Paul Rebillot
Encyclopedia
Paul Rebillot was a leader in the human potential movement
, an expert in the design and facilitation of personal growth journeys, the best-known of which is The Hero's Journey, and a creative force in psychotherapy and experiential education in Europe and the United States. He is the author of The Call to Adventure: Bringing the Hero’s Journey to Daily Life http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062507095.
.
His initial academic training was in philosophy and education at the University of Detroit
and was followed by a Masters in Communication Arts, specialising in drama, from the University of Michigan
. Rebillot's interest in the stage was not just academic: during and following his university years he worked with several theatre companies as a writer, producer and actor.
His military service took him for a year to Japan where he produced and directed radio programs for the U.S. Army's Far East Radio Network. His exposure to the Japanese culture and particularly to Noh
, the stylised and ritualised form of Japanese drama was subsequently to become an important influence on his use of ritual and gesture in his work.
Returning to the United States, Rebillot developed an experimental theater department at San Francisco State College and, in the same period, worked with Mumako, a Japanese mime, developing his understanding of ritual gesture, meditation postures which shape the energies to the attitude expressed by the gesture, which became a key element in his work.
In 1968, after a year of teaching at Stanford University’s theater department, he founded in San Francisco The Gestalt Fool Theater Family, a commune and a radical performance group, and commenced experimental work, combining theatre, ritual and therapy.
in Big Sur, California. There, he worked with Stan Grof, John Lilly
and, more particularly, he trained in Gestalt Practice
with Esalen's co-founder and Fritz Perls
' student Dick Price
, studied group process with Will Schutz and met Joseph Campbell
, an expert in comparative mythology
who, in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691017840 (1949) had identified the monomyth
, a motif of adventure and transformation to be found in all heroic tales, in all cultures.
These encounters with Price, Schutz and Campbell laid the foundations of Rebillot's subsequent work in the human potential movement.
In 1972 he worked on the psychiatric wards of community hospitals in Turlock and Martinez, California, sharing and putting together his own experience of mental suffering — and of coming out of it — and that of seriously ill patients as well as the doctors and nurses who treated them. This brought him to return to the healing origins of drama. Drawing on Campbell's work and integrating Gestalt practice, movement, meditation, ritual
, group process, drama, art, and music, he structured in 1973 an innovative and powerful self-discovery process, The Hero's Journey, with which his name is most widely associated.
Institute ; in The Netherlands, Jay Stattman’s Institute of Unitive Psychology ; in Ireland, the Irish Foundation for Human Development and the Amethyst Institute.
As his yearly tours throughout France, Germany and Austria, Ireland, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy developed more and more, attracting an eclectic mix of participants including many from the teaching and caring professions, Europe gradually became the location for most of his work, for well over thirty years.
All the while, Rebillot was offering new transformational structures, most of which were his own creation and some of which he had his students develop under his supervision as part of the professional training he was imparting them.
In 1987 Rebillot was awarded a grant by Laurance Rockefeller
to work on a book about The Hero’s Journey. In 1993, The Call to Adventure: Bringing the Hero’s Journey to Daily Life, was published, with a foreword by Stanislav Grof.
He had already published, in 1989, The Hero’s Journey: Ritualizing the Mystery in Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis http://www.amazon.com/dp/0874775388, a collective work edited by Stanislav et Christina Grof
, to which he had contributed together with Ronald Laing
, Roberto Assagioli
, John Weir Perry, Ram Dass
, Lee Sannella, Jack Kornfield
, Holger Kalweit, Anne Armstrong and Keith Thompson.
Rebillot's initiated his last project in 2006 when he asked a cross-cultural group of nine students to join him and develop a journey based on the life of Abraham. The resulting workshop In the Footseps of Abraham was delivered by that group in Rebillot's presence in Germany in 2007 and, after his retirement, in Ireland in 2009.
In March 2008, Rebillot retired from work in Europe, but continued to do training and consultancy work from his home in San Francisco. In June 2009, just after his student friends facilitated by themselves In the footsteps of Abraham in Ireland, he fell ill. After striving for eight months to overcome the effects of respiratory failure
, he died at his home in San Francisco on February 11, 2010.
. He felt that, without shamans
or ritual masters to guide them, modern women and men have to find their own lonely and sometimes traumatic paths from one stage of life to another. Hence, a fundamental theme of his work is personal transformation through ritual enactment.
His understanding of the power of myth and ritual
helped him design self-discovery processes that would enrich, heal and awaken individuals to their inner quest
and the transpersonal
dimensions and goals of their lives.
His experience of Gestalt practice led him to consider that each character in a myth represents a facet of oneself. Hence, experiencing a myth from inside, and from all points of view, is a way to reconnect with oneself and to reach renewed awareness.
His background in theatre had convinced him of the powerful capacity of bodily gesture and movement to reveal and to transform the point of view of the mind and the attitude of the heart. Uniting the three dimensions of body, heart and mind in order to ensure that one is true to oneself is key to his approach.
To all this, he added the power of group processes, whereby group members support one another in their individual inner journeys, which he considered as one of the most healing aspects of his work.
A North American training programme began in August 1993. In May 1996, he started a Rites of Passage training programme in Germany.
From that time on, he offered advanced training programmes in Germany as well as in France, Ireland, England and Austria.
Parallel to this, students who wished to facilitate one of his structures, such as The Hero's Journey, had to get his approval after completing a specific apprenticeship programme inspired by the practice of many theater companies and of the medieval guilds, in which students travel, live and work with their teachers as part of their training.
In Ireland, the Rebillot School of Gestalt and Experiential Teaching and, in France, the Ecole de Gestalt et processus expérientiels were formed.
The mission of both schools is to promote, deliver and safeguard Rebillot's work. They offer the opportunity to experience the inner journeys designed by Rebillot himself or by his students, according to his principles and standards, as part of their training and certification, or subsequent to their certification.
The Ecole de Gestalt et processus expérientiels delivers advanced training in French.
Paul Rebillot has published articles in numerous journals:
He has appeared on New Dimensions Radio in San Francisco.
Human Potential Movement
The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...
, an expert in the design and facilitation of personal growth journeys, the best-known of which is The Hero's Journey, and a creative force in psychotherapy and experiential education in Europe and the United States. He is the author of The Call to Adventure: Bringing the Hero’s Journey to Daily Life http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062507095.
Early years
Paul Rebillot was born on May 19, 1931 in Detroit, MichiganDetroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
.
His initial academic training was in philosophy and education at the University of Detroit
University of Detroit Mercy
University of Detroit Mercy is a private, Roman Catholic co-educational university in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with the Society of Jesus and the Sisters of Mercy. Antoine M. Garibaldi is the president. With origins dating from 1877, it is the largest Roman Catholic university...
and was followed by a Masters in Communication Arts, specialising in drama, from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. Rebillot's interest in the stage was not just academic: during and following his university years he worked with several theatre companies as a writer, producer and actor.
His military service took him for a year to Japan where he produced and directed radio programs for the U.S. Army's Far East Radio Network. His exposure to the Japanese culture and particularly to Noh
Noh
, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...
, the stylised and ritualised form of Japanese drama was subsequently to become an important influence on his use of ritual and gesture in his work.
Returning to the United States, Rebillot developed an experimental theater department at San Francisco State College and, in the same period, worked with Mumako, a Japanese mime, developing his understanding of ritual gesture, meditation postures which shape the energies to the attitude expressed by the gesture, which became a key element in his work.
In 1968, after a year of teaching at Stanford University’s theater department, he founded in San Francisco The Gestalt Fool Theater Family, a commune and a radical performance group, and commenced experimental work, combining theatre, ritual and therapy.
Esalen
This work, as well as a severe existential crisis led him in 1971 to the Esalen InstituteEsalen Institute
Esalen Institute is a residential community and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, and spirituality...
in Big Sur, California. There, he worked with Stan Grof, John Lilly
John C. Lilly
John Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher and writer....
and, more particularly, he trained in Gestalt Practice
Gestalt Practice
Gestalt Practice - Pratique Gestalt, Gestaltpraxis, Prática Gestalt, Γκεστάλτ-πρακτική, Гештальт-практика, ゲシュタルト・プラクティス-Gestalt Practice:Gestalt Practice is a contemporary form of personal exploration and integration developed by Dick Price at Esalen Institute...
with Esalen's co-founder and Fritz Perls
Fritz Perls
Friedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
' student Dick Price
Dick Price
Richard “Dick” Price -- co-founded Esalen Institute in 1962.Dick Price was a veteran of the Beat Generation. He ran Esalen in Big Sur for many years, sometimes virtually single-handed. He was an explorer of the Santa Lucia Mountains that define the Big Sur coast...
, studied group process with Will Schutz and met Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
, an expert in comparative mythology
Comparative mythology
Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes...
who, in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a non-fiction book, and seminal work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691017840 (1949) had identified the monomyth
Monomyth
Joseph Campbell's term monomyth, also referred to as the hero's journey, is a basic pattern that its proponents argue is found in many narratives from around the world. This widely distributed pattern was described by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces...
, a motif of adventure and transformation to be found in all heroic tales, in all cultures.
These encounters with Price, Schutz and Campbell laid the foundations of Rebillot's subsequent work in the human potential movement.
In 1972 he worked on the psychiatric wards of community hospitals in Turlock and Martinez, California, sharing and putting together his own experience of mental suffering — and of coming out of it — and that of seriously ill patients as well as the doctors and nurses who treated them. This brought him to return to the healing origins of drama. Drawing on Campbell's work and integrating Gestalt practice, movement, meditation, ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
, group process, drama, art, and music, he structured in 1973 an innovative and powerful self-discovery process, The Hero's Journey, with which his name is most widely associated.
Europe
In 1974, while continuing to offer workshops and Gestalt trainings at Esalen Institute, Paul Rebillot brought The Hero's Journey to Europe. There, he worked at various growth centers, including, in France, the Centre de développement du potentiel humain and the BoyesenGerda Boyesen
Gerda Boyesen is the founder of Biodynamic Psychology, a branch of Body Psychotherapy.-Life:...
Institute ; in The Netherlands, Jay Stattman’s Institute of Unitive Psychology ; in Ireland, the Irish Foundation for Human Development and the Amethyst Institute.
As his yearly tours throughout France, Germany and Austria, Ireland, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy developed more and more, attracting an eclectic mix of participants including many from the teaching and caring professions, Europe gradually became the location for most of his work, for well over thirty years.
All the while, Rebillot was offering new transformational structures, most of which were his own creation and some of which he had his students develop under his supervision as part of the professional training he was imparting them.
In 1987 Rebillot was awarded a grant by Laurance Rockefeller
Laurance Rockefeller
Laurance Spelman Rockefeller was a venture capitalist, financier, philanthropist, a major conservationist and a prominent third-generation member of the Rockefeller family. He was the fourth child of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and brother to John D...
to work on a book about The Hero’s Journey. In 1993, The Call to Adventure: Bringing the Hero’s Journey to Daily Life, was published, with a foreword by Stanislav Grof.
He had already published, in 1989, The Hero’s Journey: Ritualizing the Mystery in Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis http://www.amazon.com/dp/0874775388, a collective work edited by Stanislav et Christina Grof
Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...
, to which he had contributed together with Ronald Laing
Ronald David Laing
Ronald David Laing was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illnessin particular, the experience of psychosis...
, Roberto Assagioli
Roberto Assagioli
Roberto Assagioli was an Italian psychiatrist and pioneer in the fields of humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Assagioli founded the psychological movement known as psychosynthesis, which is still being developed today by therapists, and psychologists, who practice his technique...
, John Weir Perry, Ram Dass
Ram Dass
Ram Dass is an American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now. He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem...
, Lee Sannella, Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield is a teacher in the vipassana movement of American Theravada Buddhism. He trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, including as a student of the Thai monk Ajahn Chah...
, Holger Kalweit, Anne Armstrong and Keith Thompson.
Rebillot's initiated his last project in 2006 when he asked a cross-cultural group of nine students to join him and develop a journey based on the life of Abraham. The resulting workshop In the Footseps of Abraham was delivered by that group in Rebillot's presence in Germany in 2007 and, after his retirement, in Ireland in 2009.
In March 2008, Rebillot retired from work in Europe, but continued to do training and consultancy work from his home in San Francisco. In June 2009, just after his student friends facilitated by themselves In the footsteps of Abraham in Ireland, he fell ill. After striving for eight months to overcome the effects of respiratory failure
Respiratory failure
The term respiratory failure, in medicine, is used to describe inadequate gas exchange by the respiratory system, with the result that arterial oxygen and/or carbon dioxide levels cannot be maintained within their normal ranges. A drop in blood oxygenation is known as hypoxemia; a rise in arterial...
, he died at his home in San Francisco on February 11, 2010.
Approach
Paul Rebillot was particularly struck by the suffering and confusion resulting from contemporary society's lack of significant rites of passageRites of Passage
Rites of Passage is an African American History program sponsored by the Stamford, Connecticut US public schools. The program consists of an extra day of schooling on Saturday for 12 weeks, service projects, and a culminating educational trip to Gambia and Senegal. Gambia and Senegal are the...
. He felt that, without shamans
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
or ritual masters to guide them, modern women and men have to find their own lonely and sometimes traumatic paths from one stage of life to another. Hence, a fundamental theme of his work is personal transformation through ritual enactment.
His understanding of the power of myth and ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
helped him design self-discovery processes that would enrich, heal and awaken individuals to their inner quest
Quest
In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...
and the transpersonal
Transpersonal
The term transpersonal is often used to refer to psychological categories that transcend the normal features of ordinary ego-functioning. That is, stages of psychological growth, or stages of consciousness, that move beyond the rational andprecede the mystical...
dimensions and goals of their lives.
His experience of Gestalt practice led him to consider that each character in a myth represents a facet of oneself. Hence, experiencing a myth from inside, and from all points of view, is a way to reconnect with oneself and to reach renewed awareness.
His background in theatre had convinced him of the powerful capacity of bodily gesture and movement to reveal and to transform the point of view of the mind and the attitude of the heart. Uniting the three dimensions of body, heart and mind in order to ensure that one is true to oneself is key to his approach.
To all this, he added the power of group processes, whereby group members support one another in their individual inner journeys, which he considered as one of the most healing aspects of his work.
Works
After The Hero's Journey, created in 1973, Paul Rebillot developed numerous structures of inner journeys, among which :- The Lover's Journey: A Quest for the Inner Man and Woman
- Owning the Shadow
- Exorcising the Demon Should
- Death and Resurrection
- Rituals of Transformation
- Family Circles
- Dancing with the Gods
- Manifesting your Personal Myth
Training
In 1988 Paul Rebillot inaugurated in Switzerland the School of Gestalt and Experiential Teaching, a four-level professional training program combining Gestalt theory and practice with ritual, myth, and group process. Taking place over four years, this training offered practicing therapists an opportunity to explore the nature of transformational processes such as the ones he had created, and to learn how to conceive and facilitate their own, according to the standards he had set.A North American training programme began in August 1993. In May 1996, he started a Rites of Passage training programme in Germany.
From that time on, he offered advanced training programmes in Germany as well as in France, Ireland, England and Austria.
Parallel to this, students who wished to facilitate one of his structures, such as The Hero's Journey, had to get his approval after completing a specific apprenticeship programme inspired by the practice of many theater companies and of the medieval guilds, in which students travel, live and work with their teachers as part of their training.
Legacy
Before he retired to San Francisco, Paul Rebillot appointed some of his students to carry on with his work.In Ireland, the Rebillot School of Gestalt and Experiential Teaching and, in France, the Ecole de Gestalt et processus expérientiels were formed.
The mission of both schools is to promote, deliver and safeguard Rebillot's work. They offer the opportunity to experience the inner journeys designed by Rebillot himself or by his students, according to his principles and standards, as part of their training and certification, or subsequent to their certification.
The Ecole de Gestalt et processus expérientiels delivers advanced training in French.
Publications
- Rebillot, Paul with Kay, Melissa The Call to Adventure: Bringing the Hero’s Journey to Daily Life, HarperSanFrancisco, 1993, foreword by Stanislav Grof, ISBN 0-06-250709-5, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062507095.
- Rebillot, Paul with Kay, Melissa Die Heldenreise: Ein Abenteue der Kreativen Selfsterfahrung, translation into German by Lax-Lemeschko, Anna and Mittermair, Franz, Kösel Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-466-34371-2, http://www.amazon.com/dp/3466343712.
- Rebillot, Paul, The Hero’s Journey: Ritualizing the Mystery in Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, Grof, Stanislav & Grof, Christina editors, Warner Books, 1989, ISBN 978-0-87477-538-9 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0874775388.
Paul Rebillot has published articles in numerous journals:
- In America, Pilgrimage and Liturgy.
- In England, Self and Society and Journal of Biodynamic Psychology.
- In France, Psychologie and L’Autre Monde.
He has appeared on New Dimensions Radio in San Francisco.
Lectures by Paul Rebillot
- The Healing Theater 1 http://www.radicalchangegroup.com/podcasts/people/paul-rebillot/#show-112
- The Healing Theater 2 http://www.radicalchangegroup.com/podcasts/people/paul-rebillot/#show-114
- The Hero's Journey http://www.radicalchangegroup.com/2008/06/22/40-embodied-mythology-series-04-the-heros-journey-with-paul-rebillot
- The Lover's Journey 1 http://www.radicalchangegroup.com/2008/07/27/44-embodied-mythology-series-05-the-lovers-journey-with-paul-rebillot-part-1
- The Lover's Journey 2 http://www.radicalchangegroup.com/2008/08/03/45-embodied-mythology-series-06-the-lovers-journey-with-paul-rebillot-part-2
- Owning the shadow http://www.radicalchangegroup.com/2009/03/08/73-embodied-mythology-series-07-owning-the-shadow-with-paul-rebillot
External links
- Direct Impact Creativity, Paul Rebillot's website http://directimpactcreativity.com
- Ecole de Gestalt et processus expérientiels http://www.lesholonautes.com
- In the Footsteps of Abraham http://www.peacework.de/abraham/index.html
- Manual of Gestalt in the tradition of Dick Price http://sites.google.com/site/gestaltlegacy
- Paul Rebillot's biography (German) http://rebillot.de/rebillot.htm