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Hakomi
Mindfulness-based Somatic Psychotherapy
What Happens During a Session?
Hakomi is a form of assisted self-discovery done in mindfulness, where all states of being are welcome. We begin seated across from one another. Talking happens and is very much a part of therapy. When the clients are ready, I will either guide them into or invite their current mindfulness meditation practice.
Some clients will move across the threshold between a mindful state and telling stories. Others will go deep into a meditative state and stay there the whole session, with very little talking. Either way, I hold a container of loving presence and invoke the dynamism of nature.
Once slowed down into mindful body-awareness, together, we will delve into present moment processes. I may gently guide clients into different exploratory exercises involving movement, touch, or words to access parts that draw the most curiosity or attention. From there, we may deepen or simply linger in the liminal space to acquire rich information.
Oftentimes, in depth, we encounter and work with the inner child or past versions of the self that are associated with limiting core beliefs. We provide missing experiences that transform the neurobiology around those memories. I facilitate conscious relationships between parts, with others, and the many realms. Clients can discover a sense of empowerment, becoming more connected to their intuition and ability to choose how to experience life.
Despite its eclectic approach, what makes Hakomi what it is, is how the process integrates the core principles of mindfulness, non-violence, mind-body integration, unity, organicity, and loving presence.
But What is Hakomi? Where Does it Come From?
Founded in the 1980s as one of the first forms of somatic psychotherapies, Hakomi has been listed as one of five of the most influential approaches to bodymind therapy worldwide (along with Carl Rogers' "focusing-oriented psychotherapy", Peter Levine's "Somatic Experiencing", Arnold Mindell's "process-oriented psychology", and Stanislav Grof's "holotrophic breathwork" (Barratt, 2010).
Not only does Hakomi draw from elements of Taoism and Buddhism, synchronizing with the latest in neuroscience and attachment research, the technique also includes aspects of bioenergetic and gestalt methods, sensory awareness, structural and psychomotor bodywork, focusing, and neurolinguistic programming.
Information Offered to New Clients
By Ron Kurtz, Hakomi, Founder of the Hakomi Method
May 18th, 2009
If you’re thinking about becoming a client of a Hakomi therapist, here’s what you need to know about the method:
Hakomi is based on the idea that much of our everyday suffering is in fact unnecessary and is produced by unconscious beliefs that are no longer relevant, true or necessary. The method is designed to bring such beliefs into consciousness.
Hakomi is a method of assisted self-study and discovery. It can bring normally inaccessible mental processes into consciousness gently and efficiently. Once these mental processes (such as beliefs, memories, habits, and emotions) are made conscious, they can be examined and modified to provide a more realistic and satisfying way of being. The work of assisted self-discovery requires clients to enter into short periods of mindfulness. Because of this, clients must be able to observe their own reactions, as if they were observing the automatic behavior of another person.
The therapist pays very close attention to your nonverbal behaviors, such as your tone of voice, movements, gestures, posture, facial expressions and micro expressions. By observing these, the therapist gets ideas about what unconscious material is controlling your automatic, unconscious behaviors.
On the basis of those ideas, the therapist creates little experiments that are done while you are in a mindful state. These little experiments often elicit clear reactions. These reactions are the links to the unconscious mental processes that create them.
When a reaction is evoked, moments later, memories, beliefs and associations emerge, which will help you make sense of the reaction. Once beliefs and memories are in consciousness, they are examined and modified.
What to Expect: This method is not about talking out your problems. It won’t be a long, speculative conversation about your troubles or your emotional history. It is our belief that your emotional history, the part of it that has created the unconscious beliefs and habits with which you meet the world, is operating right now.
Your history is written in the way you do things every minute. It is expressed by your style and your defining characteristics. So, you can expect that the therapist will be looking and listening for these and will bring them to your attention as part of setting up the little experiments in mindfulness that are the core of the work.
The therapist will also be very warm and kind and patient. The vulnerability that mindfulness entails, the openness to unconscious material that’s needed, all require a very safe environment. This needs a particularly caring, non-judgmental person. You can expect your therapist to be exactly that.
You can also expect the work to bring up intense emotions at times. At those moments, your therapist will work to contain the process, provide comfort and help you understand what’s happening.
Because the method is based on this very direct route to implicit material (evocative experiments in mindfulness), it is faster than most other methods. It works very directly with nonverbal expressions and does not spend a lot of time in conversation, analyzing and explaining. Something significant usually happens every
session.
The Rewards: There are many. Relief from persistent painful emotions and behaviors is probably the greatest reward. And you will gain a much deeper understanding of yourself and with that, more freedom to choose what you'll be able to feel, greater pleasure in everyday living, and to engage in fuller, more rewarding, and engaging relationships.
Hakomi's 5+ Principles
Mindfulness
The key to change is awareness, not effort. Through non-judgemental attention, we can become aware of unconscious material. The direct, embodied experience of limiting core beliefs in a non-judgemental space with another is in itself healing.
Ahimsā/Non-Violence
We are gentle guides for our clients, but we refrain from imposing what we feel is right for the client. Any resistance is welcome as a point of loving study in itself: there we may find inherent wisdom, which will allow us to deepen the experience.
Mind-Body Integration
Core beliefs about ourselves and the world are manifested, held, and expressed in our bodies and minds.
Unity
The client and therapist are interacting parts of the same process. They are made up of parts that together are greater than the whole. We acknowledge and welcome all types of parts: physical/metabolic, intrapsychic, interpersonal, family, cultural and spiritual. As therapists we facilitate harmonious communication between all parts.
Organicity
Once the parts are harmoniously communicating, we inherently tend towards self-actualizing, self-correcting, self-directing. We trust the client’s system, their natural process of unfolding towards wholeness.
Loving Presence
“[T]he inner state of the therapist is at least 8 times more predictive of therapeutic success than the methods used (Mahoney, 1991). Loving presence invites us to enter into a state of appreciation for the beauty, humanity and inspiring qualities within each human being. This practice supports people to move towards greater self-acceptance and self-love and brings nourishment and ease to both client and practitioner.”
