Ilana’s Story
Ilana directs bodymind energy as if she were conducting a symphony—and well she should. The founder of the Rubenfeld Synergy Method® graduated from the Juilliard School of Music and enjoyed a career in music conducting until a debilitating back spasm re-orchestrated her life journey. She has been an influential teacher, healer and inspirational workshop leader for the past 45 years.
Ilana is a well-known keynote speaker who has presented thousands of workshops world-wide. In 1977, she founded The Rubenfeld Synergy Method® Professional Training Program. Ilana is a storyteller par excellence - integrating humor and history. She is a faculty member of the Omega and Esalen Institutes and the New York Open Center. Ilana celebrates over 30 years of The Rubenfeld Synergy Method® Professional Training Program, which has certified over 600 synergists to date.
In 1994, Ilana was given the "Pathfinder Award" by the Association of Humanistic Psychology(AHP) for her outstanding contributions to Humanistic Psychology.
In 2002, Ilana received "Life-Time Achievement Award" from the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy.
Visit Ilana Rubenfeld's website.
The Early Years
At age 15, Ilana had a life-changing experience as she watched a conductor bring 100 teenagers together in a choral festival. The conductor’s leadership brought out the best in each individual while holding the larger vision of the musical piece. She began her journey to learn the skills of balancing smaller phrases within the larger context, studying first at the Manhattan School of Music, then at the Juilliard School of Music’s conducting department. Her intense musical/life training would greatly affect the future creation of the Rubenfeld Synergy Method® and its training program.
As she sharpened her listening skills, she developed physical pain from the rigorous demands of conducting. Seeking relief in the 1950’s, she was led to study the F. M. Alexander Technique and its bodymind approach as well as psychotherapy. Once she learned to listen to her body, emphasizing awareness, her physical pain ceased. Intrigued with this approach, she became an Alexander teacher, where her reputation grew as a facilitator of both domains – the physical and the emotional.
Realizing that the emotional history of some students seemed fundamental to their physical problems and their resistance to change, she sought more answers. During the 1960’s she studied with prominent psychotherapists in New York, then with Fritz Perls at the Esalen Institute in California. Here she found another missing piece to the integration puzzle – the practice of the "now" which is an important element in her work. Gestalt therapy noticed body posture, but without using touch. Ilana sensed that verbal communication only went so far. The therapist could not know what was occurring more deeply, "close to the bone."
In the 1970’s, Ilana continued to develop her unique way of working with people. At a fortuitous meeting with Buckminster Fuller, he suggested the name "Rubenfeld Synergy" as the integration of touch and talk. Ilana organized groups, workshops, and presentations using this new method, while maintaining a busy private practice. Many people in her ongoing groups wanted to train with her so they could practice the Rubenfeld Synergy Method with their clients. So it was in 1977 that the first Rubenfeld Synergy Training Program was begun.
The Work Develops
Returning to her roots as a conductor at Juilliard (tracking many themes and layers simultaneously), Ilana started teaching exercises and techniques to pass the Rubenfeld Synergy Method on to others. Her first training program met one weekend a month for two years. Eventually she realized an additional year was needed to deepen the learning. As of January, 2007, the thirtieth anniversary of that first training, her sixteenth training program will have its graduation and the seventeenth is being launched. Hundreds of people from all over the world have completed the training, incorporating the work into their personal lives and into their communities. The training has evolved over three decades in structure, length of each module, and location, but the goals remain the same: (1) to teach the integration of a gentle listening touch with verbal tools to help clients gain self-awareness, self-esteem, a relief of emotional wounds and the encouragement to be true to their own music; (2) to build a loving, supportive community of healers.