What is Hakomi Therapy? A Gentle Approach for Highly Sensitive Women

If you are a Highly Sensitive Woman looking for a type of therapy that is gentle but powerful, Hakomi Therapy might be for you.

As a Highly Sensitive Woman myself, I have been engaging in my own personal therapy for over 2 decades and I have tried several different modalities over the years. In this post, I describe what Hakomi Therapy is and why it is so helpful in my personal and professional experience.

Image credit to Les on Unsplash

What is Hakomi?

Hakomi Therapy, also known as Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy, was developed by Ron Kurtz and has been around since the 1970s. It is a form of experiential therapy that goes beyond talking about what we consciously know about the challenges we are facing by including the wisdom of the body. In a state of mindfulness and with gentle curiosity, you are guided to explore the patterns that are keeping you stuck and make space for new experiences. This process opens the door for new perspectives, different choices and meaningful change.

Why Hakomi can be especially helpful for highly sensitive women?

There are many reasons why Hakomi is helpful particularly for Highly Sensitive Persons. Here I will name just a few of them.

*Deep Processing: One quality of high sensitivity is the fact that we process things deeply, which means that we often spend time thinking about things and mulling things over. As a result, we tend to be very self-aware and already have a good insight into our patterns and the challenges we are struggling with.

In Hakomi, we learn to explore these patterns more deeply by bringing awareness to our experience in mindfulness, which includes thinking but also includes for example sensations in the body, different emotions and images that arise as part of our thoughts. We develop the capacity to explore what is going on for us with curiosity and from a more neutral observing state instead of our often self-critical and judgemental state. This helps us discover what lies hidden underneath the patterns we often find ourselves stuck in.

*Overstimulation: Another common experience in Highly Sensitive Persons is overstimulation and a sense of life being too much. This can be because of feeling overwhelmed by thoughts, emotions or sensory overload and more often a combination of things. In Hakomi, we naturally lean into following a therapeutic process at a pace that feels right for the client, that is connected to the present moment and that integrates our experiences in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming.

*Building Somatic Resources: This leads into another benefit of Hakomi Therapy for Highly Sensitive People, which is the building of somatic resources. As part of building the capacity to explore the issues we are coming to therapy for, Hakomi focuses on helping the client to build tangible resources within themselves. This could look like connecting to a particular part of the body, an image, the breath or something else that is a resource for us. Building a strong connection to these resources is very helpful for the therapy process but also helps us in our daily lives. For example, in situations when we are struggling with our own or other people’s intense emotions or environments that are overwhelming to our senses.

*Trusting your organic process: Here I’d like to touch on one of the principles that inform Hakomi therapy: Organicity. This principle recognises that your unfolding towards wholeness is guided by your own organic inner wisdom. This is a fundamental principle in my work with all my clients, but in my experience, it is deeply healing especially for highly sensitive women, because many grew up with a sense of feeling like ‘there is something wrong with me’ or ‘I should be different’.

Image credit to Nick Fewings on Unsplash

What happens in a Hakomi session?

Having said all this, you might wonder what actually happens in a Hakomi session? For example, do we still talk?

The short answer is yes. We talk about what is going on for you and while we talk, we may also notice what happens in the body, which often gives us valuable new information to work with.

We start with something you are interested in exploring, which could be something little or a bigger theme, and I may invite you into mindfulness to observe what is happening in the body during the exploration. As we get curious about what you are becoming aware of, I might guide you with the help of a little experiment, like saying a few words to you and noticing what happens inside you, towards deeper information. To clarify, experiments in Hakomi aren’t physical exercises or elaborate activities; they mostly involve noticing something happening inside in response to some words or a little gesture we agree on.

As part of this process, I always explain why I suggest might suggest an exploration and check in with you if you’d like to try it or not, so that you can decide what feels right for you. Working this way can lead to quite powerful experiences that we integrate towards the end of the session. If you’d like to find out more about how Hakomi works, please see the references I have listed at the end of this post.

Is Hakomi Therapy right for you? 

If you have read this far, you may be curious if Hakomi is a good fit for you. Here I will answer a few questions you may be sitting with and also share some thoughts on this question.

*Do I need to be experienced in Mindfulness or Mediation? No. All that is needed is your curiosity and openness to working with mindfulness. I will explain everything you may need to know and guide you gently along the way.

*Do I need to close my eyes? Not at all. Often people choose to close their eyes as a way to help them turn inwards, but it is completely optional.

*Do I have to be Highly Sensitive? No. Hakomi is a great modality for people from all walks of life.

Hakomi is often described as a method of assisted self-study because its main intention is not to ‘fix’ something that is broken in ourselves but to ‘assist us in studying the processes that automatically create and maintain the persons we have become’. (Ref.1) If you are curious about the underlying experiences that have shaped you and are willing to gently meet them, even when that is painful, this method has much to offer you.

If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out for a free 15-minute, obligation-free chat to see if we’re a good fit and to explore if Hakomi might be right for you.

References:

book: Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy, A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice

website: https://hakomi.com.au/books/

website: https://hakomi.com.au/articles/