Stanislav Grof, M.D. and his wife, Christina Grof, developed this powerful and natural technique in the mid-1970's from modern consciousness research and their study of ancient spiritual systems. In his book, Psychology of the Future, Grof writes, "in holotropic states, we can transcend the narrow boundaries of the body ego and reclaim our full identity." Holotropic Breathwork assists this process by inducing the holotropic state and by creating a safe context to reconnect with self, others, the natural world, and spirit. Part of the safe context for this work includes pairing participants to support each other in the two session breathwork day. In one session one is breather and one is sitter and in the next session, usually after a lunch break, the breather in the first session reciprocates as a sitter.

Holotropic Breathwork incorporates, as does any ritual, 1) a preparation phase with an in-depth theoretical preparation, 2) an induced state of non-ordinary consciousness brought about in a group by controlled breathing, music, one-on-one supervision (the sitter/breather pair), a flexible and open-ended time period, a particular form of focused energy release work, and 2) an integration phase using art and a structured group sharing about the experience. There is thorough training of its practitioners-all of which promote safety and healing in nonordinary states of consciousness.

The Holotropic Breathwork experience is, for the most part, internal and largely nonverbal, without interventions. The practitioners lead a guided relaxation to help the breather relax the body in preparation for the breathing. At the end of the relaxation, the practitioners instruct the breathers to breathe deeper and faster than usual.

Many experiences arise in the process of this work, but having breathwork experiences per se, (or any particular experience, such as rebirth or ecstasy) is not the purpose. The goals are wholeness, healing, and wisdom. Experiences are the means to these goals. When the body and mind enter a holotropic state through controlled breathing, the inner wisdom uses the opportunity to work toward physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing, and developmental change. Holotropic Breathwork operates under the principle that we are our own best healers.

Sitting is often at least as important a component in the Holotropic Breathwork experience as the Breathing.

In Holotropic Breathwork there is implicit permission to access deep, unknown places. Protection must be commensurate with permission. The balance of both creates safe set and setting that allows one to go beyond where he or she knows the way. The Sitter's duty is to take care of ordinary reality so the Breather can let go of having to monitor the environment and feel free and safe to go as far into the inner world (non-ordinary reality) as possible. The Sitter fetches a drink of water, supports the Breather on a walk to the bathroom, covers up the Breather if the Breather is cold, holds a hand, and reminds the Breather to continue Breathing if the Breather wants that kind of assistance.

The Sitter also protects the Breather fiercely from intrusion (e.g., by others or environment) and from self-harm or from harming others (e.g., by bumping into the wall or other Breathers.)

The relationship between someone in a non-ordinary consciousness (Breather) and someone who remains grounded in ordinary consciousness (Sitter) is a sacred and delicate one. It requires a reaching of consciousness on the part of the Sitter, an attention to nuance, and a meditation on the chasm between the two states and the bridge which can be built to join them. The value of the Sitter is not just in his or her ability to one-sidedly see, hear, or touch. The healing of an original wound (e.g., omission of nurture or abuse in childhood) cannot take place outside of relationship, because it is the very lack of relationship that is the wound. The gift of the Sitter is that the Sitter responds in relationship.

A sitter witnesses the experience of the breather giving the breather the gift of being seen. The sitter also sponsors the Breather's inner witness self by modeling the witness function or role. Having a witness heightens the Breather's awareness so that witness part of the Breather is awakened even while the Breather is fully engaged experientially.

The sitter learns from that the inner process can unfold without interference, such as anticipating, directing, or enabling the unfolding process. The act of supporting or midwifing the energy without getting in its way is called "non-doing." [i] Neither Sitter nor Breather has to know where it is going, or what will be the outcome. This learning as a sitter can extend beyond the breathwork session, creating trust. The sitter learns others each have an inner healer and to provide support to others with trust that the inner process has a wise trajectory that may be unknown to both experiencer and sitter. They need only cooperate with the Inner Healer as it reveals itself moment by moment. Widening the focus of awareness

Sitting is a type of meditation as well, similar to Vipassana[ii]meditation. In Holotropic Breathwork, a Sitter sometimes focuses in a one-pointed way on the Breather, and sometimes has a multi-focused consciousness. In the latter case, the Sitter is practicing (usually without consciously doing so) holding simultaneous awarenesses of the Breather's process and needs and all the inner emotions, motivations, and thoughts that are moving through himself or herself. This wider focus of awareness may also at times expand beyond the Breather/Sitter dyad to the container which holds them both. That container includes the Holotropic Breathwork techniques and theory, the Facilitators, the other Sitter/Breather dyads in the room, and the energy that is being created in the room at that moment.

This practice of widening consciousness is another way in which the practice of sitting in breathwork makes new skills available to ordinary life. As Sitters and Facilitators we all have moments of dissociation when attention strays or disappears, but with the practice of Sitting, we are gradually able to hold more of ourselves, more of the other, and more of the environment in our conscious awareness simultaneously.

The fears and desires that usually manage our lives unconsciously arise in meditation practice and may also arise while Sitting. It has been said that relationship is the best guru. Sitting, as meditation, provides us with a setting where we are less distracted from our unconscious motivations. It also puts the focus on our present moment of relationship with our Breather and with any of our judgments about the other participants in the workshop. Sitters have reported epiphanies realizing their judgments about their Breather or nearby Sitters had been recreations of patterns in relationship in their lives. They have, in the Sitter role, the opportunity to reclaim and understand projections they have unconsciously been putting upon others.[iii] Sitting enables us to become more aware of our own emotions and motivations. This often has a balancing effect on our personalities.

For people who easily express emotions, Sitting is a balancing time in which they practice knowing, naming, feeling, but then instead of expressing (the Breather role) they have the opportunity to practice another skill - one of letting the emotional energy move through without acting on it. This can be particularly helpful in strengthening this Inner Sitter. They can learn skills that will enable them to Sit more calmly with their own emotional parts, so that they are not as dependent on others to play the calm and analytical role in their life.

People who have most often been in the "patient" or "client" roles may feel they are often in the receiver role with others, but that they don't have much to give others. These Sitters can be pleasantly surprised to learn how much they really can offer to their Breather. This opportunity to be in a giver role emotionally can produce a significant change in self-concept.

For people who are best at analyzing and discriminating, Sitting provides a chance to do that without verbalizing it. In the silence Sitters can notice that process, name it, and perhaps even feel the emotion that might be associated with it. They can notice when analyzing is a useful skill and when "knowing" or "understanding" or "maximizing" might be an outdated defense against simply feeling and being in the mystery of the present.

For people who consider themselves controlling, who often had very good need in childhood, or even in the present, for controlling themselves and others in order to protect themselves, Sitting is a time when there may be space to notice more clearly what is happening when such a need or impulse to control arises. The Sitting role requires that one defer to the Breather's Inner Healer - following and supporting, rather than controlling, pre-judging, or directing that process. Thus, if one's inclination to control arises, it will be noticed just because one is performing the function of Sitter.

People whose main inclination is to support, who tend to put their own needs aside, and who often behave co-dependently in relationships, will likely find most aspects of Sitting familiar. They will probably learn more from the Breather role. But still, the practice of Sitting may teach supportive types how to empower a Breather, rather than enable or do their work for them. It may also provide the meditative space to notice one's own co-dependent impulses. For example, if a person is crying expressively, it may be a new experience to allow someone to express those painful feelings fully, rather than to impulsively try to fix or comfort the person.

In general, the practice of Sitting in Holotropic Breathwork strengthens those parts of us that can act as resources when the rest of us is "in process." It strengthens our ability to act as our own internal Witness, commenting on, understanding, and mediating our complex emotional reactions. It also strengthens our compassion, the Nurturer part that can provide us with self-compassion even in the face of our most virulent inner Self-Critic or Self-Blamer. Through our empathy with our Breather, we also strengthen our connection to our own feeling, sensing selves. The practice of role- modeling the Witness during the intense process of a Breather strengthens our Witness to be able to stay present during our own periods of intensity. The practice of role-modeling compassionate caring and service to a needy Breather increases our ability to be compassionate with our own internal neediness.

One of the really useful practices of the Sitter/Breather relationship is the practice of reciprocity. The Sitter's role is to give whatever support the Breather requests (or to call the Facilitator if one is uncomfortable with a specific request). But the role is to give, to put the focus on the Breather. If there is a conflict between one's own needs and the Breather's, one generally tries to accommodate the needs of the Breather - the one who is in process.

On the other hand, when one moves into the Breather role, one is focused on receiving. The Breather is specifically not responsible for the needs of the other, the Sitter. So if a Breather is co-dependently thinking that it might be too much to ask the Sitter to hold a hand or get the Breather a drink of water, the Breather knows that such thinking is his or her own process. The Breather's job is to ask for what he or she needs to facilitate the process, not to worry about the Sitter's reaction. Conversely, the Sitter's role is not to take personally any request or action by the Breather who is "in process," but just to support the Breather's process with an attitude of surrender and service.

This learning can translate to ordinary relationship outside of Breathwork. One couple I know learned through the clarity of the Breather/Sitter roles how to distinguish who was in process and who was assisting. When it seemed like they were both in process at the same time, they clarified it verbally. If they were both in process, they alternated roles of "Breather" and "Sitter" by passing a Talking Stick object back and forth. Whoever held the object was the "Breather" and the "Sitter" listened attentively until the object was passed back again.

If the Sitter has an attitude of service, the Breather can begin to surrender to being served. Part of that is to begin to be able to ask for what he or she wants - to actively participate in the receiving end of the "give and take" of life. Many people don't know clearly what they need and want. Some who do know what they want, don't think it would be possible or appropriate to get it. Even if they do know what they want and think it would be possible to get it, they sometimes have great difficulty in asking.

In Breathwork we tend to consider Breathing as the practice. In this article I wanted to acknowledge the silent, but quite powerful partner in Holotropic Breathwork - Sitting. Boroson describes Holotropic Breathwork insightfully as a meta-practice. Sitting as well as Breathing is part of this meta-practice.

Sitters who are present and focused on relationship with their Breather and themselves experience, in ways appropriately unique to them, whatever they are next called to learn about themselves. Depending upon what needs developing or balancing, Sitters may learn more about empathy, emotion, impulse control, dissociation, or their own value as givers to others. They may strengthen their internal functions of witnessing and nurturing while providing care to others. They may learn to take turns with the giver and receiver roles in their own relationships. They may learn to broaden and intensify their focus of attention while practicing presence.

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Kylea Taylor, M.S., M.F.T. is a Callifornia licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFC #34901), a SoulCollage® Trainer. and has been a senior trainer for the Grof Transpersonal Training since 1993. She is the author of The Breathwork Experience and The Ethics of Caring. She is the President of Hanford Mead Publishers, Inc. and SoulCollage®, Inc. Kylea has a private practice in Santa Cruz, California.   

Bibliography

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