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Dangers of Cathartic Breathwork
Dear Mike W,
I found your website two years too late. Unfortunately, I took part
in several group sessions of breathwork in the town of Prescott, AZ during
1997 and 1998. Each group consisted of 10 weeks of once-a-week
day-long sessions with "facilitators" (two, a man and a woman)
and anywhere from 4 to 14 group members. A typical group session
happened on a Saturday or Sunday and lasted pretty much the whole day,
with the first half for "sharing" and "processes" that
involved individuals, pairs, or larger numbers of people yelling into
pillows, pounding them, and doing other things to produce a cathartic
emotional response. The last part of the day was the
"Breath" which involved all the group members lying down with
pillows under their feet, arms and legs and breathing fast and hard while
being monitored by the facilitators and others who had experience with
this process. We were to "try for nothing" but a circular,
connected breath--hyperventilating--and the facilitators would suggest
things for us to yell and do (such as "get up on your knees and pound
the pillows with your fists" or "Yell so-and-so at your
Mom/Dad/brother/sister etc..."). Again, this was all under the
rubric of attempting to cause a cathartic emotional release, which
happened to me a few times during the beginning of these groups and
individual sessions. In between these weekly groups we were given
writing assignments and other assignments that had to do with living,
nothing major--stuff like "judge everybody you meet for a whole
day"... really awareness type exercises. I remember all
emotions were considered "safe" as long as they "were not
acted upon" was the mantra that was repeated over and over again.
Fear, anger, hatred, joy, love, they were all considered basically
innocent. Often we were encouraged to consider a baby, who cries,
gets angry, feels fear, etc. but doesn't dwell on it, just feels the
feelings and moves on. This was a kind of philosophy of the group.
There was one more thing, which we did less regularly, though at the end I
was doing it weekly. This same "breath" or
"rebirthing" was done in a hot-tub with a person holding us as
we floated naked in the tub with nothing more than a snorkel and
nose-plug. Imagine doing this--you may already have--powerful
breathing with a feeling not only of weightlessness that water brings but
also the heat from the tub (which was not scorching but was quite warm).
To make a long story short, it was during these weekly underwater breaths
that I "lost my mind". It happened one night when I lay
down to sleep. I distinctly had the impression of an alien force
taking over my thoughts. I sprang from the bed, terrified. For
the next 24 hours I shifted through different states of doubt and fear,
contemplated suicide--imagined historical figures like Van Gogh--and
understood why anyone would decide to take such a drastic step: the
fear of "going crazy" of "losing one's mind" is worse
than the fear of death in many ways. One could take it a step
further and think of it as the fear of losing one's soul.
Anyway, I went to the people I had been doing the work with for help, and
they of course had me breathe again. It helped temporarily to
alleviate this terrible condition I was in. It went away for about a
week, but returned with a vengeance. Since I had no one to turn to I
kept returning to them for help, calling them up (as they said I should)
sometimes late at night, early in the morning. The crisis only
seemed to get worse, and I wasn't sure whether the advice I was getting
was helping. They had me do much to "confront" myself if
you know what I mean. I had exercises to write things down, and
sometimes to talk to myself looking in the mirror.
It was a disastrous recipe. The voices in my head--and they had the
definitive feel of being somebody *else's* voices; though the breathwork
people claimed this was true, as they were the voices of my parents, my
family, I felt they were rather more sinister and evil sounding, certainly
feeling--anyhow the voices in my head "took over" and I remember
it all came down to a point where I was to make a decision--I was going to
buy a gun and shoot myself. I wandered out into the woods and then
it was like *poof* something transferred, something changed. The
terrible pressure was over.
I made it back to my place and lay down on a chair and that's when I felt
it with a certainty: I was going to hell.
I am so sorry if I weigh all this so heavily on someone who is a complete
stranger, but the only positive thing I could surmise from this horrible
travail was that maybe somebody, somewhere, would not be as foolish as me,
make the same mistakes I did, try to meet "God" on my terms.
As for the people who facilitated the breathwork, they insisted I stop
calling them, encouraged me to seek psychiatric help, and pretty much
wanted to be rid of me. And I can't blame them. But reading
your article, I am impressed by how much power so many people can wield,
how much influence over their fellow persons who trust them, when they are
ignorant of a definitive darker side to life. Their sunny outlook,
in hindsight, was the most naive and childish thing in all of their
attempts to get us back to an infant state.
Since then, I have lived as an almost total recluse. I moved back to
Los Angeles, where I'm from originally. I did go to see
psychiatrists, the best one said something like "ah, the devil
doesn't want you, he's interested in characters like Hitler and Al Capone,
you're too nice a guy" or some such thing. I took
pharmaceuticals, including Xanax, Prozac, Riperdal, and so on. I
still need to take diazepam (Valium) for occasional outbursts of sheer
panic. But by far the worst outcome of all of this is my rather (lateblooming)
understanding and comprehension of the basic fact and underlying struggle
between good and evil. Christianity makes absolute sense. In
fact, I spent a good many months reading the bible and people like Carl
Jung, who warns against these kind of techniques (e.g. kundalini yoga) as
they are incompatible with the development of the western psyche.
By far, the saddest thing in all of this is my listless path through life.
I remember at the height of the feelings of insanity a distinct sensation
of my heart leaving me... Of the light, the holy spirit if you will,
fleeing.I have a constant dull ache in my chest, and my dreams are full of
bizarre, sometimes violent imagery, falling down waterfalls, drowning, and
other painful (physically and psychologically) events. Mostly they
are confounding, but the overall theme is one of an almost "cosmic
despair".
I do not know what good this will do. Maybe you didn't want to hear
it.
Somehow, though, I feel you are smarter than the run-of-the-mill people
who are doing this work, and leading so many others in to it. You at
least have the wisdom to caution people. There was no warning when I
set out to "heal".
May this be of service. Name withheld by request.
Note from Mike;
I sent this to an MD that has facilitated some 400 group breathwork
sessions. The Question and Answer was:
Can you help me put a stop to results like the example below.
And what would you recommend that this man does now?
Mike
I shall refrain from commenting on car crashes,
that I know not even the trademark of.
<"breath" or "rebirthing">
can be experienced as turning the car keys.
Don't you want to learn (sic) the street map ?
Spiritual mapping (sic) has some options,
my first try would be buddhist (sic) awareness training
( Jack Kornfield ) and meditation on harmony ( The Dalai Lama )
From Mike again:
Ok, you get to go figure what all that meant. I take the excessive
energy and ground it, balance and re-embody it FAST; Before it
tears one apart or sends them into space for a decade or so.
For those that have had a negative experience or similar experience to the
personal recounting above, be encouraged to be awfully careful of
anecdotal hype about all the good things that can happen stemming
from cathartic breathwork. Many good things can happen however I recommend they
seek an experienced Psychotherapist well versed in breathwork
or Reichian Therapist with at least several years experience OR
an intensive with me or try colleague Denis Ouellett's
Integral Breathwork.
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