About Core Energetics

What is Core Energetics?

Core Energetics is the healing confluence of bodywork, psychotherapy, and spiritual awakening. The “core” in Core Energetics is the part of you that can make an authentic and fulfilling connection to yourself, others, and life itself. The instruments of connection are our bodies, consciousness and natural energy or life-force. Core Energetics therapy teaches people how to authentically integrate all of these instruments, and helps remove the internal obstacles that block the expression of your all important essence.

How Did Core Energetics Develop?

Core Energetics evolved directly out of the work of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, himself a direct student of Sigmund Freud. He was the originator of body psychotherapy, the first psychiatrist to realize that people’s bodies actually alter and “armor” themselves in response to emotional trauma during development. He viewed people as unified, holistic body-mind energy systems, and spent much of his career studying the nature of the life force.

Dr. John C. Pierrakos was a student of Reich’s, who took Reich’s theories and practices a step further by working with Dr. Alexander Lowen to develop Bioenergetics. Bioenergetics connected body and mind to holistically overcome emotional problems. After meeting his future wife Eva Broch and being exposed to her writings, The Pathwork, a body of practical spiritual wisdom, he developed Core Energetics. Core Energetics combines the spiritual awakening of The Pathwork with the body and energy work found in Bioenergetics.

John practiced Core Energetics until his death in 2001, at which time each of his institutes developed their own unique character and style of work. The Institute of Core Energetics, Mendocino, headed by Dr. Siegmar Gerken and Cornelia Gerken, evolved into what is now called Core Energetics.

How Does Core Energetics Work?

Core Energetics is based on three basic ideas: that our bodies and minds are inextricably connected, that the source of healing lies inside of us, and that all life universally moves towards creative evolution. Our life force, the energy running through us, is meant to flow freely and to pulsate with aliveness. The experience of this free and natural pulsation is one of pleasure and presence.

As newborns, our life force flows freely. However, the body of an infant is completely malleable and shaped by early life experiences. Children have specific needs at different stages of development, such as holding, support, nourishment, safety, independence, etc. Often these needs are inadequately met which causes pain and negative emotions. The child’s tissues instinctively respond by contracting and compensating. So our bodies are gradually reshaped by years of armoring themselves, locking down in places to protect themselves from future trauma. Such defenses are survival strategies, but they also distort the natural energy flow and pulsation of the body.

These defenses live in the tissues of the body, affecting subsequent growth, so they shape the very form the body grows into. Energy blockages in the adult body are observable; they reveal aspects of our history of which we may not even be conscious. In fact, one direct effect of these blocks is a diminishment of consciousness that prevents us from being completely embodied and present. Core Energetics therapy opens blocks to free the life force, then ground and integrate it, which results in an increase of energy, as well as awareness and contact with our essence.

What Are the Benefits of Core Energetics?

In reclaiming the full spectrum of our feelings, our authenticity, our passion, and our life-force, we experience a new level of joy. Because we are so much more open to giving and receiving, we experience a profound sense of pleasure in being, and in embracing the fullness of our humanity.

The essence of Core Energetics is integrative; it unifies mind, body, emotions, sexuality, will, and Spirit. It is not about adapting or changing, but about understanding and becoming who you really are.