The Five Principles in Hakomi:
At the foundation of the method and techniques of Hakomi are Five Core Principles that underpin the heart of the work.
Those Principles are: Mindfulness, Organicity, Unity, Non-Violence and Body/Mind/Spirit Holism.
1. Mindfulness is an exploratory, relaxed and alert, meditative (though non-hypnotic), state of consciousness, which allows us to move beyond our normal, habitual thoughts and actions to the often richly non-verbal intuitions of our deeper states.
Mindfulness is a powerful tool for helping us each to study the organisation of our experience. The process also supports the mobilisation of our essential or core selves, which have presence, contentedness, compassion, and wisdom that transcend the limitations of our historical experience.
2. Organicity expresses the understanding that we are self-organising systems with natural impulses towards growth and change. Thus, in Hakomi, the therapist acknowledges the client's inner knowledge and the inherent wisdom and intelligence of the body. We support our clients’ organic unfolding toward wholeness, and trust that this is the direction that their system will seek naturally. Rather than imposing their own agenda, the therapist works cooperatively with the client’s system.
3. Non-Violence promotes safe, non-forceful, cooperative exploration through honoring the signs and signals of our organic processes, especially those that manifest as ‘resistance’. Change is not pursued through force or opposition, but rather by going with the grain. In contrast to confronting or overpowering ‘defences’, Hakomi respects and supports such occurrences, which then allows them to be befriended for the wisdom they contain, and to be yielded willingly when appropriate.
4. Unity expresses that, as people, we are living, organic systems that are integral wholes, composed of parts, which also participate in larger systems. We each participate in the experience of the other, the universe is participatory and interdependent, client and therapist are interacting parts of the same process. The inter-dependency of all levels of the system, including the physical/metabolic, intra-psychic, interpersonal, family, cultural, and spiritual are taken seriously in Hakomi.
5. Body/Mind/Spirit Holism affirms that mind, body and spirit jointly manifest and reflect the beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world, which in turn organise how we creatively experience and express ourselves in life. The mind, body and spirit are interacting subsystems of one meta-system and are constantly affecting one another, information is constantly flowing within the system and is being expressed through a variety of channels at any one time. Hakomi has many ways of exploring the mind-body-spirit connection to help bring to awareness this somatic material, and the core beliefs and experiences that generate it.
Those Principles are: Mindfulness, Organicity, Unity, Non-Violence and Body/Mind/Spirit Holism.
1. Mindfulness is an exploratory, relaxed and alert, meditative (though non-hypnotic), state of consciousness, which allows us to move beyond our normal, habitual thoughts and actions to the often richly non-verbal intuitions of our deeper states.
Mindfulness is a powerful tool for helping us each to study the organisation of our experience. The process also supports the mobilisation of our essential or core selves, which have presence, contentedness, compassion, and wisdom that transcend the limitations of our historical experience.
2. Organicity expresses the understanding that we are self-organising systems with natural impulses towards growth and change. Thus, in Hakomi, the therapist acknowledges the client's inner knowledge and the inherent wisdom and intelligence of the body. We support our clients’ organic unfolding toward wholeness, and trust that this is the direction that their system will seek naturally. Rather than imposing their own agenda, the therapist works cooperatively with the client’s system.
3. Non-Violence promotes safe, non-forceful, cooperative exploration through honoring the signs and signals of our organic processes, especially those that manifest as ‘resistance’. Change is not pursued through force or opposition, but rather by going with the grain. In contrast to confronting or overpowering ‘defences’, Hakomi respects and supports such occurrences, which then allows them to be befriended for the wisdom they contain, and to be yielded willingly when appropriate.
4. Unity expresses that, as people, we are living, organic systems that are integral wholes, composed of parts, which also participate in larger systems. We each participate in the experience of the other, the universe is participatory and interdependent, client and therapist are interacting parts of the same process. The inter-dependency of all levels of the system, including the physical/metabolic, intra-psychic, interpersonal, family, cultural, and spiritual are taken seriously in Hakomi.
5. Body/Mind/Spirit Holism affirms that mind, body and spirit jointly manifest and reflect the beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world, which in turn organise how we creatively experience and express ourselves in life. The mind, body and spirit are interacting subsystems of one meta-system and are constantly affecting one another, information is constantly flowing within the system and is being expressed through a variety of channels at any one time. Hakomi has many ways of exploring the mind-body-spirit connection to help bring to awareness this somatic material, and the core beliefs and experiences that generate it.
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