«One must be able to think in colors and forms as one is able to think in terms and thoughts.»
Eurythmy therapy
Eurythmy therapy is a movement therapy based on specially modified eurythmy movements geared to the sick organism. Eurythmy therapy treatment is useful as prophylaxis where a tendency to illness exists, but is chiefly used in acute and chronic conditions.
Eurythmy therapy began in 1921. It was developed by Rudolf Steiner and Dr. Ita Wegman MD as an autonomous movement therapy based on the movement art of eurythmy. Eurythmy therapy, in distinction to artistic eurythmy, works with movement directed towards the body, the effect of which is comparable to a medicine.
The eurythmy therapist works in a professionally independent way but in close collaboration with the referring doctor, and takes full account of any forms of treatment the patient is receiving, either medication or other, non-medicinal ones. Eurythmy therapy exercises geared to the individual clinical picture lead to balance in the patient’s body, soul and spirit constitution. Eurythmy therapy is used in all medical and therapeutic fields. These include: internal medicine, psychiatry, paediatrics, gynaecology, psychosomatic medicine, neurology, surgery, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, special needs education.
Requirements
The eurythmy therapist will have completed a eurythmy training and a supplementary training to become a eurythmy therapist. The basic training allows him to develop proficiency in the movement art of eurythmy and to use his own body as a sensitive movement instrument. The separate training to become a eurythmy therapist enables him to apply eurythmy movement in ways specifically appropriate to different illnesses. It develops the capacity to form a therapeutic relationship with the patient and to cooperate with the doctor on the basis of a medical understanding of the human being. At the same time it also qualifies him in organisational and professional skills.
Trainings
Training to become a eurythmy therapist begins with a basic eurythmy training. This is the foundation for all eurythmy professions, on which the various supplementary training courses build, leading to professional specialism. The therapeutic focus and, as opposed to artistic eurythmy, the body-directed movement approach of eurythmy therapy, distinguish the particular, autonomous nature of the eurythmy therapy training.
Literature on curative eurythmy
- Rudolf Steiner: Curative Eurythmy. GA 315,
- Rudolf Steiner: The Spiritual-Scientific Aspect of Therapy. GA 313
- Rudolf Steiner: Anthroposophical Knowledge of Man and Medicine. GA 319
- Rudolf Steiner: Spiritual Science and Medicine. GA 317
- Rudolf Steiner: Meditative Contemplation and Guidance for Deepening the Art of Healing. GA 316
- Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman: Extending the Art of Medicine. GA 27
- GA = the volume number in the German Gesamtausgabe (Complete Edition) of Rudolf Steiner’s works