Wounds Into Blessings

This book chronicles the inquiry into what it means to grow one’s humanness -- both as a recipient of hands-on healing work and as a practitioner. It is also an historical portrait of a healing artist’s initiation into the discovery of how healing works and how it is capable of uniting the soulful and messy depths of human suffering with the transcendental heights of redemptive spiritual valence.

W ounds into Blessings was first written, in 1998, as an adaptation of Fred Mitouer’s doctoral thesis, White Silk ~ Black Leather. Back then the field of Bodywork and Somatics was in its nascent form, not unlike the Internet. Since then, much has changed in our socio-economic world, especially in technology and in our scientific understanding of the relational dynamic between consciousness, molecular biology and psychological states of awareness. Yet with all the “change” in technological literacy and somatic awareness, one must question whether substantive transformation in the modern human’s inner life is really possible without a sincere, dedicated intention to grow the full capacity of what it means to be human. This book chronicles this inquiry into what it means to grow one’s humanness -- both as a recipient of the hands-on healing work and as a practitioner. And it is also an historical portrait of a healing artist’s initiation into the discovery of how healing works and how it is capable of uniting the soulful and messy depths of human suffering with the transcendental heights of redemptive spiritual valence.

Fred Mitouer, Ph.D., is internationally known for his groundbreaking somatic therapy: Transformational Bodyworks, and as the founder of Dragons’ Breath Theatre--a forum for cultural experiments in consciousness and irreverent play. He created Pacific School of Massage in 1978 and Transformational Bodywork in 1989. Fred has been a featured presenter at many International Conferences, including the International Somatics Congresses -- which he co- sponsored with the Association of Humanistic Psychology, The State of the World Forum and the 9th International Conference on Conflict Resolution, in St. Petersburg, Russia. His writings have appeared in Perspective, Massage Magazine, Common Ground and Yoga Journal. He is a co-author of the award winning book, Healing the Heart of the World, Elite Press, 2005* Fred has presented his work in Paris, Hong Kong, and throughout the United States and has maintained a private practice in Northern California for nearly 40 years that has transformed the consciousness of countless individuals in diverse arenas spanning the creative arts through the shamanic depths to the corporate world. The New York Times has called him, “The Hollywood A list’s favorite guru...a master.” He is a father and grandfather and lives with his wife, Cheryl, on California’s Mendocino Coast where he sculpts in metal and stone and rides his dragons.