The pioneers

Jack W. Painter, Ph. D. (1933-2010) (U.S.A.)

Jack Painter was one of the pioneers of the humanist growth movement that emerged in the 1960s, characterized by a lively search for awareness and empathy. As Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Miami, he had an engagement in the exciting developments that were taking place at the West Coast at that time where he met many of the people who together would form the ‘Human Potential’ movement. Out of his explorations with Zen, Yoga, Gestalt (with Fritz Perls and Marty Fromm), Rolfing (with Bill Williams and Ida Rolf), Reichian therapy (with Raffael Estrada Villa, Peter Levine and others) and lots of others he Postural Integration®, an efficient and coherent method of personal growth, self-development and healing. A few years later he developed a second method – Energetic Integration®. Both Postural and Energetic Integration® combine work with the physical, energetic and cognitive as well as the emotional processes in the bodymind. Finally he launched Pelvic-Heart Integration, a method with the goal of uniting the masculine and feminine energies in the individual.

Jack Painter wrote several books (translated into French, Spanish, German, Italian and Danish), standard works for bodymind integration. 

John C. Pierrakos, M.D. (1921-2001)

John C. Pierrakos was a pupil and colleague of Wilhelm Reich, M.D. (1897-1957), the grandfather of Body-oriented Psychotherapy. John received as one of the few the Lifetime Achievement Award from the USABP. He created in the 1960s together with Alexander Lowen Bio-energetics (Bio-energetic Analysis) and in the 1970s Core Energetics. Bioenergetic Analysis was an evolution of the work of Wilhelm Reich, the first of Freud’s students who drew attention to the physical manifestations of psychological problems and neuroses. Reich showed the importance of having an eye for the body in the diagnosis. He taught therapists to view chronic muscular postural patterns, impaired breathing, and inadequate grounding as expressions of inner emotional / mental themes. John and Lowen created a system of “reading” of five typical defensive patterns that are visible in the body of people. These became known as “character structures“, each with a physical structure that represents a typical pattern of frozen emotions and thinking. Lowen and Pierrakos created ways to help people mobilize their bodily armor and frozen emotional energies through, among other things, a series of bio-energetic exercises that are done in group and in individual therapy. John also had the ability to “read” non-physical energies, including the aura.

Albert Pesso (1929- 2016)

Albert Pesso is, together with his wife Diane Boyden-Pesso, the creator of Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor (PBSP), a highly respected interactive technique that helps clients build new memories to compensate for emotional deficits in the past. He is widely accepted as one of the great masters of body-based psychotherapy and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP) in 2012. Since “Pesso-therapy” is a psychomotor therapy, I started exploring this way of therapy around 1986. I am influenced by many aspects of the theory and practice of PBSP. Albert Pesso is a direct teacher from whom I have learned so much (feeling Diane in the background).