Experience, Knowledge, Intuition

Born 1956, mother of an adult son.

Qualifications
Psychotherapist (HP) – grounded in depth psychology, qualified child and adolescent psychologist, music therapist, breath, vocal, and speech therapist, music teacher, special education teacher

Therapeutic Training in
Dance therapy, Gestalt therapy, clinical Hypnotherapy (according to Milton Erickson for Dr. Gunter Schmidt), trauma therapy (Dr. Lutz Besser et al.), “Ritual Body Postures and Ecstatic Trance”® (Prof. Felicitas Goodman), “Inner Family Systems Therapy” (IFS by Richard Schwartz) et al.

Own therapy practice in Heidelberg
Counselling, psychotherapy, coaching. Supervision for psychosocial and therapeutic professions. Specialised in working with altered states of consciousness (trance), in body oriented, creative, integrative psychotherapy and in trauma therapy.

Teaching, Psychotherapy and Research
Since 1990, I have been working as a research assistant and music psychotherapist at the Institute for Medical Psychology at University Hospital Hamburg (until 1992) and Heidelberg (since 1993): conducting research projects, teaching medical students, outpatient psychotherapy and counselling, cultural management, lectures, seminars, and supervision of psychosocial occupational groups.

Research Projects
Management of interdisciplinary research projects at Heidelberg University Hospital, which include:

  • “Voice and Music in Psychotherapy”:
    An intervention study on the effectiveness of group psychotherapy based on music therapy and the exploration of structural and processual aspects of vocal communication in psychotherapy
  • “Sound and Trance in EEG –
    Brain mapping of various trance induction methods in a ritual setting”
  • Several months of field research in the jungle of Peru:
    “Sound – Trance – Healing. The Sound and Pattern-Medicine of the Shipibo-Conibo in the Amazon Lowlands of Peru”
  • „Ritual Body Postures: An empirical study of a neurophysiological unique altered state of consciousness”
  • Current research:
    “Music Therapy and Depression: An evaluation and randomised-controlled intervention study using psychobiological markers”

Publications
More than 100 publications on Sabine Rittner’s research projects and clinical work have been published in Germany and internationally. In numerous broadcasting and TV programs and also journalistic articles was reported on her work.To view a comprehensive list of publications, including these research projects, please see the “Publications” section.

Since 1980 freelance lecturer, teaching assignments, seminar coach (see: Seminars and Further Training) at home and abroad (Europe, Japan, USA etc.).

Lectures
Numerous times a year, Sabine Rittner gives scientific, as well as illustrative, experience-oriented lectures in Europe, the United States, and Japan on current topics of her field. Exemplary Topics:

  • Sound – Trance – Healing: Altered States of Consciousness Between Shamanism, Science, and Psychotherapy
  • Rituals, Trance, Ecstasy – Using Old Ways to Create New Ties
  • Bleed into the Earth: The Ritualised Use of Ecstatic Trance in Psychotherapy – Research and Experience Praxis
  • The Sensuality of Singing – The Voice as an Effective Tool in Music Therapy
  • The Voice as a Medium for Inducing Altered States of Consciousness
  • Internal and External Spaces: Our Human Body as Sound Producer and Recipient
  • Ghost Chants: The Sound and Pattern Medicine of the Shipibo-Conibo in Eastern Peru
  • Music and Cancer: Music Therapy in the Treatment of Radiotherapy Patients
    Body oriented Music Psychotherapy with Patients of Chronic Dysphonia

Since 1991, co-organiser of four international conventions on “Worlds of Consciousness” of the European College for the Study of Consciousness (ECBS) and management of various symposium on these topics.

Ritual Body Postures and Ecstatic Trance
Long-standing close collaboration and friendship with the anthropologist and consciousness researcher Professor Felicitas Goodman. Co-founder of the Felicitas Goodman Institute in Germany and member of the training team on the teaching and research of ecstatic trance states, coach for “Ritual Body Postures and Ecstatic Trance”® (see www.Felicitas-Goodman-Institut.de).

Cultural Management
Since 1993, founded and managed the very extensive public culture and advanced training programme called “Zukunftsmusik” (music of the future) at the Institute of Medical Psychology at University Hospital Heidelberg: lectures, concerts, workshops, seminars, trainings, exhibitions, etc.

Artistic work with experimental movement theatre, sound performance, as well as painting and sculptural ceramics (see www.SabineRittner-Kunst.de).

What I really love about my work:
For 40 years now, I have been helping people find their way back to their own SELF. With my knowledge, my experience, my intuition, and spirituality, I create safe spaces where original beauty and vitality of each human being can unfold. This leads to feedback, a revived joy of life, and new creative and transition powers. The methods I use during this process are diverse and adapted to the requirements of the moment and to everyone’s personal needs.

To read more on this, please see
Interview with Sabine Rittner on her Therapeutic Attitude and on Music Therapy, 2002
Interview with Sabine Rittner on “Trance is not at all strange to us”, 2012
Interview with Sabine Rittner on Altered States of Consciousness and Peruvian Shamanism, 2015