Kinaesthetics was developed in the early 1970s by Frank White Hatch, who was a choreographer and dancer. Hatch studied behavioral cybernetics at Madison/Wisconsin and developed academic programs for movement and dance called
Kinaesthetics in three American universities. He then turned to working with disabled children as well as the field of rehabilitation. Psychologist Lenny Maietta (1950-2018) developed a handling training program for young parents that was also based on behavioral cybernetics. Hatch and Maietta taught and worked together in German-speaking countries beginning in 1977. With the dancer John Graham, they held workshops under the name of Gentle Dance. Maietta and Hatch used Kinaesthetics seminars the first time as therapy in the Ernest-Holmes Fachklinik in Germany 1976–77. Together with registered nurse Suzanne Bernard Schmidt, Maietta and Hatch developed a job-specific program "Kinaesthetics in Nursing." They were in dialogue and exchange with Gregory Bateson, Moshe Feldenkrais,
Berta and Karel Bobath, Liliane Juchli, and
Nancy Roper. In addition to behavioral cybernetics and
dance, movement therapy and
humanistic psychology were named as key sources of kinaesthetics. Maietta and Hatch are still actively involved in the development of Kinaesthetics. In the last years, programs for caregivers, for workplace health and for older people especially were developed. Currently there are four organizations in which Kinaesthetics programs are developed. ==Literature==