somatics

The journey and acceptance of touch for healing.

The field of Somatics flourished and was made famous largely at Esalen. Bodywork is often called Somatics, a term invented by philosopher Thomas Hanna. Esalen was a launchpad for many Somatic practitioners like Ida Rolf, Charlotte Selver, and Moshe Feldenkrais. Ida and Moshe were two of the very first bodyworkers here who helped change the contemporary understanding of the breadth and depth of bodywork.

Ida came to us with Fritz Perls in 1964. She had only trained one person, her son, in her method of structural integration. With Esalen as her home base, from 1964 until into the early 1970s, Ida Rolf trained about a hundred people, typically spending six months a year here. The same for Moshe. He was born and studied in Israel, but it was Esalen that became his launchpad for involved movement sensitivity.

Charlotte Selver was another teacher who grew and developed her practice here. She was a practitioner of sensory cultivation and came to Esalen by way of Alan Watts.

“In her workshops, she would have you do exercises where you would sit down in a chair and explore being seated in it from different angles, your carriage in it, how the seat felt against your body. She would have you open up your sensorium and help you become more of a sensual person in everything you do.” — Michael Murphy

Esalen Massage was co-created in the late 1960s by a number of practitioners and has been described as “an inspired and ever-evolving integration of sensory awareness, healing arts, yoga, tai chi, meditation, body-mind integration, and mindfulness,” according to Age Wave CEO/co-founder Ken Dychtwald.

”Don Hanlon Johnson has written about Somatics at Esalen comprehensively, taking a bird’s eye view of this field. He brought it into confluence with biologists, physiologists, and other scientists. His brilliant marriage of bodywork and mainstream science is one of the things I’m proudest about — and it is still unfolding.“
— Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy, November 2022.

“You can't get beyond the body unless you free the body itself.”

IDA ROLF