Anat Baniel Biography-

Born in Israel, Anat Baniel (M.A. Clinical Psychology) has established an international reputation as one of the world's leading authorities in finding ways to access the brain to overcome pain and limitation, increase vitality, andhelp children with special needs make the impossible possible.

“After five years of college, two years of graduate school, and twelve years of continuing professional education, I have yet to encounter a teacher whose understanding of human learning is as thorough and clear as Anat’s” Linn Harding, Physical Therapist “Anat is always an outstanding teacher” Jack Obedzinski Child Psychiatrist Early in her life Anat was a serious student of dance and began participating in Dr Feldenkrais’s movement lessons. In college she was drawn to psychology and then pursued a third interest in statistics, which kept her connected to the sciences and rigorous intellectual activity that she had always loved. She graduated cum laude from Jerusalem University with a Bachelors Degree in Psychology and Statistics.

While continuing her studies toward a Masters in Clinical Psychology at Tel Aviv University, she worked as a psychologist for an Israeli Army program that addressed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Looking for answers in psychology, she found limitations in its verbal approach. She began looking for ways to integrate what she had learned about movement with working with people. She found her way back to the work of Dr Moshe Feldenkrais, who frequently taught classes in Anat's parents' living home when she was very young. She was struck by the immediate results she and others experienced where the seemingly impossible was made possible over and over again.

Through her apprenticeship with Dr. Feldenkrais, she found what she’d been seeking—an approach that had rigorous scientific underpinnings, profound and integrated knowledge, authentic contact and communication with others coupled with high levels of awareness and accountability. At the center of it all was movement as a self-referencing, highly effective means of communicating with the brain to promote change.

For 15 years, she continued her close association with Dr. Feldenkrais, teaching, studying, and traveling with him all over the world. During the same years, she opened her own practice where she taught and treated adults and created her own method for working with children who had developmental problems. It was through her work and miraculous successes with children that she discovered the nine essentials the brain requires in order to transform pain and limitation into vitality, well-being and skill.

“I have observed Anat’s work with severely challenged individuals over a period of more than two decades, and have witnessed transformations that are simply stunning. Over the years, Anat explained to me the premises of her work, and I have become a life-long enthusiast.”

Dr Daniel Graupe, Professor of Bioengineering and Adjunct Professor of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Anat moved to the United States in 1982, where she was able to bring her work to greater number of people while creating larger circles of professional acceptance in the medical and therapeutic communities. More and more people came to her private practice and seminars for help. She has been called a miracle worker for her ability to bring new life and vitality to literally thousands of people. Anat insists she is not a miracle worker, stating that what she teaches people to do is scientific, based on deceptively simple applications that virtually anyone can learn.

Through word of mouth, scores of parents began bringing their children to her for help in treating developmental disorders. She has worked with performing artists world class musicians as well as young musicians at the Tanglewood Music Festival and musicians in the San Francisco Symphony. She has also taught dancers from the Joffrey Ballet and worked with numerous professional athletes. In the past 25 years Anat has trained over 1000 practitioners that bring the knowledge and practice to people all over the world.

Anat’s approach to vital, creative, and energetic life is based not only on the all-important regimens of diet, exercise, and stress management, which many of us are already following, but upon providing the brain with what it requires for us to grow, evolve and thrive.

Health, Alternative Medicine