Who we are

I am an advanced practitioner and instructor of Somatic Pattern Recognition with the Duggan/French Approach (DFA) in private practice, in workshops and training courses, from 1989 to 1999 at the European DFA Center and since 1999 in ermie, the studio for breathing, movement, and structural integration, in Barcelona.

 

I began my professional life as a translator in Barcelona from 1980 to 1989, after completing my degree in Applied Linguistic Sciences at the FAS Germersheim of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz where I graduated in 1979 in German, English and Spanish and in 1980 in French. In 1984 I began the search for a professional alternative.

I liked the idea of contributing to peace in the world, helping people communicate and understand each other, even speaking different languages. In retrospect, as my personal process allowed me to take an interest in the history of my parents and grandparents, I recognize the extent to which the traumas caused by the Third Reich and the world wars determined my choices in life. More than anything I wanted (and still want) to help people understand themselves, to learn to take care of their health and the health of the planet and to live together in peace. 

For this reason, in 1984 I oriented my professional path towards understanding the body, because it is where we can physically create a margin of freedom to decide how to relate to ourselves and others. I studied movement and the interrelationship between body and mind in various schools and personal workspaces that I found within my reach. For the exercise of my profession I opted for DFA Somatic Pattern Recognition, because it is a highly specific and effective way to access and develop the awareness necessary to recognize the habits of the past and not get carried away by them.  In other words, it makes it possible to develop responsiveness in the present moment, instead of being carried away by reactivity. It creates freedom of movement and the ability to discern what is worth holding onto and how to let go of what hurts.

I received the title of DFA Practitioner in 1988, of Advanced DFA Practitioner in 1990 and 1992, and of DFA Instructor in 1997, from the creators of the Duggan/French Approach, Annie B. Duggan and Janie French. In 1999 I founded ermie. A few years later I discovered that the day I did it, September 9, was the same day that, 80 years earlier, my grandfather founded his company, when he returned, traumatized, from the Great War.

Between 1998 and 2004 I studied Family Constellations with Bert Hellinger, Jakob Schneider, Joan Garriga and Paco Sánchez, and Constellations in Organizations with Dr. Gunthard Weber.

When Janie passed away in 2001, Annie and I agreed to continue the research and teaching of DFA.  Between 2008 and 2012, we met halfway between Seattle and Barcelona, in Brattleboro, Vermont, to formulate a series of important aspects of Somatic Pattern Recognition in a research group on the confluence between psyche and matter at the Assisi Institute for the Study of Archetypal Pattern Analysis, led by Dr. Michael Conforti. In 2012 I completed my training as an archetypal pattern analyst.

From 1988 to 2025 I studied and practiced the Dharma according to the teachings of Ji Kwang Dae Poep Sa Nim, Supreme Matriarch of the Yun Hwa Sangha of World Social Buddhism. I took the precepts of a Dharma teacher in 1991 and completed self-development and peace work retreats in 2005, 2007, and 2013 at the Lotus Buddhist Monastery School for Monks and Nuns in Mountainview, Hawaii. During all the years of belonging to the Yun Hwa Sangha I found a space where I could explore the principles of somatic pattern recognition in the dimension of spiritual practice. Over time, my practice was increasingly guided by these principles, until in 2025 it felt the need to focus it entirely in this direction.

Since 2020 I have been participating in some of the activities of Thomas Hübl and the Pocket Project in the research of collective trauma. Over the course of 2026 I participate in a research lab on EarthBound: Collective Trauma Lodged in Place.

Con los pies en el suelo: Forma del cuerpo y visión del mundo was published  by Ediciones Icaria in 1997 and Respirar con árboles: El poder de la respiración y la conexión con la naturaleza by Ediciones Urano in 2013, both in Barcelona, the city where I live. Sporadically, some articles I authored were published in journals such as Cuerpomente, Integral, Medicinas Complementarias and others in Spanish and in the Yearbook of the International Association for Structural Integrators in English. Awaiting publication are my first books written in Catalan, the first two of a triad about the traces of individual and collective trauma, how to recognize them, learn from them, and heal them: L’emperador despullat (The Naked Emperor) and Una escola d’amor (A School of Love). The third will be called Més enllà de la por (Beyond Fear).

From 2001 to 2007 I worked as an external collaborator in Kurklinikum, a Psychotherapeutic and Psychosomatic Clinic for Crisis Treatment, until cuts in public service insurance left a valuable project without finances.

I am a member of the Guild for Structural Integration, GSI, the International Association for Structural Integrators, IASI, the Fascia Research Society, FRS, the Depth Psychology Alliance, the Institute for Science in Society, i-sis, as a friend, and the friends’ association of the Presencing Institute.

Since the late 90s, my interest has been focused on two areas of research: hydration water and the effects of trauma and its transmission from generation to generation.

 

I attended four Fascia Research Congresses, the first in Boston in 2007, in 2015 in Washington, where I presented a poster, in 2018 in Berlin and in 2025 in New Orleans, where I presented another poster; in two IASI Symposiums, in 2005 in Seattle and in 2007 in Boston and at the 6th Interdisciplinary Congress on Lumbar and Pelvic Pain in 2007 in Barcelona, as continued education. In 2012 and 2014, I participated as a speaker in two Body Wisdom Congresses, in Benicàssim, Spain.

At the 7th, 8th and 9th Annual Conference on the Chemistry, Physics and Biology of Water I presented posters on the interaction between hydration water and excess involuntary tension in muscles and connective tissues present in habitual tension patterns, to contrast my hypothesis with water researchers from their respective specialties.