The Listening Hand: Self-Healing Through The Rubenfeld Synergy Method of Talk and Touch [Hardcover]

Ilana Rubenfeld (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 2000

The Rubenfeld Synergy Method, created by Ilana Rubenfeld in the 1960s, is an elegant, powerful system that integrates bodywork, intuition, and psychotherapy. Memories and emotions stored in our bodies can result in energy blocks and imbalances. Rubenfeld Synergy utilizes talk, movement, awareness, imagination, humor, and compassionate touch as gateways--contacting and melting frozen tensions and emotions, freeing the body from pain and the mind from suffering.

Trained as a conductor at the Juilliard School of Music, Ilana originally turned to bodywork to heal the muscle spasms that were paralyzing her arms. Now she has distilled her experience with thousands of clients into a dynamic program anyone can use to discover the inner "music" of their own life.
The Listening Hand includes:
Body-mind exercises designed to awaken awareness, free your breathing, and reveal the body metaphors that tell your life story
Guided steps to change that break through inner barriers and lead to concrete improvements in your daily lifeand relationships
Energy explorations for contacting the energy field in yourself and others--and how you can use it to heal
Talk and touch duets that allow you to "hear" the nonverbal messages of your body
Experiments for couples that gently increase communication, intimacy, and sexual openness
A self-care toolbox--practices that enable helpers to avoid physical, emotional, and spiritual burnout
Plus a complete Seven-Day Mind Your Muscles Program for tension release, body alignment, and enhanced flexibility
Filled with Ilana's trademark humor and marvelous storytelling, The Listening Hand is a treasury of techniques and insights, an extraordinary gift from an extraordinary healer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this book Ilana Rubenfeld has given us precious tools to heal ourselves.  The exercises throughout the text are powerful and precise, honed through many years of healing and teaching.  Each one is a jewel, capable of bringing about an 'Aha.'  The moment of 'Aha' is revelatory and life-changing."
-- From the Foreword by Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.

"About thirty years ago Ilana Rubenfeld discovered that emotions reside and are held in the body, and that skillful touch combined with talk could release emotions and heal pain, thus freeing people to live healthier, more effective lives.  In The Listening Hand Ilana has distilled the essence of her unique approach."
-- Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

"Ilana Rubenfeld is the godmother of talk-and-touch therapies in our culture.  Her insights have helped thousands find healing and fulfillment in their lives."
-- Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Reinventing Medicine and Healing Words

"The Listening Hand conducts the music of the body, mind, and heart into new horizons of harmony.  Ilana Rubenfeld sets the pitch for mind-body wellness for future generations.  Tune in to her wisdom and practical methods."
-- Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect

"Ilana Rubenfeld, the genius of touch, has more than a touch of genius in this fascinating and important book.  The richly comic and wildly innovative author teaches the ways of integrating body, mind, and emotion in a method as productive as it is profound.  The pages brim with heart and science, offering compassionate techniques that release old habits as they invite new ways of being."
-- Jean Houston, author of Jump Time and A Passion for the Possible

From the Inside Flap

The Rubenfeld Synergy Method, created by Ilana Rubenfeld in the 1960s, is an elegant, powerful system that integrates bodywork, intuition, and psychotherapy. Memories and emotions stored in our bodies can result in energy blocks and imbalances. Rubenfeld Synergy utilizes talk, movement, awareness, imagination, humor, and compassionate touch as gateways--contacting and melting frozen tensions and emotions, freeing the body from pain and the mind from suffering.

Trained as a conductor at the Juilliard School of Music, Ilana originally turned to bodywork to heal the muscle spasms that were paralyzing her arms. Now she has distilled her experience with thousands of clients into a dynamic program anyone can use to discover the inner "music" of their own life.
The Listening Hand includes:
Body-mind exercises designed to awaken awareness, free your breathing, and reveal the body metaphors that tell your life story
Guided steps to change that break through inner barriers and lead to concrete improvements in your daily lifeand relationships
Energy explorations for contacting the energy field in yourself and others--and how you can use it to heal
Talk and touch duets that allow you to "hear" the nonverbal messages of your body
Experiments for couples that gently increase communication, intimacy, and sexual openness
A self-care toolbox--practices that enable helpers to avoid physical, emotional, and spiritual burnout
Plus a complete Seven-Day Mind Your Muscles Program for tension release, body alignment, and enhanced flexibility
Filled with Ilana's trademark humor and marvelous storytelling, The Listening Hand is a treasury of techniques and insights, an extraordinary gift from an extraordinary healer.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (September 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553111442
• ISBN-13: 978-0553111446
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,649,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ahhh. . . the power of a gentle touch, December 1, 2000

By 

Toumai (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Listening Hand: Self-Healing Through The Rubenfeld Synergy Method of Talk and Touch (Hardcover)



The Listening Hand touched me in more ways then one. Ilana Rubenfeld, the creator and "mother-master" of the Rubenfeld Synergy Method, is a clear stand that traditional talk therapies, while effective, are incomplete without the power of touch. Not just any touch, but the Rubenfeld Synergy Method, which she developed over many years, working with an impressive list of mainstream therapists. The book uses many illustrations from her professional practice, but is not so filled with second hand accounts that they become tedious. It is written in such a manner that it is easily understood by lay persons and those not in the field, yet in no way does it feel condescending in tone nor over simplified in its explanation of the nature of the method nor its efficacy. Rubenfeld's writing tone, her clearly constructed sentences, even her picture on the jacket cover, all led me to a space where I could identify with her unique combination of touch and talk. I could imagine her touch, and realize her personal warmth in this book. This was particularly helpful, as you are transported to a safe space while you are reading. Many of the examples from her patients are followed by exercises which can be done either solo or with a partner. Not normally an interactive reader, I found that I was "feeling" through the exercises as I read them.. Even if you are not plagued by physical ailments, nor emotional upsets, there appears to be extreme value in reading The Listening Hand, solo or with a partner with whom you would like to reach a new and highly sensitized level of communication.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gestalt Therapy at its best, August 23, 2005

By 

Carms (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Listening Hand: Self-Healing Through The Rubenfeld Synergy Method of Talk and Touch (Hardcover)

Ilana Rubenfeld combines Gestalt Therapy and bodywork in this excellent book. For anyone who has read Perls, Hefferline and Goodman's "Gestalt Therapy", Ilana's book provides real life practical applications of the theory.

Most psychotherapy techniques overlook the importance of touch in human interaction and health. Ilana recognises that touch can be a fundamental part of the healing process and her methods will appeal to anyone who has found traditional psychotherapy lacking in this respect.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Healing your Quadrinity: body-mind-emotions-soul, May 10, 2005

By 

M. R. Estante "book reader" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Listening Hand: Self-Healing Through The Rubenfeld Synergy Method of Talk and Touch (Hardcover)

This pioneer method is a gentle and easy technique that incorporates well in a wellness lifestyle. Photographs and case examples allow the reader to be their own healer. Since the 1960's, Ilana Rubenfeld has been refining and polishing her techniques that allows people to heal their emotional bodies as well as their souls. Very innovative and forward thinking from the onset. Rubenfeld is also a psychologist whose been one of the leaders in the mind-body movement.

Other books in this light are from Dr. Joan Boryshenko and Tim Laurence of The Hoffman Process.