WHAT IS THE HAKOMI METHOD?
Hakomi is a mindfulness-centered somatic method developed by Ron Kurtz. It helps us slow down and study the subtle ways our beliefs, memories, emotions, and survival adaptations shape our present experience.
Many of the patterns that govern our lives operate beneath conscious awareness. They can appear through bodily tension, emotional reactions, protective impulses, habitual thoughts, relationship dynamics, and the ways we reach for connection or pull away from it. Hakomi brings compassionate attention to these patterns so they can be experienced directly rather than understood only intellectually.
A Method of Assisted Self-Study
Ron Kurtz described Hakomi as a method of “assisted self-study.” The practitioner does not impose an interpretation or decide what an experience means. Instead, the work creates conditions in which you can observe your own inner responses with greater clarity.
During a session, you may be invited to notice a sensation, emotion, image, memory, movement, or internal reaction. A carefully chosen statement or small experiential inquiry can help bring an unconscious belief into awareness. The process is gentle, collaborative, and grounded in respect for the intelligence of the nervous system.
How Hakomi Informs My Work
Hakomi is one of the primary methods that informs my approach to somatic coaching. Rather than focusing exclusively on the story of what happened, we also study what is happening inside you now as you speak, remember, relate, or imagine making a change.
This may involve slowing down and noticing:
Where emotion is held in the body
What happens internally when you consider expressing a truth or need
How your system responds to closeness, conflict, disappointment, or uncertainty
Which beliefs arise when you attempt to set a boundary
What protective response appears when you feel exposed, misunderstood, or rejected
These moments often reveal the deeper organization beneath patterns such as people-pleasing, emotional suppression, self-abandonment, codependency, overfunctioning, reactivity, withdrawal, and difficulty trusting yourself.
From Automatic Reaction to Conscious Choice
Many unwanted behaviors began as intelligent adaptations to earlier circumstances. They may once have helped you preserve attachment, avoid conflict, remain emotionally safe, or maintain a sense of belonging. The difficulty arises when these adaptations continue operating automatically long after the original conditions have changed.
Hakomi-informed work allows these patterns to be approached with curiosity rather than shame. As they become conscious, there is more room to respond from present-day truth, discernment, and choice.
The purpose is not to perfect yourself or force unwanted parts to disappear. It is to develop a more honest and compassionate relationship with your inner life, allowing old patterns to loosen and more authentic ways of being to emerge.
Hakomi was developed as a form of somatic psychotherapy. My work draws from its principles and practices within the scope of somatic coaching and spiritual mentorship. It is not licensed psychotherapy or a replacement for medical or mental-health treatment.
Learn more about my background and approach, or explore working with me.
From the founder, Ron Kurtz:
“This method is designed to assist you in studying the processes that automatically create and maintain the person you have become. It is a method of assisted self-study. It requires that you enter into short periods of time where you become calm and centered enough to observe your own reactions, as if you were observing the behavior of another person, a state called mindfulness. The therapist assists your self-study by creating “little experiments” while you are in mindfulness. These experiments are always nonviolent and are designed to evoke reactions that will be reflections of the habits and beliefs that make you who you are. The implicit beliefs and relationship habits with which you meet the world automatically shape your present behavior. Aspects of your behavior, the aspects that reflect your deepest beliefs, are what the therapist uses to create the experiments.
The process works best: (1) if you can follow and report on your present experience; (2) if you’re able to get into a calm, inward-focused state and are relaxed enough to allow reactions; (3) if you’re willing to experience some painful feelings and speak about them; and (4) if you have the courage to be open and honest about your experience. That courage will be your greatest ally.”
Excerpted from The Essential Method by Ron Kurtz, Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy; A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice
