Breathwork for personal and spiritual development is an important element in many forms of meditation including Zen and Vipassana, in various kinds of chanting, as well as in shamanic, hypnotherapy and relaxation techniques that induce trance and altered states of consciousness. How we breath influences our health, so it is hardly surprising that freeing the breathing, through whatever means, can result in healing of physical problems.
In this section, we distinguish between Breathwork and breathing work. Breathwork is primarily healing on the psychological level, and that, of course, works to heal the somatic level. "Breathing work" is the technical teaching of how to ameliorate your way of breathing. If you breathe well, you will be healthier in mind and body and your sex life will improve.
Research, into Breathwork and Breathing work, as it is understood in Western science, began only recently. The basic importance of our breathing to all of our functioning: physical, mental and spiritual, has been widely explored in certain aspects in diverse areas according to their purposes, e.g. Buddhist Meditation, Yoga, and Biofeedback which incorporates some yoga techniques. A certain amount of integration of these different approaches is taking place in practice, and articles especially devoted to this can be found in the new peer-review internet journal The Healing Breath: a Journal of Breathwork Practice, Psychology and Spirituality, begun in 1999 by Joy Manné and accessible through URL http://www.i-breathe.com www.i-breathe.com.
The earliest form of Breathwork per se that made claims to improve physical health was Rebirthing, also called Conscious Connected Breathing. Techniques called Conscious Breathing Techniques are usually developments of Rebirthing and the term Breathwork is now used to refer to all breathing techniques that serve personal and spiritual development.
Alexander Lowen's Bioenergetics is a whole-body system which includes Breathwork. Although it does not concentrate on breathing exercises, there are several given in The Spirituality of the Body where the explanation of what happens and how it works is completely consistent with Rebirthing/Breathwork explanations. Although the claims in the early Rebirthing books seemed highly exaggerated, later books by thoughtful authors like Gunnel Minett and Jim Morningstar in the Rebirthing tradition, the psychiatrist Stanislav Grof who created Holotropic Breathwork and Kylea Taylor who advanced his studies, supported these claims. In general, research in this subject is in its infancy and few of even the most recent books set themselves in a context of development and enquiry, although there are some articles by Joy Manné and Wilfried Ehrmann that do this.
Soul Therapy by Joy Manné makes one of the rare constructively critical, well-referenced contributions to this subject. Her book is more concerned with psychological than with physical health. Julie Friedeberger has written a yoga teacher's account of how she dealt with breast cancer. This book is concerned with both psychological and physical health.
Dr Joy Manné is a practising psychologist and Pali scholar, interested in humanistic and transpersonal psychology and personal and spiritual development; specialising in breathwork and Buddhist psychotherapy. Book: 'Soul Therapy'.
Minett, G. (1994). Breath and Spirit: Rebirthing as a Healing Technique. London: Aquarian/Thorsons. ISBN 1-85538-353-5.
This excellent, easy-to-read book sets the larger historical context for breathwork and Rebirthing. It describes well both the physiological aspect of breathing, where Minett is not a professional expert, and the psychological aspect, where she is, although surprisingly, Minett takes the unusual position of denying that Rebirthing is a psychotherapy. This book is not afraid to ask difficult questions, like how Rebirthing works, and to attempt answers.
Manné, J. (1997). Soul Therapy. Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books. ISBN 1-55643-255-0.
This book is an excellent introduction to spiritual development and set book for many Breathwork schools. The author's extensive background in Buddhist studies and Vipassana meditation means that she knows the pitfalls well and is not seduced by exaggeration or spiritual materialism. She works practically in the field and offers many useful exercises. If you are at the beginning of your spiritual development or having difficulties with it that you cannot understand, this is the book for you.
Taylor, K. (1994) The Breathwork Experience : Exploration and Healing in Nonordinary States of Consciousness. California: Hanford Mead Publishers. ISBN 0-9643158-0-7.
This is an outstanding and complete introduction to Holotropic Breathwork", even including contraindications. There is a full description of a Holotropic Breathwork" session in which the processes that take place are explained in detail. The basic concepts of this method of working: non-ordinary states of consciousness, Grof's Map of Consciousness and four Basic Perinatal Matrices, the various phenomena that occur in sessions, and breathwork as a means to healing and as a spiritual practice; are explained with supreme clarity. A must if you are interested in Holotropic Breathwork".
Taylor, K. (1995) The Ethics of Caring : Honoring the Web of Life in Our Professional Healing Relationships. California: Hanford Mead, 1995. ISBN 0-9643158-1-5.
This courageous book deals with the special skills required to facilitate ASCs, with especial concern for the suggestibility of people in such states and for the facilitator's ethical conduct. Facilitators are offered a chakra model for assessing their own potential ethical weaknesses and vulnerabilities. There are meditations and practical exercises. This is essential reading if you are using Breathwork as a means to transpersonal experiences.
Jim Morningstar, Ph.D. (1994), Breathing In Light And Love: Your Call To Breath And Body Mastery. Transformations Inc. ISBN 0-9604856-2-7.
This deeply spiritual book is as complete an account of rebirthing as any book can be, including a grounded exposition of the weltanschauung that is particular to it. Every point it makes is illustrated with a case history. It provides criteria on how to choose a rebirther and what, in general, to expect from a session. It is ground-breaking in bringing Lowen's body types into rebirthing theory and technique.
Friedeberger, J. (1996.) A Visible Wound: a Healing Journey through Breast Cancer: with practical and spiritual guidance for women, their partners and families. Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element.
This is the account of the author, a yoga teacher's experience with breast cancer and how her knowledge of yoga philosophy helped her to deal with it. Breathing exercises played a central role and there are many in this book. It is very helpful on the issue or prostheses.
Swami Rama, Rudolph Ballentyne, M.D. & Alan Hymes, M.D. (1998), Science of Breath: A Practical Guide. Honesdale, Pennsylvania: The Himalayan Institute Press. (First ed. 1979)
This book is dated in its endlessly competitive assertions that yoga knows it all and all
Western science is inferior and in reading its first chapters it is important not to be gullible. However Chapter Three, Following Your Nose: Nasal Function and Energy is by Rudolph Ballentyne, M.D. is extraordinarily interesting and unique in its comprehensive explanation of nasal functioning, from the physiological, through the behavioural to the spiritual. The fourth chapter contains yoga and other exercises through which to learn and develop diaphragmatic breathing, as well as a variety of yoga breathing exercises.
Robert Fried, PhD (1990), The Breath Connection: How to Reduce Psychosomatic and Stress-related Disorders with Easy-to-do Breathing Exercises. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN 0-306-43433-4.
Fried's domain is the somatic aspects of emotional and psychological problems: tension, panic attacks and medical disorders aggravated by stress and anxiety such as high blood pressure, migraine, headaches, hyperventilation, asthma, ulcers/gastritis, colitis, allergies, etc. His method of treatment includes imagery and biofeedback-assisted relaxation with deep abdominal (diaphragmatic) breathing training as well as cognitive coping strategies 'where necessary'. This book describes how breathing interacts with stress, and emotional, psychological and psychosomatic disorders, and teaches techniques to reduce suffering and pain. Good on the physiology of breathing.
Alexander Lowen, M.D. (1990) The Spirituality of the Body: Bioenergetics for Grace and Harmony. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. ISBN 0-02-575871-3.
Chapter Three of this book contains an accessible outline of the Bioenergetic approach to breathing.
Carola Speads (1992), Ways to Better Breathing. Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press. ISBN 0-89281-397-0
If you want to improve your breathing, this is the book to read. It tells you all you need to know about the mechanics of breathing, and the many exercises that it provides will take you as far as physical exercises can to better breathing.
Hanlon Johnson, D., ed. (1995). Bone Breath and Gesture : Practices of Embodiment.
Berkeley, California : North Atlantic Books.
This is an outstanding collection of articles by Breathwork specialists of various kinds, including Ilse Middendorf, Elsa Gindler, Moshe Feldenkreis, Ida Rolf, Gerda Alexander who invented Eutony, and Thomas Hanna who was so influential in the creation of the field of Somatics. The benefits of many of these methods have scientific support.
Breathe: the International Breathwork Magazine, edited by Robert Moore for the last 18 years provides a variety of articles on all aspects of breathwork and breathing work.
The new peer-review internet journal The Healing Breath: a Journal of Breathwork Practice, Psychology and Spirituality, begun in 1999 by Joy Manné.. Accessible through ref URL http://www.i-breathe.com www.i-breathe.com. Researched articles on all aspects of breathwork, including Buddhist meditation.
Mike White's Optimal Breathing - ref http://www.breathing.com This site is a mine of information about breathing work.
The International Breathwork Foundation aims to bring breathworkers from all disciplines together to share knowledge and to promote information about all forms of breathwork. ref http://www.ibfnetwork.org www.ibfnetwork.org