About Binnie
Binnie A Dansby is a pioneering and inspired international teacher and facilitator of human transformation. She is also a gifted therapist, philosopher and author. In essence, Binnie is dedicated to transforming the quality of life through the acknowledgement of the effects of birth on human consciousness and culture.
Her work and expression lives at the place where the human potential movement, with its emphasis on psychological and spiritual inquiry, comes together with a field of exploration into pregnancy and being born that itself takes into consideration that beings are learning and conscious in the womb and at birth.
She has created a coherent, applied and integrated philosophical model and educational structure that is relevant across a broad spectrum of life experience.
Binnie's accomplishments in life cross the spectrum from singer-actress and New York fashion designer to mother of two sons and grandmother of seven. She participated in pioneering rebirthing Breathwork with Leonard Orr beginning in 1975, trained as a clinical hypnotherapist with Dr. Joseph Spear, and is a devoted student of the teachings of Master O. Mikael Aivanhov, Tibetan Buddhism, and A Course in Miracles.
Impassioned by the impact of exploring and healing her own understanding and experience of birth, in 1977 Binnie made a significant shift, leaving her career in design to begin her therapeutic Breathwork practice. In 1980, her work evolved from private practice and training to more focus on pregnancy, birth and the first year of life as the foundation of the systemic patterns active in our lives and culture. This focus was motivated by her participation in the preparation for and attendance with the first water birth in the USA in October 1980.
Paying attention to pre-natal experience and birthing practices remembered and expressed by adults, privately and in groups, inspired her to deepen and listen to Beings in utero and at birth under many varied circumstances, i.e. home birth, both dry and in water, hospital settings, and in surgery for Caesarean section. She has supported hundreds of births. She says, “Birth is my greatest teacher and guide!”
Her work with water birth and conscious birthing practices led to appearances in the media including the Phil Donahue Show, broadcast across the USA and internationally. An invitation by the British Society of Homeopaths to speak about water birth at a symposium for midwives in September 1987 led to more European invitations and her move to live and teach in England in September 1988.
Through her determined inquiry into what it means to be a conscious human being, Binnie has created, developed, and led a system/school of healing called SOURCE Process and Breathwork. This body of work forms the foundation for her educational offerings, all of which are intended to support the development of individual consciousness to the ultimate realisation and integration of unity in all of life.
Binnie’s profound impact on those who have worked with her has depth, breadth and sustainability, impacting people in their personal and professional spheres.
The work facilitates the safe and effective release and healing of the life-long wounds of fear, inadequacy, and limitation engendered by the experiences of ‘the primal time’ – from conception and into the first years of life. It empowers each person through the use of practical and powerful tools, including techniques, inspiration, and the breath. Each individual is honoured as being a unique spark of the Divine and is encouraged to bring forth and express their creativity and joy. With individuals, and in both large and small groups, processes have been designed to facilitate a personal experience of self as an individual and as a part of a greater and unified whole.
“If we have no bridge to the unconscious depths that drive us, our rational attempts to correct our situation are merely Band-Aids. They work only so long as we remain cut off from the living fire inside. When that fire blazes forth, our Band-Aids go up in smoke.” Marion Woodman, CONSCIOUS FEMININITY.
Binnie has always attracted people from diverse vocations, and from all aspects of society to her trainings and workshops. Engineers, architects, business people, doctors, midwives and nurses, designers, parents, consultants, teachers and artists, as well as psychotherapy and Breathwork professionals are all in the mix of the many hundreds of people who have experienced transformation through Binnie’s guidance and vision.
SOURCE Process and Breathwork evolved from being known as ‘Healing Birth Rebirthing’ for the first years of training programs in England and in Europe.
Those trainings have been presented under the following names:
‘Healing Birth, the Transformation of Life’ which ran in Germany from 1988 to 1998;
‘Birth into Being’ which ran in England from 1989 – 1999;
‘Your New Birth’ which ran in Denmark from 1990 – 2010; and
‘Source Training and Community’ which ran in Estonia from 2000 to 2012.
The trainings run over the academic year with each year standing in its own right. At the completion of the 3rd year a diploma is awarded, with those who complete the 4th year qualifying as SOURCE Process and Breathwork practitioners.
Each of the trainings began with 18 - 20 participants enrolled in the first year. Over the years the first and foundation year typically grew to an average of 40 participants. Weekends that were open to the public could attract up to 80 participants, introducing the core SOURCE principles.
An average of 10 graduates per year received their 3-year Source diploma in each of the trainings in the different countries. Approximately 350 people have graduated with the three-year diploma, with about half of these having completed the fourth year.
In Estonia and Denmark the SOURCE graduates have evolved to organize and lead the trainings, with Binnie being a regular teacher and advisor to these processes.
Denmark is home to a SOURCE Process and Breathwork based training known as Åndedrætsterapi (Breathwork)Training’. It is a 3-year education, diploma program for personal and professional development program facilitated by Katrine Nini Christensen. Since 2009 the ‘Ecstatic Empowering Birth Preparation and Support Program’ has been available to SOURCE graduates in Estonia. In the program they learn to teach and support pregnant women and their partners. There are 20 graduates who, under Binnie’s teaching and direction, continue to evolve this work.
Binnie is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the International Breathwork Training Alliance and is regularly invited to participate in conferences and workshops around the world, including:
Key speaker at the first Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (formerly known as Pre and Perinatal Psychology Association of North America) Conference, Toronto, Canada, 1983. Binnie’s paper on Underwater Birth was subsequently selected by Dr. Thomas Verny to be included as chapter 10 in the book Pre & Perinatal Psychology, an Introduction, 1987, published by Human Sciences Press.
Keynote address at first International Waterbirth Conference, Portland, Oregon, USA 2000
Keynote address at Estonian Midwifery Association, 80th Anniversary Conference in Tallinn, Estonia, 2007
Speaker at Birthlight Conference, Cambridge, 2006
Invited to present “Original Intimacy” workshop in Cape Town, 2016
Key speaker at “Healthy Birth, Healthy Earth” International Conference, Findhorn Foundation, Scotland, in September 2016.
Most recently she has been invited by Robert Holden to be a teacher on his October 2016, ACIM Retreat in London.
Binnie is dedicated to transforming the quality of life through the acknowledgement of the effects of birth on human consciousness and culture.