Unknown - Holotropic Breathwork

Stanislav and Christina Grof are modern pioneers of consciousness and this book is their map of the territory. Holotropic Breathwork reveals how the Grofs developed their revolutionary healing techniques, often told through fascinating stories of people being transformed by the breathwork process. The Grofs are at the center of the current psycho-spiritual revolution in the West, and this book is a testament to their role in our collective healing.

Wes Nisker, author of The Essential Crazy Wisdom and Buddha's Nature:
A Practical Guide to Discovering Your Place in the Cosmos

The Grofs offer the first comprehensive text of the theory and practice of their pioneering and integrative model of experiential psychotherapy and self-exploration. This psychology of the future, with its extended cartography of the psyche, provides irrefutable evidence that spontaneous episodes of nonordinary states of consciousness have great healing, transformative, and even evolutionary potential for humankind. History will record that Holotropic Breathwork and the certification training and program designed by the Grofs advanced the field of psychotherapy far beyond the contributions of Freud and Jung.

Angeles Arrien, author of The Four-Fold Way:
Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary

In this remarkable book Stanislav and Christina Grof summarize their pathbreaking discoveries of the past thirty years. They make two significant contributions, one to science, the other to our shared future. The first, by showing that altered states of consciousness have a dimension that is veridicalimaginal rather than imaginaryand thereby transcend the outdated but still persistent belief that our experience of the world is limited to information conveyed by our senses. The second, by demonstrating that the altered states achieved inter alia through their holotropic breathwork method reduce aggression and enhance tolerance, compassion, ecological sensitivity, and a sense of planetary citizenship. Since these are the very qualities we urgently need to cope with the global emergency in which we presently find ourselves, their contribution to the future of humankind matches their contribution to the future of psychology.

Ervin Laszlo, author of The Connectivity Hypothesis:
Foundations of an Integral Science of Quantum, Cosmos, Life, and Consciousness

Holotropic Breathwork appears to have the potential for facilitating psychological insights and transformations that can be remarkably rapid and deep.

Roger Walsh, coeditor of Higher Wisdom:
Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics

You hold in your hands a visionary book, one that offers a new understanding of healing, mental health, and human potential, along with powerful techniques to bring about these transformations. Developing such an integrated understanding, which combines science, experience, and spirit is critical for the twenty-first century.

from the Foreword by Jack Kornfield

SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology

Richard D. Mann, editor

HOLOTROPIC BREATHWORK

A New Approach to
Self-Exploration and Therapy

STANISLAV GROF &
CHRISTINA GROF

Foreword by Jack Kornfield

Published by
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
ALBANY

2010 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Excelsior Editions is an imprint of State University of New York Press

For information, contact
State University of New York Press
www.sunypress.edu

Production, Ryan Morris
Marketing, Fran Keneston

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Grof, Stanislav, 1931

Holotropic breathwork : a new approach to self-exploration and therapy / Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof.

p. ; cm. (SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4384-3393-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4384-3394-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Holotropic Breathwork (Trademark) I. Grof, Christina. II. Title. III. Series: SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology.

[DNLM: 1. Breathing Exercises. 2. Holistic Health. 3. Psychoanalytic Theory. 4. Psychotherapymethods. WB 543 G874h 2010]

RZ403.H65G76 2010

615.8'36dc22 2010002382

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