Grof® Breathwork:
The Use of Breath as Entheogen
Saturday, Oct 1 | Sunday, Oct 2 |
9 am – 7 pm | 9 am – 1 pm |
Vancouver Island Conference Centre, Nanaimo, BC
Holotropic breathwork is foundational training for psychedelic psychotherapy. Whether you’ve missed this training piece or are curious as to how Stanislav Grof uses breath as entheogen, this workshop will be of personal and professional interest. The Grof® Breathwork protocol uses a combination of breathing, evocative music, focused bodywork, and mandala drawing to explore realms of the psyche without use of a chemical entheogen. Research protocols for contemporary studies using entheogens are built upon the principles mastered by Stanislav Grof in his pioneering early psychedelic research program. These principles are embedded in the design of Grof Breathwork which he co-developed with his late wife Christina. Grof Breathwork approaches constitute a genuine psychedelic psychotherapy and illustrates its basic principles. Critical aspects of set and setting using including music and body work will be illustrated experientially and didactically. Participants will have the opportunity to enter an altered state and also to then be witness/sitter/supporter for another’s journey. The sitter’s role is simply to be available to assist the breather, not to interfere or interrupt the process. The same is true for trained facilitators, who assist the resolution of experiences activated by entheogens as they unfold during a session – not intuitively – but using the Grof Breathwork protocols.
This 2-day workshop is being led by the BC team of psychiatrist Neil Hanon and physiotherapist and researcher Carolyn Green, PhD, senior trainers with Grof® Legacy Training Not-for-Profit Society and certified Grof® Breathwork facilitators.
Number of Participants: 40 or more depending on the venue and interest; we can add facilitators as required
Workshop Facilitators
Carolyn J Green, BHSc (PT), PhD started her own adventures in self-discovery using breathwork with Dr Ingrid Pacey in 1993 then completed the Grof Transpersonal Training program in 1999 with Dr Stanislav Grof. She has facilitated over a thousand non-ordinary sessions using Holotropic Breathwork™ in workshops and individual sessions in Canada. A number of Canadian facilitators have apprenticed with her. She is also a practicing academic who has degrees from McMaster, University of British Columbia (Public Health), University of Victoria (Health Informatics) and the University of Alberta (Knowledge Translation).
Her current research is in the area of pharmaceutical safety and policy research. She is a non-practicing physical therapist and has worked in volunteer capacities in China, Africa, the Caribbean and Nepal involved, for example, in training the first Nepalese physical rehabilitation workers.
For Carolyn the Holotropic Paradigm is powerful and valuable because it blends the best of the western scientific scholarly traditions with the practical wisdom of long-standing world spiritual traditions to provide rapid access to the power within. She is deeply committed to research, training and supporting practitioners to enter into the post prohibition era of psychedelic medicine
Neil Hanon, MD, FRCPC, is a psychiatrist in Kelowna, British Columbia and is Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is the Year 3 Director (the clinical year) of the Southern Medical Program of UBC in Kelowna. Dr. Hanon has been teaching medical students, Psychiatry residents, and Family Practise residents clinically and didactically since 1996. Dr. Hanon also does inpatient work at Kelowna General Hospital, and outpatient work at Outreach Urban Health (an Interior Health operated, primary care clinic where he works with homeless, street entrenched people often struggling with addictions and other mental health challenges), and at his private practise. In 2018 he was awarded the Clinical Faculty Award for excellence in clinical teaching by the Faculty of Medicine at UBC.
Dr. Hanon has a research interest in legally sanctioned trials with ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin for the treatment of complicated grief, treatment resistant depression, and severe addictions. Dr. Hanon got involved in Holotropic Breathwork first as a participant to help with his grief after the death of his 17 year old son, then continued on to become certified as a Holotropic Breathwork facilitator in 2015. Dr. Hanon was fortunate to have Dr. Ralph Metzner as his teacher and mentor from 2015 until Ralph’s death in 2019. Dr. Hanon was one of the Founding members of Relief For Grief which has transformed into Jamaica Grief Retreats, a non profit organization that takes grieving parents to Jamaica for healing ceremonies with legal psilocybin mushrooms. Since 2015 Dr. Hanon has been facilitating Holotropic Breathwork groups.
Regular Fee: CAD225 + gst
Student Fee: CAD185 + gst
Fee includes lunch bag meal and refreshments on Oct 1, and morning snack on Oct 2
12 CEC approved through CCPA
12 CE hours approved through CPA*
MainPro+ / Pending approval
CE admin fee applies
Please add on CE admin fee when you register
Personal and collective transformation.
The Insights of Stanislav Grof
Stan is one of the major inspirations of the psychedelic renaissance. His work has inspired and educated many of its current leaders. After the prohibition of psychedelics, Stan and his late wife Christina developed a drug free technique to facilitate access to non ordinary states – Holotropic Breathwork™.
