Hendricks, Gay 1945-
HENDRICKS, Gay 1945-
PERSONAL: Born January 20, 1945, in Leesburg, FL; son of Leonard G. (a farmer) and Norma (a writer; maiden name, Canaday) Hendricks; married Linda Fry, May 5, 1966 (divorced, 1972); married; wife's name, Kathlyn; children: (first marriage) Amanda Delle. Education: Rollins College, B.A., 1968; University of New Hampshire, M.Ed., 1970; Stanford University, Ph.D., 1974.
ADDRESSES: Offıce—The Hendricks Institute, 402 West Ojai Ave., Suite 101, PMB 413, Ojai, CA 93023. E-mail—[email protected].
CAREER: Stanford University, Stanford, CA, psychologist, 1973-74; University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, assistant professor of education, 1974-95; Hendricks Institute, Ojai, CA, founder and director, 1995—. Speaker and leader of seminars for business and personal fulfillment; frequent guest on television talk shows.
MEMBER: Association for Transpersonal Psychology.
WRITINGS:
(With Russel Wills) The Centering Book, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1975.
(With James Fadiman) Transpersonal Education, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1976.
(With Thomas B. Roberts) The Second Centering Book: More Awareness Activities for Children and Adults to Relax the Body and Mind, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1977.
(With Carol Leavenworth) How to Love Every Minute of Your Life, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1978.
(With Carol Leavenworth) Cool and Creamy: The Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt Book, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1979.
The Family Centering Book: Awareness Activities the Whole Family Can Do Together, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1979.
The Centered Teacher: Awareness Activities for Teachers and Their Students, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1981.
(With Barry Weinhold) Transpersonal Approaches to Counseling and Psychotherapy, Love Publications (Denver, CO), 1982, revised as Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Transpersonal Approach, Love Publications (Denver, CO), 1993.
(With Jon Carlson) The Centered Athlete: A Conditioning Program for Your Mind, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1982.
Learning to Love Yourself: A Guide to Becoming Centered, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1982.
The Moving Center: Exploring Movement Activities for the Classroom, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1983.
(With wife, Kathlyn Hendricks) Centering and the Art of Intimacy, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1985.
(With Kathlyn Hendricks) Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1990.
The Learning to Love Yourself Workbook, Prentice-Hall (New York, NY), 1990.
(With Kathlyn Hendricks) Radiance!: Breathwork, Movement and Body-Centered Psychotherapy, Wingbow Press (Berkeley, CA), 1991.
(With Kathlyn Hendricks) Bicycle Tours of France, Plume (New York, NY), 1992.
(With Kathlyn Hendricks) Bicycle Tours of Great Britain and Ireland, Plume (New York, NY), 1992.
(With Kathlyn Hendricks) Bicycle Tours of Italy, Plume (New York, NY), 1992.
(With Kathlyn Hendricks) At the Speed of Life: A New Approach to Personal Change through Body-Centered Therapy, Bantam (New York, NY), 1993.
(With Kathlyn Hendricks) Centering and the Art of Intimacy Handbook: A New Psychology of Close Relationships, Fireside Book (New York, NY), 1993.
Conscious Breathing: Breathwork for Health, Stress, Release, and Personal Mastery, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1995.
(With Kate Ludeman) The Corporate Mystic: A Guidebook for Visionaries with Their Feet on the Ground, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1996.
(With Kathlyn Hendricks) The Conscious Heart: Seven Soul-Choices That Create Your Relationship Destiny, Bantam (New York, NY), 1997.
The Ten-Second Miracle: Creating Relationship Breakthroughs, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 1998.
(With Laura Joyce) A Year of Living Consciously: 365 Daily Inspirations for Creating a Life of Passion and Purpose, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 1998.
Conscious Living: Finding Joy in the Real World, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 2000.
Achieving Vibrance: A Seven-Minute-a-Day Plan for Feeling, Looking, and Being Younger, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2001.
Breathing Ecstasy: Finding Sexual Bliss Using the Incredible Power of Breath, Three Rivers Press (New York, NY), 2003.
Conscious Golf: The Three Secrets of Success in Business, Life, and Golf, Rodale Press (Emmaus, PA), 2003.
SIDELIGHTS: Gay Hendricks and his wife Kathlyn are the founders of the Hendricks Institute, a learning center that teaches people from all walks of life how to live more vibrant, conscious lives and enjoy deeper interpersonal relationships. Trained in psychology, Hendricks employs techniques such as centering, breathing exercises, and consciousness-raising meditation to improve everything from sexual intimacy to success in the boardroom. As he and Kathlyn Hendricks comment on their Web site: "Our work over the past three decades has been to assist people in opening to more creativity, love and vitality—through the power of conscious relationship and whole-person learning."
Hendricks's books explain his techniques using instructions and examples from the many thousands of clients with whom he has had personal contact. A Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that Conscious Breathing: Breath Work for Health, Stress Release, and Personal Mastery is a "wise little book" that will aid readers in "attaining wealth-producing qualities of mysticism." Booklist correspondent Whitney Scott likewise noted that in Conscious Breathing, Hendricks "builds a convincing case for his addition to alternative-healing therapies." The Ten-Second Miracle: Creating Relationship Breakthroughs examines how life-altering decisions can be accomplished in a quick burst of time and then refined to achieve lasting improvement. A Publishers Weekly critic deemed the book "a useful tool for momentarily breaking out of old patterns of behavior."
In a Natural Health review, Nathaniel Mead commented that Hendricks and his wife "redefine psychotherapy and challenge the limited goals and slow pace of traditional 'talk therapy.'" Their message, Mead declared, "is simple but profound." Hendricks explained his goals in a simple statement to the Monthly Aspectarian, noting that he works with a "deep conviction that human beings have a great deal more potential than we're using." He added: "Our work is really about helping people remove their limitations in a gentle and straightforward way so that they can experience more love and energy and abundance in their lives."
Hendricks once told CA: "In education and in psychotherapy, my writings attempt to develop a whole-person approach which unifies fact and feeling, cognitive and affective. The centering books contain activities to help people relax, meditate, get in touch with feeling, intuition and the mystical side of ourselves. Most of the information comes from my work as a therapist and teacher, as well as my own processes of personal unification."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 1995, Whitney Scott, review of Conscious Breathing: Breathwork for Health, Stress Release, and Personal Mastery, p. 1296; April 15, 1996, David Rouse, review of The Corporate Mystic: A Guide for Visionaries with Their Feet on the Ground, p. 1401.
Natural Health, May-June, 1994, Nathaniel Mead, review of At the Speed of Life: A New Approach to Personal Change through Body-Centered Therapy.
Psychology Today, November, 1982, R. D. Rosen, review of Learning to Love Yourself, p. 84.
Publishers Weekly, March 20, 1995, review of Conscious Breathing, p. 58; February 19, 1996, review of The Corporate Mystic, p. 194; July 14, 1997, review of The Conscious Heart: Seven Soul-Choices That Create Your Relationship Destiny, p. 76; May 25, 1998, review of The Ten-Second Miracle: Creating Relationship Breakthroughs, p. 75.
ONLINE
Hendricks Institute Web site, http://www.hendricks.com/ (November 7, 2003).
Monthly Aspectarian, http://www.lightworks.com/ (April, 1998), interview with Hendricks.*