AHSE History

Hanna Somatic Education® (HSE), also called Hanna Somatics, was developed by Thomas Hanna. A philosopher and former chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Florida, Hanna wrote about the philosophy of the body in his book Bodies in Revolt: A Primer in Somatic Thinking.

• Hanna first coined the term "somatics" in 1976 in order to describe the kind of training disciplines that address the unification of the mind and body.
• He began with a reconceptualization of the term "Soma". Soma is a concept which he defined as the body experienced from within. Soma, in its original sense, is the Greek word referring to the body as separate from the mind. This division artificially separated the study of the structure of the body from the study of its functions.
• From Hanna's perspective, there is no division between body and mind. He used "Soma" to describe "the body experienced from within": a first-person view of oneself within which a person is fully aware of his/her own internal feelings, behaviors, and intentions.
• Thus, in Hanna's terms, the word Soma does not refer to a body as being discrete and separate from the mind. Instead, Soma refers to an awareness of the body experienced from within the self as an inseparable mind-body event/process.
• The therapeutic use of this self-aware perspective is a key distinction separating Hanna Somatic Education® from conventional therapeutic approaches.

In the early 1970s, Hanna met Moshe Feldenkrais, an Israeli physicist and body educator whose Feldenkrais Method¨ was compatible with HannaÕs somatic philosophy. Hanna arranged the first Feldenkrais training program in the United States as director of the Humanistic Psychology Institute (now the Saybrook Institute). He continued his study with Feldenkrais for many years and practiced at the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training, an institution which he founded in 1975.

As he practiced the Feldenkrais Method, Hanna observed characteristic postural difficulties in people of all ages and in all walks of life. He also noticed that certain procedures were extremely effective in helping clients regain control of muscles that were holding them in these postures and restricting their movements. These processes became known as Hanna Somatic Education®.