D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
April
2008
Robert Pittman — Resisting Gravity
Page: 2"I try to just let my hands lead me to those places where energy may be tied up and held," Pittman explains. "And I ask the client to participate, to respond, though not necessarily verbally — sometimes just by keeping awareness focused on the place we're working on."
He adds, "I think there are as many ways of Rolfing as there are Rolfers. It's not just what we as Rolfers can create, but what we as co-creators with our clients can bring about."
In keeping with the basic premise of interconnection, relationship is an integral part of the Rolfing process — a relationship between Rolfer and client that, in Pittman's words, "creates a dialogue that allows change to happen." It's part of that shift in perspective that Rolf expounded — the shift from, as Pittman describes it, viewing the human body as "a separate, discrete object to seeing us all as interconnected beings, and finding our reality in relationship."
Robert Pittman first encountered Rolfing while living in Santa Fe more than three decades ago. "I didn't go for any particular thing," he says. "More out of curiosity. It was a new modality in Santa Fe at the time. I didn't really know what it was all about, but it was a very powerful experience. I'd leave the table totally energized."
Years later, living with his wife Kathleen in the little town of Monticello, near Truth or Consequences, Pittman felt it was time for a career change from designing and building houses. He says he felt the need to find a "real" job, and started thinking about those powerful Rolfing sessions he had experienced. "I wondered if I could go do that." He decided that he could — and he did, training first in Boulder, Colo., and later in Munich, Germany. Upon earning certification, he set up a Rolfing practice in Las Cruces.
After moving to Silver City with his wife in 1993, Pittman set up a Rolfing practice here, seeing clients at the Center for Natural Healing in town. He has since opened a second office in the Mimbres Valley in an old adobe building that is located on property he and his wife purchased in 1997 just outside the village of San Lorenzo.
In addition to seeing clients at both offices, Pittman is currently studying Gestalt Therapy at the Cleveland Institute of Gestalt, and believes it will add a valuable dimension to his Rolfing.
Rolf herself would surely have approved. She taught at the Esalen Institute in California at the same time Fritz Perls was introducing Gestalt training there, and, Pittman reports, the two pioneers in the humanistic movement often presented seminars together, convinced that their two therapies complemented each other and fit together perfectly — "like hand and glove."
Pittman's clients approve, too. Suzanne Toupin affirms, "His Gestalt training is an excellent complement to the body work."
Robert Pittman practices at the Center for Healing Arts, 300 Yankie St. in Silver City, and in the Mimbres Valley. Contact him at 536-3859.