SAT
In the early seventies Claudio's teaching crystallized into a non-profit corporation called SAT Institute, where SAT stands not only for "Seekers After Truth" but to the Sanskrit word for Being and, through phonetic symbolism, to the trinitarian anthropology that pervades his program and view of the psyche. They refer to Gurdjieff's affirmative, negative, and neutralizing forces and to Tótila Albert's three "inner persons": father, mother and child.
As described elsewhere, SAT has purported to be a psycho-spiritual enterprise embracing both a contemplative and a therapeutic aspect. Meditation practice begins with mindfulness training (attention to ongoing experience in the present), proceeds to one-pointedness and inner quiet, and then to mind inquiry, where the emphasis is that of non verbal apprehension of consciousness in itself. The therapeutic aspect of the program consists in a guided process through which participants are introduced to a rich curriculum of approaches comprising the psychology of enneatypes, a deeply transformative re-elaboration of childhood memories, feelings and modes of relationship and Gestalt therapy. (Since the beginning of SAT programs in Europe, some of the world's most prominent gestalt therapists have been part of its staff as peer therapy-supervisors).
Other aspects of the therapy curriculum are an original psychotherapy practicum, a novel form of therapeutic drama, the cultivation of spontaneity and surrender through movement, sensory awareness (in both stillness and movement) and a process involving regression to prenatal experiences (inspired in rebirthing, in Grof's holotropic breathing and in the "tri-une view" of the self) which more often than not leaves a permanent favorable effect in people's minds and lives. Though mainly experiential, the component workshops in SAT are presented in the context of the necessary understanding of personality, transformation and meditation - partly mediated by teaching tales.
SAT programs have become very successful in many parts of the world and have had considerable influence in the Spanish and Italian Gestalt communities. The approach has also thrived in Brazil where psychotherapy is not so prominent, and people seek help mostly from churches and shamans.. The programs have also, more recently, reached Australia and Germany. More importantly, however, SAT is beginning to enter the world of education and for more on this go to SAT-in Education.
