Does Holotropic Breathwork require bodywork?

Holotropic Breathwork facilitators are trained to offer participants a form of support that is sometimes called bodywork, and is often mistaken for it. Increasingly, we call it "focused energy release work" rather than "bodywork." It is available to participants on request, during a session or at its end. Participants ask for it when they feel stuck or ungrounded, or sense that their session is not yet complete.

Most participants complete their sessions without this kind of help. But if someone does want help, the facilitator will respond to whatever the participant asks for with creativity and empathy. Most often this means no more than a gentle hand on the shoulder for encouragement. Sometimes the facilitator suggests that the participant intensify what is already happening. This can be a physical intensification, or an expressive one. It may simply be an invitation for the participant to give voice or sound to what she is feeling, or to explore an image she is already experiencing. A participant may also want physical resistance against a particular gesture, in order to strengthen the sensation within it. But this physical resistance is never something done to the participant, and it is never meant to overwhelm. It is simply a matter of meeting the participant where she is and encouraging her to go a little further, if she wishes.

Unfortunately, we have seen some therapists, not trained by Grof, carry out interventions in their work with non-ordinary states of consciousness that shocked us, so let us be perfectly clear: a Holotropic Breathwork facilitator would never physically intervene in a breather's process without the breather's permission, unless there were an immediate danger that the participant might injure themselves or someone else. In that case we intervene only as much as is needed to ensure everyone's safety.