Successful therapy involves more than just talking or changing thought patterns.  We live life in a body that experiences a lot of different things.  When we can tap into all of the information in our system – what we experience in our body, our feelings, our thoughts, different parts of ourselves, memories that occur spontaneously, etc the work is much more whole.  Further, when we are able to fully experience and embody change as a new way of being then the change lasts longer than just working hard to think differently.
Chuck has completed the comprehensive two year training Hakomi Method of Experiential Psychotherapy and served as a teaching assistant for 4 years. Hakomi is an experiential, present moment, body centered, form of therapy.  In addition, Chuck has trained in Internal Family Systems, Voice Dialog, Psychodrama, and other experiential/body centered approaches and integrates these modalities seamlessly to meet you where you are and help you grow.
If you have tried “talk therapy” before and feel like therapy just doesn’t work, we urge you to consider body centered experiential methods.  Studying yourself with open, honest observation with a trained guide and support is the fastest way to learn about and change your automatic behavior, thoughts, and beliefs that organize how you show up in the world.

More about Hakomi

“Hakomi is . . . well grounded in theory and revolutionary in its results” — Association of Humanistic Psychology
Although Hakomi was developed primarily as a psychotherapy, it has been discovered over the last several decades that it can be successfully applied in a wide variety of related fields. Hakomi therapists and practitioners may integrate the Hakomi approach and principles into practices and professions including bodywork, expressive therapies, pastoral and spiritual counseling, holistic and alternative healing, coaching and consulting, mediation and conflict resolution, teaching mindfulness and meditation, work with groups and organizations, and other non-clinical applications.
  • The therapist or practitioner will work to cultivate an attitude and atmosphere of loving presence, acceptance and safety. These factors are key to the practice of the Hakomi method.
  • They will work within the Hakomi principle of nonviolence. This means they will not impose their beliefs,observations, or analysis on you. Although they may offer certain insights, you will always have the opportunity to decide for yourself, disagree, and/or ultimately sense what feels right or true for you. In Hakomi the practitioner does not insist that they are right, know what’s best for you, or that their professional expertise is superior to your internal wisdom.
  • You will have the opportunity to learn experientially what is true for you. For example, in Hakomi psychotherapy, we discover the unconscious core beliefs that guide our conscious lives without our knowledge. The therapist will not tell you what your core beliefs are or try to convince you, instead,you will experience these for yourself as they emerge safely and spontaneously in the course of the therapy.
  • The therapist or practitioner will help you learn to work in mindfulness. This is an active application of meditative practice, in which we develop a heightened awareness of our internal state, and learn to witness our thoughts, emotions, memories and bodily sensations as they arise and without judgement. In Hakomi psychotherapy, mindfulness helps to access core unconscious material quite rapidly and safely. In other contexts, mindfulness can also help to cultivate deeper spiritual states of consciousness.
  • Hakomi will help you to develop your understanding and experience of body-mind integration. It is a principle common to both holistic health and Hakomi that emotional stress is stored in the body and may manifest as chronic tension or illness. In Hakomi psychotherapy, we use specific techniques to “access” these chronic patterns of tension, movement and posture as they can lead us todirect experience of core beliefs and the memories and experiences that generated them. We can also learn to read body language and structure to learn more about an individual’s unconscious beliefs and life patterns, and/or to enhance our relationships by understanding how individuals communicate nonverbally.
You will learn to integrate the experiences, insights, and information that unfold during the Hakomi process so they are useful and applicable in your daily life.

Hakomi helps people change “core material.”  Core material is composed of memories, images, beliefs, neural patterns and deeply held emotional dispositions. It shapes the styles, habits, behaviors, perceptions and attitudes that define us as individuals. Typically, it exerts its influence unconsciously, by organizing our responses to the major themes of life: safety, belonging, support, power, freedom, control, responsibility, love, appreciation, sexuality, spirituality, etc. Some of this material supports our being who we wish to be, while some of it, learned in response to acute and chronic stress, continues to limit us. Hakomi allows the client to distinguish between the two, and to willingly change material that restricts his or her wholeness.

Hakomi is an experiential psychotherapy: Present, felt experience is used as an access route to core material; this unconscious material is elicited and surfaces experientially; and changes are integrated into the client’s immediate experience.

Hakomi is a body-centered, somatic psychotherapy: the body serves as a resource that reflects and stores formative memories and the core beliefs they have generated, and also provides significant access routes to core material.

The Hakomi Method follows a general outline: First, we establish an ever-present, attitude of gentle acceptance and care known as loving presence. This maximizes safety, respect and the cooperation of the unconscious. With a good working relationship established, we then help the client focus on and learn how core material shapes his or her experience. To permit this study, we establish and use a distinct state of consciousness called Mindfulness.  Mindfulness is characterized by relaxed volition, a gentle and sustained inward focus of attention, heightened sensitivity, and the ability to notice and name the contents of consciousness. Its roots derive from Eastern meditation practice. Hakomi has pioneered the use of active, or dynamic mindfulness in psychotherapy: instead of using mindfulness meditation as simply an adjunct to therapy, virtually the entire Hakomi process in conducted in mindfulness. This facilitates Hakomi techniques in accessing unconscious material quite rapidly, but safely.

The heart of the Method works with the client’s present, felt experience, as it is presented spontaneously, or deliberately and gently evoked by having them experiment with habitual tension or movement patterns known as “indicators.” These emotional/cognitive patterns automatically keep deeper experience out of present awareness.

More information on Hakomi from GoodTherapy.org
Hakomi FAQ