Links to Sensory Awareness
Resources
Lee Klinger Lesser studied Sensory Awareness with Charlotte Selver for 33 years. She has been leading workshops for 32 years, both in English and in Spanish, in the United States, Mexico and Canada with artists, business people, early childhood educators, health professionals, people in wheel chairs, teenagers in juvenile detention, therapists, Zen students and many others.
Judyth Weaver
"My therapeutic techniques draw on over 35 years of meditative practice and study of t'ai chi ch'uan, qi gong, sensory awareness, as well as craniosacral, Reichian, and pre- and perinatal therapy. I am professor of Somatic Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and the creator and director of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute Ph.D. Program in Somatic Psychology." (from Judyth Weaver's web site)
Stefan Laeng-Gilliatt has studied Sensory Awareness and related practices since 1980, with Seymour Carter, Ruth Veselko, Ruth Matter, Charles Brooks, and Charlotte Selver, with whom he studied and worked extensively until her death in 2003.
He was president and executive manager of the Sensory Awareness Foundation from 1995 through 2007.
Stefan lives with his wife Sarah and his son Julian in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He offers workshops in the USA and Europe. Currently he is working on an Oral History and Book Project, documenting Charlotte Selver's life.
Seymour Carter, Gestalt teacher at Esalen for more than three decades, is a lifelong student of the ever evolving models of personal identity. He teaches Gestalt Practice and Sensory Awareness in the US and Europe. He was a student of Fritz Perls at Esalen in the 60's, and has been a student of Charlotte Selver since 1967. He combines studies in family systems theory with Buddhism, Sensory Awareness and other Mind/Body oriented practices.
Terry Ray
"There are different ways of knowing. Intellectual understanding is factual, measurable, and can be precisely communicated. Knowledge from direct or subjective experience is not measurable. Sense perception is knowledge as experience versus knowledge as information. We can Know hunger, Know digestion, Know what is right for us, Know when someone is telling the truth, and so on, and in this way we come to our own wisdom. As children we lived this way naturally.
Sensing (Sensory Awareness) is the living of a reality that is tangible. We experience our own existence within the envelop of our skin. In our direct perception there can be no authority outside of our own sense doors. If we don't find out for ourselves, we haven't really found out. We can be inspired. We can be given tools. We can be pointed in a certain direction. We can practice with others, but we go the way alone." (from the web site)
Leonore Quest und Thomas Niering - Bewegungsraum am Lietzensee
"der bewegungsraum am lietzensee ist ein ort der konzentration und der entfaltung neuer bewegungsmöglichkeiten.
leonore quest, thomas niering und elisabeth kann, bieten einzelstunden in körper –und bewegungstherapie gruppenstunden und wochenendkurse an. elisabeth kann arbeitet zusätzlich als physiotherapeutin, sie und thomas niering geben massagen.
grundlagen der körper-und bewegungsarbeit sind die goralewski-arbeit, benannt nach frieda goralewski, sowie sensory awareness-erleben durch die sinne, wie charlotte selver ihr eigenes lebenswerk bezeichnet hat. sie und frieda goralewski waren schülerinnen der im letzten jahrhundert hochgeschätzten berliner körpertherapeutin elsa gindler." (from the web site)
Wege der Entfaltung, e.V. , Germany
Der Verein "Wege der Entfaltung" ist eine gemeinnützige Organisation, die dem Lebenswerk von Elsa Gindler, Heinrich Jacoby, Elfriede Hengstenberg, Charlotte Selver und Emmi Pikler verbunden ist. Ihr Anliegen ist es, die Erfahrungen und Erkenntnisse dieser wegweisenden Pädagogen in der Erziehung von Kindern und Jugendlichen wie auch in der Arbeit mit Erwachsenen umzusetzen und zu vertiefen.
Arbeitskreis heinrich jacoby / elsa gindler, Switzerland
A beautiful resource for information on Gindler/Jacoby work and Sensory Awareness in German. "Eine Interessengemeinschaft für alle, die an der Jacoby/Gindler-Arbeit interessiert sind; eine Dachorganisation für alle, die aktiv in der Arbeit stehen; ein Forum für Austausch, Diskussion und Information sowie Aktualisierung und zeitgemässe Vermittlung der Arbeit." (from their web site)
Die geistigen und ideellen Grundlagen der «Ruth Matter Stiftung» gehen zurück in die 20-er Jahre des letzten Jahrhunderts, einer Blütezeit geistigen Aufbruchs. Aus unserem Blickwinkel von Interesse sind die Gestaltpsychologie, die künstlerischen Bewegungen, vorab das Bauhaus sowie der aus dem reformpädagogischen Umfeld entstandene erwachsenenbildnerische Ansatz zur Nachentfaltung von Heinrich Jacoby.
Heinrich-Jacoby/Elsa-Gindler - Stiftung, Germany
Die gemeinnützige Heinrich-Jacoby/Elsa-Gindler- Stiftung wurde 1985 von Sophie Ludwig gegründet. Sie dient dem Zweck, die Nachlässe von Heinrich Jacoby, Elsa Gindler und ihrer langjährigen Mitarbeiterin Sophie Ludwig zu verwalten, Dokumente und Ergebnisse ihrer Arbeit der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich zu machen und die praktische wie wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit ihr zu fördern.
UCSB Library, Department of Special Collections
The Department of Special Collections collects, maintains and makes accessible rare, valuable and unique materials which support UCSB students, faculty and research programs, as well as the local national and international scholarly community. Charlotte Selver's papers, as well as SAF archival material, are part of their Humanistic Psychology Archives.
Work with Children
The International Emmi Pikler Foundation at Lóczy is guided by the mission of founder Dr. Emmi Pikler to offer aid in raising healthy, happy children. Established in 1946, this agency, with worldwide recognition, is dedicated to empowering children and families through outreach programs that serve the child, parent and caregiver. The Pikler objectives recognize the need to offer an environment where children are respected and nurtured to become emotionally, socially, and mature individuals, able to adjust to the needs of others and the real and comprehensible needs of society.
"RIE is a non-profit organization that has developed and is teaching a unique philosophy and methodology in working with infants. The RIE approach helps raise authentic infants who are: competent, confident, curious, attentive, exploring, cooperative, secure, peaceful, focused, self-initiating, resourceful, involved, cheerful, aware, interested and inner-directed." (from the RIE web site). The connection with Sensory Awareness is through Magda Gerber's mentor Emmi Pikler, a pediatrician from Budapest, who was in touch with Elsa Gindler and based her work with infants on similar principals.
Mit Kindern wachsen
A web site in German with information about 'working' with children, based - among others - on the work of Gindler student Elfriede Hengstenberg. "Der Kern und die Achse unseres Ansatzes ist die Überzeugung, daß Kinder ihr volles Potential in sich tragen. Damit sich dieses Potential verwirklichen kann, brauchen sie eine auf ihre jeweiligen Entwicklungsbedürfnisse abgestimmte vorbereitete Umgebung, in der sie weitestgehend ihren selbst gewählten Aktivitäten nachgehen können. So lernen sie aus eigener Erfahrung reale Lebenssituationen einzuschätzen, Initiative zu entwickeln, Entscheidungen zu treffen und Verantwortung für ihr Handeln zu tragen." (from their web site)
Wege der Entfaltung, e.V. , Germany
(See above)
Other Resources
"We are a new institution created by a group of experienced educators, practitioners and researchers in the fields of prenatal and perinatal psychology and somatic psychology. Our goal is to offer excellence in graduate education in two related fields that we observe as the leading edge of psychology, medicine, science and sociology. Bringing together the latest scientific findings with ancient wisdom, we have created programs that honor the innate wisdom of each person while preparing students for careers that incorporate body, mind and spirit." SBGI offers a Somatic Psychology program. "Foundational to this program of study is the practice of Sensory Awareness which promotes continual exploration into the student's ways of being, sensing, feeling, and interacting." (quotes from the SBGI web site.)
"The San Francisco Zen Center was established in 1962 by the late Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi. Today, Zen Center is one of the largest Buddhist sanghas outside of Asia, home to a diverse and growing community of priests, lay people, teachers and students. In addition to Beginner's Mind Temple in San Francisco, Zen Center operates Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the first Zen training monastery in the West. We are dedicated to continuing Suzuki-Roshi's style of practice, which flows from the insight that all beings are Buddha, and that the practice of sitting in meditation is itself the realization of Buddha nature, or enlightenment." (from the Zen Center's web site) Since its beginnings Charlotte Selver has been closely connected with San Francisco Zen Center and is still offering workshops at Green Gulch Farm. "The work of Charlotte Selver... is the inner experience of entire being, the pure flow of sensory awareness when the mind through calmness ceases to work - deeper than mind-made awareness. What is this "entire being?" If you want to say something about it, you should know how to be it." Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
"Erich Fromm (1900-1980) is seen by many as being one of the most outstanding figures of 20th century humanism. Unlike many other German-born social scientists and philosophers, Fromm's reception and influence have been wide-spread, as have been his books which were translated into every major language and found a readership of many millions." (from their web site) "I know Charlotte Selver's work, having studied with her for several years. I have found it of greatest help for myself. I consider the principles on which this work is based of great significance for the full unfolding of the personality." Erich Fromm
"An interactive experience of the story and life work of Alan Watts." Charlotte Selver met Alan Watts in 1953. Together they offered many workshops throughout the fifties and sixties. "Charlotte Selver conveys the actual sensation of some of the things which I try to express in mere words - and above all, the organic relationship of man with the whole world of nature." Alan W. Watts
"Since its founding in 1938, the IGS has promoted and taught Alfred Korzybski's non-Aristotelian system, general semantics. The formulations of the system give us tools which enable us to improve our evaluations so that they more closely correspond to "what is going on". Improved evaluating leads to improvements in most areas of human life." (from the IGS web site).
Charlotte Selver offered workshops at IGS in the fifties after Charlotte Schuchardt Read, long time secretary of Alfred Korzybski, started to study with her. Charlotte Schuchardt Read incorporated the insights of Sensory Awareness into General Semantics seminars, leading students toward experience of Korzybski's "silent level" through nonverbal sensing.
The Lifwynn Foundation
"The Lifwynn Foundation is a small group of people dedicated to exploring the pathology and the promise of the human situation. This pathology fragments our lives and separates us from ourselves, from others, and from the needs of the planet. The purpose of The Lifwynn Foundation is to investigate the causes of this world-wide human predicament. At present, society is riddled with violence, addiction of all sorts, ethnic conflict, environmental degradation, inequality of distribution, etc. Our work addresses these problems. It is aimed at furthering human transformation and social healing." (from the LF web site) Mary Alice Roche, Sensory Awareness leader, and founder of the SAF, is an active member of the Lifwynn Foundation.
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