“Hakomi is
the absolute cutting edge of modern psychotherapy”
John
Bradshaw
Hakomi Therapy is experiential,
body-centered psychotherapy. Founded by Ron Kurtz in 1981 in
Boulder Colorado, Hakomi has evolved into a refined, gentle
and powerful therapeutic method that is now taught worldwide.
The origin of name Hakomi
is Hopi: “How do you stand
in relation to these many realms?” The Hakomi Method
provides a safe, gentle means for clients to explore and shift “how
they stand in relation to” unconscious, hidden beliefs
that influence one’s life – relationships, self-image,
behaviors, habitual patterns.
There are essential premises that
constitute the basics of the Hakomi Method:
• We are creatures of habit. We respond
to and organize our experiences in an effort to make sense
of life. Most habits exist outside daily awareness, allowing
us to live on autopilot: much of who we are is governed by
what we don’t know about
ourselves – by beliefs, emotions, memories and unresolved
issues. As we shape our lives, our lives shape us.
• We possess the ability and innate intelligence
to become conscious of how we organize our experience. The most
hidden beliefs are capable of change once they become conscious.
The ability to bring into knowing that which has been previously
been unknown becomes a resource that calls forth new options
for living life more fully and with more vitality.
• Focusing on direct experience in the
current moment is a key to opening the door between the unconscious
and the conscious. Once
we become conscious of what we are doing, we have the freedom
and power to alter what we are doing.
• The body is a precise expression of our
character and beliefs. The body’s structure, habits
and patterns are a direct route to unlocking and revealing
what is essential, hidden and deeply influential to our beings.
Five essential principles create the context for this profound
therapeutic method:
• Mindfulness: the art of turning one’s
attention inward toward current experience - is a desired and
necessary state of mind for the Hakomi process. It is
a skill that is cultivated and that improves with practice.
Mindfulness becomes the actual key to unlocking the ‘map
room’ that
holds limiting beliefs and unresolved experience such as trauma.
• Non-violence: the state of supporting
change without force creates a setting of sensitivity and
safety that allows a deep sense of connection to unfold. In
the atmosphere of such safety, the unconscious finds respite
and a field in which to come forward into consciousness. That
which has been hidden, can now be safely expressed and known.
• Unity: We live in a world of relationship
and it is through relationship that we heal. In the healing
process we don’t ‘get
rid of’; instead, we shift the nature or quality of our
relationship to people, places and things.
We shift “how we stand in relation to these
many realms.”
• Organicity: Life is a mystery. In Hakomi,
there exists a reverence for that which cannot be known and
can only be experienced. A Hakomi therapist is not there to
solve a problem, but rather is present to support the truth
of the experience unfolding.
• Body-Mind-Spirit Wholism – Where
does the body end and the mind begin?
All experience is incorporated throughout the matrix of body-mind-spirit.
With these principles as
the framework, Hakomi therapists utilize exceptionally effective
techniques for assisting clients in accessing, deepening and
evaluating their experience. The Hakomi process gently supports
the client in translating the language of the body through body
gestures, posture, movement, verbal interaction, and the cultivation
of internal awareness. Tensions, sensations, images and memories
become access routes to limiting belief systems while developing
empowering resources that support new options and positive change.
Hakomi is considered short-term, experiential therapy whose
focus is self-study and self-understanding. Work with the body/mind
often reveals information that has remained unconscious in conventional
therapy, making it an excellent adjunct to more traditional
therapeutic modalities.
The
experience of personal empowerment that results from such in
depth work is profound and highly individual. Clients frequently
experience a sense of renewal, possibility and confidence – an
overall feeling of being more alive and aware.
Hakomi also addresses the physiological
resolution of trauma by gently affording the body an opportunity
to “defrost” from
traumatic incidences that have been “frozen” in
the body, resulting in a reduction of pain and post traumatic
stress symptoms.
“Hakomi
presents some astounding methods for getting to core material.
It is well grounded in theory and revolutionary in its results."
Assn.
of Humanistic Psychology Newsletter
Rolfing
and Hakomi together
provide a powerful resource for personal transformation, growth
and education, facilitating recovery from physical injury, aligning
physical structure and exploring alternatives to limiting beliefs
held in the body.
