Alfonso Caycedo

Biography

After his early education in Colombia, Caycedo moved to Spain to study in the faculty of medicine at the University of Madrid where he became a doctor of medicine and surgery. He specialised in psychiatry and neurology under the direction of Lopez Ibor, a Spanish professor of psychiatry.

He noticed that many people were wary of the term hypnosis as it is often associated with something mysterious and even magical. For this reason, he coined the term sophrology in October 1960 and the same year he founded the first department of clinical sophrology at Madrid University. At this time, sophrology is in fact very close to hypnosis, although sophrology advocated a more humanist approach to the patient.

Alfonso Caycedo met Ludwig Binswanger, the Swiss founder of phenomenological psychiatry, in 1963. Caycedo became familiar with the method of investigation of the consciousness proposed by Husserl and Heidegger and this definitively influenced the direction of his research on the consciousness. Caycedo tried to democratise existential phenomenology through sophrology. He proposed to rediscover phenomena of modified states of consciousness with a phenomenology-inspired approach.

He spent time in India where he learnt Yoga beside the great Yogis whom he met through Indian doctors. In the Himalayas, he met one of the doctors of the 14th Dalai-Lama, and discovered methods such as Tummo which allows one to reach modified states of consciousness. Caycedo also visited Japan where he was equally impressed by Zazen. Caycedo recognised the importance of the body in these different methods. This training does not require any particular belief system.

In Barcelona from 1968 to 1982, Caycedo gained his Professorship at the School of Psychiatry at the University of Barcelona in the faculty of medicine. During this period, Caycedo did extensive experimentation and research on his principle of Dynamic Relaxation.

From 1982 to 1988, Caycedo created sophrology in Bogotá. It was presented in 1985 at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in the Charcot amphitheatre.

From 1988 to present, Professor Caycedo continues to develop and improve the sophrology method in Andorra. In 1989, he created the new level of Master of Caycedian Sophrology and founded the International University of Caycedian Sophrology (Sophrocay International).

Sophrology is well-established in France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and South America. In 2005 a sophrology centre was set up in Geneva and London to bring sophrology to the English-speaking world.