Hakomi as Assisted Self-Study
Several years ago, I began to see the work as assisted self-study. This vision of the work is quite different from that of traditional psychotherapy. I would call the refined method as mindfulness-based, assisted self study.
In this light, it is closely related to the Buddhist and Taoist principles that were among my original inspirations. As assisted self-study, the work is different in some fundamental way from those therapies that find their foundations in medicine and place themselves within that paradigm. This method can be part of any method of psychotherapy. But it is much more than therapy. It is part of the universal human endeavor to understand ourselves, to free ourselves from the inevitable suffering caused by ignorance of who we are and how the world hangs together.
It is the path taken by all who make the effort to go beyond the half-remembered hurts and failed beliefs, and memories that linger unexamined in the mind and body. It is part of the sustained effort to heal old pains, to wake from the automatic behaviors that keep us from our destined freedom. All self-study, assisted or otherwise, is another part of that heroic labor, a cousin to sitting meditation, to singing bowls and chanting monks.
Anyone who is capable of a few moments of calm will have no trouble pursuing self-study using this method. And just as exciting, assisting in that process is well within the reach of any good-hearted, intelligent person who takes the time to learn the method.
There’s more on this in the paper called, “Getting It”