Body and movement therapist
Cherif Chalakani
Co-Director of SAT France Germany
Cherif is originally from Egypt, was educated in France and later adopted by Mexico. He now lives in Germany. After obtaining a degree in Mathematics and Statistics in Paris, he went on to complete a master’s degree in counselling and human development, as well as body-oriented psychotherapy training at the Wilhelm Reich Institute in Mexico City. From 1982 to 1985, he worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
His meeting with Dr Claudio Naranjo in 1978 marked a turning point in his life. First as a student and later as a collaborator, he began leading various SAT Programme modules in Spain (Babia) from 1987 onwards, and over the years also in France and Germany. From the 1990s onwards, he developed the biographical approach in Mexico through the workshop El Árbol que Canta (“The Singing Tree”).
Since 2012, he has also co-facilitated the Hoffman Process in France. A nomad between countries and cultures, his path brings together the academic world, traditions, and alternative approaches. His work integrates embodied presence through movement and, continuing his exploration of family dynamics, explores the theme of birth. The result of nearly four decades of development, Espacios Nacientes is an approach designed to tend compassionately to birth-related trauma, to lay the foundations for “mothering” and “fathering” our wounded inner child, and to be reborn with a generous vitality open to the space of possibilities. Within the SAT Programme, he facilitates modules 1 to 4, with his work around birth holding a permanent place in SAT 3.