The healing synergy of talking and touching


  • Touch lets you get to the heart of the matter.
  • Talking allows you to understand its meaning.
  • Combining empathic conversation with a gentle, healing touch is transformative.

The Rubenfeld Synergy Method (RSM) was developed in the 1970s by its founder, Ilana Rubenfeld. She began her career as a director and little by little she began to have intense pain in her back and shoulders. This led her on a journey towards personal exploration and self-healing. At that time, she received Alexander Technique sessions that focused on helping her realign her posture and movement. But when she received this gentle touch, her emotions bubbled to the surface, and Master Alexander was incapable of helping her. So she traveled to the other side of New York City to spend time with a Gestalt therapist. But in her therapy sessions her emotions didn’t stir so easily. That was what prompted her to start combining that gentle touch with talking in an effort to integrate the two systems into her body. The result was more than the two separate entities, hence the term “synergy”.

Rubenfeld Synergists are men and women who have come to the same realization or “aha” moment in their careers and lives. They watched Ilana Rubenfeld or another “Synergist” perform the “magic” that happens during a session. They saw, with their own eyes, the transformation of the customer experience by receiving this kind of listening touch and intentional dialogue. That “aha” moment has attracted bodyworkers (massage therapists, chiropractors, Reiki practitioners, nurses, and other practitioners who use touch in their work), psychotherapists (psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, and even psychiatrists who have only used talk when working with clients), homemakers, businessmen, lawyers, medical professionals, artists, musicians, and others in the healing experience of becoming a Certified Rubenfeld Synergist.

Where can you find a qualified practitioner of this unusual and powerful work? Here are the locations of currently certified synergists and the locations keep expanding and this work is reaching hungry clients and curious therapists.

Certified Synergists in the US

  • Washington
  • Oregon
  • California
  • Arizona
  • Mountain
  • Wyoming
  • Colorado
  • New Mexico
  • Minnesota
  • Tennessee
  • Indiana
  • Michigan
  • Ohio
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • South Carolina
  • North Carolina
  • Virginia
  • West Virginia
  • Washington DC.
  • Pennsylvania
  • NY
  • Maryland
  • Delaware
  • New Jersey
  • Connecticut
  • Massachusetts
  • Vermont

Certified Synergists in Canada

  • british columbia
  • alberta
  • ontario california

Certified Synergists in Europe

  • Welsh
  • England
  • Ireland
  • Scotland

Apprentices in Taiwan

If you are looking for a way to heal your body and emotional disorders without drugs, RSM is one path to explore. If you want to help your clients heal from both physical and emotional pain, you can start learning this powerful method in just 7 months. Check the Rubenfeld Synergy website to find a professional in your location and check the Rubenfeld Training Institute website for upcoming trainings.