What Students and Clients Say
One of our younger clients, Ruth, doing sunning with her father, Lior. All the way from Germany!
What Health Professionals Say
Ophthalmologists:
“The plasticity and potential of the visual system is continuously being explored and redefined. Old notions give way to new potentials. Meir Schneider addresses these issues in his clinical work with patients with various visual problems. His reflections and theories are worth consideration and critical review.”
– Creig Hoyt, M.D., Professor and Chairman of the Ophthalmology Department at University of California San Francisco Medical School; Director of Beckman Vision Center, San Francisco, CA and editor of the British Journal of Ophthalmology. Hoyt is regarded as one of the world’s leading pediatric neuro-ophthalmologists. His pioneering studies changed the practice of infant cataract care worldwide.
“I have been impressed with the work of Meir Schneider for 
many years, having personally seen improvements in patients’ vision of those who have worked with him. The ability of the visual system to adapt and regain function is still full of mysteries. Through Meir’s work, we are finding some of those mysteries to be realities.”
– August Reader III, M.D., F.A.C.S., Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology, California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco
Behavioral Optometrists:
“Meir Schneider has miraculously found his vision and he can help you to find yours. His approach is transformative. ”
– Jacob Liberman, O.D., Ph.D., Hawaii, author of Light: Medicine of the Future, Take Off Your Glasses and See and Wisdom from an Empty Mind. Liberman is regarded as the leading world authority in the field of light and color therapy
“Years ago, Meir Schneider taught me a new way to relax and move in the world. His work still impacts my life every day. The exercises are easy, but powerful; do them daily and experience profound change. Meir’s bodywork should become a part of everyone’s day.”
– Ray Gottlieb, O.D., Ph.D., Rochester, New York, Dean of the College of Syntonic Optometry, author of Attention and Memory Training for Children
Physiatrists:
“Meir Schneider offers remarkable techniques that empower you to take charge of your own health and unlock the body’s ability to heal itself. Through his innovative therapeutic movements and exercise, he has helped thousands of individuals throughout the world facilitate their own self-healing. I have personally seen functional improvement in a number of patients where the medical community had literally told them ‘there was nothing further that could be done.’ Meir Schneider is on the cutting edge of improving the quality of our heath and well-being.”
– Ronald K. Takemoto, M.D., Assistant Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of California, Irvine
Physical Therapists:
“The acute- and chronic- pain patients at my practice benefit from Meir’s approach to breathing, circulation, joint, muscle, spine and nervous-system movements. His work heightened my own awareness of fine tuning the body and mind and enhanced my abilities to help others.”
— Gail Wetzler, P.T., West Palm Beach, Florida
“Meir Schneider has a great ability to demystify the physiological and pathological processes involved in common physical illnesses. Combined with his enthusiasm and years of clinical experience, this is a rare resource for those who wish to understand their bodies better.”
— Judith Bradley, P.T., British Columbia, Canada
Registered Nurses:
“Meir Schneider’s innovative, yet “common sense’ method works easily alongside the more orthodox approaches- but, importantly, empowers individuals to help themselves. Its applications are wide ranging, with limitless potential for anyone-no matter their age, or how mild or severe their problems-to attain and enjoy optimal health.”
– Marie Askin, R.N., London, England
“Meir Schneider, PhD, is a world class teacher. I have witnessed remarkable results in those who have implemented his individualized regimen.”
– Pam Monte, R.N., R.M.T., San Francisco, CA
Occupational Therapists:
“Meir Schneider’s work represents a tremendous advance in our knowledge of self-healing. The exercises are easy to understand and perform. Although they are very gentle, they are the most powerful ones I have ever seen”
– Beatriz Nascimento, O.T. Assistant Professor Department of Occupational Therapy, University of San Carlos, Brazil; School for Self-Healing Instructor, U.S. and Brazil
Book Reviews
Vision For Life:10 Steps to Natural Vision Improvement Reviews:
“I would suggest you continue your studies on this rarely discussed ‘science’ of natural eyesight maintenance by picking up Meir’s book and applying the exercises to your everyday life. It is natural and easy to add these to whatever you do.” – C.Ruff
“Do yourself a favor and purchase Vision for Life, perform exercises faithfully. Within two weeks you’ll see marked improvement.” –R. Eckles
“This is the Bates method on steroids and far surpasses any other eye regimes. Meir Schneider has developed and used these techniques to enhance his own eyesight.” – Unknown
“This man’s story is one of the most inspiring accounts of faith and work and perseverance I have ever heard.” -Cyn Scheff
“An excellent source of everything you want to improve eye health, with easy to follow practices and exercises, loads of testimonial wealth and years worth of experience packed in this one little volume...” – Jack Leishman
“I have begun to use the exercises recommended in this book and find them to be very helpful. I can see a difference in my eye’s ability to focus, no pun intended. I have mono-vision, which has been wonderful, but my eyes are beginning to work better together with these exercises. I do not wear contacts or glasses and I am 65.” – Donna Fast
“I am the biggest skeptic you will ever meet……So far, I’ve done only a couple of the exercises, plus learning not to squint in bright light, but I’ve already noticed an improvement in my overall ability to focus, especially at distances…” -Robert T.
“By the middle of the book, I was reading it without my glasses. I’ve recommended to all of my friends.” -Olga Taylor
“First week I noticed huge improvements in my eyesight. It is outstanding that my failing eyesight is finnally reversing, it has also helped other parts of my body to e mroe healthy. Highly recommended!!!!!!!” – E.Joyce
“This book and author will bring a revelation, the idea that you can be consciously aware of your eyes. You will be able to take simple steps to get rewarding results and may reduce the use of medications or avoid surgery. If you want to understand your eyes beyond relying on ‘vision professionals’ then please consider this book! My first results were nearly immediate and have naturally increased over time.” –Unknown
Movement for Self-Healing Reviews:
Click here to download Natural Vision Improvement Flyer (PDF)
“Meir Schneider has miraculously found his vision, and he can help you to find yours. His approach is transformative.” -Behavioral Optometrist, Jacob Liberman, O.D., Ph.D. author of Light: Medicine of the Future, Take Off Your Glasses and See and Wisdom from an Empty Mind
A Personal Testimony:
“If you’ve ever wondered why I got into the School for Self-Healing, all you need is take five minutes to find this man is not just genius but precise and innovative in his methodology of the body and Self-Healing….” – Mark Donegan
A Journal of Progress, by Aurora Machado:
10 April 2013 MY PERSONAL SPRING: NEWS OF MY WONDERFUL VISUAL PROGRESS!!
I start by showing this series of five photographs of my face in real size, the last four being colored pencil paintings made on prints of the first picture. These paintings done by myself, between 2011 and now, intend to reproduce the way I saw the original picture at particular moments during this time using only my right eye and looking at it in an environment with lots of sunshine and at a distance of 50 cm, the usual distance during a conversation with another person. The dates on which they were made are very significant in the history of my eyes: January 2011, May 2011, September 2012 before leaving to San Francisco, and now in April 2nd, 2013, five months after my return and after the fifteen visual therapy sessions with Dr. Meir Schneider, while continuing the daily work with my eyes according to the program established for me.
THE WONDERFUL AND AMAZING DIFFERENCE!!!
Photo August 2009 Painting January 2011 Painting May 2011 Painting September 2012 Painting April 2013
Why did I make these paintings?
I started making this series with a very specific purpose: to document and explain as good as possible to my ophthalmologists how I saw the face of people with my right eye at a time, January 2011, in which I felt I was getting worse from day to day. I wanted and I needed to illustrate in a more lived and visible way the pronounced and rapid progression of vision loss, other than through the numerous eye exams I did, and for that purpose I used my passion and pleasure to paint, although at that time I already had enormous difficulties in doing that.
But it was that strong purpose that allowed me to show how I was seeing, and kept me proceeding with the paintings overcoming a strong intimate resistance with physical manifestations of great discomfort due to the confrontation, so clear and inescapable, with what was happening to me and which terrified me so much: the imminent loss of my vision. I clearly remember the feelings of fear anguish and despair while confronting myself with that terrible dip in the darkness.
I made these paintings only with my right eye because it was the eye which the greater lack of vision scared me more and even more when it became clear, through examinations, that the left eye was following exactly the same path and fairly quick.
Now, five months after returning from San Francisco, I decided to try again to confront myself with the way I see the same picture of my face at this moment, using the same material, the same type of light and the same distance in order to document this new phase in a way that it is clearly visible and concrete to myself and to others. Thus on the afternoon of April 2 I almost could not believe the way I was seeing my picture: the clarity and width of the visual field, the total absence of that very dark previously existing fog and only the presence of a light fog on the top of my face…!I
I did numerous tests on different days to confirm if this amazing and wonderful change was really true, and it is! I do not see that really thick dark fog which only six months ago covered almost the entire picture of my face, just before I went to San Francisco and do the visual therapy with Dr Meir Schneider!!
There are not enough words to express my feelings, it is a great and full and colorful joy, a great enthusiasm to continue to work harder and better with my eyes and a deep appreciation and immense gratitude by Dr. Meir Schneider for his fantastic work with me and for his wisdom, generosity and enormous dedication of his life to helping and teaching thousands of people from many different countries around the world to improve their visual health and global health!!
On this year, 2013 my personal spring was in fact born! Full of strength and energy and I’m really happy!
December 15, 2012 My PERSONAL TESTIMONY ABOUT TREATMENT WITH DR. MEIR SCHNEIDER
I’m writing this testimony with a profound feeling of friendship, deep recognition, admiration and gratitude for the wisdom, creativity, generosity and optimism Dr. Meir Schneider demonstrated while working with me on my eyes, an excellent work that will be forever in my heart and in my eyes! I am 63 years old and due to a really fast progression of glaucoma in both eyes I have already lost 95% of the fibers of both optic nerves, I have a reduced visual acuity not amenable of correction, 1/10 on the left eye and much less than 1/10 on the right one, and a very critical reduction of the visual fields of both eyes.
Despite all the efforts made by conventional medicine to stop this progression the truth is that it failed to do so and blindness was presented to me as the only inevitable and incontrovertible prognosis. Terrified by this prognosis, but filled with hope by this new possibility, I flew from Lisbon, in Portugal, to San Francisco, in the U.S., to carry an intensive treatment of 15 sessions of two and a half hours with Dr. Meir Schneider. This trip was worth all the time and money spent on it because the treatment was really effective! I had really positive results having made progress with both eyes especially with the right one, the eye that sees worse.
Just after six sessions I had my first very, very special and remarkable moment: I was able to see Dr. Meir’s and Sarah’s, his Office Manager, eyes! This event made me feel an immense and overflowing joy that filled me with hope. Until then, at a distance of 15.7 inches (40 cm), their eyes as well as those of others were hidden behind a thick dark fog.
A few days before going to San Francisco I wrote some lines on what I couldn’t see by that time and the way that it affected my daily life: “I cannot see myself at any distance nor my face or my body. I cannot recognize the faces of people that are at a more than 3.9 inches (10 cm) distance or even recognize my son and daughter except two steps away, unless I know they are there. I cannot drive or go to the movies, or read books and write except in the computer because the screen has light behind and the font sizes can be increased. I can read only short texts and preferably in the computer, needing ten times more than the normal time because the letters are shrouded in shadows, are missing some parts, have dark spots and reading or writing like this is incredibly tiring. I can’t go to places that are dim light because I fail to see, distinguishing only shadows which is horrible and often scary especially outside, I can’t see people’s faces and I take one person for another or even objects for people, even my own children and granddaughter, and when eating I cannot cut or arrange what’s on my plate. Everything around me is increasingly wrapped in brown haze increasingly thick and this perception causes me fear and anxiety which I try to fight with optimistic thoughts”. And here are some other huge differences from the situation described above which were obtained during the treatment and that show that my visual field and peripheral vision have expanded and that also my far and near vision has increased, especially in my right eye and the amazing subsequent discovery that I could see with that eye: before going to San Francisco my right eye could only see at a distance of 1.4 inches (3.5 cm) meaning that I had to lean my nose over the paper surface to see a 1 inch (2,5 cm) printed letter, or over the mirror to see my own right eye. By the end of the 8th session I could already see my eye at a distance of 6.7 inches (17 cm) and a letter with the same 1-inch (2,5 cm) high. Now I can see both at 17.7 inches (45 cm) distance though not yet with complete sharpness but in return at this distance I can also see my face, my body and everything around! The really dark mist, sometimes even black, which filled most of the visual field of my right eye, is much smaller, much lighter and much thinner. Also, dimly lit spaces are less of an obstacle for me, I can move much more easily in them, feeling much safer than before.
All these developments, and other not detailed here, seemed absolutely impossible to obtain and yet I managed to achieve them with the visual therapy I did with Dr. Meir Schneider: It is amazing that this really happened and this is a huge window of hope that has opened up for me! Of course there is still a long way to go but this intensive treatment was absolutely fundamental and decisive in my life! Dr. Meir Schneider truly loves what he does and this was well reflected in the dedication and commitment with which he conducted his work with me, in the wisdom and great intuition showed, in the positive reinforcements with which he encouraged me and helped me de-dramatize my visual situation, in the words of encouragement and the ability to motivate me for this daily work with my eyes which I see now as a special gift that I offer myself every day and which gives me a great inner joy that invades me making me immensely happy!
Now I am able to see the future and I believe that I will be able to carry on seeing! Thanks to Dr. Meir Schneider I’m going to continue to see and this is wonderful!
Thank you so much, Dr. Meir Schneider!! I wish you all the best and I really want you to come to Portugal!! Aurora Machado
April 25, 2013 THE WONDER OF INDEPENDENCE: IT SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE BUT, STILL, IT’S HAPPENING!
Almost every day I’m discovering a new detail I’m now able to see and I’m filled with wonder, feeling this huge happiness and the astonishment of someone who is able to see for the very first time and, also, a feeling of empowerment for being able to improve my eye sight. It’s an immense and persistent joy that irradiates and wow
s me for the simple fact that I’m being able to see, able to step out of that always darker, brown and thick fog that was swallowing me and that terrified me.
I’ve kept a log of all those discoveries and conquests and I’m now sharing them with you. These are not absolute conquests, I mean, I’m not able to see every detail with full sharpness and quickness and within every distance range, but they are great accomplishments when compared with what I was able to do before I went to San Francisco, to do the visual therapy sessions with Dr. Meir Schneider.
Inside my home: I can see myself at the mirror, cut my finger nails, cut paper almost at the desired line, make packages with some beautiful and creative twists, sew small seams, pour liquid into a bottle without spilling, cut my own food at the plate, bake a cake without any help, neither to read the recipe, nor to check the amounts in the scale. It was a wonderful feeling and the cake was delicious.
Now it’s becoming less difficult to read and write in the computer, read texts in books and magazines somewhat longer than I used to, handwrite some text and read my own writings.
I was able to draw a picture in sight, at short distance, from a photograph of an eighteen century dress, and I loved the look of it! I just couldn’t draw in sight since March 2008! I’m starting to believe that I’ll be able to do once more something I love so much: to paint and to draw!
In other indoor spaces: I can see the elevator numbers, read the restaurant’ menu, reach at some product at the supermarket or any other store’s shelves all by myself, without the need to ask for help, usually less than friendly or simply unavailable, putting me down and feeling depressed with my eyes condition and for the simple fact that I wasn’t able to receive assistance. Now I can distinguish between products and I can read the information on the shelves, it takes a while, but I can do it!
In outdoor spaces: Now I can have a walk and appreciate the details, I can see the traffic lights and the rain puddles and the holes and other gaps and uneven spots in the sidewalk, the trees’ canopy, the top of the buildings, pigeons resting in some leafless tree branches and even a blackbird in the grass. I can see the steps in this beautiful garden, one that has always been great for a nice walk, but that, for me, was filled with hidden traps and obstacles, like those little steps, with just 2 cm high and without any warning signs, making them extremely dangerous.
The windows are no longer plain dark rectangles; they now seem to emerge in white lines, allowing me to distinguish the different windowpanes that belong to one single window frame, still lacking sharpness, but … nonetheless visible!
I can do some short runs because I can see the floor much better now and, thus, I’m not afraid to fall down, and I’ve recovered my fast and confident walk, losing my hesitant and tiresome walk, always afraid to stumble and fall, something that occurred to me a few times in the past…
As it happens with other people, and also in many other life domains, my eyes don’t always have the same sight capacity. Dr. Meir Schneider tranquilized me explaining that this is not a process with a linear and ever-rising progress line: sometimes it can regress a bit, others it might be stationary and still some other times where progress is self-evident. What matters is to be confident and optimistic, since our eyes are very sensitive to how we’re feeling and to stress.
I still have a long way to go but I’ve overcame some important steps: the fact that I’m seeing tangible results is something just wonderful and a powerful incentive to keep on going, and all your support messages are a huge motivational force, by which I’m most grateful.
In summary, I’m feeling a lot more alive and full of energy, more independent and autonomous and for all this I’m filled with a wonderful feeling of freedom!
I ask all of you to keep on sharing this web page, since I truly believe my personal story can help others.
I wish you all the best!-Aurora Machado
“I have muscular dystrophy. I came to San Francisco to study with Meir Schneider at a point when my body was really deteriorating. The only thing physicians could tell me was that I was looking at a downward spiral, and nothing could be done. But I improved, and the tools I’ve learned make it possible to manage my health. When I work intensively on myself, I gain real increases in muscle strength. I have much better mobility and function than I could ever have had without this method.” -Beatriz Nascimento, MA, OTR, Self-Healing practitioner/ teacher in Sao Paulo, Brazil, San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Rosa, CA“Over the years, I had numerous surgeries for retinal detachments in both eyes. In 1991, I lost one eye after a difficult surgery. Then I met Meir. After working with him over a year, I stabilized the sighted eye and improved its vision.” -Larry Scoville, San Francisco, CA
“At age 29, I had a herniated disk in the lumbar spine, and had endured four surgeries. I was paralyzed off and on for two years, and fatigued very easily. I entered training at the School; by the end, I had complete control of my pain, and my movement patterns and endurance were much closer to normal. -Mark Donegan, Big Bend, CA
“I am a 31 year-old psychologist from New York City. I was born with Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD), which I inherited from my mother.Meir is an artist. I have never met anyone remotely like him. As an artist, he has the spontaneity of Pollack and the detail and precision of Klimt. He has no game plan, because he treats every individual as such, but he always knows what he is doing. He allows for the body to talk and he seems to listen and communicate with his hands. His touch is incredibly gentle yet powerful.
Meir’s energy and attitude is contagious. He is living proof that determination and heart can move mountains, or in his case, open eyes. He was recently listed as one of Israel’s top 10 most inspirational people on their biggest public television station. To describe Meir as a healer can be a bit misleading. He has an incredibly sophisticated knowledge of the human body. He was awarded his doctorate for a paper that he wrote on muscular dystrophy. He never makes empty promises, nor does he mince words. He is totally sincere. It’s who he is. He can’t help it. He adores his children and is absolutely passionate about his work.” -David Younger, NY,NY
“In a most candid and heart-warming way, Dr. Meir Schneider tells us about his experiences in dealing with his own severe handicap and those of countless others…He teaches us how we can improve our health, even recover from the ravages of degenerative and so-called incurable diseases. A book worth reading, full of thoughts worth taking to heart.” -Leo Bakker, M.D
