Czech-made: Holotropic breathwork / Holotropni dychani – vyrobeno v Cechach

He was born in Prague, studied at the Charles University of Medicine, worked in the mental hospital Bohnice and the Prague Research Institute of Psychiatry. He studied the effects of LSD on the human psyche as well as on the various mental disorders. After immigrating to the USA he became famous for inventing the method of so called Holotropic Breathwork (you can read more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holotropic_Breathwork) . Who am I talking about? I am reciting the brief biography of Stanislav Grof, yet another famous living Czech-American. He immigrated to the United States in 1967 and thanks to his very good English he immediately received a post as the professor of psychiatry at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore. There he was further exploring the wonders of LSD until the “unfortunate” year of 1968 when its usage became forbidden. That pushed Stanislav and his wife Christina into exploring other fields of psychotherapy and the subconscious mind and eventually came up with the so-called holotropic breathwork method. By this day, however, this method is not acknowledged by most of the mainstream psychiatry; what is more, many of the psychiatrists consider this kind of mind work dangerous. Yet Grof himself argues that this method is nothing new under the sun, it has been used for ages in ancient field of shamanism and yoga. His unusual talent has been also closely watched by his countrymen in Czech and because of the fact that he does make other scientists think outside of the box Stanislav Grof received this October in Prague the prize of “Vision 97”.

Narodil se v Praze, vystudoval Lekarskou fakultu Karlovy university, pracoval v Bohnicich a Vyzkumnem ustavu psychiatrie v Praze, kde se venoval vyzkumu ucinku halucinogenu, zejmena LSD a jejich moznosti pri lecbe dusevnich nemoci. Pozdeji se v USA proslavil vyvinutim metody tzv.holotropniho dychani. Vite, o kom mluvim? O Stanislavu Grofovi – dalsim vyznamnem zijicim Cecho-Americanovi.V roce 1967 odesel do USA kde dostal profesorsky post na John Hopkins University v Baltimoru. Jeho vyzkumnicke plany s lidskym podvedomim byly ale prekazeny, kdyz v roce 1968 bylo uzivani LSD v USA zakazano. Diky tomu se s manzelkou Kristinou zacal venovat nove metode vyvolavani hlubokeho podvedomi, tzv. holotropnimu dychani (vice se o holotropnim dychani muzete docist na http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holotropic_Breathwork). Tato metoda ovsem nebyla a dodnes neni prijata vetsinou psychiatru, nekteri ji dokonce povazuji za nebezpecnou. On sam tento novy smer psychiatrie ospravedlnuje a pripomina, ze tato metoda neni zadna novota, a ze navazuje na tradice starodavneho samanizmu a jogy. A prave za to, ze nuti vedce uvazovat o novych cestach mysleni, bylo Grofovo dilo zacatkem rijna v Praze oceneno tzv. Cenou Vize 97.

http://krajane.radio.cz/cs/article_detail/1113