Ida Rolf

Ida Pauline Rolf ( born May 19, 1896 in New York; † March 19, 1979 ibid ) was an American biochemist. She was the founder of Rolfing, a named according to their complementary medical treatment.

Life

Ida Rolf grew up in New York in the Bronx. She studied biochemistry at Columbia University and graduated in 1920 as the first woman with a doctorate from. Over the next twelve years she worked at the Rockefeller Institute, first in the Department of Chemotherapy and later in the Department of Organic Chemistry, and eventually rose to the rank of Associate at the Institute on. She studied as a scientist especially the properties of the human connective tissue. In addition, she worked with yoga, osteopathy and homeopathy.

Motivated professional reasons and due to chronic diseases in the family, she began to consult and work with people. Over the years, she discovered that the human body and its structure, which is expressed among other things in the posture, by a certain kind of Bindegewebsmanipulation is much more variable than had been previously thought. She gave her first experiences only to interested physicians continue.

Mid-sixties treated Ida Rolf, the founder of Gestalt therapy, Fritz Perls. He invited them in Esalen, the then Mecca of the Human Potential Movement to work, where she soon began to train students. Here the encounter of Rolfing was held with the methods of humanistic psychology. From then on, the Rolfing in the U.S. became increasingly popular, and 1971, Ida Rolf in Boulder / Colorado the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration as a training center and professional organization.

Ida Rolf died in 1979 at the age of 83 years.