During the session, you are lying on a mattress with your eyes closed. In a protected setting, guided by one's own breath and carried by the music, the natural process of self-healing is activated. This state activates the natural inner healing process of the individual’s psyche, giving the seeker a particular set of internal experiences. With the inner healing intelligence guiding the process, the quality and content brought forth is unique to each person and for that particular time and place. While recurring themes are common, no two sessions are ever alike. Every experience is unique. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to experience holotropic breathing.
“Sitters” and “Breathers”
Additional elements of the process include focused energy release work and integration practices such as mandala drawing. Holotropic Breathwork® is usually done in groups, although individual sessions are also possible. Within the groups, people work in pairs and alternate in the roles of “breather” and “sitter.” The sitter’s role is simply to be present and available to assist the breather—not to interfere, interrupt, or try to guide the process. The same is true for trained facilitators, who are available as support if necessary.
Cartography of the Psyche
According to Stanislav Grof, one of the most distinctive and potent aspects of HB is its ground-breaking expanded cartography of the human psyche. Experiences occur, and transformation happens, not only in the biographical dimension—our life history from birth up to the present moment, but they also encompass what Grof calls the perinatal and transpersonal dimensions of the psyche.
The perinatal includes the reliving of our birth from conception, in the uterus, through the canal, and into the birth itself. In this dimension, as well as at birth, it is also possible to undergo the powerful healing episode known throughout world spiritual traditions as psychospiritual birth-death-and-rebirth.
The transpersonal dimension includes the realms of the archetypes described by Carl Jung, as well as many other collective experiences described by world spiritual traditions, and phenomena not previously mapped by any other tradition.
In-depth descriptions of the cartography of the psyche, including Grof’s four perinatal matrices, can be read about in many of Stanislav Grof’s books.
