Hakomi Method

The Hakomi Method is a mindfulness, somatic and experience-based  approach to change. The Method is used both as a psychotherapeutic process as well as in educational settings to facilitate self-exploration and personal growth.

Originally, developed by Ron Kurtz in the late 1970’s, The Hakomi Method has developed in scope, detail and teachability over the past 28 years. During this time, many new advances have been integrated by Ron, the Hakomi Trainers and numerous practitioners. Today, Hakomi is taught and practiced successfully throughout the world. Here in the Bay Area, with several professional trainings and workshops per year, Hakomi has thrived for more than 20 years.

The Method itself combines venerable operating principles with mindfulness and precise methodology to create an extraordinarily effective path towards transformation. The basis of the work is threefold:

• to create a bonded relationship that allows enough safety for the client to turn inwards and explore present experiences [cognitive, somatic, emotional, energetic, spiritual, etc.] • to follow those experiences towards the core material that generates them • to pursue ways to heal and evolve the core material

Hakomi, an leader in the use of mindfulness and the body, holds an especially strong somatic orientation. Evoking focused self-awareness, the client is supported in studying the ways  in which movement, gesture, voice, tensions, impulses and so on both reflect psychological material and provide direct access to core transformation.

The Principles

At the heart of The Hakomi Method is a set of time-honored principles which underlie all aspects of the work. Navigating by these principles, the practitioner approaches both the client and the process with a sense of wholeness, respect, and humility.  This framework then translates into concrete clinical skills and thoughtfully designed interventions. Equally important, holding the client in this perspective, he or she may then be able to internalize these principles as an ongoing  source of inner guidance. 

The principles are:

• Unity: an inclusive awareness of the interrelatedness of things • Organicity: the recognition and  honoring or each person’s individuality • Mind/Body/Spirit Holism: the assumption that all elements of experience are essential. • Mindfulness: the value of being genuinely aware of exactly what is happening • Nonviolence: a commitment to respect and loving regard • Truth: the pursuit of the actual nature of things • Change: the trust that things can and will move and evolve