of consciousness. Freud also initially used hypnosis to access his patients’ unconscious before he radically changed his strategies. In retrospect, shifting emphasis from direct experience to free association, from actual trauma to Oedipal fantasies, and from conscious reliving and emotional abreaction of unconscious material to transference dynamics was unfortunate; it limited and misdirected Western psychotherapy for the next fifty years (Ross 1989). While verbal therapy can be very useful in providing interpersonal learning and rectifying interaction and communication in human relationships (e.g. couple and family therapy), it is ineffective in dealing with emotional and bioenergetic blockages and macrotraumas, such as the trauma of birth. As a consequence of this development, psychotherapy in the first half of the twentieth century was practically synonymous with talking – face to face interviews, free associations on the couch, and the behaviorist deconditioning. At the same time holotropic states, initially seen as an effective therapeutic tool, became associated with pathology rather than healing. This situation started to change in the 1950’s with the advent of psychedelic therapy and new developments in psychology and psychotherapy. A group of American psychologists headed by Abraham Maslow, dissatisfied with behaviorism and Freudian psychoanalysis, launched a revolutionary movement – humanistic psychology. Within a very short time, this movement became very popular and provided the context for a broad spectrum of new therapies. While traditional psychotherapies used primarily verbal means and intellectual analysis, these new so called experiential therapies emphasized direct experience and expression of emotions and used various forms of bodywork as an integral part of the process. Probably the most famous representative of these new approaches is Fritz Perls’ Gestalt therapy (Perls 1976). However, most experiential therapies still rely to a great degree on verbal communication and require that the client stays in the ordinary state of consciousness. The most radical innovations in the therapeutic field are approaches, which are so powerful that they profoundly change the state of consciousness, such as psychedelic therapy, holotropic breathwork, primal therapy, and others. The therapeutic use of holotropic states is the most recent development in Western psychotherapy. Paradoxically, it is also the oldest form of healing, one that can be traced back to the dawn of human history. Therapies using holotropic states actually represent a rediscovery and modern reinterpretation of the elements and principles that have been documented by historians and anthropologists studying the sacred mysteries of death and rebirth, rites of passage, and ancient and aboriginal forms of spiritual healing, particularly various shamanic procedures. Shamanism is the most ancient spiritual system and healing art of humanity; its roots reach far back into the Paleolithic era. Among the beautiful images of primeval animals painted and carved on the walls of the great caves in Southern France and northern Spain, such as Lascaux, Font de Gaume, Les Trois Frères, Niaux, Altamira, and others, are figures combining human and animal features that very likely represent ancient shamans. In some of the caves, the discoverers also found footprints in circular arrangements suggesting Spirituality Studies 2 (1) Spring 2016 7
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