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

Ilana Rubenfeld (Author), Joan Borysenko (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 2001

The Rubenfeld Synergy Method 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.

The Listening Hand includes:

• Body-mind exercises designed to awaken awareness, free breathing, and reveal the body metaphors that tell your life story

• Guided steps that break through inner barriers and lead to concrete improvements in your daily life and relationships

• Energy explorations for contacting the energy field in yourself and others — and how you can use it to heal

• Experiments for couples that gently increase communication, intimacy, and sexual openness

• Practices that enable helpers to avoid physical, emotional, and spiritual burnout

• A complete 7-day Mind Your Muscles program for tension release, body alignment, and enhanced flexibility

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A legendary healer who has been called ‘The Genius of Touch’ has at last published the pioneering theories and practices of her body/mind work.”
— NAPRA ReView

“A classic.”
— Belleruth Naparstek, author of Your Sixth Sense

“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 is truly a woman with healing intuitive gifts.”
— Judy Collins, singer, composer, and author

“As productive as it is profound.”
— Jean Houston, author of Jump Time

From the Inside Flap

The Rubenfeld Synergy Method 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.

The Listening Hand includes:

? Body-mind exercises designed to awaken awareness, free breathing, and reveal the body metaphors that tell your life story

? Guided steps that break through inner barriers and lead to concrete improvements in your daily life and relationships

? Energy explorations for contacting the energy field in yourself and others ? and how you can use it to heal

? Experiments for couples that gently increase communication, intimacy, and sexual openness

? Practices that enable helpers to avoid physical, emotional, and spiritual burnout

? A complete 7-day Mind Your Muscles program for tension release, body alignment, and enhanced flexibility

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (October 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553379836
• ISBN-13: 978-0553379839
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #841,734 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.