Holotropic Breathwork

Holotropic is a term coined by psychiatrist Stanislav Grof (from greek: holos = “wholeness”, trepein = “moving towards”) to define non-ordinary states of consciousness that have healing, transformative and evolutionary qualities. This project aims to analyze qualitatively and quantitatively the data from near 300 Holotropic Breathwork™ treatments conducted with victims of violence and stress in São Paulo, one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world.

Holotropic Breathwork™ is a technique created by Stanislav and Christina Grof, leading pioneers in the field of transpersonal psychology, as an outcome of a new model of the human psyche originated from Grof’s work with LSD Psychotherapy during the 60s. This experiential technique combines enhanced breathing, evocative music, focused release work, art, and group sharing to access the intrinsic wisdom of the body-mind-psyche.

By activating the unconscious, it allows access to multiple levels of human experience, including unresolved issues from our post-natal biography, traumatic physical or emotional events, perinatal memories, and a variety of transpersonal experiences. The practice can facilitate the dramatic release and further interpretation and overcome of a diverse range of traumas and blockages, both in physical as well as emotional and psychological levels.

In deeper sessions, the experience of reliving psychological states not completely understood nor assimilated by traditional academic western science may happen, such as experiences and memories form our biological birth, or even periods before birth itself (perinatal domain), and ultimately memories and mythological impressions apparently from other lives, universes or dimensions (transpersonal domain).

In Brazil, the technique is practiced by some dozen therapists, including Alvaro and Dora Jardim for near two decades, always in close collaboration with the Grofs themselves. The couple treated around 300 victims of violence in the giant São Paulo megalopolis, including cases of robbery and brief kidnappings.