Heinrich Jacoby (1889–1964), originally a musician, was a German educator whose teaching was based on developing sensitivity and awareness. His collaboration with his colleague Elsa Gindler (1885–1961), whom he met in 1924 in Berlin, played a great role in his researches. With the advent of Nazism in 1933 Jacoby was forced to leave Germany, but he continued his work in Switzerland.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Heinrich_jacoby.jpg/200px-Heinrich_jacoby.jpg)
Jacoby and Moshe Feldenkrais were among a small group of European 20th-century innovators who emphasized the "self" in self-development, so that as in the zen inspired arts such as archery or judo, or even flower arranging, a skill was not an end in itself. Practicing a skill was a path to greater awareness.
The work of Heinrich Jacoby influenced body psychotherapy through the workshops that Charlotte Selver (1901–2003), a student of Jacoby and Gindler, gave to major body psychotherapists at the Esalen Institute in the 1960s.
External links
edit- Heinrich Jacoby (1889-1964) a short biography, in German