Charlotte Selver (April 4, 1901 in

Ruhrort Ruhrort () is a district in the borough of within the German city of Duisburg situated north of the confluence of the Ruhr and the Rhine, in the western part of the Ruhr area. Ruhrort has the largest river harbour in the World, with quays extendin ...

(Duisburg), Germany – August 22, 2003 in Muir Beach,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

; née ''Wittgenstein'') was a German music educator. The central point of Charlotte Selver's work was "experience through the senses". Charlotte Selver was convinced that the well-being of the individual, the society as a whole and even the worries about our environment depend on how far we find new confidence in organic processes. With her work, "Sensory Awareness", Charlotte Selver had a deciding influence on the "Human Potential Movement", which also came out of the

Esalen Institute The Esalen Institute, commonly called Esalen, is a non-profit American retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanistic alternative education. The institute played a key role in the Human Poten ...

, where she taught as of 1963. Because of that, she also had influence on

Humanistic Psychology Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that arose in the mid-20th century in answer to two theories: Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and B. F. Skinner's behaviorism. Thus, Abraham Maslow established the need for a "third force ...

and the therapies based on it. Aspects of her work, especially the conscious sensing of the body and the following of physical sensations (Sensory Awareness), flowed into many of the methods of physical work, physical therapy, physical psychotherapy and psychotherapy which still exist today.

Biography

In the 1920s, Charlotte Selver encountered

Elsa Gindler Elsa Gindler (19 June 1885 – 8 January 1961) was a somatic bodywork pioneer in Germany. Born in Berlin, teacher of gymnastik, student of Hedwig Kallmeyer (who, in turn, had been a student of Genevieve Stebbins). From her personal experience of ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, who together with the students in her courses, researched how the natural gifts of people could be developed, even at an adult age. Up until she emigrated to New York in 1938, she studied with Elsa Gindler and the music teacher, Heinrich Jacoby, and she reestablished contact with them in the 1950s. In 1971, the "Sensory Awareness Foundation" was brought into being. Its goal is to preserve and document Charlotte Selver's life work. In 1995, the "California Institute of Integral Studies" in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

awarded her an honorary doctorate. Charlotte Selver died on August 22, 2003, at her home in Muir Beach, California, among her closest friends and students at the age of 102.

Sensory Awareness

Sensory Awareness has its origin in the work of the gymnastics and exercise teacher,

(1885–1961), and the Swiss music teacher, Heinrich Jacoby (1889–1964). They never gave their 'work' a formal name. The fundamental objective of the Jacoby/Gindler approach is the development of the person (integral unfolding as development and growth to meaningful being). Charlotte Selver was Gindler's student in Berlin before she emigrated to the United States in 1938 and she introduced this work under the name of Sensory Awareness.

Influences on dance therapy and psychotherapy

Charlotte Selver touched and encouraged thousands of people in the USA, Mexico and

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in her 80 years of work, among them influential personalities, such as: * Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm *

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philosopher

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...

and his teacher

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki , self-rendered in 1894 as "Daisetz", was a Japanese-American Buddhist monk, essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, translator, and writer. He was a scholar and author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in s ...

Fritz Perls Friedrich Salomon Perls (July 8, 1893 – March 14, 1970), better known as Fritz Perls, was a Germany, German-born psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist. Perls Neologism, coined the term "Gestalt therapy" to identify the form of psychoth ...

, the founder of

Gestalt therapy Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility and focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist–client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life ...

Ida Rolf Ida Pauline Rolf (May 19, 1896 – March 19, 1979) was a biochemist and the creator of Structural Integration or " Rolfing", a pseudoscientific alternative medicine practice. Early life and education Rolf was born in New York City in the Bronx ...

, the founder of

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* Moshe Feldenkrais * Peter Levine, founder of Somatic experiencing * Ron Kurtz, founder of

Hakomi The Hakomi Method is a form of mindfulness-centered somatic psychotherapy developed by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s. Approach and method The Hakomi Method is an experiential psychotherapy modality, wherein present, felt experience is used as an acce ...

therapy * Somatics teachers and practitioners including Don Hanlon Johnson, Judyth Weaver, Pat Odgen, Susan Aposhyan, Christine Cadwell, Edward Maupin and others who taught at the Esalen Institute, including teachers of Esalen Massage

Literature

* Brooks, Charles: "Erleben durch die Sinne". DtV, Munich 1991, . (Charles Brooks describes courses of his wife and colleague, Charlotte Selver. 230 pages with photographs, original English title: ''Sensory Awareness''.) * William C. Littlewood, Mary Alice Roche: ''Waking Up: The Work of Charlotte Selver''. Author House, Bloomington 2004, * Charlotte Selver: ''Every moment is a moment'' In: Deutsches Yoga-Forum, 3/2005 * ''Sensory Awareness - zur Arbeitsweise von Charlotte Selver'' In: Feldenkrais Forum, 4/2005

External links

Sensory Awareness Foundation

Jacoby/Gindler work. Sensory Awareness
''in German''

Sources

– WDR broadcast, Friday, October 14, 2005 (11:30 - 11:50, WDR 5) ''in German'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Selver, Charlotte 1901 births 2003 deaths People from Duisburg People from Muir Beach, California Somatics German emigrants to the United States