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11/6/2015 0 Comments

How does Hakomi Bodywork differ from standard Massage Therapy?

Hakomi is a mindfulness-based, body-centered psychotherapy method created by Ron Kurtz. Hakomi based body work is an adaptation of this method relating to massage or bodywork techniques. It is not psychotherapy. The following are important ways Hakomi-based Bodywork differs from standard bodywork or massage therapy:
 
  • Hakomi-based Bodywork Therapists pay attention to what goes on inside of you.    In Hakomi based Bodywork, you will be guided into a state of consciousness called “mindfulness,” which enables you to “tune into” your inner experience. As mindfulness makes you more sensitive to subtle shifts in mood, feeling and sensation, it can take you into a deeper state than you are used to. For your comfort, we move slowly and deal with small areas at a time. If you feel overwhelmed or lost, we can always stop and come back to quiet touch.
  •  ​Hakomi-based Bodywork is experiential and experimental. Some of the most powerful opportunities for growth and change are when we experience something rather than merely talk about it. In fact, we can only access neural patterns associated with our life experiences by turning our awareness to our immediate, felt experience (i.e. sensations, feeling, images). During our session, you will  be periodically asked what you are sensing or noticing in your body. This helps to deepen your relationship with your body through present time felt experience.
  •  There are times when the body is saying “no” to touch. We respect the body’s boundaries and work without touch from this place. Also, sometimes the Hakomi-based Bodyworker uses touch itself with permission from the client to support the client’s process. It may be anywhere on the client’s body except genitals and anywhere the client does not feel comfortable being touched. I will keep checking in during a session to see how the contact feels and what you are sensing. We can modify, change, or stop contact at any time during a session.
  • Hakomi-based Bodywork is a great complement with any type of bodywork technique because emotions sometimes surface. This is because tension in the body may be connected to strong feelings. A hunched posture, for example, can be a result of fear or trauma experienced in the past. As muscles and nerves relax it is possible to remember or even re-experience the original emotion associated with your tension. Getting in touch with our emotions can be a very effective aid in relieving tension and pain as well as an opportunity to integrate past emotions. The Hakomi-based Bodywork therapist understands this process. Reconnecting somatic experience with emotional cognition allows for profound healing to occur with a deeper understanding of the human experience.
  • Hakomi-based Bodywork provides physical support for emotional counseling and mental therapy. There are times past trauma and strong emotion may arise that do not find resolution in a Hakomi-based Bodywork session. When this happens extra support is needed with a psychotherapist or counselor for the unresolved trauma. With your permission we can cultivate a collaborative relationship with your psychotherapist to provide you with optimum care to support your process more fully. 
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11/6/2015 0 Comments

What is Hakomi Based Bodywork?

By Laura McCorkle, LMT

Hakomi based Bodywork is an outgrowth of Hakomi, a body-centered psychotherapeutic method developed by Ron Kurtz that draws from psychotherapy, body therapies, Buddhism and Taoism. At its most basic level, Hakomi is the therapeutic expression of a set of five universal principles: Mindfulness, Nonviolence, Unity, Organicity, and Mind-Body Integration. While sharing the core principles, Hakomi based Bodywork is distinct from Hakomi psychotherapy, and is not a psychotherapeutic method. It is an adaptation of Hakomi that is incorporated into a massage or bodywork session to focus on the client’s somatic experience or more simply put, how a client can relate to their own body. It integrates the five principles with verbal dialogue to help the client access his/her own body’s wisdom and organic unfolding toward wholeness. It provides tools for educating clients about their relationship to their somatic selves and helps them to expand their awareness of themselves in their bodies. Rather than using an agenda or protocol, the therapist works cooperatively with the client’s system to access the innate wisdom and natural tendency to seek wholeness. 

How does this happen? Any time we, the therapist, touch a client we touch into their emotions and belief systems as expressed in the tissue, structure, movements and energy of the body. The techniques of Hakomi based Bodywork guides the client’s attention to their embodied experience. Together, practitioner and client explore the type of touch that best assists this process. Staying with sensations and responses, the client and therapist begin to understand the body’s language and the body begins to tell us a story. From their somatic experiences, emotions, images, thoughts, and even memories can emerge. As the relationship among these things becomes known, held energy can be released, the tissue yields, and structure and alignment is effected. What ultimately unfolds is a greater awareness and understanding of the client's own body and how it functions based on past experiences or beliefs that are held within the body. Many times, these are unconsciously held within our bodies. As a result, this work can be very profound creating huge shifts and changes in awareness for the client. Chronic or long-standing pain patterns can be alleviated or in some cases, completely released.


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    Laura McCorkle, LMT is a licensed massage therapist at Fertile Connection located in Portland, OR. 

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