Since its inception in 1998, the USABP has made it a priority to honor the people who have made body psychotherapy what it is today: Acknowledging our history is extremely important in our identity as an organization.
Our Lifetime Achievement Award provides recognition of the giants in our field. However, because it is awarded only once every other year, the LAA allowed us to honor only six people as of 2011.
Consistent with the conference theme of 2012 (Pioneers of the Past-The Wave of the Future), we want to be more inclusive in honoring the pioneers who laid the foundations for the past and future construction of our body of knowledge and skill.
So, in addition to the regular LAA that was awarded in 2012, we honored a few selected people with a “Pioneer Award”. Together with present and past LAA recipients, the recipients of the “Pioneer Award” are featured here as the “Pioneers of Body Psychotherapy”.
Pioneer Award, 2012
AKHTER AHSEN, PH.D. holds a seminal place in the development of Somatic Psychology. Since the early 1950’s Dr. Ahsen has published, practiced, and trained individuals to work in images rather than words. Standing apart from other theorists in psychology, he has never separated mind from body. According to Ahsen, the image holds spirit, mind, and body. Developed through biology, philosophy, mythology, and quantum science, his system is built on the structure of consciousness itself, a method of physical and spiritual consciousness. With an Image as entry point (I), the body is automatically engaged through a Somatic response to the image (S) and the Meaning (M) which emerges as a result of the flow of consciousness. This ISM structure keeps body and mind together, a living, psychosomatic system. The ability to work with the body without leaving the mind is Akhter Ahsen’s most significant contribution to the field of Body Psychotherapy.
Pioneer Award, 2012
EUGENE GENDLIN is internationally recognized as a major American philosopher and psychologist. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1963 to 1995. The applications of this “Philosophy of the Implicit” have been important in many fields. Gendlin has been honored four times by the American Psychological Association for his development of Experiential Psychotherapy. He received the first “Distinguished Professional Psychologist of the Year” award from the Clinical Division, an award from the Philosophical Psychology Division, and he and The Focusing Institute received an award from the Humanistic Division in August of 2000. Division 24 gave him (2010) their highest award for Distinguished Theoretical and Philosophical Contributions to Psychology. In 2008 he was awarded the Viktor Frankl prize by the city of Vienna and the Viktor Frankl Family Foundation. His book, Focusing is translated into 17 languages. His other books include, Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams, and Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy.
Pioneer Award, 2012
CHARLES R. (CHUCK) KELLEY, PH.D. was a philosopher of science, an explorer and engineer of the life force, and an applied experimental psychologist. He was a student of Wilhelm Reich, and after Reich’s death in 1957 he published THE CREATIVE PROCESS, America’s only scientific periodical devoted to furthering Reich’s work at that time. By the late sixties he developed his own system of Radix® Education in Feeling and Purpose, and he and his wife Erica ran a retreat center in California until 1987, offering residential programs and training professionals from around the world.
Pioneer Award, 2012
ARNY MINDELL, PH.D. is in private practice in Portland, Oregon. He is known for his development of the “dreambody” and “process work” (process oriented psychology). He is the author of 19 books in 21 languages, including Dreambody, The Shaman’s Body, Quantum Mind, and Quantum Mind and Healing. Arny has an M.S. from M.I.T., was a Jungian training analyst, and has a Ph.D. in psychology. He is also known in the area of conflict management for his Sitting in the Fire and for his integration of psychology and physics, work on dreams, bodywork, relationships, and for interventions in near death situations. To listen to the March 2009 Somatic Perspective interview click here.
Pioneer Award, 2012
JACK LEE ROSENBERG, PH.D. is internationally recognized as a pioneer for his innovative approach to body psychotherapy, human sexuality, and couples counseling, teaching his approach throughout the United States, Europe and Canada He is founder and Clinical Director of the IBP Central and International Institutes. He has doctorates in dentistry and psychology. His master’s thesis focused on group dynamics and industrial psychology, his doctorate on clinical psychology. As Director of Counseling at the University of the Pacific School of Dentistry, he did research on somatic medicine and taught dental psychology. He trained therapists at the Gestalt Institute in San Francisco and at the Center for the Healing Art, Los Angeles. He has conducted workshops at the Esalen Institute for more than twenty-eight years. He is in private practice in Los Angeles. He is the author of Total Orgasm, Body, Self and Soul: Sustaining Integration and co-author of The Intimate Couple. To listen to the July 2012 Somatic Perspective Interview click here.