Sumedha Centre marked
its 10th Anniversary with another workshop. This time the workshop
was led by internationally reputed somatic therapist Don Hanlon Johnson and Jungian Analyst Barbara Holifield.
Johnson is professor of
Somatics at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco , and the founder of the first
graduate degree program in Somatic Psychology. He is the author of several
books, collections, and articles whose focus is on the role of direct bodily
experience in organizing our personal and communal worlds.
Holifield is a Jungian
analyst practicing in the San
Francisco Bay
area. She weaves somatic and relational perspectives into her analytic
practice, and works extensively with the psychophysiology of trauma. An adjunct
faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies, she teaches
Authentic Movement in the United
States and abroad.
The workshop titled “Body Practices, Authentic Movement, and Personal
and Professional Well-Being” was
held at Bosco Psychological Services, New
Delhi , on March 31 and April 1.
There were 16
participants, 13 professional women and three Salesian priest psychologists. All
were involved in the healing ministry either as psychologists, counsellors or
therapists. They represented a number of
different theoretical and practice approaches to healing and transformation.
At this workshop Johnson
focused on touch and breath and Holifield on Authentic Movement.
Authentic Movement, a combination of
Jungian Active Imagination and body
movement and awareness is a profoundly simple process in
which one, in the presence of a witness, closes one’s eyes, and turning his or
her attention inward, listens for prompting from the psyche as well as impulses
for movement or stillness.
The workshop was a very
“moving” (in many different ways) experience for the participants. It helped
them to get in touch with parts of themselves and possibilities they were not
aware of; brought a greater awareness of both body and psych. It also helped
them to be aware of new dimensions that they can introduce into their existing
practice.
As one participant
wrote: “The workshop was a beautiful experience.”
Within the short a-day-and-half
workshop participants could only get a taste of the possibilities that touch,
breath and authentic movement offered for personal and professional well-being,
and they thirsted for more, wanting Johnson and Holifield to return and do a
longer workshop.
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