Holloman Institute

Integrative Gestalt Practice™: Unlock Your Authentic Life Through Self-Inquiry
2024-12-02 17:00 - 2024-12-06 09:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
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December 2–6, 2024

Perry Holloman and Johanna Holloman
For exact Date and Time details, visit the Register button link above.

Integrative Gestalt Practice™ is a method of self-inquiry developed by Perry and Johanna Holloman over the last 30 years. Self-inquiry is a powerful practice for discovering and living that which is most authentic in us.

This in-depth program is for those wanting to experience the practice of Gestalt Inquiry to support their self-exploration. Integrative Gestalt Practice is particularly helpful in life transitions and vital questions affecting the quality of our lives and relationships (family, friends, intimate partners), careers, and overall life purpose. The powerful tools presented in this seminar can help support the emergence of what is most authentic in us and will continue to be helpful in daily life long after. The practice of Gestalt Inquiry can imbue us with an internal sense of agency, clarity, and strength and connect us to what many describe as a sense of “inner guidance.”
Gestalt places high value on the development of awareness. Working within a group setting allows all participants to connect and learn about themselves and can shed light on how we relate to essential elements in our lives. Exercises done in dyads and triads help participants “metabolize” individual experiences, creating a powerful container for self-exploration and personal transformation.
Perry and Johanna will combine experiential practices involving breath, movement, and structured “inquiries” with individual “open-seat” work to create a well-rounded program suited for people who want to self-explore in a safe group setting.
Recommended Reading: Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Frederick S. Perls and Steve Andreas and The Unfolding Now by A. H. Almaas
This workshop includes an additional $50 faculty tuition.

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100 Hr. Esalen Massage Certification in Spain, Sept.22-Oct.6, 2024!
2024-09-22 08:00 - 2024-10-06 17:00 | Centro Punta de Couso, Pontevedra, Galicia
The 100-Hour Professional Certificate in Esalen® Massage Course offers a comprehensive training for certified bodyworkers who wish to add the Esalen approach to their professional repertoire.
Click to view the brochure for details!
For exact Date and Time details, click on the brochure.

Deep Bodywork®: Advanced Back-work: Working with Acute and Chronic Pain at Mount Madonna Center April 28-May 3
2024-04-28 19:00 - 2024-05-03 12:00 | Mount Madonna Center, 445 Summit Rd, Watsonville, CA, 95076, United States
Perry Holloman and Johanna Holloman
For exact Date and Time details, visit the Register button.

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Dealing with acute and chronic pain of the back is one of the most common, if not the most common, issue facing massage and bodywork practitioners. Providing our clients with both immediate as well as long-term relief from back pain is one of the most valuable services we can offer. Learning to do this while taking care of our own bodies and remaining injury free is the goal of this seminar. We will teach you optimal body mechanics, allowing you to work with gravity instead of using muscle strength so that you can work effectively with less effort.
Some of the important soft tissue structures we will learn about include the erector spinae muscles, quadratus lumborum, psoas, piriformis, and deeper intrinsic muscles surrounding and stabilizing the spine. You will learn to work with clients lying prone, supine, and in the side-lying posture.
Deep Bodywork is a presence-based approach designed to engage our clients’ innate capacities to self-organize and heal. The most common theme we teach our students is the value of slowing down and giving our clients’ nervous systems a chance to “work with our work” from the inside. When we successfully do this, our work becomes more effective and long-lasting because our clients learn how to self-heal using the energy provided by our touch.
Each morning will begin with awareness-based movement and breath practices designed to help participants embody presence in a manner supporting this work.
Perry and Johanna developed Deep Bodywork over 30 years ago and lead seminars in the USA, Europe and Asia. They look forward to showing you how to incorporate Deep Bodywork into your current bodywork practice easily!
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Cancelled | Integrative Gestalt at Esalen with Perry and Johanna: April 8-12
2024-04-08 17:00 - 2024-04-12 12:00 | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
Register Now!

April 8 – April 12, 2024

Perry Holloman and Johanna Holloman
For exact Date and Time details, visit the Register button link above.

Integrative Gestalt Practice™ is a method of self-inquiry developed by Perry and Johanna Holloman over the last 30 years. Self-inquiry is a powerful practice for discovering and living that which is most authentic in us.
This in-depth program is for those wanting to experience the practice of Gestalt Inquiry to support their self-exploration. Integrative Gestalt Practice is particularly helpful in life transitions and with vital questions affecting the quality of our lives and relationships (family, friends, intimate partners), careers, and overall life purpose. The powerful tools presented in this seminar will continue to be helpful in daily life long after. The practice of Gestalt Inquiry can imbue us with an internal sense of agency, clarity, and strength and connect us to what many describe as a sense of “inner guidance.”
In this workshop, we will explore the different internal “parts,” or “sub-personalities,” which arise in different situations, such as our workplaces, in our intimate relationships, or with our families of origin. Becoming familiar with and accepting these different aspects of ourselves — which function to support and protect us — is an important part of developing “integrated awareness,” which can bring our different parts into working relationships with each other, giving us a sense of wholeness and clarity in life.
Perry and Johanna will combine experiential practices involving breath, movement, and structured “inquiries” in dyads and triads with individual “open-seat” work to create a well-rounded program suited for people who want to self-explore in a safe group setting.
Recommended Reading: Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Frederick S. Perls and Steve Andreas, Diamond Heart Book One Elements of the Real in Man by A. H. Almaas
This workshop includes an additional $50 faculty tuition.

Register Now!

Integrative Gestalt™ and Hologenic™ Connected Breathwork Immersion Training
2024-02-19 17:00 - 2024-03-01 17:00 | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
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February 19 – March 1, 2024

Perry Holloman and Johanna Holloman
For exact Date and Time details, visit the Register button link above.

Join us for an immersive experience where ancient breath practices intersect with contemporary Gestalt to unleash the transformational power of awareness. For millennia, diverse yoga traditions have harmonized breathwork with mindfulness to nurture psychological healing and spiritual growth. Today, science is validating the profound impact of breathwork and embodied awareness on stress management and immune resilience. Visionaries like Bessel Van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score) champion the fusion of breath, movement, awareness development, and educated touch in healing trauma.

This twelve-day full immersion module at Esalen will be a sanctuary for professionals seeking to infuse Gestalt and breathwork into their practices as well as anybody on a journey of self-discovery. Participants will be able to learn about and experience different forms of breathwork. Extended two-to-three-hour breath sessions can open expanded states of consciousness for self-exploration of deeper, authentic dimensions of our being. Shorter “daily-dose” practices can be used for at-home exploration. Gestalt inquiry is a potent tool for developing presence to explore and understand both our and our clients’ experiences in an immediate, felt-sense way.
We’ll also learn when and how to use educated, attuned touch and body awareness, both with individuals and when facilitating groups. Perry and Johanna will share their extensive experience using different modalities of touch in combination with breath to focus awareness on specific areas of the body holding trauma and resisting change.
Moreover, engaging in Movement Practice™ will enhance our embodied presence and cultivate stronger connections among us in the group field. Early morning optional creek dips will be offered to awaken our natural vitality.
Embark on this transformative journey crafted to nurture your personal healing and spiritual growth. Acquire essential skills to enhance your practice, whether you’re a professional who wants to enhance your expertise or an individual dedicated to deepening self-inquiry.
Recommended Reading: Breath, By James Nestor

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The Heart of Relationship
2023-12-08 17:00 - 2023-12-10 21:30 | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
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Fostering close and connected relationships is one of the most important things affecting the quality of our lives. Cultivating trust and openness with a loved one, whether they be an intimate partner or friend, is an essential aspect of any successful, supportive relationship.
This weekend, Perry and Johanna Holloman, intimate partners and friends for over 30 years, will share the most effective tools and practices they have developed to nurture their connection to each other.
The primary tool Perry and Johanna will share is called Gestalt Inquiry. This easy-to-learn, powerful practice provides a safe context for exploring the most meaningful and sensitive aspects of relationships. Perry and Johanna like to think of it as a practice that becomes a continuing part of any successful long-term relationship because it places high value on compassion, respect, and love of truth. As we learn to discover and safely express what is true for us, individually, as a couple, or as friends, we deepen our heart’s capacity for intimacy and connection, which leads to a more fulfilling and meaningful shared life.
During our time together, you will learn practices and resources to integrate into your everyday life, such as:

Embodied practices involving movement, breath, meditation, and awareness to develop a sense of palpable presence as the foundation upon which your relationship can flourish.
The Art of Conscious Dialogue: learning to care as much about understanding our partner and what they’re communicating as we care about being heard and understood by them.
How to express needs, feelings, and appreciations in an attuned manner to deepen relational trust.
Understanding the “distancing behaviors” we engage in, usually as an unconscious form of defense against vulnerability and contact.
Learning to co-regulate each other in structured exercises, emphasizing compassion and respect so presence-based relating naturally arises.

This workshop is for couples of all genders and sexual orientations. A couple may be any two people with a history who desire a better future together, e.g., friends, partners, married or divorced spouses, parent and child, siblings, and others.
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The Healing Art of Deep Bodywork®: Deep Tissue Skills for Massage Practitioners
2023-10-29 18:00 - 2023-11-03 13:00 | Mount Madonna Center, 445 Summit Rd, Watsonville, CA, 95076, United States
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For further information on course content contact us at johannaholloman@gmail.com.
Healing Injuries to the Neck, Opening the Chest and Freeing the Breath
There is a growing demand for massage practitioners who have mastered the art of moving deeply into the body with skill and sensitivity. The capacity of Deep Bodywork to alleviate acute and chronic pain has made it an indispensable tool in treating complex conditions such as back and chronic cervical pain due to whiplash injuries or other traumatic events to the upper body. As we open the body’s deeper soft tissue layers, “stuck” energy in the form of shortened, hardened tissue is mobilized, making this energy available to support us in the process of healing.
This seminar will focus on healing the neck from chronic and acute pain due to injury and postural issues, as well as freeing the chest and ribs to open the vital function of breath. The capacity to comprehensively expand our chests by taking a full, free breath is perhaps the body’s most important tool in unwinding the ongoing stress we accumulate. Restriction in this vital capacity can lead to collapsing of the chest, a forward-leaning posture of the neck and head, and chronic pain in many upper body areas as a secondary result. Our ability to deal with emotional stress can be severely limited if the breath is restricted in its vital healing function. Through our discussion of relevant anatomy, we will understand how an open chest balances the shoulder girdle, providing an organized base for the neck and head. We will look at the structural complexity of the neck to understand why injury to this vital area can be so difficult to heal.
Our mornings will begin with a “freeing the breath” meditation, followed by breakfast. Movement Practice™ will precede bodywork instruction each day, supporting the embodiment of presence which is key to the healing power of this work.
Previous massage experience is highly recommended for this advanced-level class. This seminar is part of the Deep Bodywork for Massage Practitioners series that Perry and Johanna Holloman developed. Please visit our website at www.deepbodywork.com.
Information on registration, and different price categories for single accommodation, shared accommodation, and camping (tent and RV) will be posted soon. This seminar will take place at the Mount Madonna Center outside of Santa Cruz, California.
We look forward to seeing you!
Perry & Johanna
Register Now!
For further information on course content contact us at johannaholloman@gmail.com.

Transpersonal Breathwork Practices: Circular Breathing™, Qigong, and Integrative Gestalt Practice™
2023-08-13 07:30 - 2023-08-18 12:30 | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
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Need a scholarship? Apply here.

Join us for a transformative workshop where ancient traditions intersect with modern science to unleash the power of transpersonal breathwork practices. Through this week-long immersive experience, you will discover the profound benefits of Circular Breathing and other multicultural techniques that have been embraced by Western science.

Circular Breathing is a potent way to access non-ordinary states of consciousness without the use of psychedelics. In this workshop, you will have the opportunity to participate in four longer breathwork sessions, each designed to take you on a journey of self-discovery and transformation. Our mornings will begin with an optional morning dip in Hot Springs creek, led by Mac Murphy, followed by energy-building practices from Qigong and Wim Hof. Perry and Johanna will then teach practices of breath control as described by James Nestor in his groundbreaking book, Breath, The New Science of a Lost Art.
Each afternoon, we will delve deeper into the transformative practice of Circular Breathing under the guidance of Perry, Johanna, and Mac. With the support of a “sitter,” we will explore accelerated breathing techniques that have been documented to have profound effects by Harvard Mind-Body Clinic co-founder Herbert Benson, MD.
Creating time for integration, articulation, and creative expression is an important part of the workshop process. Expect to express through drawing images that arise from our breathwork, writing poetry, and exploring ourselves using the powerful tool of Integrative Gestalt Practice under the experienced guidance of Perry and Johanna.
Come ready to relax your body and mind, and to let the supporting music guide you on a journey into your essential being. Breathing is the first thing we do entering this life, and the last thing as we exit.
Breathwork has the power to show us who we really are beyond the veils of our ego structure. Join us for a transformative week of self-inquiry! Experience the convergence of ancient traditions and modern science to unlock your potential for personal growth and healing.
Recommended Reading: Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor
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Integrative Gestalt Coaching™
2023-07-01 08:00 - 2023-07-29 17:00 | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
Integrative Gestalt Coaching™
A Professional Certification Training
July 1st – July29th at Esalen
Click Here to Register!
What is it?
From July 1st-29th, 2023 Perry and Johanna Holloman will be offering a professional training in Integrative Gestalt Coaching (IGC) at the Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California. The premise of this training is to teach presence-based facilitation skills which can be used for:

Individual and group work with students/clients/colleagues.
Communication skill development in personal and professional settings.
Inner development and self-healing through the powerful tools of self-inquiry taught in this program.

Who is it for?

Professionals and lay people looking to develop both intuitive and structured coaching skills to support individuals, groups and organizations.
People focused on their own self-inquiry needing “down-time” to heal themselves.
Individuals longing for a clearer sense of life purpose both personally and professionaly.

How is it structured?

This training will take place in a retreat setting at Esalen over a four-week period. During our time together we will focus on foundational aspects of the theory and practice of IGC. We will meet 5-6 times a week for a total of 64 hrs.
Students who wish to certify will apply skills taught in this training with clients they work with after the conclusion of their stay at Esalen. Thirty documented sessions with clients and five sessions of supervision with Perry are required for a certificate.

Topics we will cover are:

Understanding and working with the Continuum of Awareness as the foundation for self-inquiry.
Creating competently held safe space for our clients’ self-inquiry.
Understanding the Theory of Change in Gestalt.
Understanding and working with the inner critic, the primary barrier to contact with our authenticity.
Discovering and developing our experience of presence as the foundation of human experience and understanding the difference between presence and awareness.
Developing aspects of embodied presence foundational to this work, e.g. intuitive guidance and authentic compassion.
Honing our facilitation skills to include more complex interventions designed to deepen the clients’ inquiry and challenge rigid internal structures.
Developing an understanding of our own relationship to conflict and how to support people in its resolution.
Deepening our own self-inquiry to discover the structures acting as barriers to our maturation as realized human beings.

Click Here to Register!
All certificates are granted by the Holloman Institute™. Adherence to all professional and ethical standards of practice is required.

Integrative Gestalt Coaching Certification Training
2023-07-01 08:00 - 2023-07-28 17:00 | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
July 1–28, 2023
with Perry Holloman and Johanna Holloman
Register Now!
Integrative Gestalt Coaching™ (IGC) is a comprehensive and interactive therapy method Perry Holloman developed over the last 40 years while living at Esalen. He and his wife, Johanna, travel and teach this approach in the USA, Europe, and Asia, working with individuals and groups and coaching businesses and communities.
This month-long program is designed for people who want to learn basic skills in the practice of Gestalt, applicable to both their personal lives as well as their work with individuals and groups.
Date and/or Times may not be specific. For reservations and details, visit:
https://www.esalen.org/workshops/leep-integrative-gestalt-coaching-070123

Integrative Gestalt Practice 5-day at Esalen with Perry and Johanna: May 22-26, 2023
2023-05-22 20:00 - 2023-05-26 20:00 | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
Integrative Gestalt Practice™

May 22–26, 2023

with Perry Holloman and Johanna Holloman

Integrative Gestalt Practice™ is a method of self-inquiry Perry and Johanna Holloman developed over the last 30 years. They travel and teach this approach globally, working with individuals, groups, and communities.
This in-depth program is for individuals, couples, and friends wanting to experience the practice of Gestalt Inquiry to support their self-exploration. Integrative Gestalt Practice is particularly helpful in life transitions and with vital questions affecting the quality of our lives and relationships (family, friends, intimate partners), careers, and overall life purpose. The powerful tools presented in this seminar can help support the emergence of what is most authentic in us and will continue to be helpful in daily life long after this week is over. The practice of Gestalt Inquiry imbues us with an internal sense of agency, clarity, and strength, connecting us to what many describe as a sense of “inner guidance.”
For detailed schedule, to register and learn more, please visit: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/integrative-gestalt-practice-tm-052223

The Heart of Relationship: A Weekend of Gestalt Inquiry for Couples and Friends
2022-12-09 20:30 - 2022-12-11 12:00 | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
December 9–11, 2022

with Perry Holloman and Johanna Holloman

Fostering close, connected relationships is one of the most important things affecting the quality of our lives. Cultivating trust and openness with our loved ones, whether they be intimate partners or friends, is an essential aspect of any successful, supportive relationship.
Perry and Johanna Holloman have been intimate partners and friends for over 30 years. This weekend, they will share the most effective tools and practices that they have developed to nurture their connection to one another.
Visit https://www.esalen.org/workshops/the-heart-of-relationship-a-weekend-of-gestalt-inquiry-for-couples-and-friends to register.
For exact Date and Time details, visit the link above.

Esalen® Massage for Couples | Workshops | Esalen
2022-01-14 08:30 - 2022-01-16 10:00 | Esalen, 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA, 93920, United States
Touch is our forgotten language. In this introductory massage course, we will learn to listen to each other, gain sensory skills to initiate and sustain touch, experience the felt sense of relaxation and release, and close with a balanced tenderness.
Date and/or Times may not be specific. For reservations and details, visit: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/esalen-r-massage-for-couples
