What Is Hakomi Somatic Method?

From the founder, Ron Kurtz

This method is not about talking out your problems. There won’t be long, speculative conversations about your troubles or your history. 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 basically 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