Rebirthing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. A therapeutic approach focused on emotional healing utilizes specific breathing techniques to foster transformation and renewal in individuals
2. An umbrella term for practices that promote personal development and emotional release through distinctive breathwork sessions
3. A method using controlled breathing patterns aimed at facilitating deep emotional release and personal transformation

Etymology: "Rebirthing" is a straightforward formation: the verb "rebirth" (re- "again" plus "birth") with the suffix "-ing" that turns it into a present participle or gerund. "Rebirth" itself is an English compound, recorded from the 1600s, and it began as a plain word for being born again, in a religious or spiritual sense. The specific sense here, healing through breathing, is a late 20th-century development. The practice was devised in the 1970s by Leonard Orr, an American who developed what he called "rebirthing breathwork," a method of rapid, connected breathing that he claimed could release emotional trauma from birth and early life. The name was a deliberate play on the idea of starting life afresh, so the word's old religious sense of renewal carried over into a therapeutic one.

Synonyms: regeneration, renewal, revival

Antonyms: death, destruction