Odile Atthalin was born in Paris, France in 1936 to a patriarchal bourgeois family, the eldest of six children. After surviving the German Nazi Occupation in Normandy and the loss of a baby sibling, she witnessed D-Day and the liberation of her village by the American tanks. She majored in comparative literature at the Sorbonne and studied American Literature at Barnard College on a Fulbright Scholarship. Back in France she completed an M.A in Clinical Psychology. In 1969, she left for India, and kept traveling until 1983. Since 1988, she has maintained a private practice in Berkeley. In 1996, as a Senior Rosen Method Teacher, she founded the Rosen Method Open Center, a school to train Rosen Method Bodywork and Movement practitioners and teachers in the US and in Europe. In 1987, she became a godmother to a baby boy with special needs and became very involved in raising him. Atthalin loves reading and writing, in French and English. She finds great joy in meditation, yoga, Qi Gong, singing, hiking, dancing, and leading a weekly Movement class done to all kinds of good music.