Dr. Ida P. Rolf

Ida P. Rolf (1896-1979) earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry at Columbia University in 1920; she wrote her doctoral thesis on fascia (connective tissue). She also studied homeopathy and physics in Switzerland and practiced yoga for many years. Eventually, because of health problems which were not resolved through available means, she focused on human health. She observed that no systems for achieving health or curing illness, either allopathic or traditional, had ever addressed the effects on the human body of gravity, one of the major physical forces. She also saw that the fascia (“the organ of form”) is what gives the body its shape. She spent many years working to devise a system of bodywork which would help the body function more effectively in the gravitational field. She named her work Structural Integration.


In the 1960s she was invited to work and teach at Esalen in California. She also chose two teachers to carry on her work, Emmett Hutchins and Peter Melchior, and founded the first Guild for Structural Integration. Richard Stenstadvold became the administrator. Eventually they all moved to Boulder, Colorado.

In the 1970s, the Guild for Structural Integration renamed itself the Rolf Institute. Shortly after Dr. Rolf’s death, Joseph Heller resigned the presidency of the Institute and founded Hellerwork, the first offshoot of Structural Integration. Around 1990, Richard Stenstadvold left the Institute and founded the reconstituted Guild for Structural Integration, dedicated to carrying on Dr. Rolf’s complete teachings.