Our Approaches

The Hakomi Method combines the Eastern traditions of mindfulness and non-violence with a unique, highly effective Western methodology. Hakomi was developed and is applied primarily as an experiential psychotherapy, but is also designed to be integrated by other practitioners in a wide variety of contexts.

Hakomi is a body-centered, somatic approach. In a therapeutic context, the body's structures and habitual patterns become a powerful doorway to unconscious core material, including the hidden core beliefs which shape our lives, relationships, and self-images.

The Hakomi Method quickly accesses this core material, allowing it to emerge safely into consciousness. Once conscious, it can be re-evaluated, and where appropriate, powerfully transformed. New dimensions of awareness can be integrated, helping the individual to build a more satisfying and effective life.

Loving presence and the healing relationship are central to Hakomi. The process creates an exquisite level of sensitivity and attunement between practitioner and client, developing a deep sense of safety and connection which facilitaties the effectiveness of the work.

There are many techniques for cultivating mindfulness but mindfulness is not just a technique. Mindfulness helps people to become more aware of their own personal experience. As this awareness develops by a process of non-judgmental observation, a person can change the deeply grooved neural pathways of habitual ruminative thought and troublesome emotional reactions. Mindfulness therapy emphasizes awareness of process and deemphasizes content, reducing the reinforcement of negative thoughts.

The "core skill" taught by mindfulness therapy is the ability to identify and detach from the states of mind that evoke rumination and negative thinking. Rumination and negative thinking trigger more rumination and negative thinking, which triggers more rumination and negative thinking, and so on. This pattern of thought, of course, escalates a downward mood spiral. Indulging in these kinds of thoughts reinforces their emotional charge and is a large reason for emotional suffering. By purposefully directing awareness away from such thoughts and towards some “anchor”, this serves to decrease their effect and instead creates a space of freedom where calmness and contentment can grow.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a research based psychotherapy that is widely used for treating depression, anxiety, stress, low self esteem, shyness, insomnia, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and more.

CBT focuses on the connection between thoughts, feelings and behaviors. CBT aims to explain how certain thinking patterns can lead to depression, anxiety, anger and fear and destructive and/or ineffective behaviors that can be the consequences of those states. CBT helps clients to unlearn old thinking and behavior patterns and replace them with more realistic and constructive ones.

The relationship with the therapist is collaborative and problem focused. For more information about CBT please see: www.nacbt.org/whatiscbt.htm or www.cognitivetherapy.com.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR™) is a comprehensive, integrative psychotherapy approach. It contains elements of many effective psychotherapies in structured protocols that are designed to maximize treatment effects. These include psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, interpersonal, experiential, and body-centered therapies.

EMDR™ psychotherapy is an information processing therapy and uses an eight phase approach to address the experiential contributors of a wide range of pathologies. It attends to the past experiences that have set the groundwork for pathology, the current situations that trigger dysfunctional emotions, beliefs and sensations, and the positive experience needed to enhance future adaptive behaviors and mental health.

During treatment various procedures and protocols are used to address the entire clinical picture. One of the procedural elements is "dual stimulation" using either bilateral eye movements, tones or taps. During the reprocessing phases the client attends momentarily to past memories, present triggers, or anticipated future experiences while simultaneously focusing on a set of external stimulus. During that time, clients generally experience the emergence of insight, changes in memories, or new associations. The clinician assists the client to focus on appropriate material before initiation of each subsequent set.