This was written as a chapter in a book published by Hogrefe Verlag in Germany in 2006 as Handbuch der Korperpsychotherapie (Handbook of Body Psychotherapy). The editors of this extensive undertaking recognize the two primary ancestors of body-psychotherapy to be Wilhelm Reich and Elsa Gindler. Wilhelm Reich taught and influenced many psychotherapists in Europe and later in the United States. Elsa Gindler’s work influenced many in Europe and some of those eventually came to the U.S. and taught.

Sensory Awareness is the practice of coming more in touch with oneself. Not attached to any theory or method, the work transcends dogmas, disciplines, and forms. It brings us to immediate, direct experience through which we can rediscover and return to our own natural ways of being — to our birthrights.

My teacher asks me what the differences are of leading the work in different cultures. My answer is basically, “none.”The culture that Sensory Awareness works with is the human culture; the specific country, language, or way of dressing is not the level where we meet. Our work goes underneath the vagaries of cultural experience and reaches down to the foundational essence of human nature.

This is an unusual report on the process of a person’s work in the field of somatic exploration – most especially focused in the work of sensory awareness and also very much with the body/mind/spiritual integrative work of t’ai chi ch’uan.

This will be an unusual report on the process of a person’s work in the field of sensory awareness. Unusual because it is an account of a person working in this area of sensory awareness with two different teachers. “The Sensory Awareness work from both of them has opened a whole new way of living for me. They have different styles of leading because of different backgrounds.”