Fre­quent­ly Asked Questions

What is a ses­sion like?

Pri­vate ses­sions and group work­shops can vary great­ly, and depend­ing on the topic and level of the client and facil­i­ta­tor. How­ev­er, the core Cine­so­mat­ic process is as follows:

1.  The client and facil­i­ta­tor meet and dis­cuss what’s present for the client.
2.  The client is asked to move in a spe­cif­ic way while the facil­i­ta­tor observes.
3.  The client dis­cuss­es their move­ment expe­ri­ence and the facil­i­ta­tor pro­vides ini­tial feedback.
4.  The client and facil­i­ta­tor watch the replay and share feed­back together.
5.  The facil­i­ta­tor guides the client through any­thing that arises and holds space for them to heal.

No two ses­sions or work­shops are the same. It is a grad­u­at­ing process, mean­ing that as the client heals and advances through the process, we go as deep and advanced as the client is ready to go, no matter the expe­ri­ence. This is why it’s effec­tive for those both strug­gling and super-func­tion­al, in all areas of life and business.

Is this a spir­i­tu­al therapy?

While Cine­so­mat­ics is a sec­u­lar ther­a­peu­tic approach, 40 years of expe­ri­ence shows us the unde­ni­able ener­getic and spir­i­tu­al foun­da­tions involved.

The arche­typ­al mytho­log­i­cal imagery—religious or not—provides fer­tile ground for deep trans­for­ma­tion within all par­tic­i­pants, regard­less of affiliation.

There is a ten­den­cy to strip away all notions of spirit in most modern prac­tices, as a direct reac­tion to the super­sti­tious, whim­si­cal, and dog­mat­ic heal­ers of the past. This is rea­son­able, and yet, it’s a pen­du­lum from one extreme to the other.

We see the result of this in the low rates of suc­cess in both modern psy­chol­o­gy and psy­chi­a­try. It has become heady, egoic, dis­tort­ed, watered-down, and void of most feel­ing and sense of beauty and spirit—exactly what makes for a func­tion­al, joyous, ful­fill­ing life.

This work seeks to bring more love, joy, truth, beauty, func­tion­al­i­ty, fun, humor, wealth, health, grace, ease, empa­thy, and spirit into clients’ lives by affirm­ing life, rather than deny­ing it.

What makes this so different?

Our com­bi­na­tion of pro­pri­etary video and cin­e­mat­ic tech­nol­o­gy, cen­tered around feel­ing-based movement—upon a bedrock of advanced psy­cho­log­i­cal, spir­i­tu­al, and philo­soph­i­cal embod­ied wisdom—makes Cine­so­mat­ics truly one-of-a-kind. We are not ana­lyz­ing body lan­guage, nor are we doing face read­ing, micro-expres­sions, aura read­ings, or any­thing of the sort.

It is highly accel­er­at­ed with no upper limit of trans­for­ma­tion, while allow­ing each stu­dent to go at their own pace. Vet­er­ans and new­bies teach and learn the same; what par­tic­i­pants get from the work is what they put in. The depth and tex­ture of mate­r­i­al and con­tent are vast, where par­tic­i­pants progress by “go deeper”, rather than “go up a ladder”.

It’s the only place where you can see your­self on screen doing the behav­iors. You lit­er­al­ly get to see proof for all the feed­back about you, in you, for yourself.

Is this evidence-based?

Every piece of “evi­dence” can val­i­date or inval­i­date a hypoth­e­sis or theory ad infini­tum. And when it comes to ther­a­py, evi­dence tends to be unre­li­able and sub­jec­tive, person-to-person.

Cine­so­mat­ics is results-ori­ent­ed, mean­ing the focus is on help­ing clients in real life, have a better life, in prac­ti­cal, tan­gi­ble ways.

This approach has been based on clin­i­cal, expe­ri­en­tial work with direct feed­back and evi­dence of its effi­ca­cy. It is not theory, nor is it faith-based. It is a results-based approach—if it does­n’t work, we don’t do it “hoping” it will eventually.

Results of inner-shifts are self-evi­dent, yet are on video as evi­dence for the client—as the ego is an oppor­tunis­tic invalidator.

Is this sim­i­lar to “X”?

“I’ve done Feldenkrais Method, Alexan­der Tech­nique, Somat­ic Expe­ri­enc­ing, bioen­er­get­ics, Reichi­an, Uzazu, 5Rythms, tai chi, qi gong, breath­work, or other move­ment and body-mind somat­ic prac­tices. Is this similar?”

No.

Our founder was not specif­i­cal­ly trained in any of these modal­i­ties and it does not con­tain direct lin­eage from these meth­ods. How­ev­er, many modern philoso­phies and approach­es rely on age­less wisdom, and so we share common beliefs and ideas.

While those prac­tices may be very ben­e­fi­cial, and share sim­i­lar philoso­phies or incor­po­rate move­ment and embod­i­ment work or spir­i­tu­al or psychotherapy—the method of Cine­so­mat­ics is quite different.

1. First, Cine­so­mat­ics exclu­sive­ly uti­lizes video as a pri­ma­ry ther­a­peu­tic com­po­nent of the method­ol­o­gy, where no others do.
2. Second, Cine­so­mat­ics uses move­ment and the body as a direct read­out of the sym­bol­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the clien­t’s inner world and lit­er­al results in life.
3. Third, Cine­so­mat­ics ori­ents itself towards truth by guid­ing clients through a feed­back and reflec­tion process with a facil­i­ta­tor or other par­tic­i­pants in a group.

We find many of these prac­tices com­ple­men­tary, and rec­om­mend con­tin­u­ing any move­ment prac­tice where you are in feel­ing, ground­ed, and moving from core.

Does this work in-person and online?

Yes. No matter what medium of video—whether using video con­fer­enc­ing or pro­fes­sion­al gear live in-person—the process works to get unprece­dent­ed results. How­ev­er, the qual­i­ty of video and depth of review are marked­ly different.

Cine­so­mat­ics requires an expert-level under­stand­ing of not just ther­a­py and facil­i­ta­tion, but also of film and technology.

There are two dis­tinct tech­nolo­gies and pro­to­cols between online video Cine­so­mat­ics and in-person “Cinema-Grade” Cinesomatics.

• Stan­dard “Pro­fes­sion­al-Grade” Cine­so­mat­ic tech­nol­o­gy can be done with any video record­ing device and screen, and even done through spe­cial soft­ware over the inter­net. There are no qual­i­ty spec­i­fi­ca­tions beyond the essen­tial func­tion­al­i­ty of video review, speed-vari­abil­i­ty, and replays.
• Advanced “Cinema-Grade” Cine­so­mat­ic tech­nol­o­gy requires much higher speeds on camera and screen, and sub­stan­tial­ly more com­plex event pro­duc­tion. This requires pro­fes­sion­al-grade cam­eras, lenses, com­put­ers, mics, tele­vi­sion, stor­age servers, and post-pro­duc­tion video edit­ing. Full event video replays are also deliv­ered in high definition.

The “Cin­e­mat­ic-Grade” tech­nol­o­gy gives us 4–8x the amount of data and ther­a­peu­tic infor­ma­tion to show through the move­ments, allow­ing us to see uncon­scious pat­terns and blocks that would remain elu­sive anyway else. This is only avail­able at in-person events due to equip­ment require­ments. Cine­so­mat­ic® tech­nol­o­gy is exclu­sive to our pro­pri­etary process.