Hakomi refers to a therapeutic approach which focuses on a client’s awareness of the present moment and their state of consciousness, reviews core beliefs, memories and patterns of behavior with the objective of organizing or reworking this material. Some of the material may be limiting the client and this therapy can help facilitate growth, reintegration and ultimately wholeness.
The word “hakomi” is a word rooted in the Hopi Indian language and roughly translated is a question “how do you stand in relation to these many realms?” Put simply the question is “who are you?” Ron Kurtz, an American therapist with a background in physics and doctoral work in experimental psychology developed Hakomi in the 1970’s. He refined the method and in 1981 opened the Hakomi Institute in Boulder Colorado.
In a session, a therapist initially establishes a safe, supportive, accepting attitude and relationship with the client.The therapist is open-hearted and his or her intentions are good. In this way the therapist is completely present for the client through their self-discovery process. Central to the therapy is the technique of ‘mindfulness’. In Kurtz’s words: “Essentially, mindfulness is a state of being where the client is attending to the flow of his or her moment to moment experience and is otherwise passive, allowing experiences to happen.”1 Kurtz saw the most productive process as being experiential for the client. The client’s core beliefs, memories, disposition and patterns of thinking or behaving are reviewed so that they can be clarified and reorganized and finally reintegrated into the client’s daily life. The process allows a client to distinguish between experiences that are positive and nourishing and ones that are based out of fear, habit and are limiting. In this way, transformation and healing can begin to happen.
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