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Holotropic Breathwork

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Holotropic Breathwork is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D. and Christina Grof, believed to allow access to nonordinary states of consciousness. Holotropic breathing has some similarities to rebirthing, but was developed independently. Holotropic Breathwork is used by practitioners as an approach to self-exploration and healing that integrates insights from modern consciousness research, anthropology, various depth psychologies, transpersonal psychology, Eastern spiritual practices, and mystical traditions of the world. The name Holotropic means "moving toward wholeness" (from the Greek "holos"=whole and "trepein"=moving in the direction of something).

The method comprises five elements: group process, intensified breathing (so-called hyperventilation), evocative music, focused body work, and expressive drawing. The method's general effect is a non-specific amplification of a person's psychic process, which facilitates the psyche's natural capacity for healing.

Holotropic Breathwork is usually done in groups, although individual sessions are done. Within the groups, people work in pairs and alternate in the roles of experiencer ("breather") and "sitter". The sitter's primary responsibility is to focus compassionate attention on the breather. Secondarily, the sitter is available to assist the breather, but not to interfere or interrupt the process. The same is true for trained facilitators, who are available as helpers if necessary.

Originally developed as an adjunct to LSD psychotherapy Holotropic Breathwork is an autonomous psychotherapeutic practice which, nevertheless, retains many of the clinical precautionary measures that were implemented in the medical use of LSD.

"Holotropic Breathwork" is a trademark.

Typical Experiences During Holotropic Breathwork

Participants in Holotropic Breathwork sessions report a wide variety of experiences (Taylor,1994). From observing many people in nonordinary and expanded states of consciousness, Grof developed what he considers to be a “cartography” of the psyche, which describes four main categories of experience.

Sensory and Somatic: This realm of experience includes various hallucinatory phenomena, such as visualizing images or geometrical patterns. More commonly, participants report a greater awareness of and ability to act out somatic processes and bodily impulses, such as assuming postures, dancing or moving in specific ways, and making sounds. They may also claim to feel where energy is blocked or streaming, consistent with the belief in vitalism.

Biographical and Individual Unconscious: As in more traditional therapies, participants may revisit unresolved conflicts, repressed memories, and unintegrated traumas. Compared to talk therapies, the unconscious material is more likely to be re-experienced than merely remembered. Participants report that this deeper processing can be more effective at clearing trauma, especially as it relates to subtle ways that trauma is held in the body.

Perinatal: Along with most other Breathwork practitioners, and in disagreement with Freud’s claim that the infant after birth is a tabula rasa, Grof believes that the birth process is a traumatic event that leaves powerful residue in the psyche (see "Importance of the birth process" below). Participants in Holotropic Breathwork sessions report having images, emotions, physical sensations, and cognitions that convince them that they are remembering aspects of their own birth. Sometimes details can be verified with medical records. Some claim that these experiences help them release the birth trauma, including deeply held negative beliefs about themselves or the world.

Transpersonal: Referring to the possibility of accessing information outside the normal boundaries of the ego and body, transpersonal experiences reported in Holotropic Breathwork sessions include past life memories, experiential identification with other life forms, out-of-body experiences, oneness, encounters with spiritual archetypes, and connection with the collective unconscious.

Importance of the birth process

One aspect of Grof's extensive theory is the belief that there is a connection between our life experiences and our experiences in the birth process. In his book "The Holotropic Mind", Grof (1992) separated this process into 4 stages. These stages are known as the Perinatal Matrices, and they are defined as follows:

  1. Amniotic Universe - The womb. The only world that life knows at this point. Blissful feelings of peace and joy, in a healthy womb.
  2. Cosmic Engulfment; No Exit - Equilibrium disturbed; contractions begins. Unbearable feeling of being stuck in hell with no way of escaping.
  3. Death versus Rebirth Struggle - Second clinical stage of childbirth; intense struggle for survival.
  4. Death versus Rebirth Experience - The child is born. Intense ecstatic feelings of liberation and love. New world begins.

Holotropic breathwork professional practice

There is an Association for Holotropic Breathwork International which promotes professional and ethical practices governing Holotropic Breathwork.

There is an extensive training and certification program for facilitators through Grof Transpersonal Training. For those who wish to become certified, there are two tracks, Educational and Practitioner. Both have the requirements of attendance at seven modules and a two-week closing intensive, covering training in transpersonal psychology (including psychopathology, spiritual emergency, and addictions), as well as the theory and practice of Holotropic Breathwork. The training also includes ten hours of consultation with a certified practitioner and 150 total hours of participation in HB workshops led by Stanislav Grof or a certified practitioner (Baum and Pounds, 1993). In addition, those wishing to become independent workshop leaders (Practitioners), must apprentice at least four times at workshops with previously certified practitioners before leading groups of their own. There are currently more than 1000 trained facilitators located throughout the world, including clinicians, businessmen, public, psychotherapists, etc.

Reactions and contraindications

In a section entitled "Focused Body Work", Grof (1988) writes: "The last component of holotropic therapy, the focused body work, is used only when it is indicated. There are many sessions with a smooth course where no interventions are required. In some of these sessions, the hyperventilation does not trigger any difficult emotions or unpleasant physical manifestations and leads to progressive relaxation and to feelings of an ecstatic nature. In others, emotional and psychosomatic distress develops, but continued breathing brings about quite automatically a good resolution and good integration of the session" (194). He goes on to say that there are "only a few situations when focused body work is necessary in the early phases of holotropic sessions" and that "the main indication for the use of focused body work is a situation during the termination period of the session (usually after about an hour and a half to two hours) in those individuals where the breathing and music did not bring a complete resolution" (194) He points out that the "work on such problems is desirable, since it brings the session to a cleaner resolution and better integration, but it is in no way mandatory" (194-5). It is in this context that Grof refers to the exteriorization of "the various forms of physical discomfort associated with the emotional distress" (195). At this stage, "it can be helpful to use certain interventions that cooperate with the process, deepen it, and intensify it ... massage or pressure in the areas that are tense or painful, or offers of specific resistances that increase existing tensions ... Among the reactions that might spontaneously occur under these circumstances are violent shaking, grimacing, coughing, gagging, vomiting, a variety of movements, and a wide range of sounds that include screaming, baby talk, animal voices, talking in tongues or a language foreign to the client, shamanic chanting, and many others" (196)

Contraindications to be considered include: serious cardiovascular problems, glaucoma, severe psychiatric illness, and pregnancy (202); while special precautions are recommended in the case of epileptics (203).

He points out that caution is required in the case of individuals with a history of psychiatric hospitalization. Such procedures are "not without certain risks" and "if the process gets to be too active and extends beyond the framework of the sessions, it can require special measures" (251). Elsewhere, he writes that "experiential work with severely disturbed individuals requires a special residential facility with trained staff where continuous support is available for twenty-four hours a day; it should not be conducted on an outpatient basis" (204).

Research in Holotropic Breathwork

Grof (1988) admits the experimental nature of the process in the context of an adventure of self-discovery. Referring to his partnership with his wife, he comments: "Our own experience with this technique has been limited to experiential workshops lasting up to four weeks. We have not had the opportunity to subject it to rigorous evaluation in controlled clinical studies, comparable to my research in psychedelic therapy" (xiv). Later, he adds: "It is important to realize that holotropic work is completely open-ended. It is best to think about it as an ongoing research project and psychological experiment ... The training of the facilitator should never be considered a fait accompli. Holotropic therapy is a process of continuous learning, rather than mechanical application of a closed system of concepts and rules" (207).

Research by Holmes et al (1996) concluded that holotropic breathwork led to “significant reductions in death anxiety and increases in self-esteem” relative to traditional verbally oriented psychotherapy.

In a theoretical review article, Rhinewine and Williams (2007) offer the hypothesis that holotropic breathwork operates via a biopsychological mechanism that results in experiential exposure to feared internal representations, and consequently in extinction of covert avoidance behaviors. The latter disinhibitory process, experienced by the breather as "catharsis," may correspondingly result in therapeutic progress among patients who had previously shown limited gains in verbal psychotherapy, as previously demonstrated in Holmes and colleagues' (1996) study.

Criticism of Holotropic Breathwork

Holotropic Breathwork has been subject to criticism, on points of medical, spiritual and pastoral concern.

  • In Ken Wilber's "Eye of Spirit" (1996) he criticizes Grof's assertion that in order to access transpersonal states of consciousness a person must necessarily first regress to the perinatal state to resolve the trauma of (and/or around) birth. Wilber states that while this is sometimes the case, it is so only in a limited number of cases.
  • In 1993 the Scottish Charities Office commissioned a report into the technique, having received complaints concerning its implementation at the Findhorn Foundation, a registered charity. The report was written by Anthony Busuttil (Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh), whose opinions caused the Findhorn Foundation, which was already unpopular with many of the local Findhorn population, to suspend its breathwork programme. In its report on the event,The Scotsman also published several critical comments concerning Holotropic Breathwork as a form of therapy, made by Dr Linda Watt of Leverndale Psychiatric Hospital in Glasgow. In response to literature about breathwork supplied by the newspaper, Dr Watt expressed professional concerns that the hyperventilation technique might cause seizure or lead to psychosis in vulnerable people. (The Scotsman, 14 October 1993).
  • In an article in the Skeptical Inquirer (2003), Scott O. Lilienfeld, Associate Professor of Psychology at Emory University, and Wallace Sampson, Clinical Professor Emeritus of Medicine at Stanford University, criticized the approval of research by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) into the use of the drug MDMA (Ecstasy) as a treatment for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The approved study protocol by Dr Michael Mithoefer, a trained Holotropic Breathwork facilitator, states that it uses models for supporting people in non-ordinary states of consciousness adapted from Grof's clinical work with LSD and later experience with Holotropic Breathwork. Sampson stated that the study "appears to be the exclusive project of believers in psychedelic mysticism, and based on work of Dr. Stanislav Grof", who he referred to as "an early LSD self-experimenter and psychedelic psychotherapist. After LSD and Ecstasy use was declared illegal, Grof developed Holotropic Breathwork, a potentially dangerous form of severe hyperventilation, as a legal method of invoking hallucinations. Grof was a long time fellow of the Esalen Institute, widely considered to be a birthplace of the New Age movement. MAPS President [Rick] Doblin, whose organization is funding the PTSD research, was first introduced to MDMA personally by Grof at Esalen in the early 1980s."
  • Independent philosopher Kevin Shepherd (1995) argues that the spiritual practices which Holotropic Breathwork claims as inspiration can only be correctly understood in the context of their original cultures. In particular, he questions the motives and wisdom of facilitators providing Holotropic Breathwork in a commercial context.
  • In volume 3 of her autobiography, mystic Kate Thomas (1992) quotes extensively from correspondence relating to the controversy at the Findhorn Foundation. In this, and subsequent writing (1998, 2000), she expresses the view that Holotropic Breathwork interferes with the process of spiritual evolution in ways that she claims facilitators are unqualified to recognise or deal with.

Responses to Criticism of Holotropic Breathwork

Grof disputes many of the medical criticisms of Holotropic Breathwork, arguing that they are based on misunderstandings of the physiological and psychological processes involved. In his paper reviewing the literature on the effects of faster breathing, he concludes that "The fact that during rapid breathing symptoms surface and become manifest is not a pathological phenomenon...With skillful support and guidance, the emergence of symptoms during hyperventilation can result in healing of emotional and psychosomatic problems...". (Grof 2003)

References

Baum, L. and Pounds, B. G. (1993). The National Directory Of Psychotherapy Training Institutes. New York: Routledge.

Castro, S. "New Age Therapy - higher consciousness or delusion?" in The Therapist, Winter 1995, 14-16.

Castro, S. Hypocrisy and Dissent within the Findhorn Foundation: Towards a Sociology of a New Age Community. New Media Books, 1996.

Curry, E. Patrick "Carl Jung, Stanislav Grof, and New Age Medical Mysticism" The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, 2002, 6(2): 86-7.

The Forres Gazette, “Breathwork on course to make a comeback”, Dec. 4, 2002.

Grof, S., The Adventure of Self-Discovery. SUNY, 1988.

Grof, S., with Bennett, H. The Holotropic Mind: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives. HarperCollins, 1992.

Grof, S. "Physical Manifestations of Emotional disorders:Observations from the study of non-ordinary states of consciousness" in Exploring Holotropic breathwork: Selected Articles from a Decade of the Inner Door. Taylor, K [Ed.] Hanford Mead, 2003

Holmes, S. W., Morris, R, Clance, P. R, Putney, R. T., “Holotropic Breathwork : An Experiential Approach To Psychotherapy”, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, Vol. 33(1), Spring 1996. pp. 114-120. 1996

Rhinewine, J. P., Williams, O. J. "Holotropic Breathwork: The Potential Role of a Prolonged, Voluntary Hyperventilation Procedure as an Adjunct to Psychotherapy". Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Vol. 13(7), September 2007. pp. 771-776. 2007

Ths Scotsman, New Age meditation course cancelled on medical advice, 14 October 1993.

Shepherd, K. Minds and Sociocultures: An Analysis of Religious and Dissenting Movements, Volume One: Zoroastrianism and the Indian Religions. Philosophical Press, 1995.

Skeptical Inquirer, Journal editors criticize MDMA study as nonscientific, unethical, May-June, 2003

Taylor, K. The Breathwork Experience: Exploration and Healing in Nonordinary States of Consciousness. Hanford Mead, 1994.

Thomas, K. The Destiny Challenge: A Record of Spiritual Experience & Observation. New Frequency Press, 1992.

Thomas, K. "Turning the spotlight on a questionable therapy", a letter to the Forres Gazette, 20 October 1993.

Thomas, K. The Kundalini Phenomenon: The Need for Insight and Spiritual Authenticity. New Media Books, 2000.

Taylor, Kylea (2003). Exploring Holotropic Breathwork: Selected Articles from a Decade of The Inner Door. Hanford Mead Publishers. ISBN 0964315866. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

See also

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