hakomi.com

Workshops

Therapy Intensives

In this workshop, Ron will be doing sessions, demonstrating the use of indicators, and talking about the Refined Hakomi Method. The workshop provides several opportunities to see Ron work with people and to discuss each session in detail. In a typical three-day intensive, Ron will work with as many as twelve to fifteen people. Ron will also work with several others, pointing out indicators, getting ideas about what the indicators might mean, and describing experiments one might do using the indicators. Ron will give two or three talks on the method, the general flow of the process, and the skills needed to facilitate it.

In a typical session, Ron will work with the client or couple using the latest version of his method. This involves using techniques like: tracking, contact, finding indicators, guessing about the meaning of the indicator and creating an experiment to do with it, with the cli­ent in mindfulness. Ron will also use the technique of “following” in which the client’s spontaneous behaviors as guides to the next step in the process. Ron will be demonstrat­ing his use of silence and comforting during integration.

Trainings

The Refined Hakomi Method: Five-day Training, Part 1

What is the Refined Hakomi Method?

Ron describes it as: Mindfulness-based, Assisted Self-discovery. He describes the unique contribution of the Hakomi method this way:

“The method contains, as a necessary ele­ment, precise experiments done with a person in a mindful state, the purpose of which are to evoke emotions, memories and reactions that will reveal or help access the implicit beliefs, early experiences and adaptations that influence the person’s nonconscious, habitual behaviors.”

Using this method, normally unconscious patterns of thinking and behavior—and these are extensive. Much unnecessary suffering is caused by these unconscious patterns and only when they are made conscious, can they be changed.

This workshop will teach the basic elements of the method, using short talks, multiple demonstrations and a progressive series of experiential exercises. The basic elements include six sets of skills: State of Mind, Relating, Nonverbal Awareness, Modeling, Experimenting, and Supporting Healing Processes. For each of these elements, there are techniques to learn and small group exercises to do. The key elements are as follows:

• Loving Presence: By being in this particular state of mind, the practitioner creates the emotional-relational context for working with clients. We will talk about and do a series of experiential exercises that teach loving presence.
• Nonverbal Awareness: Essential for using this method is a well developed ability to focus on and understand a client’s nonverbal behaviors. These behaviors are used as starting points for self-study. Again, we will do several exercises that teach this skill.
• Assisted Self-study and the Use of Mindfulness: Refer to the statement above on the uniqueness of the method.
• An Experimental Attitude and the Use of Probes: With clients in a mindful state, we create short, nonviolent experiments designed to evoke reactions, always with the client’s express permission. The reactions reveal to the client, his or her unconscious patterns and provide opportunities to heal long-term emotional issues. We will practice this.
• Support for Healing Processes: During a healing process we offer safety, comfort and silence in support of emotional expression and integration. Usually, this is done with the help of trained assistants who are usually known to the client.

All of these elements will be demonstrated, discussed and practiced several times.

The Hakomi method, developed and continually refined by Ron Kurtz, draws from the vast worlds of science, spirituality and psychotherapy, yet the practice itself remains simple. At the same time, Hakomi requires a great deal of the therapist. An essential part of the training is learning to bring oneself into a calm, warm-hearted, present-focused state of mind, with the express purpose of creating a corresponding shift towards these same qualities in the client. Level I is designed to do just that.
In addition, the training will focus on increasing your ability to read non-verbal communications effectively and to provide the client with the missing nourishment and comfort. During the four weekend trainings, a great deal of attention will be paid to in-the-moment experiences as the group works with a variety of exercises designed to elicit your own unconscious presuppositions. Many students who have attended Level I training in the past have found it to be a source of profound personal growth in addition to significantly increasing their clinical skills.

Components of Part 1:

Loving Presence One:

This workshop is about creating a relationship which feels safe—safe enough to allow the kind of emotional expression that leads to an unburdening and release of emotional pain. The workshop follows a step-by-step learning process based on experiences. A full set of experiential exercises, which are done in pairs or small groups, are the central feature of this process. Ego-centered, task-oriented, habitual agendas are consciously examined and put aside. An open, compassionate state of mind emerges within which perception, understanding and compassion are dramatically enhanced.

Quieting the Mind:

This workshop is about bringing together the emotions, ideas and memories that habitually drive us to keep busy, to continuously strive, to be always running towards some things and away from others. To the extent that we are what we want and what we’re afraid of, these states define us. They move our thoughts, feelings and actions. To quiet the mind, even for a few moments, we must stop all that movement. Here we study how our habitual concerns and worries interfere with quiet, relaxed states. In the process, we learn to create a stable, peaceful state of mind.

Non-Verbal Communication:

“Ninety percent of the emotional information is communicated non verbally.”
—Daniel Goleman, in Emotional Intelligence

In ordinary conversation, we focus primarily on what people are saying. Hakomi teaches us to attend to four sources of information: Signs of what the client is experiencing and doing, the assumptions underlying what the client is doing and/or saying. Lastly, we focus on the unconscious commentary that accompanies ordinary speech which is being delivered through gestures and facial expressions. In the process, we learn how to bring those unconscious expectations into consciousness.

Loving Presence Two:

This workshop focuses on comfort and integration. Providing the missing experience is a key to healing in Hakomi method. In this workshop we will study and change our habits around giving and receiving nourishing communications, including touch and speech. We will support each other in making changes which will enhance our ability to feel loved and nourished. And we will develop our skills in helping others to feel loved and nourished.

The Refined Hakomi Method: Five-day Training, Part 2

This training covers the newer elements of the Refined Method in detail.

Note: Before completing the development the Hakomi Method, I would like to personally train as many people as possible, in the most up to date version. There is nothing quite as rewarding as being immersed together in the work. It is my privilege to teach it once again. — Ron Kurtz

(More to come!)