The Hakomi Method of Body-Centered Psychotherapy was originated in the mid-1970's by the internationally renowned therapist and author, Ron Kurtz. In 1980, to promote the teaching of Hakomi, Ron and a handful of his students founded the Hakomi Institute. Today, Hakomi trainings and workshops are presented throughout the world, from Eugene to Europe, from New York to New Zealand.

The Principles

Drawing from a wide range of sources, Hakomi has evolved into a complex, elegant and highly effective form of psychotherapy. At its most basic level, Hakomi is the therapeutic expression of a specific set of Principles: Unity; Mind/Body/Spirit Holism; Uniqueness of the Individual; Mindfulness; Nonviolence; Truth and Change. These tenets inform every aspect of the work.

Hakomi is effective and appropriate in most therapeutic situations, such as with individuals, couples, families, groups, movement, and body work. It is suitable for crisis work and psychological maintenance, but it finds its full potential in the process of growth, both personal and transpersonal, when we are committed to moving beyond our limits.

Hakomi has also been effectively applied to a wide variety of everyday activities: athletics, theater, parenting, business...because Hakomi attends to the very nature of being human, it is easily adapted to support whatever tasks and adventures people pursue.

Hakomi helps people change "core material". Core material is composed of memories, images, beliefs, neural patterns and deeply-held emotional dispositions. This material shapes the styles, habits, behaviors, perceptions and attitudes which define us as individuals. Our responses to the major themes of life -- safety, belonging, support, power, freedom, responsibility, appreciation, sexuality, spirituality, etc. -- are all organized by our core material.

Some of this core material supports our being who we wish to be, while some of it -- learned in response to difficult situations -- continues to limit us. Hakomi allows the client to distinguish between the two, and to modify willingly any material that restricts his or her wholeness.

In pursuing this core material, the Method follows a certain general outline. First we work to build a therapist/client relationship which maximizes safety, respect and the cooperation of the unconscious. With a good working relationship established, we then help the client focus on and study how his or her core material shapes their experience.

To permit this study, we establish and use a distinct state of consciousness called Mindfulness. Mindfulness is characterized by relaxed volition, a gentle and sustained inward focus of attention, heightened sensitivity, and the ability to notice and name the contents of consciousness.

The heart of the Method is the precise study of the client's current experiences, as a way to discover their organizing core material. These experiences are either naturally occurring, or deliberately and gently evoked by having the client participate in carefully designed "experiments". These might be hearing a statement about a key theme, or having the client change his or her physical position. It might be having them consider a certain possibility, or making a certain gesture. In any case, the client is asked to allow and carefully notice whatever responses happen inside of them, and ultimately to feel within their being the core factors that shape such responses. Once arrived at in this felt way, the core material can be studied, evaluated and transformed.

The basic method, then, is this: (1) to establish a relationship in which it is safe for the client to become self-aware; (2) to notice or evoke experiences that lead to the discovery of organizing core material; and (3) to seek healing changes in the core material. All else that we do is in support of this primary process.

The experiences and core material of the client are processed through three different state-specific methods:

 

	We work with strong emotions and bound energy, releasing and finding satisfaction in them
	We work with the Inner Child and other specific Self-states of being, often in the context of vividly re-experienced memories
	We process core beliefs in mindfulness, going for the meaning of our experiences, not as intellectual puzzle-solving, but as direct dialogue with the unconscious

Eventually, we help the client to practice the new modes of organizing that they adopt, and to integrate these modes into their everyday life. It is here, in fact -- in the ability to transform the new possibilities discovered in the office into ongoing actualities in daily living -- that real change happens.