I wrote this article to be included in the proceedings of the 5th National Conference of the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy, held in Philadelphia, Pa., July, 2008, in relation to my presentation there. The title of this Conference is “Getting to the Heart of the Matter,” my article and my presentation is about how Sensory Awareness is the heart of somatic psychotherapy.
Sensory Awareness – The Heart of Somatic Psychotherapy : From Sensory Awareness to Somatic Psychotherapy
Judyth O. Weaver, Ph.D.
Abstract: Author writes about the history of the development of this somatic work. She traces its origins in Europe and its development in the United States as it integrates with psychotherapy and also notes the English-written records. The author then describes her integration of SA and psychotherapy, gives some case studies and mentions working with children, in group workshops, and at this conference.
Sensory Awareness, also coming to be called ‘Somatic Awareness’ when it is combined with psychotherapy practices, is a ‘simple’ matter of inviting the person back to their natural processes and allowing the reaffirmation of their own experiences and responses. It has influenced many variations of psychotherapy – both versions that call themselves ‘body psychotherapy’ and those that don’t think of them as such. It is my opinion that any good therapy, even if it thinks it is just ‘talk therapy’ must bring in a component of self awareness, of sensory awareness – somatic awareness to help the client come in closer relationship to him/herself.
HISTORY
The work that has come to be called Sensory Awareness was developed in Germany by Elsa Gindler (1885-1961). Originally a teacher of Harmonische Gymnastik, which was focused on beautiful movement and exercise, Gindler eventually felt that the fixed set of common movements offered to everyone was narrow. She wanted to help people experience and learn from their own behavior in all of life’s situations, and she began to experiment with ways to encourage people to explore and develop themselves individually.
Gindler was also deeply changed by her own experience of healing her fragile constitution which was by needing to become deeply aware of and responsive to her own breathing and other activities. To find the possibilities for her own regeneration and health, she spent a year giving complete attention to what happened in herself at every moment in every activity during the entire day.
By 1913, Gindler had developed her way of working with relaxation. Attention to the breath was basic. Neither directing nor changing, simply being attentive to it and learning from it.
Her work grew and offered opportunities for each person to become more aware of what was happening in one’s own organism. In her classes she did not teach ‘techniques,’and she eventually changed from using the word ‘exercise'(uebung) to ‘experiment'(Versuch). The natural activities of everyday life were the material for her classes. Gindler’s focus was ‘tasten’; in English we would say, ‘sensing our way.’
Gindler never gave a name to the simple, deep processes in which she led her students. Some say that the closest she got to a name was ‘Arbeit am Menschen’- ‘working with the human being’or ‘work on the whole person.’
In 1925, Gindler met the experimental musician and educator, Heinrich Jacoby. After studying with each other, they collaborated in the development of what is now sometimes termed the Jacoby-Gindler work. Most of the work referred to as such is in Europe; Jacoby never became well known in the US. Jacoby had a great interest in psychoanalysis, and through him Gindler became interested. At times, when appropriate, she referred her students to psychotherapy.
Gindler lived her entire life in Berlin. She never advertised her classes, yet over the years her work spread and has had a far-ranging influence in many fields, in particular that of psychotherapy as well as the arts.
Many consider Elsa Gindler to be the grandmother of somatic psychotherapy.
INFLUENCE ON PSYCHOTHERAPY IN EUROPE
Various students of Freud studied with Gindler. Clare Nathansohn began studying with her in 1915. When Clare married Otto Fenichel, a student of Freud, he also began studying with Gindler. Fenichel said of her experience, ‘I got my husband to go, too, and he was very interested. Later on he would have me talk to his psychoanalytic groups about the Gindler work, and then we would all discuss it’ (Fenichel, 1981).
About Gindler’s interest in psychotherapy, Fenichel said, ‘Psycho-analysis spread at that time and some of her pupils were into it. One of them was my husband, and there were others. Gindler was interested to see what was going on and she learned. From then on she said things in class that she could have said only if she considered mental activity as an important matter much involved with movement.’Fenichel goes on to say, ‘She knew more and more about human beings. And this is the important thing; she became more and more interested not just in the body but the whole being. She said, ‘If you don’t want to get over the rope, don’t be surprised that you can’t make it.’ She noticed that something that is not ‘body’ gets the body going. And that ‘something’ effects the function of this body'(Fenichel, 1981).
Wilhelm Reich never studied with Gindler, but it seems he was influenced by her approach in several ways. After the Reichs left Vienna and moved to Berlin, Annie, Reich’s first wife, studied with Clare Fenichel. Reich’s daughter Eva remembers the many Sunday picnics of the close friends, the Reichs and the Fenichels, where her father would assiduously question Clare about the Gindler work. He would ask, ‘Now, tell me, what is it that you do?’ (Reich, 1984).
Elsa Lindenberg, Reich’s great love and long-term companion, studied with Gindler both before and after the Second World War. She also studied with Feinchel while she was living in Norway with Reich.
Eva Reich feels that the vicarious knowledge of this work definitely influenced her father in his becoming aware of breath and body while working with his psychoanalytic clients. (Reich, 2001).
Eva Reich recalls being sent to a ‘Gindler School’ which she loved very much because they got to crawl under, around and over all sorts of things. (Reich, 2001).
Gustaf and Lucy Heyer were part of a group in Munich who were using somatic methods in conjunction with psychoanalysis. Gustaf was a student and colleague of C.G. Jung; Lucy, his wife, never studied with Gindler but Marion Rosen, founder of the Rosen Method in the USA (not a body psychotherapy), studied with Lucy Heyer for two years before leaving Germany and felt that her teacher was very influenced by Gindler and her work. Rosen relates, ‘During this time I became very familiar with the body and truly admired how it was put together. That knowledge complemented what I was seeing in the work that Mrs. Heyer’s husband was doing with psychiatry; I began to see how they worked together. The Heyers used massage and breathing to open people up and make it easier for them to get in touch with their problems in psychotherapy. They found that this way of treatment was much shorter and more effective’ (Rosen, 2003.)
INFLUENCE ON PSYCHOTHERAPY IN THE UNITED STATES
Among Gindler’s many students in all walks of life and professions several came to the United States. One of them was Charlotte Selver, who in 1938, settled in New York City and began teaching the work that she eventually called Sensory Awareness.
During her early days of teaching, one of Selver’s most ardent students was the prominent psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. In 1955 Fromm and Selver gave a joint lecture at the New School for Social Research entitled ‘On Being in Touch with Oneself'(Roche, 2000).
Clara Thompson, who co-founded the William Alanson White Association of Psychiatry (with Erich Fromm and Harry Stack Sullivan), was also one of Selver’s students, as were many others of her colleagues at the Association. As psychiatrist of Betty Winkler Keane, a very successful actress, Thompson recommended her to take classes with Selver. Keane, who eventually collaborated with Jungian analyst Edward Whitmont (he worked at the verbal and she at the non-verbal level), was one of the first of Selver’s students to begin teaching. Keane worked in New York City, weaving together Jungian analysis with acting out dream sequences and the work of sensing.
Fritz Perls, one of the twentieth century’s most influential innovators in psychotherapy, was deeply influenced by Gindler’s work. In the early 1930’s in Europe, Perls was a patient of Wilhelm Reich, and Perls’ wife, Laura, was a student of Gindler. Both Fritz and Laura, the developers of Gestalt Therapy, studied with Selver in New York City. Fritz studied with Selver very extensively and also privately for an extended length of time. In 1947 Perls gave a talk at the William Alanson White Institute entitled ‘Planned Psychotherapy,’in which he said, ‘I recommend as necessary complementary aspects of the study of the human personality at least three subjects: Gestalt psychology, semantics, and last but not least, the approach of the Gindler School'(Gregory, 2001).
Sensory Awareness has been intimately involved in many of the body/mind/spiritual and somatic modalities that have evolved during the 20th century. Alan Watts, western popularizer of Zen Buddhism, studied with Charlotte Selver and introduced her to Esalen Institute, the newly founded center for the study of human potential in California. In 1963, Selver presented Esalen’s very first experiential workshop. It was this fortuitous coming together that allowed her teaching there to bring about a great breadth of contact and influence within various schools of the psychoanalytic community in the U.S.
Over time many have been influenced by the Gindler/Selver work and incorporated it into their own modes of psychotherapy. At Esalen Seymour Carter studied Sensory Awareness with Selver and Brooks and Gestalt Therapy with Fritz Perls. He taught there and in Europe for many years. Marjorie Rand, an international trainer of Integrated Body Psychotherapy (IBP) and an active member in USABP, also acknowledges the influence of Sensory Awareness on her work (Rand, 2001). Peter Levine, creator of Somatic Experiencing, who uses fine somatic tracking in his work to resolve shock and trauma affect, cites a workshop taken with Charlotte Selver in 1965 that had great influence on his work. (Levine, 2004).
This author began intensive studies with Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks in 1968, eventually being certified by Selver to teach the work. Also in late1960’s she began training in Bioenergetics, Reichian Therapy and other forms of body-oriented psychotherapies. Inevitably, and almost without her doing it consciously, she integrated Sensory Awareness into her form of somatic psychotherapy, which she came to call Somatic Reclaiming.
WRITTEN WORK
Relatively little writing has been done in this field. Gindler wrote only one article: ‘Die Gymnastik des Berufsmenschen’ (Gymnastics for Working People) that appeared in the journal of the Deutschen Gymnastik-Bund (Gindler, 1926).
Charlotte Selver has written little. Most written records come from transcripts of the tapes of classes she has given over almost 65 years of teaching. Charlotte was very hard of hearing and so during most of these years she used earphones and students spoke into a microphone. This situation facilitated making audiotapes relatively easily.
Other than a small book and tape that was published by Betty Keane in 1979, Charles V.W. Brooks, student in the 1950?s, and then husband and colleague of Charlotte Selver, wrote the first book in English on this practice. Brooks called his book “Sensory Awareness – The Rediscovery of Experiencing” (1974. New York, Viking.) Translated into German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese, it is long out of print and has recently been newly edited and expanded by two long-time Sensory Awareness students, Richard Lowe and Stefan Laeng-Gilliatt. The new version is now titled: “Reclaiming Vitality and Presence – Sensory Awareness As A Practice For Life” (2007. Berkeley, North Atlantic Books.)
Another student, William C. Littlewood, with Mary Alice Roche, has collected and edited excerpts of tapes from multiple classes and has published them in “Waking Up – The Work of Charlotte Selver” (2004. Bloomington, AuthorHouse.)
The bulk of the material on Sensory Awareness is found in the various invaluable Bulletins of the Sensory Awareness Foundation. . There students of Gindler speak of their experiences and one can see the varied directions where this work has been taken. None of these Bulletins addresses the topic of psychotherapy because Sensory Awareness is not psychotherapy. Even though she had close connections with some illustrious psychotherapists Charlotte Selver was clear that the work she was putting forth was not psychotherapy and in fact, she felt very strongly that if one did the sensing work one would not really need anything else.
Volume 3 Number 1 of the USA Body Psychotherapy Journal (2004) was a memorial volume in honor of Charlotte Selver who had died the year before at the age of 102. I had the great honor and pleasure to be the guest co-editor, working with Jacqueline Carleton, esteemed editor of our Association’s journal. It was great fun to gather so many of my colleagues, most of them psychotherapists, because that was the focus for this association, to contribute to this journal, and to learn their particular focus on how they use this work of Sensory Awareness in their individualized forms of psychotherapy.
For me, there is no way I can work with a person without the element of Sensory Awareness being the foundation – one might say, the heart of our work.
Clients who find their way to me have usually done a fair amount of other types of psychotherapy and other therapeutic activities. These days, many of them come by looking for a ‘Reichian therapist’ on the Internet. After a while some mention something like ‘Well, we aren’t working on anything different than I was with my previous therapist, but the way you do it is different and it’s really working well now.’ That difference is the sensing aspect I keep referring them to themselves, to their resources, to what they really perceive is happening, their sensations, how they respond, and their true impulses.
HOW I CAME TO INTEGRATE SENSORY AWARENESS WITH THE REICHIAN THERAPY I WAS TAUGHT
In l968, after returning from three years in Asia, (one half of that time spent studying classical dance and the other half living and studying in a Zen Buddhist monastery), I knew my way was to work with body/mind/spiritual integration. There was some sensitivity and connection for which I was looking to incorporate all that I had learned in Asia as well as my earlier life as an aspiring western modern dancer. That is when I began to study with Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks. The work in the classes was very much like my experience of living in the monastery: Pay attention. Be conscious of what you are doing. Be present. Don’t let your mind get carried away. I was thrilled and intrigued. I took as many classes as I could. In order to study with Charlotte and Charles in the years since 1968, I followed them to Esalen (in Big Sur, California), Mexico, New York City, and Monhegan Island, Maine. I remember telling my Zen Master that I had found the American version of Zen. I could appreciate this simple practice of being more present in everything I did in my life.
After being trained and certified in the 1970’s as a ‘Reichian Therapist,’I was evolving into my own way of working with clients. Almost without my knowing it, I integrated into my clinical work what I received from Sensory Awareness, because it made such sense to me in assisting living a vital, authentic life. Eventually I found myself no longer calling it ‘Reichian Therapy.’In my effort to be accurate, the name had evolved to be ‘Reichian-based Awareness Therapy.’Even though the name was unwieldy I really did want to honor Wilhelm Reich and his work in my describing what I do, because I – we all – owe him such a great debt, and he is overlooked and largely ignored; and also because awareness had become the heart of what was essential in the therapeutic work I was doing.
My clients seemed to progress deeply, fairly quickly, and relatively economically, and I felt very ethical and happy about the way I was working.
Some years later, in 1984, I met Eva Reich, the daughter of Wilhelm Reich, the man whose work I had studied so deeply and to whom I felt we all owed a great debt. In our talking she asked me what I did. I thought, ‘Uh, oh, now I’m in trouble,’because I knew that Reich never wanted his therapeutic work to be named after him, and in addition to that I had integrated this other work and basically had changed it, (although, surely I thought it was improved). I took a deep breath and told Eva that I had been trained and certified in Reichian Therapy, and that I had begun to integrate another kind of work into the basis of the therapeutic process. I told her that the work was called Sensory Awareness, that Charlotte Selver was my main teacher, and that her teacher in Europe had been Elsa Gindler. Then I gritted my teeth and held my breath, waiting for whatever would come from this dynamic woman who was on her eighth tour around the world for teaching. I was surprised and encouraged when she exclaimed, ‘Oh, how wonderful! My father would be so happy!’ We have become great friends, I have studied with her and been certified by her to follow and do her work. She has stated several times that she does not think her father would have begun to work with the body, and especially the breath, if he had not been influenced by the Gindler way through so many of her students (Reich, 2001, 2003).
In the twenty-five years that I taught at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California, I was able to establish courses in both Sensory Awareness and the Psychology of Wilhelm Reich. It was a wonderful ground for me to begin to create the kind of training I believe is necessary for somatic psychotherapy: to have a basis in Sensory Awareness and then continue the sensitive somatic inquiry into clinical applications in more professionally oriented courses. The success of this work at CIIS gave me the courage to create the doctoral program in somatic psychology when I co-founded Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. For me it was organic training – education from the inside out. In the first year of the program, students did a lot of inner exploration, with courses in SA from the perspective of their experiences as individuals and in interaction with others. The second year’s classes in SA expanded to ‘Sensory Awareness as Process and as Therapeutic Tool,’and the third year developed further, into ‘Sensory Awareness in Clinical Practice – Supervision.’
It is my experience at CIIS and SBGI, and also at JFK (which for a while included a practicum in SA as foundational in their Som Psy program), that the Sensory Awareness component allows students to take the time to focus on tracking themselves and their own senses. Then, from that center, they can branch out into the clinical relationship. This greatly informs their clarity on transference and counter-transference boundaries, and gives them skills to help ground themselves and know themselves in a very real, visceral way. Sensory Awareness work also teaches them to share their experiences clearly and to draw on these experiences when working with their own clients and students.
In 1972, I offered classes in SA to the first group of Japanese psychologists who came to visit Esalen. The leader of that group was so impressed by SA that he returned to Japan and changed his teaching of psychology and counseling, creating ‘New Counseling,’which incorporated SA. That caused him to found the Japan Association of Humanistic Education. In 1988 Charlotte was invited to teach in Japan as a celebration of the 15th anniversary of the JAHE. Charlotte asked me to go in her place. Since then I have continued to offer workshops in SA in Japan and other countries (Weaver, 1997-98).
I have since been honored to teach outside the U.S. and to work with therapists from other cultures. It is always my experience that no matter how different the trauma or the culture, the common place of meeting and communicating can be through SA. There we all have a common language (Weaver, 1997-98).
I was part of a group of somatic therapists who conducted the Clinic for Survivors of Political Torture for some years in San Francisco. Of course, we all felt that the best way to work with these people to assist their healing was to work somatically. My experience was that SA was the best tool I could share with them.
With the men who had fought and been tortured in their wars, an essential part of their healing was to help them release the traumas of the past by finding their way to their current sensory experiences, and be able to differentiate between past and present.
With the Holocaust survivor, (not from the clinic, but a private client of mine) who had been a hidden child during the war, we worked on finding and hearing her voice so that she could express herself appropriately. We also used SA to work with centering and grounding so that she could relax, stop injuring herself so much, and eventually realize that she was really, finally, safe. Breath was a very important aspect here. The process of finding her breath-learning to allow her breath, learning that she did not have to control it, that it could speak for her and be resourceful and supportive-was a huge assist and change in her life.
WORKING WITH CHILDREN
The latest growth and development over these past fifteen years in my own work is in the essential field of Prenatal and Birth Psychology and Therapy, now frequently called Primary Psychology and Therapy. How wonderful and important it is when we can work early with the early traumas! How invaluable it is to have SA skills to track ones self and also the infant, and to help the parents do so too. Since we are essentially working nonverbally with infants, it is even more crucial to have these sensory awareness skills.
CASE HISTORIES
Sally came to me after having seen another ‘Reichian therapist’ who had told her she was in grave trouble and needed a lot of therapy. Sally was scared and frustrated over what the other person had said. She didn’t understand it and didn’t know what to do. As we initially talked and I took her history I kept stopping and asking her what her sensations were. It may have been frustrating for her to be interrupted so much, but by the end of the first session Sally had an idea of what her predicament was, how she reacted to what was happening in her life. Because of her connection with some of her sensations, she felt as if she could get a handle on how she could proceed and how we could work. Rather than allowing her to just run on with all her problems, my stopping her and asking her to sense what she was experiencing helped her be in touch with herself and also gave her a sense that she really was in charge no one was going to take her away from herself, and she could stay in touch and begin to do the work that needed to be done.
At times I am asked to see someone by a client’s regular psychotherapist who doesn’t know how to work somatically but knows that there is something missing in their work with this person. The therapist is usually amazed at the rapid effects sensory awareness has by supporting the person in tuning into sensations and what is happening somatically. This has and can shorten an otherwise long process of psychotherapy.
George came to me through a recommendation of his long-time therapist because he had a chronic cough that seemed to have no medical origin. When the original therapist and I spoke about six weeks after I began working with him, she exclaimed about the cessation of the cough and the general softening in George’s body and persona. With a little bit of sensing George was finding himself in a different way.
Thomas is a vibrant, intelligent, dynamic, active professional. He swims and surfs in his spare time and has a loving relationship with his wife. He has some allergies that bother him and is contemplating a life change, which is causing some tensions and he wanted counseling help. I was recommended to him so he came to me not knowing how I work. As we began our work together and I directed him to his own sensations he realized, with surprise, that he didn’t breathe much. He was astonished to discover how much he was holding and controlling his breath (and a lot more too, as we went along). His allergies are much now relieved and the more he realizes and senses what he is doing the more he responds to life in different ways that are much more satisfactory and supportive.
WORKSHOPS
I feel very lucky because in addition to having access to such a deep, unobtrusive manner in which to work with psychotherapeutic clients, I can also offer this work to people who do not want psychotherapy. Workshops are easily available for those who might want to get a bit more in touch with themselves without delving into a long-term therapeutic relationship.
When I offer workshops and classes in Sensory Awareness I work more like Charlotte Selver and Elsa Gindler did. I lead groups in explorations of themselves at first, paying attention to their breath, to how their weight feels on the floor, to what muscles are being used to hold themselves up right now, how their balance feels, how they respond to gravity, etc. We explore their presence in the present time. After we are in touch with ourselves we then may begin to explore how we are in the room with others. Eventually the work may progress to interactions: walking, seeing, feeling others. How close and how far is the right place to be at this time? There may be partnered work, perhaps with touch. How do we feel ourselves in relation to others? How can we feel another if we don’t feel ourselves? Movement, sounds, talking, walking, running are all possibilities. We work inside the studio and take advantage of being outdoors, in nature, whenever possible. Anything is a possibility. Anything and anytime is an opportunity to pay attention and become more aware. We do much of the work in silence and also explore both having our eyes open and closed. We explore sound, space, weight, temperature, texture, touch anything there is to experience.
A brief account from a student in a workshop:
‘We were lying and having another person lift and gently move our heads. That in itself was an experience in trust! I couldn’t remember ever letting anyone hold my head. I can’t say much about my tensions then because I really wasn’t aware of them. What I do remember vividly was when I sat up, how thick the air felt! It was so tangible. It was a momentary experience that I haven’t felt since but will always remember. It was like feeling the air like you feel the presence of water when submerged. It was a consciousness of the density of the air, not the usual feeling of nothingness in the space. That same evening, I also remember having our eyes closed and Judyth asking us to put our hands where we could feel our breathing. That really confused me. Breathing? I think I went to the textbook place of the upper chest area. Somehow the question made me feel very unsure of myself and what I knew. I don’t even know if I could feel my breath in my lungs without doing it. I know now that I was confused because I really didn’t think about breathing, or feeling for that matter. I just assumed they existed and did fine without me thinking about them.’
Later, in one of her letters she states, ‘I am finding all of life is a sensory awareness experience.’
Sometimes this work feels like child’s play. Much of what we do is simple, unsophisticated, exploratory, and often it brings us to become more spontaneous. One of the differences between a Sensory Awareness session and a child’s play is the fact that we pause during these exploratory sessions and we simply, non-judgmentally share our experiences. (Of course, children do this also, spontaneously.) This simple/ not-so-easy task of relating our experiences serves an important role of bringing the deep, non-verbal experiences of our senses into the more left-brained experience of speaking and relating and integrating the two. This very simple step of being a person alone and then entering body and mind into relationship (which is never separated anyway) is addressed on many levels of this work of Sensory Awareness and then continues our relating into the world.
THIS SESSION AT THIS CONFERENCE
Conferences are always difficult and frustrating for me. The work of Sensory Awareness is so subtle and so different depending where/who/how, it is almost impossible to impart much of a fair impression in just an hour or even several. But then, on the other hand, I feel the work is so important that it is crucial it be presented. At this conference, THE HEART AND GROUND OF SOMATIC PSYCHOTHERAPY, we are being allotted more time than the usual conference, so I am very grateful, and I look forward to working with whom ever attends my session. Of course I don’t know what we will do ..that will depend on who is there, how they feel, what they say, etc. The work is spontaneous as well as deeply studied and often is a surprise to me as much as to the other participants.
I hope to see you there!
References
Fenichel, C. N. (1981). From the Early Years of the Gindler Work. In: Sensory Awareness Foundation Bulletin: Elsa Gindler, 1885-1961, Vol. 10(II). (pp. 4-9). Muir Beach, CA.
Gindler, E. (1926). Die Gymnastik des Berufsmenschen (Gymnastik for Working People). In: The journal of the Deutschen Gymnastik-Bund (German Gymnastik Federation).
Gregory, S. (2001). Elsa Gindler: Lost Gestalt Ancestor. In: British Gestalt Journal. Vol. 10(2). (pp. 14-117).
Levine, P. (2004). USA Body Psychotherapy Journal, Vol. 3 (1), (pp.58-59). Bethesda, MD.
Rand, M. (2001). Personal communication with author.
Reich, E. (1984). Personal communication with author.
________(2001). Personal communication with author.
________(2003). Personal communication with author.
Roche, M.A. (2000). Sensory Awareness: Conscious Relationship. In: Somatics, XII (4), (pp. 4-54). Novato, CA: Somatics Society.
Rosen, M. with Brenner, S. (2003). Rosen Method Bodywork. Berkeley, CA. North Atlantic Books.
Weaver, J.O. (1997/8) Touching Our Human Essence – Leading Sensory Awareness Classes in Different Cultures. In: Somatics, XI (3), (pp. 36-39). Novato, CA: Somatics Society.
Judyth O. Weaver, Ph.D. in Reichian Psychology. studied with Charlotte Selver since 1968. She is authorized to teach Sensory Awareness and certified as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, and in Prenatal and Birth Therapy. She is a Rosen Method practitioner and senior teacher and has been authorized to teach T’ai Chi Ch’uan since 1971. Judyth was professor at California Institute for Integral Studies for 25 years and is co-founder of Santa Barbara Graduate Institute and creator of its Somatic Psychology program. She maintains a private practice in Mill Valley, California and Seattle, Washington, and regularly teaches internationally. www.judythweaver.com
© 2008 Copyright Judyth O. Weaver, Ph.D.
Judyth O. Weaver is a multifaceted teacher and counselor, incorporating extensive training in diverse areas. She holds a Ph.D. in Reichian Psychology.