Rebirthing (rebirthing, translated from English — rebirth) is a breathing technique for psychological correction, self-exploration and spiritual transformation, developed by L. Orr and S. Ray (L. Orr, S. Ray, 1977).
The main element of rebirthing is deep, frequent breathing without pauses between inhalation and exhalation (connected breathing). In this case, the inhalation should be active, produced with muscular effort, and the exhalation, on the contrary, should be passive, relaxed. During the rebirthing session, you will be asked to breathe like this from half an hour to several hours. What does it give?
1. Emergence of usually unnoticed muscle clamps. The body (arms, hands, face) begins to twist, there is tension to the point of pain, but if you go through it, everything ends with a very deep muscle relaxation with corresponding positive effects. The eyes are joyful, the sky is especially blue. The effect is similar to the result of relaxation after a good bath, but better.
2. From prolonged connected breathing, participants experience altered states of consciousness. Against this background, if you wish, you can explore your pop-up visions, hallucinations (sometimes this is a very useful experience) and produce effective self-hypnosis.
It is this moment that is usually the most interesting for the presenters, and it is he who is actively used. In the pre-session, when the briefing is in progress, the participants of the future respiratory process are told in detail what they can experience. If suggestions are made correctly, most participants experience all this. If the suggestions were wise, they have a beneficial effect.
Rebirthing and transpersonal psychology
Most of the leaders of rebirthing are followers of transpersonal psychology, respectively, they often set the following tasks for the participants of the breathing session:
- Elimination of the negative consequences of birth trauma. Patients relive various traumatic aspects of the memory of biological birth, experience severe bodily and mental suffering, experience sensations of dying and death, and as a result reach an ecstatic state, subjectively interpreted as a second birth and characterized by complete relaxation, peace, feelings of love and unity with the world.
- Living past lives.
- Activation of various traumatic areas of the individual unconscious, re-experiencing emotionally intense events of a biographical nature, which are the cause of stressful conditions, actual psychological problems and all kinds of psychosomatic diseases. At the same time, the main task of rebirthing remained the same — using special breathing techniques, to give an opportunity to manifest in the mind and body the previously repressed negative experience, to relive it and, having changed the attitude towards it, to integrate the unconscious material underlying it.
You can undergo rebirthing, completely ignoring all these attitudes and suggestions, just to free yourself from accumulated muscle clamps without any ideological pumping, as a variant of a bath and massage.
On the basis of rebirthing, its numerous modifications arose, the main of which is holotropic breathing and vibration (J. Leonard, Ph. Laut, 1988).
Other areas of psychotherapy that use immersion in altered states include: Reichian analysis, bioenergetic method, holotropic therapy, interactive psychotherapy, neurolinguistic programming, M. Erickson’s non-directive hypnosis, sensorimotor psychosynthesis, etc.
Security
- It is possible only for adults with good health and a healthy psyche.
- Must be supervised by experienced instructors.