior, at least stood on the verge of insanity ...

One of the problems of modern medicine, according to Grof, is that it tends to consider any altered states of consciousness that occur under certain circumstances in completely healthy people, as pathological manifestations or even one of the symptoms of schizophrenia. In fact, medicine is now powerless to distinguish a prophetic vision (examples of which are offered to us by the scriptures of different peoples of the world: the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, etc.) from a painful schizophrenic delirium, a drug trance from a religious trance.

Where, then, to draw the boundary of "normal"? And the question that follows from here is: where to draw the border of the “real”, what is the reality in which we live in general? And who are we really, what can and what can not the so-called "man"?

Grof began his medical career with traditional psychoanalysis according to Freud, but soon, in the course of his practice, he realized the one-sidedness of the traditional approach: after all, a Freudian is forced to reduce everything to sexual desire, libido, supposedly the main driving force of a person.

But the most important thing that did not suit Grof was the method of word-oriented “speaking” on a leather couch, although it leads, if successful, to an accurate diagnosis and identification of the event that caused the pathology, it is not always effective for actually ridding the patient of oppression this event and the actual pathological symptoms.

Gradually, he came to understand that not just a formal recollection, but a direct re-experiencing of these key events - including the most traumatic event in the life of any person - his own birth - much better able to help both in the cure of the disease, and the expansion of consciousness.

It should immediately be noted that modern medicine does not confirm the fact that a person can remember his own birth, and even more so intrauterine experience. In fact, on the contrary, there is evidence that the human brain is not able to remember anything that happened to the body up to two years.

However, the experience of Grof and millions of people who use holotropic breathwork suggests otherwise. To understand "how deep the rabbit hole" that Grof pointed out, it must be noted that people's experiences in holotropic breathing sessions are not limited to perinatal (experienced at the time of birth) or even prenatal (embryonic, intrauterine) experiences.

It includes extremely vivid and unusual experiences, experiences that, before the invention of this technique, were available only to advanced mystics and saints of various denominations.

In particular, this is the activation of the chakras, experiences of past incarnations, foresight, clairvoyance and clairaudience, identification with other persons, with animals, plants, objects and even all creations at once (Mother Nature), the entire planet Earth, moreover, experiences of meetings with superhuman and spiritual, divine, as well as beings from other universes...

Unlike prenatal and perinatal memories, which in a number of cases were actually confirmed, it is not possible to refute or confirm such experiences.

Just as, say, it is impossible to find out whether the Catholic saint, the founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius de Loyola, in his meditations really comprehended the torments of Christ on the cross! Science, as mentioned above, in such cases simply cannot fix the fundamental difference between “true” and “false”.

As one of the researchers (and followers) of Grof, Vladimir Maikov, notes in his article “The World of Stanislav Grof”, the same law of the uncertainty relation that the outstanding German physicist W. Heisenberg discovered in the quantum world is applicable to the world of psychology, the world of human souls: the more precisely we try to determine the coordinates of an event, the more uncertain becomes our knowledge of what actually happened.

Moreover, physics has now come to understand that at the most microscopic level it is impossible to conduct research without making changes in the properties of the material.

If, for example, a bar of gold can be measured as much as one likes without prejudice to the "subject", then, say, one quark of gold will inevitably undergo significant changes. In addition, microscopic particles, the constituent parts of matter, are more of a process, a wave, than a material particle ...

The same with in-depth studies of the human psyche- with a sufficiently deep immersion in this question, a person, as it were, ceases to be a person, but appears as a kind of evolution of consciousness, taken in a certain approximation, and only in this approximation is he a man.

For example, someone begins to practice holotropic breathing in order to get rid of psychological trauma or to overcome a life crisis. Finally, he sees and, with a clarity exceeding that available in ordinary life, experiences, say, his own birth, that is, he is, as it were, born again.

Having survived and integrated (dissolved) this trauma, he goes deeper and deeper, revealing other - perinatal - traumas. Experiences, integrates and them. The possibilities of "remembering" in this particular body are, as it were, exhausted; psychological trauma, it would seem, too. But then strange things begin to happen: a person plunges into experiences outside the body, outside this life, experiences other incarnations, experiences of planetary, non-human consciousness, finally, the experience of the birth of the Universe, then ...

He opens up an infinity of perspective - which actually existed always and everywhere. In fact, everything that made him human disappears, V. Maikov concludes, noting the paradox: often, Grof's patients experienced complete mental healing only after having experienced precisely these "beyond", out-of-body and extraterrestrial experiences ...

In general, it turns out that the whole focus is on what we identify ourselves with.

The fact remains that hundreds of thousands of people have found healing for their mental illnesses and emotional problems during Holotropic Breathwork sessions. And Stan Grof - perhaps the greatest "psychonaut" of the planet - does not slow down the pace of his research and psychotherapeutic work, which, in fact, is a "frantic search" for the superhuman: the eternal search for the Divine.

As Heisenberg liked to say, "The atheist takes the first sip from the glass of science, but God waits at the bottom of the glass." After all, the truth is somewhere out there, at the bottom of the rabbit hole.

HOLOTROPIC BREATHWORK

A NEW APPROACH TO THERAPY AND SELF-EXPLORATion

© 2010, Stanislav and Christina Grof.

Publishers thank Alexandra Koposova, whose financial assistance and friendly support made the publication of this book possible.

Translation from English Alexandra Kiseleva

Scientific edition Ph.D. n. Vladimir Maykov

Jack Kornfield. Foreword

You hold in your hands a prophetic book offering new insights into healing, mental health, and human potential along with powerful techniques to achieve these goals. The development of this kind of comprehensive understanding that combines science, experience and spirit is crucial for the twenty-first century.

The dominant materialistic culture has created a divided world where the sacred is the province of churches and temples, the body is the province of gyms, and mental health is the province of pharmacy pills. Economic growth is seen as an end in itself, having nothing to do with environment and ignorance; racism and wars continue to divide peoples and countries. These divisions and the enormous suffering they generate come from the narrow and limited human consciousness.

Through decades of work, Stan and Christina have created a psychology that restores the fragmented consciousness of the world. They offer a future psychology that expands our human capabilities and reconnects us with each other and with the cosmos. In forging this new paradigm, they exemplify the courageous and prophetic spirit of the pioneers and are among the few people who helped revolutionize the field of psychology.

This book is primarily detailed guide on the experience and practice of Holotropic Breathwork, but is far from limited to this. She describes a radical vision of this new psychology. To begin with, it includes one of the widest possible maps of the human psyche that I have ever seen. The very knowledge of this card, which Stan and Christina present at the beginning of their seminars, has a beneficial effect on those present. It includes, confirms, and integrates such a wide range of experiences that there is healing in the hearts of some who simply become acquainted with it.

The holotropic map of human experience is not only theoretical, it is born from a wide clinical and experimental experience. To observe a large group of Holotropic Breathwork practitioners is to see an amazing range of experiences in which the breathers relive any stage of their own history or enter the realms of archetypes, animals, birth and death. Being present in a group breathwork session is like stepping into Dante's Divine Comedy, where one can see the realms of Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell as the breathers go through the deep process of breathing, healing, and awakening.

Holotropic Breathwork expands the field of mental health and therapy.

Most medical models of Western psychology have been limited to the study of pathology. Opening up a new understanding of psychopathology in their work, the Grofs offer a comprehensive vision of mental health and the potential of human development, expanding the range of psychology to the perinatal, transpersonal, transcultural and mystical dimensions. Their work organically incorporates the natural wisdom of shamanism and the natural world, the cultural and historical basis of consciousness, and the far-reaching breadth of modern physics and systems theory. It values ​​the personal and the universal equally, including the physical and biographical, cultural, evolutionary and spiritual dimensions of our human nature.

The ideas behind Holotropic Breathwork also radically redefine the role of the healer, who goes from being a "healer-specialist", a doctor who knows better how to treat an ignorant patient, to a "healer-midwife". In this role, the healer guards, facilitates and supports the patient's own deep and natural healing process. With this new approach, it is not the therapist, psychiatrist or healer who is considered wise, but the human psyche, the wisdom of which the healer maintains and leads to flowering.

As evidenced by the cases described here, Holotropic Breathwork has an amazing therapeutic effect. From the unfolding of this powerful process are spontaneously born healing of disease, anxiety, depression and conflict, relief and healing of trauma and abuse, reconnection with family and community, the unfoldment of compassion, forgiveness, courage and love, the return of purpose, finding our lost soul, and the highest insights of spiritual understanding. .

While prophetic, this book also serves as a practical guide for breathers, sitters, and facilitators. Using practical examples, Stan and Christina offer instructions for Holotropic Breathwork - how to introduce the practice, how to care for and protect participants, how to deal with unexpected difficulties, and how to integrate these experiences into daily life. They speak clearly of the importance of release and healing through complementary bodywork practice and detail the roles of music, art and storytelling that are essential to breathwork.

I have been fortunate to learn from and work with Stan and Christina for thirty-five years. During his training as Buddhist monk in Burma, Thailand and India, I was first introduced to powerful breathing practices and visionary realms of consciousness. I was glad to find in the work of the Grofs an effective analogue of these practices in the Western world. I have always cherished my involvement in the development of Holotropic Breathwork from its early stages to its current form, and have developed a deep respect for the international community of practitioners that has grown out of it.

In Holotropic Breathwork, Stan and Christina have combined scientific and intellectual understanding, masculine and feminine, ancient and post-modern wisdom and made their work and curriculum available on all continents. I believe that in time their achievements will be considered a major contribution to psychology and to the healing of the world.

Jack Kornfield

Spirit Rock Meditation Center

Woodacre, California 2010

From the authors

Where to begin? Over the years, as we have developed, practiced, and taught Holotropic Breathwork and presented our work around the world, we have received invaluable emotional, physical, and financial support from many friends, colleagues, and participants in our programs. We would need another volume to mention them all by name; here we express our sincere and humble gratitude to all these people.

However, there are a few individuals whose contribution to our work has been so essential and vital that they deserve special mention. Cathy Altman and Lori Saltzman provided the necessary organizational management and gentle leadership in the formation and launch of our training program. They offered us their support and practical assistance when we entered new territories, and for this we are eternally grateful to them.

We are deeply indebted to Tav and Cary Sparks, our close friends and collaborators, who have played key roles in organizing and running many of our conferences, workshops and training over the years. Both Carey and Tav became certified breathwork facilitators in 1988 in our very first training program. In the years that followed, they were very active in Grof's Transpersonal Training (TTT) program - Tav as co-facilitator of many of the workshops and training modules, and Carey as leader and administrator of most of these activities.

In 1998, we placed TTG in the capable hands of the Sparkses, and they have been the owners and leaders of the organization ever since, with Tav as the head teacher. We have also given them a trademark that, since 1990, has restricted the practice of Holotropic Breathwork to only people who have successfully completed TTG training and become certified facilitators. The purpose of this trademark– provide legal protection for Holotropic Breathwork in cases of unauthorized use of the name and practice by untrained, uncertified people.

Diane Hogue and Diane Midine, senior members of the TTG staff, have played key roles in numerous training modules; for many years they have independently conducted some modules. Diane Hogue deserves special thanks for the amount of time and energy she has given selflessly to delivering breathwork training in South America at a time when the economic crisis in that part of the world would otherwise have prevented the continuation of the work there. We would like to express our deep gratitude to Tav, Carey, Diane and Diane for the dedication and integrity with which they have kept the original spirit of our work alive.

Over the years, TTG has received a great deal of support from Glen Wilson, who has helped organize many of TTG's events and runs its bookstore, and more recently from Carey's administrative assistant, Stacey Butterfield. The trainings and other TTG events would not have been possible without the many certified practitioners who have helped organize and manage them, or have assisted as facilitators. Some were able to develop training programs in their own countries and teach most of the modules. Vladimir Maikov, President of the Russian Association for Transpersonal Psychology and Psychotherapy (ATPP), created a TPG subsidiary in Russia (open to participants from other Eastern European countries), and Alvaro Jardin founded and leads the TPG affiliate in Brazil. For a number of years, Ingo Jarsetz and Brigit Aschauer have offered a similar course of study in Germany. We highly appreciate the important contributions of all these former students of ours.

Kylia Taylor deserves special thanks for her role in the training program and for her publishing work that helped spread the word about Holotropic Breathwork. For many years she was the publisher of The Inner Door, a breathwork newsletter founded in 1988 by Cary Sparks. With her partner Jim Schofield, Kayliya created Hanford Mead Publishers, Inc., which published books on Holotropic Breathwork, among other things; in addition, Kayliya has written several books on the subject. We are also deeply grateful to the founding members of the Holotropic Breathwork Association International (AHBI) - Cary Sparks, Kylie Taylor, and Laurie Weaver - as well as to its past presidents, board members, and current president Ken Sloane, for all they have done to support and expand the global network of Holotropic Breathwork.

We express our gratitude to the innovators in transpersonal psychology, consciousness research and various areas new paradigm sciences, many of whom are our friends and colleagues. They have provided invaluable assistance to our work, laying the foundations for a new worldview in which the theory and practice of Holotropic Breathwork is no longer controversial and becomes acceptable to open-minded members of the scientific community. We appreciate their great contribution.

SANY Press is to be commended for its employees' interest in publishing as part of a transpersonal series many books whose topics are at the forefront of the traditional scientific worldview. We are particularly indebted to SANY Editor-in-Chief Jane Bunker for her deep knowledge of the transpersonal field in general, and our work in particular. We are deeply grateful for the support she has given to our work over the years, and especially for her keen interest in this book. We really appreciate the encouragement and patience she has shown in guiding us through the different stages of the publishing process. She played a significant role in the birth of this book in its present form.

Over the years, we have received much-needed financial support for our various endeavors from friends who appreciated the potential importance of the work we were doing. We are deeply grateful to John Buchanan, Betsy Gordon, Bokara Legendra, Michael Marcus and Janet Zand, Robert Schwartz, Ken and Petra Sloan, Alexei Kuptsov and Eduard Sagalaev.

Unfortunately, many of the important contributors to this book must remain unnamed, with the exception of a few who have agreed to the use of their names in the text. We are talking here about the many thousands of participants in our workshops and training modules who, with remarkable courage, have explored normally hidden areas of their psyche and reality itself. Their verbal accounts of what they experienced and the artistic creation with which they illustrated their adventures during inner world have been an indispensable source of information for us. Our duty and gratitude to these people from many cultures can hardly be adequately expressed in words. Without them, this book would not have been written.

Foreword

This book describes the theory and practice of Holotropic Breathwork, a new approach to self-exploration and psychotherapy that the two of us developed in the mid to late 1970s. Holotropic Breathwork combines and integrates elements from various areas of depth psychology - the theory and practice of the schools of Freud, Reich, Rank and Jung - adding to them the findings of modern consciousness research and anthropology, as well as insights from Eastern spiritual practices and mystical traditions around the world (explanation of the word holotropic given a little further). Although we have been practicing Holotropic Breathwork for over thirty years in the context of our workshops, international conferences and training of facilitators around the world, this book is our first comprehensive text on the theory and practice of this strategy of psychotherapy and self-exploration.

The book begins with a brief overview of the historical roots of Holotropic Breathwork. In Chapter 1, we pay tribute to the pioneering work of the founder of depth psychology, Sigmund Freud, and his followers in further advancing our understanding of the human psyche. In addition, Holotropic Breathwork shares certain elements with experiential therapies that appeared on the scene in the 1960s. in the context of humanistic psychology. The discovery of the powerful psychoactive effects of LSD-25 and our experience in psychedelic therapy have allowed us to explore the depths of the psyche in detail and appreciate the amazing therapeutic potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness. The chapter concludes with a description of the origins of transpersonal psychology, the discipline that provides the theoretical basis for Holotropic Breathwork.

Chapter 2 discusses the changes that working with non-ordinary states of consciousness brings to our understanding of the nature of consciousness and the human psyche, healthy and sick. This "psychology of the future" (Grof 2000) required for the practice of Holotropic Breathwork offers a vastly expanded map of the psyche that, unlike the model of academic psychology, is not limited to postnatal biography and the Freudian individual unconscious. It includes two important additional areas - perinatal(related to the memory of biological birth) and transpersonal(historical and archetypal collective unconscious). According to the new understanding of the "architecture of psychopathology", the roots of emotional and psychosomatic disorders are not in infancy and childhood, but go deep into these two previously unrecognized areas of the unconscious. This seemingly discouraging finding is compensated by the discovery of new powerful therapeutic mechanisms that become available at the perinatal and transpersonal levels of the psyche in non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Perhaps the most radical innovation of the new psychology is the new discoveries concerning the strategy of self-exploration and therapy. The wide spectrum of psychotherapeutic schools, and the striking lack of agreement among them on the most fundamental aspects of theory and practice, reflects the misguided strategy that they all share (with the exception of Jungian analysis). They are trying to achieve an intellectual understanding of how the psyche works, and on its basis to develop a method that allows you to correct its functioning. Working with non-ordinary states of consciousness offers a radical alternative that greatly simplifies the therapeutic process. These states mobilize the "inner radar", which automatically finds material with a strong emotional charge and brings it into consciousness for processing. In this process, the therapist acts not as an active agent, but as an "adventure companion" who intelligently supports what is happening.

An important part of Chapter 2 is devoted to the problem of spirituality and religion. While traditional psychiatrists and psychologists adhere to the worldview of materialistic monism, in which there is no place for any spirituality or religion, Holotropic Breathwork facilitators use transpersonal psychology in their work. They revere spirituality based on direct personal experience, and consider it a legitimate and important dimension of the human psyche and human life. Many of the observations from the practice of Holotropic Breathwork and other non-ordinary state approaches are so radical that they question not only the conceptual framework of traditional psychology and psychiatry, but also the basic metaphysical assumptions of Western science regarding the nature of the universe and the relationship between mind and matter.

Chapter 3 discusses the main components of Holotropic Breathwork and traces their roots in the ritual life of indigenous cultures and in the spiritual practices of the world's great religions and various mystical traditions. Here we explore the important role that breath and music have played throughout human history as essential elements of various "technologies of the sacred" and healing ceremonies. Similarly, the bodywork and encouragement of physical contact used in the practice of Holotropic Breathwork has antecedents in various indigenous rituals. Mandala drawing, which we use to assist the process of integrating holotropic experiences, also has a long history in the ritual life of indigenous cultures, the spiritual life of ancient civilizations, and the religious traditions of the East.

Chapter 4 provides a detailed explanation of the practice of Holotropic Breathwork - how to create a safe physical environment and interpersonal support system for participants, how to theoretically and practically prepare them for a session, and how to test them for emotional and physical contraindications. It discusses the basic principles of conducting breath sessions, the role of nurses and facilitators, and the nature of the experiences that arise during such sessions. Another important topic in this section is working with mandala drawing and the strategy for conducting study groups.

The end result of Holotropic Breathwork sessions depends crucially on good integration of experience. Chapter 5 describes important aspects of this process—how to create the best possible conditions for successful integration, what to do to facilitate the transition to everyday life, how to successfully manage interaction with the culture as a whole, and how to conduct conversations to follow the end results. We pay special attention to various therapeutic approaches that serve as a good complement to breathwork and can contribute to the integration of holotropic experience - Gestalt therapy practice, effective bodywork, expressive painting and dance, Jacob Moreno's psychodrama, Dora Kalf's sand play, EMDR method (desensitization and reprocessing of eye movements) by Francine Shapiro, Bert Hellinger's family constellation method, and others.

Holotropic Breathwork is a radical innovation in psychotherapy that differs in many respects from conventional approaches. It has certain characteristics—inducing unusual states of consciousness, using unfamiliar music played at high volumes, expressing strong emotions, intense physical manifestations, and close physical contact—that tend to elicit strong reactions from people unfamiliar with it. Chapter 6, entitled "The Trials and Tribulations of Holotropic Breathwork Facilitators," is a collection of stories describing the various adventures we have experienced and the challenges we have faced while conducting Holotropic Breathwork workshops in different countries world and different cultural contexts.

Chapter 7 focuses on the therapeutic potential of Holotropic Breathwork and the mechanisms of healing and transformation that become available in non-ordinary states of consciousness. We discuss positive influence, which this approach can have on a variety of emotional and psychosomatic disorders and even on some diseases considered organic in today's medicine. Another important aspect of Holotropic Breathwork is the impact it has on character, life strategy, and value hierarchy. Using as examples the experiences of people whose ancestors were Native Americans or Aboriginal Australians, we show how Holotropic Breathwork can have the potential to heal cultural wounds and resolve historical conflicts.