ABSTRACT Interviewer and Hellerworker Greer Bailey asks Joseph Heller to tell the story of creating the structural integration school, Hellerwork® International. Starting with his early life in Poland during World War II, to studying aerospace engineering at Caltech, to when Heller met Dr. Ida Rolf when he was already very interested in the humanistic movement in California in the 1970s. Bailey asks Heller to reflect on how he integrated the essential elements Rolf’s structural integration with what he felt was essential movement and psychology theory to guide the client’s healing experience.

Joseph Heller was born in Poland, June 15, 1940. He received his early education in Paris, graduated from Cal Tech in 1962 with a degree in mathematics, and worked as an aerospace engineer at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Ca. Heller became involved with humanistic psychology and eventually left engineering. He became the director of Kairos, a Los Angeles center for human development, and participated in year-long training programs in Bioenergetics and Gestalt, as well as shorter workshops with Buckminster Fuller, Werner Erhard, John Lilly, Virginia Satir, and Hal and Sinda Stone. He became a Rolfer in 1972 and continued to study through 1978 with Dr. Rolf. In 1973 he became a Structural Patterner after learning Patterning from Judith Aston. He received advanced training with Brugh Joy, a noted physician, author, and innovator in the field of preventive medicine and the use of energy as a means of healing. He became the first president of the Rolf Institute in 1975.