Criticism
Holotropic Breathwork has been subject to criticism, on points of medical and spiritual concern.
- In Ken Wilber's "Eye of Spirit" (1996) he criticizes Grof's assertion that in order to access transpersonal states of consciousness a person must necessarily first regress to the perinatal state to resolve the trauma of (and/or around) birth. Wilber states that while this is sometimes the case, it is so only in a limited number of cases.
- In 1993 the Scottish Charities Office commissioned a report into the technique, having received complaints concerning its implementation at the Findhorn Foundation, a registered charity. The report was written by Anthony Busuttil (Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh), whose opinions caused the Findhorn Foundation to suspend its breathwork programme. In its report on the event, The Scotsman also published several critical comments concerning Holotropic Breathwork as a form of therapy, made by Dr Linda Watt of Leverndale Psychiatric Hospital in Glasgow. In response to literature about breathwork supplied by the newspaper, Dr Watt expressed professional concerns that the hyperventilation technique might cause seizure or lead to psychosis in vulnerable people. (The Scotsman, 14 October 1993).
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