Senses Wide Open
A Body-Based Approach to Self-Investigation
Johanna Putnoi

Senses Wide Open
A Body-Based Approach to Self-Investigation
Johanna Putnoi
Who Is Johanna Putnoi?
Johanna has studied directly with seminal figures in all of her fields 
of interest: modern dance pioneers Martha Graham and Chloe Scott; educator Ivan Illich; mind/body trail-blazers Moshe Feldenkrais, Robert K. Hall, Richard Strozzi Heckler, Wendy Palmer, Emilie Conrad; and psychological/spiritual thinkers Helen Palmer, Claudio Naranjo and Carl Whitaker. Her students include psychologists, bodyworkers, actors, dancers, screenwriters, business consultants, work teams, health care professionals and enneagram enthusiasts.

A popular workshop leader at the prestigious Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California since 1989, Johanna has been teaching workshops and trainings in Lomi Somatics and the Enneagram since 1980. A counselor in private practice in Menlo Park, California, Johanna has been a regular presenter at the annual International Enneagram Conference since its inception. Most recently, she has been highlighting the body language of the nine types with paintings of the old masters.

Johanna has published a number of journal articles including the educational magazine, De Schooling, De Conditioning (Portola Institute 1971); Somatics Through the Lens of the Enneagram (Enneagram Monthly 1996); An Introduction to Somatics (Massage Magazine ’04). Her book Senses Wide Open: The Art and Practice of Living in Your Body brings her work to life with clear prose, profound teaching stories, and "try this" exercises that offer readers the real experience of living life with senses wide open.  
For more than thirty years, Johanna Putnoi has explored the relationship between ideas, emotions and the sensate language of the body. She has worked to help people develop a new awareness 
and respect for the body's instinctive intelligence, 
the mind's natural clarity, and the heart’s emotional wisdom.

An expert in the groundbreaking field of Somatics, Johanna is an author, a counselor in private practice, and a certified teacher of Lomi Somatics as well as the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. She holds degrees from New York University and the American University in Paris.  
Praise for Johanna Putnoi and Senses Wide Open
​SENSES WIDE OPEN helps us do so by sensitively teaching us about the A-B-C's of the natural wisdom of the body:

  • Allowing Bodily Connections
  • Accentuating Bodily Compassions
  • Alleviating Bodily Concerns

I expect that the message from this gifted somatic therapist will "rub you the wrong way"- out of a mindless focus on psyche and toward a mindful focus on 
your soma.
           - Philip G. Zimbardo, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Stanford University 

This book is lovingly written with clarity, warmth, and kindness. Johanna Putnoi brings the reader into direct contact with the profound healthful nature of the natural intelligence of the body. Then she goes on to show us how to distinguish the difference between clear thinking and neurotic thinking, healthy embodiment and hedonism, intellectualizing and genuine feeling. Senses Wide Open brings us back to our bodies with practical and splendid exercises. I heartedly recommend it.
               - David N. Daniels, M.D., Clinical Professor, Stanford Medical School; Co-founder  Enneagram Professional Training    

Women approaching mid-life and menopause know firsthand what it means to feel disconnected from their bodies. Far from respecting the body's natural wisdom, we sometimes feel betrayed by it. Johanna Putnoi calms us down, helps us breathe, and shows us how to embrace our bodies and rediscover ourselves within them. I really love this book!
                - Naomi Lucks, Co-author, A Woman's Midlife Companion: The Essential Resource for Every Woman¹s Journey  

Johanna Putnoi's intelligence, wit, compassion and perceptive insights combine to create liberating and transforming somatic work. Her ingenuity lies not only in her ability to teach people how to see themselves without judgment but also in her skill in encouraging them to accept, nurture and develop the best within themselves. This is not empty new age spirituality or trivial popular psychology. Johanna's work offers substance, integrity and grace.
              - Rose McDermott, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Brown University

Johanna Putnoi has developed a fascinating thesis rooted in somatic knowing. Her book promises to be a timely call for a return to the senses and to bodily wisdom as the wellspring of pleasure, knowledge, and healing. Her teaching is inspirational. 
                  -Janice L. Ross​, Dance Division Director; Professor Stanford University

Johanna Putnoi is a unique and remarkable teacher/writer in the field of applied somatics. With this book she promises to bring the core wisdom pertaining to body intelligence and awareness to light.
                  - Sabonfu & Melidoma Somé, Teachers and Authors 
​ 
Johanna Putnoi has given us, out of her many
years of work and study, one of the first truly accessible guidebooks of Somatics. These pages are clear and artistic expressions of an incredibly exciting way to learn about ourselves. With great gratitude to Johanna, I invite you to enter into this study of the life in the human body. It could change the way you view yourself and the world. It could even bring more compassion into the history of the human race, and we could all benefit from that.
   - Robert K. Hall, M.D., Poet; Co-Founder, Lomi School

The vital message in Johanna Putnoi's new book is profound in its elegant simplicity: Let the course of your life's journey be guided by the body's compass. In our technologically constructed world where cerebral cyberspace replaces people space, and virtual reality substitutes for human sensation and sensuality, it's time to return to some fundamentals of our existence.