Re-Birthing

Shayman

Hi. Has anyone any experience of this? I've been reccommended it but have heard from someone who had a bad (traumatic) experience with it...

Torakx

Could you clarify what it is exactly for those not in the know?
I think its the method of simulating your birth to feel reborn in some way?

Shayman

I got this from Wiki:

Rebirthing-Breathwork is a form of alternative medicine mainly consisting of a breathing technique. It shares a common belief with various other therapies called Rebirthing, with both groups believing that human birth is a traumatic eventI][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]citation needed[/URL][/I and that reviewing or revisiting this event, in some way, can have therapeutic benefits. However, the actual techniques utilized in Rebirthing-breathwork are quite different from those used by these therapies.

iguana2005

was all the rage in byron bay, australia when i lived back there in 1996..never got around to doing it however..that and making didgeredoos!

Myksyk

Unadulterated new-age nonsense.

Shayman

Myksyk wrote: »

Unadulterated new-age nonsense.

You've tried it then? Go on tell us more.

DublinWriter

Primal Scream therapy has been totally debunked...I hope.

iguana2005

Myksyk wrote: »

Unadulterated new-age nonsense.

well they'd love you in Byron Bay - NOT...

dont diss it as 'new age nonesense'..

JuliusCaesar

Why not?

Most psychologists like to see the evidence that something works.

Myksyk

Shayman wrote: »

You've tried it then? Go on tell us more.

No I haven't tried it.

If anyone is inclined to counter, on hearing that appalling admission, with "I rest my case" I should advice that to do so would only demonstrate the most fundamental ignorance in relation to how we evaluate effectiveness of therapies.

The 'have you tried it?' argument implies that to do so would constitute an acceptable and accurate assessment of the relative value and effectiveness of the therapy, or any therapy. Of course it does nothing of the sort.

It may tell us that a particular individual liked a particular intervention and felt better after it. However, it tells us nothing about the specific ingredients of the process which did some work and those that did nothing at all. It does nothing to tell us if the therapy is more effective than anything else you care to mention, or whether there is any validity to the theories and ideas which inform the practice. In short, 'trying' a therapy is on no earthly use in informing us whether the therapy is effective or not, whether the ideas behind it are bunkum or not, or indeed whether it is potentially dangerous or not (by the way there are at least some reported deaths associated with re-birthing therapy). Why is this?

There are simple reasons why this is so. Every psychotherapy out there (there are allusions to over 500 in the literature) is made up of ingredients specific to that particular therapy and ingredients common to all therapies. The ingredients usually at play in most if not all therapies (unsurprisingly called commonalities or non-specifics) include a whole raft of things including interpersonal interaction, therapist warmth, placebo, expectation, suggestibility, gullibility, belief as well as extraneous variables at work outside the therapeutic endeavour (other relationships, health, stress levels, positive and negative factors unrelated to the therapeutic process etc etc etc). Most of these factors are capable of doing 'work' and impacting on the therapeutic outcome. In fact they could be said to do at least some of the work all of the time, and all of the work a lot of the time!

What is exceedingly difficult to do, in the midst of all these factors working away at our mental and emotional wellbeing, is to demonstrate that the specifics of an individual therapy (e.g. re-birthing practices like pushing yourself through a rolled up carpet or the ideas peculiar to and informing that therapy) are of any value in and of themselves, or are doing any work above and beyond the work we know (and have known for decades) is being done by non-specifics. We are simply not capable, on the fly so to speak, of this level of differential analysis. We need sophisticated research methods to even make a stab at it. You certainly cannot make an accurate assessment by simply 'trying it'.

In my experience proponents of alternative psycho-therapies, like this new-age re-birthing therapy, don't encourage you to make the honest intellectual effort required to de-construct the common myths around that most ubiquitous of claims ... "It works". This is not a surprise insofar as they are unapologetically divorced from our scientific body of knowledge and have no truck with its associated practices like research or its requirement for evidence.

Shayman

As the old saying goes: "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh1t".

Myksyk

If you're baffled Shayman I respectfully suggest it's not because what I wrote was bullsh1t, as you so eloquently imply. Rather, it might be to do with the fact that you either didn't understand it (possible but in fairness unlikely) or you didn't care for it but don't have an adequately intelligent or considered response that addresses the issues raised (more likely).

Cunsiderthis

Rebirthing sounds just like another woo woo practice like homoeopathy etc etc, based on nothing more than some mens desire to believe the unlikely. There may be something in it, but I've never seen any more evidence for it than I have for Feng Shuay or Candida, which were both popular with the same sorts of people in previous decades, but which seem to have fallen out of fashion.

It's ironic indeed that the op says that he knows someone who underwent rebirthing ( which is evidently designed to recover from a traumatic birth), and this person ended up being additionally traumatised from the rebirthing too!

hotspur

Trying to explain philosophy of science or the criteria of evidence based treatments to somebody interested in rebirthing is like showing a magic trick to a dog.

Anybody with a little less ignorant of an attitude than the OP who wishes to understand what is currently considered acceptable criteria for judging the efficacy of a psychological treatments is advised to read this paper by Chambless and Hollon:
http://creating-change.org/7-11-03%20arts/Chambless_1998%5B1%5D.pdf

Shayman

hotspur wrote: »

Trying to explain philosophy of science or the criteria of evidence based treatments to somebody interested in rebirthing is like showing a magic trick to a dog.

Anybody with a little less ignorant of an attitude than the OP who wishes to understand what is currently considered acceptable criteria for judging the efficacy of a psychological treatments is advised to read this paper by Chambless and Hollon:
http://creating-change.org/7-11-03%20arts/Chambless_1998%5B1%5D.pdf

What gives you the right to judge my level of intellegence? Who do you think you are? I asked a simple question and would have appreciated a simple answer not some academic jargon from arrogant people. Ignorance can be defined in more than one way...

Valmont

hotspur wrote: »

Trying to explain philosophy of science or the criteria of evidence based treatments to somebody interested in rebirthing is like showing a magic trick to a dog.

Pure gold! I'm archiving that one...

Myksyk

Shayman wrote: »

I asked a simple question and would have appreciated a simple answer not some academic jargon from arrogant people. Ignorance can be defined in more than one way...

In fairness Shayman, you asked a question. I saw no caveat requiring that people not give any thorough or informed answers. You are posting in the 'psychology' forum, under 'science' not personal issues or after hours. Please be aware that answers may occasionally be detailed and actually rely on some knowledge of psychology.

hotspur

Valmont wrote: »

Pure gold! I'm archiving that one...

Not mine unfortunately, it's from my comedy hero Bill Hicks who said to his audience something like "You're looking at me like a dog who has been shown a magic trick."

JuliusCaesar

hotspur wrote: »

Not mine unfortunately, it's from my comedy hero Bill Hicks who said to his audience something like "You're looking at me like a dog who has been shown a magic trick."

Or as my stats tutor said: "you're looking at me like calves looking over a 5 bar gate" (The allusion was lost on us Dubliners.)

Shayman - psychology is under the heading Science for a reason. We like evidence. As replies to your question have said - if you followed the links given - re-birthing is non-science, non-sense. If that wasn't the answer you wanted, post in another forum.

Shayman

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

Or as my stats tutor said: "you're looking at me like calves looking over a 5 bar gate" (The allusion was lost on us Dubliners.)

Shayman - psychology is under the heading Science for a reason. We like evidence. As replies to your question have said - if you followed the links given - re-birthing is non-science, non-sense. If that wasn't the answer you wanted, post in another forum.

Thank you. I finally get an answer. I wasn't aware as to it's background ie. whether it was a science or not hence why I asked the question... As usual Academics take the roundabout way to give a straight answer... I will try not to be so bold as to be above my station and ask questions on your esteemed corner of cyberspace again

Ciaran500

Shayman wrote: »

Thank you. I finally get an answer. I wasn't aware as to it's background ie. whether it was a science or not hence why I asked the question... As usual Academics take the roundabout way to give a straight answer... I will try not to be so bold as to be above my station and ask questions on your esteemed corner of cyberspace again

I always laugh at this reaction, you get the same from creationists, conspiracy theorists or alternative "medicine" advocates. Its makes it seem like asking for evidence is a ridiculous concept.

Odysseus

Shayman wrote: »

Thank you. I finally get an answer. I wasn't aware as to it's background ie. whether it was a science or not hence why I asked the question... As usual Academics take the roundabout way to give a straight answer... I will try not to be so bold as to be above my station and ask questions on your esteemed corner of cyberspace again

I don't think people are being overly academic with you, however, the human condition is a complex one and there are no easy options. That maybe why people here such little time for approaches like that.

Anyone I ever met who use stuff liike that or holotropic breathwork usually have very little academic qualifications. Academic qualifications are the be all and end all of therapy, however, quick easy answers to complex problems never work. However, humans being the animal that they are want quick solutions and end up going into things like that.

Holotropic breathwork was quite in favour within the recovering addict community a few years ago. I worked with a few people who where quite damaged in this process.

Myksyk

Shayman wrote: »

I will try not to be so bold as to be above my station and ask questions on your esteemed corner of cyberspace again

Why does robust intelligent debate always lead to certain people to cast about accusations of people being arrogant, dogmatic and superior? Spare us the indignation. If you're not prepared for someone to give their honest opinion that a particular idea is nonsense then don't post. Despite what you might like to assume it has nothing to do with looking down their nose at you.

lighthouse

Odysseus wrote: »

.
Holotropic breathwork was quite in favour within the recovering addict community a few years ago. I worked with a few people who where quite damaged in this process.

Personally speaking I wouldn't be alive only for holotropic breathwork.

JuliusCaesar

lighthouse wrote: »

Personally speaking I wouldn't be alive only for holotropic breathworking.

FYP


Locking resurrected thread.

This is the PSYCHOLOGY forum, remember.