Selecting a breathworker is much the same as selecting any counselor or psychotherapist. The key is to find someone you are personally comfortable with. It is also important to understand that in any counseling field the quality and quantity of a practitioners and their training can vary greatly. This is especially true with a process like breathwork, which is practiced by many kinds of facilitators in various states or countries with varying counseling laws. This issue is perhaps exacerbated further in breathwork because trainers also vary greatly with their standards and what they suggest completes a competent breathworker training.
The history of breathwork in this area is complicated. There are people who use the term rebirthing when what they practice isn’t even breathwork. There are breathworkers who are not trained in the details of facilitating the breath. There are even people who have been encouraged to call themselves certified breathworkers after one day of training.
You can simplify any potential confusion or problems by interviewing a potential breathworker by phone or in person. I suggest you discover how many days training they have had with whom. It is also essential that they offer at least hour-and-fifty-minute sessions because the process usually takes 90 minutes and sometimes takes even longer in early sessions.
The number of days training a breathworker has completed can also be complicated because there are long courses that are only partly breathwork schools. It is actually possible for someone to be well trained in 30 days. On the other hand, if someone has taken the right beginning weekend course they could be a very competent “breathworker in training.” I have had many people say they learned more in one weekend with me than they did in a course that was many months long. Another key issue is that a strong practitioner understands that their training is always ongoing and they will probably always be involved in a program that is increasing their counseling skills.
My bias in choosing a breathworker is that they have their training from one of the original certified rebirthers or that they be trained by one of us. As a group, we disbanded and stopped using the term “certified” in 1983. Amongst ourselves we differed in technique but originally we were all part of one tribe or main group. There are many excellent breathworkers and breathworker trainers who were never certified or who have been trained since, but they would be able to credit their training to a teacher who was part of, or trained by, the main group. If a breathworker can cite what part of the tribe they or their trainer originated from, it will at least eliminate some people who practice something very different than breathwork as I have defined it here.
While the breathworkers I can most recommend are those who have trained with me, there are many other qualified breathworkers and you just need to use your own instincts and intuition to select someone you feel comfortable with. Your feelings and instincts will be more important than what I have said here.
Rather than maintain current addresses and phone numbers for a directory of breathworkers, I refer you to the links on the next page. These will take you to other key sites in the breathwork world which will provide referrals and much more.
I wish you the best of luck. This kind of breathwork is truly the most powerful (yet gentle and blissful) tool I have encountered on my 26-year path of exploring cutting edge alternative healing tools.
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