Ramon V. Albareda
Creator and consultat of Estel
I am Ramon. I was born in a country house in Vallferosa (Catalunya, Spain). Nature was always around me when I was a child and it became the most important “university”, because I learnt how the natural process of life works and many other important things. That first experience settled the base of my personal life and my professional career.
Ramon V. Albareda
This is Ramon. I was born in a country house in Vallferosa (Catalunya, Spain). Nature was always around me when I was a child and it became the most important “university”, because I learnt how the natural process of life works and many other important things. That first experience settled the base of my personal life and my professional career.
I have always believed that human beings are able to be much happier than how they actually are. It has always been a passion of mine to work tirelessly in order to find different ways to deeply understand people. And, in fact, I have always tried to help them reach effectively a full and holistically healthy life.
Looking back, I could divide my life in two big periods. The first one is defined by practical and theoretical research so as to find a way that trully helps us to be happier. That is why I got a Teology and Psicology degree and I got interested in human sexuality, understanding it as primary energy and source of life. In my opinion human sexuality is an important key for people’s happiness and unhapiness. I lived a great different amount of experiences which taught me many things —and which could not be learnt in a university—. Among them, in 1967 I had a near-death experience which reinforced my vocation for helping people to discover the real sense of life and to live it fully.
In January 1976, I created ESTEL, Personal Growth Centre and Integral Studies School in Barcelona. This was a pioneering Personal Growth center in Spain. Here you have the beginning of my second period. During that period I found an effective answer to my convictions, a path which granted me information and orientation in order to know the real sense of life and to discover new tools which help all of us reach holistic health and real happiness. I can say that ESTEL has been —and we hope it will still be— a school of life.
ESTEL’S wide, long and deep experience has proved my first convictions and the structure of the centre has been a very suitable place. Here I have been able to develop my vocation for being a care giver and an inspiring person to people who feel their life may be different.
In this second period, I have been learning and training non-stop. In 1978 I organized the first Humanistic Psycology traning program in Spain with professionals from different countries. In 1981, Carmen Cánovas, Albert Rams, Mª Antonia Plaxats and I created the Humanistic Psycotherapy Institute where we taught in different cities from Spain. In 1988 Marina T. Romero and I created our own training school of Comprehensive Holism (now it is currently called Holsitic Transformation). This school was created from our own holistic point of view and from our own personal and professional experience. Also, we were the first to use the term “holos” to define our approach.
From 2000, Marina T. Romero and I were invited to work in California Institute for Integral Studies, in San Francisco, and in Esalen Institute, in California. This latter institution is considered to be the cradel of the Humanist Psycology. Being able to teach in such an emblematic place, especially the Big House where the great fathers of Humanist Psycology worked (such Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, etc.), meant the world to both of us. It was a unique and indescribable experience, especially if we have in mind we were the first Spaniards who went there to teach some classes in Spanish with English translation.
From 2004 I studied Biological Medicine and the QXCI-SCIO system. I got the Quantum en los sistemas Quantum Biofeedback y Biorresonancia Cuántica QXCI-SCIO master’s degree from Biofísica Aplicada foundation with the supervision of William Nelson, the creator of those systems. In March 2009, I got the Honorary Membership of Biofísica Aplicada foundation.
I have been invited to a wide amount of TV and radio channels, and I participated in different publications in Spain, USA, UK and Russia.
In January 2017, Glòria B. Playà and I gave a boost to ESTEL’s activities. We started a new period in which we want to gather and integrate all the work done through so many years. We are creating a professional network in order to continue with this life approach (Holistic Transformation) and, therefore, to guide people with this original and genuine work which hasn’t flourished completely yet.
Now I am currently retired, but I am still carrying out some research on Holistic Transformation. Also I advice and guide our ESTEL’S new professional team. From time to time I still give some talks and some professional help, if needed, in trainings or in consulting sessions with people who feel attracted to ESTEL’S approach of Holistic Transformation.
Glòria B. Playà
General coordinator
I am Glòria. I was born in Terrassa (Catalunya, Spain). One of my most treasured memories from my childhood and teenage years were my summer holidays in a very little village next to Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park.There I had my frist real contact with nature and from that moment I have always had those memories in my mind as a real life exerience.
Glòria B. Playà
Since I was a little girl, I felt something inside which used to question everything society taught me. I knew life could be so much different than what I was taught I was suppose to expect from it. That feeling got stronger in my teenage years and finally it consolidated in my adulthood.
I studied Education because I loved life and those who share the purest part of it: children. This vocation has become an ongoing research to find new ways to guide people, to help hem develop and to help them grow keeping always in mind the essence of life: the first innocence.
I have been involved in cooperative projects focused on childhood in Cameroon and Nepal. I have work in private and public schools and I have been carrying out some personal research, I have experienced different educational methods from pedagogies such as Francisco Ferrer Guardia, Maria Montessori and Rebeca Wild.
In 1994 I got to know ESTEL, Personal Growth Centre and Integral Studies School, in Barcelona for the first time. Here it started a new period in Holistic Transformation. At the beginning, it started as something personal, participating in Sexuality and Holistic Comprehension workshop and Human Relationship workshop. These workshops were taught in ESTEL Center and in Esalen Institute (California, USA). Later, while learning in ESTEL Centre about a new holistic approach, my transformation process helped me get involved doing different works in ESTEL Centre. That is how I got to know deeper that holistic concept of life.
From 2012 I promoted a project named Grupo Autogestionado de Transformación Holística (GATH), which is a very innovative project because it applies holistic approach in social field. Finally, in September 2016 this project was consolidated with a solid promoting comission which I belong to.
I got a Holistic Transformation diploma specialized in Holotherapy and Education. From 2014 I depeloped a new structure in Holistic Transformation and I named it Holistic Consciousness (HC). That came from the integration of my personal and professional process and it gave answers to the great desire of change and transformations needed in the world of education. I organized workshops for teachers, parents and children and I taught in them. Those workshops were focused on how to implement our approach in classes. People who participated in those workshops appreciated them so much, I felt the need to develop Holistic Consciousness so as to make it available to people and help them develop their own approach.
In January 2017, Ramon V. Albareda and I give a new boost to ESTEL’s activities. We start a new period in which we want to gather and integrate all the work done through so many years. We are creating a professional network in order to continue with this life approach (Holistic Transformation) and, therefore, to guide people with this original and genuine work which hasn’t been fourished completely yet.
I feel completely happy and grateful for the new direction we are going to, personally and professionally, trying to integrate this holistic concept of life.
Jorge N. Ferrer
Coordinator in California (USA) and other countries
I am Jorge. I was born in Barcelona (Catalunya, Spain). Motivated by research and deep knowledge of human being, in either their altered behaviour or their non-developed potentialities, I got a Clinical Psycology degree in Barcelona University. I participated in research projects in the same university and I was an intern in the ERASMUS program in Cardiff University, United Kingdom.
Jorge N. Ferrer
Motivated by the research of innovative ways for a comprehensive development and due to good university results, in 1993 I received a grant from “La Caixa” Foundation and I was an intern in the Formación de Personal Investigador (FPI) program, organized by Generalitat de Catalunya. Then I got the chance to choose a univeristy for my PhD and after a long and thorough reseach I chose California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, California, USA. I decided to go there because it was the most innovative Centre in which one could deeply learn about the human being and it is regarded as the most advanced Centre with specific Human Sciences and Transpersonal Psycology postgraduate, master and doctorate degrees.
I have always been interested in oriental disciplines and so I decided to have a doctorate in East-West Psychology from CIIS. Although it is not common, once I graduated, they offered me a position in CIIS as a professor assistant in East-West Psychology Department. Later I became a professor and finally the Director of the Department.
I am a pioneer of new Transpersonal Psychology approach, named Participatory Spirituality. I have written some books published in USA and transated into different languages, including Spanish. Also I usually participate in some journals on topics such as consciousness, educations and Transpersonal Psychology.
I received the Fetzer Institute’s Presidential Award for my work on consciousness studies and the organization Religions for Peace invited me to the United Nations. There I worked as an advisor for a project focused on the resolution of interreligious global conflicts.
I was the main collaborator in the Sexuality/Holistic Comprehensive presentation in California, one of the practical uses of Holistic Transformation, created by Ramon V. Albareda and Marina T. Romero.
Team members
Anny Grau Beneteau
Holotherapist
This is Anny. I can say my life has been a long sequence of unexpected events which (or maybe especially because of that) have become magic or synchronized events. All of them have shaped my identity with which I feel completely comfortable. In fact, I consider it to be the greatest gift of the world.
Anny Grau Beneteau
I was born in Vendôme (France). At the age of 4 I learned how to read and from that moment on I started devour my entire mother’s library. Although back then I did not understand almost anything of what I read, I took great pleasure in reading. I still do. Noir novels awoke my dream of being a policewoman or a lawyer… Sometimes I get the feeling that those dreams were anticipating my vocation.
Time went by and I continued reading, learning and studying, mainly philosophy, psychology and music (another family hobby, since three of my siblings are musicians).
Some changes in my family made us move to Sabadell, my hometown. There I worked as a secretary, as a teacher and as a translator. In 1970 another magic event struck my whole life: my daughter was born.
When I turned 30 I realized something is missing. My childhood dream was not fulfilled and even though I felt comfortable being a secretary, I also felt a bit stuck among so many paperwork. I wanted to start working face-to-face with people.
In 1982 I started training in a place which later on would be called ESTEL, Personal Growth Centre and Integral Studies School. Back then, that place was named Humanistic Psychotherapy. In that school some distinguished professors were teaching, such as Manuel Villegas and Antonio Caparrós, who was the Psychology Faculty dean for some years. I learned a great variety of humanistic approaches and techniques, taught by different teachers: Meeting Technique (Ramon V. Albareda), Psychodrama (Albert Rams), Transactional Analysis (Andrés Senlle), Gestalt Therapy (Paco Peñarrubia), Bioenergetics (Andreu Pamplona), Regression Technique (Pep Pich), Massage and Sensitive Contact (María Antonia Plaxats), etc.
My learning desire did not diminish; therefore from 1987 to 1991 I received some complementary diplomas such as English First Certificate, ChiroMassage (Escuela Sagrera Ferrándiz), and Natural Medicine (Centro Amacvi). Also I kept learning philosophical and esoteric disciplines with Professor Enrique Eskenazi (Cabala, Tarot, Numerology, Astrology and Jungian Psychology).
In 1991 I received Holotherapist diploma from ESTEL, Personal Growth Centre and Integral Studies School, although I strated working as a Holotherapist in 1989 as an intern student. For some time I worked in Psicoterapia Humanista Ámbito in Barcelona. I worked as a holotherapist for individuals and couples and at the same time I organized teenage groups and dream analysis for women in groups.
In 1993 I started learning about the care for people with severe mental disorders in Joia Association and after a year I started working there as a therapist. Soon enough I became a member of the Association and, later on, I joined the Board of Directors of the association (which some time later became a foundation with the same name.
In 2000 I participated in a training course in Psychopathological Organizations, organized by Asociación Catalana de Psicoterapia Psicoanalítica and taught by Josep Maria Recasens and Jorge Tizón.
From 2002 until 2013 I worked and learned restlessly, I participated in different supervision groups with different professionals
From 2007 until 2012 I worked as a therapist while I was CEPI codirector, Comprehensive Psychotherapy Centre, with José Antonio Alemán.
In 2013 I resigned as a member in the Board of Directors of Joan Foundation and I retired. From 2013 and up to now I help and participate in guiding and volunteering tasks in ESTEL, Personal Growth Centre and Integral Studies School.
I can say I am happy and grateful with my work helping people with problems or people who wish to achieve a comprehensive development in Holotherapy. By doing this, I feel I reached my vocation.
Anna Soler i Cairó
Holistic Masseuse
I am Anna. I was born in Sant Cugat (Barcelona), in a house surrounded by forest and with a busy social environment. From an early age I felt a great attraction towards the arts, especially for singing, dance and theatre, which allowed me to express myself from the body. I first contacted Estel in 1998, driven by the need to find peace and well-being, but also with a great curiosity to explore new ways of living. It is here that I have discovered the art of massage and Holistic Meditation as a powerful tool for personal growth.
Anna Soler i Cairó
I have participated in different Holistic Transformation groups at Estel since I was 18, with professionals such as Ramon V. Albareda, Marina T. Romero, María Ángeles Arnau and Jose Antonio Alemán.
My desire for knowledge led me to study Philosophy at the UAB (Barcelona) and my passion drove me to study dramatic art at the International School of Theatre of Jacques Lecoq (Paris), a great European reference in the theatre of movement. I collaborated in France on various multidisciplinary artistic projects such as the Jeune Théâtre Laboratoire Européen and Zigzag Company. It was during this period that I realized that my passion was for the relationships that are woven between the body and the emotions. This is why I am now a body therapist.
Since 2008 I have trained in chiromassage, Kansa and Shirochampi massage, traditional Thai massage and reflexology (ISMET), naturopathy (Heilpraktiker Institut), ayurveda, Bach flowers, aromatherapy, natural aesthetics and reiki with Monica Sáez Flor. I also started my training in holotherapy at Estel, collaborating as an assistant in Holistic Transformation groups with Jose Antonio Alemán at the Centre for Integral Psychotherapy (CEPI).
With ten years of experience and having worked from the Caribbean to the French Alps (USA, France, United Kingdom, Denmark), training myself and looking for different ways to understand health and wellness, I have been creating a truly holistic type of massage. The purpose of this massage is to promote the integration between body, vital energy, emotions, feelings, mind and the social environment, taking as a reference the laws that regulate the natural processes of life. Experience confirms day by day that this is the path that brings us to true happiness. I put all the techniques that I have acquired over the years at the service of the health of those who place their trust in my hands.
The birth of my second child awakened my deep need to continue developing professionally along the path of well-being through a healthy structure, which allows me a certain balance between personal and professional aspects. This is why I am especially happy to work at Estel Centre for Personal Growth and the School of Integral Studies, in Barcelona, an organisation that I have been closely linked to, and to be able to offer my services as a masseuse and body therapist at this centre.
I can attend in Catalan, Spanish, English, French and Italian.
Mercè Galimany Tort
Logistics
This is Mercè. I was born in Sant Martí Sarroca (Catalunya, Spain). My childhood and teenage years were struck by my mother’s premature death and my narrow-minded family did not help. With the birth of my first child, I felt an overwhelming urge to have some changes in my life. ESTEL, Personal Growth Centre and Integral Studies School, was the answer to my need for changes.
Mercè Gallimany Tort
I was guided by intuition when I had to choose my job. I worked as a teacher until I recently retired and I was very happy doing my job because I was able to give the best of me.
In 1982 I arrived to a rural school which was still run with the mentality of Franco’s dictatorship. That small group of teachers always worked connected to creative energy. The school changed very much within a few years due to our work and motivation.
We participated in the creation of Escuela Rural de Catalunya and we founded a ZER (rural school zone) with some other schools from the same area.
I became the director of the school and of ZER. I always tried to promote teamwork and complementary potentialities.
Since I always wanted to be a coherent and constructive person who bases their relationships on love and care, I always kept in touch with ESTEL through out the years. I worked with Ramon V. Albareda and Marina T. Romero in a personal level and as a part of a group. Holistic Transformation has always given me constructive referents to evolve as a person and as a professional.
In 2003, I included Emotional Education in ZER because of that growing need to join those two worlds. We took as inspiration Anna Carpena’s work and the deep philosophy learned in ESTEL. It was an innovative work and all teachers joint that initiative. In 2007 we created a school for parents which helped all of them to take care of all our community’s emotional health.
Then I retired, and from that moment up to now, I volunteer for different projects, especially logistics and support in ESTEL. I belong to a promoting committee called Grupo Autogestionado de Transformación Holística (GATH). I help giving emotional support in the Holistic Consciousness workshop taught by Glòria B. Playà. I started my Holistic Transformation training taught by Ramon V. Albareda.
I found peace when I started participating in such an innovative project which wants to improve people’s comprehensive health.
Beatriz Colomer Real
Artisic expression and promotion
This is Bea. I regard myself as a happy, positive, creative, active and flexible to life changes. I was born in a small village in the south west of Valencia (Valencia, Spain). My birth was just after my twin brother but it was somehow exceptional: nobody expected me while my mom was pregnant or when she was in labour.
Beatriz Colomer Real
I believe that this first event affected me and it may be a reason of great (positive and negative) importance for my life.
My life has always been attached to two different worlds: social-intellectual and sport-school.
Talking about social-intellectual one, I got a Business Administration degree from Universidad de Valencia. I got specialized in Marketing because of my ability to create and submit different proposals in the sales department and because of my social skills.
I worked in sales and accounting department in different companies. Finally I ended up being an office director of a bank in Levante. I learnt there many interesting things for 7 years, but I also learnt values which I did not want (and still do not want) in my life. That is why I decided to change my life radically: I changed my job. I focused on sports and children and that is what I currently do.
I studied Education in Universidad de Valencia and I got specialized in Physical Education. I like the idea of working with children while playing sports. I really enjoyed studying Education and receiving some scholarships to play football in the university. My team won the competition of university (Universidad de Valencia) female football 7 in Spain.
Honestly, I have always been connected to the body world through sports. I have been playing football for over 20 years, and our last season we played in the highest level (first division). I became a coach level 2 granted by Instituto Milá y Fontanals, in Vilafranca del Penedès. I trained some female football teams in Universidad de Valencia for 5 years. I trained some male football teams in different ranks: Under 10s, Under 11s, and Cadets. Also this is the fourth year I am a selector from the sub-16 female football team of Penedès-Garraf, Catalonia.
My relationship with ESTEL began with Glòria B. Playà because we both worked in the same school. Her lifestyle and her personality attracted me and made me question my lifestyle. Then she introduced me to Ramon, a very special and wise person. I was amazed by how Glòria and Ramon understand human relationships and I got interested in their project about a new family model called Familia de corazón (Family by heart).
Then, I discovered Holistic Transformation and Holistic Consciousness and I saw in them a world of possibilities which can be adapted to body world in schools and in sports.
In this new period, I tried and shaped up some of my hobbies: painting, art, literature (poetry and short stories) which made me develop my feelings. Also, music and guitar helped me connect to my inner self and develop creative abilities that I had when I was a child.
My current cooperation with ESTEL, Personal Growth Centre and Integral Studies School, is focused on artistic expression and sometimes I help them promote centre’s activities.
