Rolfing and Psychology

I am a psychologist. I received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1962 with a dissertation on Zen Buddhist meditation. Rolf Structural Integration, to me, is an extension of meditation, and its healing effects come from a developing connection with the felt experience of the present moment - physical presence.

Rolf Structural Integration is designed to uncover the basic relation of the human frame to gravity. It is an Expansional Balance of grace and ease. The Four Parts of Expansional Balance are a systematic guide to opening the body. This movement model guides all my work.

"Awareness makes the Change." The awareness approach to Structural Integration engages the client in the process, rendering it painless (nearly) and integral, effective, and self-originating.

I am past-President (sometimes 'President-Emeritus') of the Institute of Psycho-Structural Balancing (IPSB) in San Diego. My Rolf Structural Integration classes are conducted there as well as a course in Somatic Psychology.

"A Dynamic Relation to Gravity" is my two-volume manual of Structural Integration.

"All Bibles or sacred codes. have been the causes of the following Errors.

  1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.

  2. That Energy. calld Evil. is alone from the Body. & that Reason. calld Good. is alone from the Soul.

  3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True:

  1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

  2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

  3. Energy is Eternal Delight"

from The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell, 1789