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Developed by John Pierrakos, MD., Core Energetics is a marriage of Body Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development. The work brings consciousness to how we block our energy and recreate defense patterns adapted in childhood that keep us limited and dis-empowered. The core process helps us see how our world view is to a large extent a function of many of these blocked energy patterns, and so we keep recreating similar situations and relational dynamics that leave us frustrated. Awareness is not enough, we also need to mobilize our physical energy (life-force) differently in order to make lasting changes in both our inner world and our outer experience of life. Work with the body is critical in changing our experience of embodiment, because our defenses, belief systems, coping mechanisms, and typical emotional responses are not just psychological, they are also somatic and powerfully anchored in the physical body.

Core Energetics was developed from the work of Wilhelm Reich. It views the human being as a psychosomatic unity and holds the source of healing as inside each person, not with any outside expert or agency. Core Energetics views all of existence as forming a unity that moves toward creative evolution through individuals and as a whole. Its main focus is on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels of the person.

Each level is worked with to heal misconceptions, clear emotional hurt and negativity, open up pleasure and creativity and connect to spiritual guidance and essence. Core Energetics is a deeply spiritual work based on the Pathwork as channeled by Eva Pierrakos. The depth of the self-exploration and authentic expression enables people to fully encounter their essence as a dimension providing guidance and as the source of well-being.

Targeted body techniques open consciousness to suppressed feelings and engage the energy system in ways that allow us to go beyond our “comfort” zone. The Core work taps into blocked sources of energy that can then be integrated and grounded. This creates an expanded sense of who we are to more fully embrace our life, open unknown inner resources, express our creativity, embrace our sexuality, and deepen our connection with others.

 

Over the last years, the newest research emerging from the field of neuro-biology has clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of body-centered modalities such as Core Energetics in working with individuals with anxiety, depression, personality issues, sexual dysfunction etc. The Core process however, goes far beyond symptom improvement as it works at the very deepest levels of being to transform the fixed patterns of behavior that have been structured in our character.

Core Energetics is life-changing work which opens us to the fullness of our life-force, opens our heart, grounds us in the strength and integrity of who we really are, and supports us in bringing forth our unique gifts as we engage more responsibly with the world around us. The Institute of Core Energetics offers practitioner training as well as personal growth programs in Core Energetics.

John Pierrakos was born in Greece. He studied medicine and specialized in psychiatry. Leaving Greece, to further his studies, he went to the United States where he met and studied with Wilhelm Reich. With Alexander Lowen, also a student of Reich's, he co-founded Bioenergetic Analysis.


He incorporated his understanding of the nature of energy and human energy fields with the study of eastern traditions and a spiritual discipline called The Pathwork to create Core Energetics. He founded the New York Institute for Core Energetics, the first Institute dedicated to training professionals in this  breakthrough form of psychotherapy, in 1978. Today there are Core Institutes throughout the United States, in Mexico, Brasil, the Netherlands, Greece and other places in the world. Most forms of body psychotherapy and transpersonal work in the United States are informed
by this work.

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