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The Hakomi Method is a form of mindfulness-centered somatic psychotherapy [1] developed by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s. [2]
According to the Hakomi Institute website, the method is an experiential psychotherapy modality, wherein present, felt experience is used as an access route to core material; this unconscious material is elicited and surfaces experientially, and changes are integrated into the client's immediate experience. [3] Hakomi combines Western psychology, systems theory, and body-centered techniques with the principles of mindfulness and nonviolence drawn from Eastern philosophy. [4]
Hakomi is grounded in five principles:
These five principles are set forth in Kurtz's book, Body Centered Psychotherapy. Some Hakomi leaders add two more principles, truth and mutability. [4]
The Hakomi Method regards people as self-organizing systems, organized psychologically around core memories, beliefs, and images; this core material expresses itself through habits and attitudes around which people unconsciously organize their behavior. The goal is to transform their way of being in the world through working with core material and changing core beliefs. [5]
Hakomi relies on mindfulness of body sensations, emotions, and memories. Although many therapists now recommend mindfulness meditation to support psychotherapy, Hakomi is unique in that it conducts the majority of the therapy session in mindfulness.
The Hakomi Method follows this general outline: [5] [6]
Other components of the Hakomi Method include the sensitivity cycle, techniques such as "contact and tracking", "prompts" and "taking over", "embracing resistance", and developing a greater sensitivity to clients and how to work with their individual issues based on character typology originated by Alexander Lowen.
The Hakomi Institute (founded in 1981) describes itself as an international nonprofit organization that teaches Hakomi therapy worldwide. [7] Its website includes an international directory of Hakomi practitioners. The institute's programs focus on training psychotherapists and professionals in related fields. Its faculty are mainly professional psychotherapists who base their teaching of the Hakomi Method on current discoveries in neuroscience and on their own clinical insights. The Hakomi Institute is a professional member of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, the U.S. Association for Body Psychotherapists, and an accredited Continuing Education provider for the National Board for Certified Counselors and the National Association of Social Workers.
Ron Kurtz left the Hakomi Institute in the 1990s to create a new organization, Ron Kurtz Trainings. [8] With a new group, he developed the Hakomi Method in new directions, offering training for both professionals and laypeople. He called the refined version of his work Hakomi Assisted Self-Discovery.
Both versions of the Hakomi Method are based in loving presence, mindfulness, somatics, and the other principles described above, and fall within the definition of body psychotherapy.
Another technique based on the Hakomi Method is Sensorimotor psychotherapy, developed by Pat Ogden.
Body psychotherapy has been scientifically validated by the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP) as having a number of modalities within this branch of psychotherapy. Hakomi Therapy is one of the approaches or modalities within Body Psychotherapy recognized by the EAP. [9]
Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome problems. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. Numerous types of psychotherapy have been designed either for individual adults, families, or children and adolescents. Certain types of psychotherapy are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders; other types have been criticized as pseudoscience.
Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy(GTP) is a method of psychotherapy based strictly on Gestalt psychology. Its origins go back to the 1920s when Gestalt psychology founder Max Wertheimer, Kurt Lewin and their colleagues and students started to apply the holistic and systems theoretical Gestalt psychology concepts in the field of psychopathology and clinical psychology. Through holism, "a person's thinking, feeling, actions, perceptions, attitudes and logical operations" are seen as one unity. Many developments in psychotherapy in the following decades drew from these early beginnings, like e.g. group psychoanalysis (S. Foulkes), Gestalt therapy (Laura Perls, Fritz Perls, Goodman, and others), or Katathym-imaginative Psychotherapy (Hanscarl Leuner).
Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility and focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist–client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result of their overall situation. It was developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman in the 1940s and 1950s, and was first described in the 1951 book Gestalt Therapy.
Dance/movement therapy (DMT) in USA and Australia or dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) in the UK is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body. As a modality of the creative arts therapies, DMT looks at the correlation between movement and emotion.
Integrative psychotherapy is the integration of elements from different schools of psychotherapy in the treatment of a client. Integrative psychotherapy may also refer to the psychotherapeutic process of integrating the personality: uniting the "affective, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological systems within a person".
Person-centered therapy, also known as person-centered psychotherapy, person-centered counseling, client-centered therapy and Rogerian psychotherapy, is a form of psychotherapy developed by psychologist Carl Rogers and colleagues beginning in the 1940s and extending into the 1980s. Person-centered therapy seeks to facilitate a client's actualizing tendency, "an inbuilt proclivity toward growth and fulfillment", via acceptance, therapist congruence (genuineness), and empathic understanding.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalytic psychotherapy are two categories of psychological therapies. Their main purpose is revealing the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension, which is inner conflict within the mind that was created in a situation of extreme stress or emotional hardship, often in the state of distress. The terms "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" and "psychodynamic psychotherapy" are often used interchangeably, but a distinction can be made in practice: though psychodynamic psychotherapy largely relies on psychoanalytical theory, it employs substantially shorter treatment periods than traditional psychoanalytical therapies. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is evidence-based; the effectiveness of psychoanalysis and its relationship to facts is disputed.
The Internal Family Systems Model (IFS) is an integrative approach to individual psychotherapy developed by Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980s. It combines systems thinking with the view that the mind is made up of relatively discrete subpersonalities, each with its own unique viewpoint and qualities. IFS uses systems psychology, particularly as developed for family therapy, to understand how these collections of subpersonalities are organized.
Somatic experiencing (SE) is a form of alternative therapy aimed at treating trauma and stress-related disorders, such as PTSD. The primary goal of SE is to modify the trauma-related stress response through bottom-up processing. The client's attention is directed toward internal sensations,, rather than to cognitive or emotional experiences. The method was developed by Peter A. Levine.
Body psychotherapy, also called body-oriented psychotherapy, is an approach to psychotherapy which applies basic principles of somatic psychology. It originated in the work of Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud and particularly Wilhelm Reich who developed it as vegetotherapy. Branches also were developed by Alexander Lowen, and John Pierrakos, both patients and students of Reich, like Reichian body-oriented psychotherapy and Gerda Boyesen.
Clean language is a technique primarily used in counseling, psychotherapy and coaching but now also used in education, business, organisational change and health. It has been applied as a research interview technique called clean language interviewing.
Gerda Boyesen was the founder of Biodynamic Psychology, a branch of Body Psychotherapy.
Child psychotherapy, or mental health interventions for children refers to the psychological treatment of various mental disorders diagnosed in children and adolescents. The therapeutic techniques developed for younger age ranges specialize in prioritizing the relationship between the child and the therapist. The goal of maintaining positive therapist-client relationships is typically achieved using therapeutic conversations and can take place with the client alone, or through engagement with family members.
Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) are a set of related approaches to psychotherapy with individuals, couples, or families. EFT approaches include elements of experiential therapy, systemic therapy, and attachment theory. EFT is usually a short-term treatment. EFT approaches are based on the premise that human emotions are connected to human needs, and therefore emotions have an innately adaptive potential that, if activated and worked through, can help people change problematic emotional states and interpersonal relationships. Emotion-focused therapy for individuals was originally known as process-experiential therapy, and it is still sometimes called by that name.
Contemplative psychotherapy is an approach to psychotherapy that includes the use of personal contemplative practices and insights informed by the spiritual tradition of Buddhism. Contemplative psychotherapy differs from other, more traditional methods of counseling in that the therapist brings to the therapeutic relationship qualities of mindfulness and compassion in order to help clients access their fundamental goodness and natural wisdom. The practice of Contemplative Psychotherapy grew out of a dialogue between Tibetan Buddhist master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Western psychologists and psychiatrists. This discussion led to the opening of the Contemplative Psychotherapy Department at Naropa University in 1978 by Edward M. Podvoll, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and dedicated student of Trungpa.
Positive psychotherapy is a psychotherapeutic method developed by psychiatrist and psychotherapist Nossrat Peseschkian and co-workers in Germany beginning in 1968. This humanistic psychodynamic psychotherapy is based on a positive conception of human nature. PPT is an integrative method which includes humanistic, systemic, psychodynamic and CBT-elements. Today there are centers and trainings in some twenty countries worldwide. It should not be confused with positive psychology.
Family therapy is a branch of psychotherapy focused on families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members.
Somatics is a field within bodywork and movement studies which emphasizes internal physical perception and experience. The term is used in movement therapy to signify approaches based on the soma, or "the body as perceived from within", including Skinner Releasing Technique, Alexander technique, the Feldenkrais Method, Eutony Gerda Alexander, Rolfing Structural Integration, among others. In dance, the term refers to techniques based on the dancer's internal sensation, in contrast with "performative techniques", such as ballet or modern dance, which emphasize the external observation of movement by an audience. Somatic techniques may be used in bodywork, psychotherapy, dance, or spiritual practices.
Biodynamic massage is a complementary therapy developed by Gerda Boyesen in Norway during the 1950s.
