Hakomi Therapy
What Is Hakomi Therapy?
Traditional talk therapy can be helpful, but it’s limited in what it can do. Most emotional issues are stored within the body, yet talk therapy only engages the mind. It can’t access a client’s “core material”—the underlying traumas, emotional wounds, and belief systems that lie beneath the surface of conscious awareness.
Hakomi is a gentle yet powerful form of psychotherapy that uses mindfulness as well as experiential and somatic interventions to heal attachment wounds and developmental traumas. This approach teaches clients to maintain a compassionate, self-observing presence where gestures, facial expressions, voice tones, and other forms of body language are used as access routes to core material. The goal is to explore the memories, beliefs, and attitudes that invisibly shape clients’ lives, allowing them to understand their unconscious patterns so that they can heal and transform them.
There are five principles to Hakomi, each of which is listed below:
Mindfulness—By slowing down, quieting your mind, and learning to live in a state of mindfulness, you can become aware of the unconscious thought processes that are shaping your life.
Organicity—The mind and body have an innate ability to heal, and this is what organicity refers to. The role of a Hakomi therapist is to help you tap into this innate ability so that you can recover from the pain of the past.
Nonviolence—Instead of trying to get rid of defensive reactions, Hakomi therapists draw on the philosophy of nonviolence to help clients accept that their defensive reactions are there for a reason.
Mind-body Integration—The mind and body are inherently connected and you cannot treat one without treating the other. This is why Hakomi focuses on how patterns in the body can unlock deeper emotional experiences.
Unity—Every individual is made up of many interdependent parts. Understanding how these parts are connected can help you achieve unity in your whole Self.
In Hakomi sessions, therapists seek to integrate these five principles to help clients experience healing in their mind, body, spirit, and every area of their life.
How Effective Is Hakomi Therapy?
Hakomi was developed and founded by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s. Originally referred to as Body-Centered Psychotherapy, Hakomi is now referred to as Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy. It has been shown to be effective at treating various mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, and unresolved trauma.* In my practice, I use Hakomi Therapy to help clients from all walks of life. In addition to helping individuals work through their mental health issues, I’ve found that Hakomi Therapy can help couples explore unconscious patterned responses that contribute to conflict in their relationships.
Ultimately, the main reason I use Hakomi is that it completely changed my life more than 40 years ago. At the time, I was suffering from a life-threatening suicidal depression. No form of therapy or medication I tried seemed to help.
Quite by happy accident, I met my first Hakomi therapist in a year-long meditation workshop. Instead of trying to get rid of my symptoms, my Hakomi therapist and I explored my symptoms and looked at the way they were held in my body. Through this approach, the two of us discovered what my depression was trying to say and how it was trying to help me. We were able to identify the “missing experience” that depression was holding me back from—expressing myself, having my own voice, and establishing healthy boundaries. This realization facilitated the healing process and allowed me to work toward a life free from depression.
How Does Hakomi Therapy Work?
Hakomi Therapy is a very open-ended process—it’s not very structured and it varies from client to client depending on the presenting issues. Generally, I’ll begin sessions with a brief mindfulness meditation to help you tune into your inner world. The goal is not to force certain thoughts or emotions to surface, but simply to notice your emotional and physical reactions to everyday challenges.
For example, once you are in a mindful state, I may ask you to repeat back something I heard you say and ask what happens when you hear it. What kind of reaction takes place? When you repeat the words, does your voice assume a certain tone? Are there any gestures or patterns in the body that emerge? Answering these questions can provide an access route to traumas, belief systems, and other “core materials” that you were previously unaware of. The body has a language, and understanding that language can help you unlock the deeper emotional struggles fueling your presenting issues.
Not only can Hakomi Therapy help you understand your presenting issues, but it can also help you heal and transform them. Oftentimes, there is a missing experience—an experience that didn’t happen in your formative years—that the therapist-client relationship can provide. For instance, maybe you didn’t receive the care, attention, and acceptance that you needed as a child. Hakomi can help you identify this missing experience by observing different holding patterns in the body. This way, the therapist-client relationship can give you the care, attention, and acceptance that were missing in your childhood.
My Background As A Hakomi Therapist
I began my formal study in 1998 with Dr. Pat Ogden at Hakomi Integrated Somatics (HIS), which later became Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, three years before I founded my own therapy practice. Upon completion of this training, I assisted in an HIS training and then assisted in a Hakomi training form that ran from 2001 to 2003. I officially became a certified Hakomi therapist in 2005 and have been a member of the Hakomi International Ethics Committee for over 15 years.
I love Hakomi because it integrates beautifully with the other treatment methods I use, Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR). All of these approaches emphasize mindfulness and somatic awareness as a way to access a client’s deeper emotional experiences. IFS seeks to help clients understand the parts of themselves that were wounded by trauma, which pairs well with Hakomi’s emphasis on the overall unity of the Self. And EMDR aims to reduce the emotional overwhelm that trauma caused, which can help facilitate the process of healing from trauma and provide the missing experience that it prevented from happening.
Experience The Power Of Hakomi Therapy In Your Own Life
If you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, or another mental health issue and you want something deeper than talk therapy, I encourage you to pursue Hakomi with me. To learn more about this unique, body-centered approach, you can call (303) 507-6310 or fill out the contact form.
*https://thehumancondition.com/hakomi-therapy/
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As a seeker my entire life, in search of my own healing and evolution, I have walked two parallel paths: psychotherapy and spirituality.