In recent years, many Hakomi faculty members have been studying diversity (DEI or DEIB [which includes the word Belonging] work). For me personally this is also reshaping how I teach Character Theory.
These days I am thinking more in terms of Core Issues and Missing Experiences in a broader sense beyond how they occur in the family of origin. For example, a client may have issues around safety and belonging from being raised in an unsafe, even dangerous, family. But it is also true that a person may have grown up in a safe and secure home where they were wanted, but their experience of the culture they grew up in was one of threat, danger and rejection.
So for every developmental learning task we have traditionally taught associated with the adaptations known as character strategy, things like:
there is a cultural, societal lens we can look through as well. Many people, especially people in marginalized groups, were raised within families where the above needs were met, but they didn’t have those needs met in places like school, religious communities, sports teams, social groups, etc.
In this one night introductory course, we will broaden our view point on how we look at core issues and do some exercises relating to this topic.
My hope is that the participants will leave with a better understanding of how systems of oppression play a key role in the development of the body and the mind.
This class will consist of a lecture/slideshow (you’ll receive a copy of the slideshow along with handouts), a break, an exercise done in Breakout Rooms, and discussion as a whole group.
Beyond Character Theory is offered as an Introductory as well as a Foundational Primer Workshop for the Advanced Character Strategy Review Series, March 12 through July 23, 2026 (Beyond Character Theory is free to registrants of the series; those who sign up for the series after this course can deduct this cost from the series total)
Take Your Understanding and Application of Character Theory to the Next Level with advanced practice geared toward certification.
The Hakomi Character Map offers a powerful tool for developing therapeutic thinking so you can accurately and clearly perceive your clients and help them more effectively and efficiently.
In addition to the influence of the family of origin upon our clients, we will look at how cultural and societal systems shape our core beliefs around the same themes we study in the character strategies. For example, core issues (like safety and belonging, support and needs, individuation, power and autonomy, vulnerability, self-determination and freedom, and self-worth, lovability, gender identity, sexual identity, and equal status) can manifest from family dynamics, but may also result from the impact of cultural and societal systems, many of which are oppressive to marginalized individuals and groups.
Weaving in understandings of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, we will also explore the etiology of these developmental themes arising from both family of origin and also the culture and society of origin.
After learning Character Strategy in a Hakomi Training, the real learning comes while you’re working with clients and applying it to real lived experience. Many graduates are challenged to coordinate recognizing what barrier the client is in and what strategy they are working from (for example, the insight barrier is typically associated with two strategies that can look very similar: both the sensitive/withdrawn/emotional and the expressive/clinging strategy). Real proficiency comes from reviewing and deepening with these real client experiences and further discerning these barriers and strategies.
This Advanced Character Strategy Review series of classes is designed to review character in order to support graduates:
Gregory Gaiser, (demi-gender; pronouns: he/they) resides in Longmont, CO, the ancestral homeland of the Northern Arapaho people. After the U.S. government broke an 1860s treaty with several tribes, the Northern Arapaho lost their land and were forced onto the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Gregory is a Pastoral Counselor offering spiritual direction work and has served as the Lead Trainer for Hakomi Southwest since 2010. He has also served as an associate instructor with both the Right Use of Power Institute (devoted to ethics with heart) and the Matrix Leadership Institute (devoted to group work and developing a sense of community in all group settings). He first studied Hakomi in 1983 with founder Ron Kurtz, Pat Ogden, and Phil Del Prince. He worked with Dr. Ogden for many years at the beginning of the development of her work – first called Hakomi Bodywork and then later on called Hakomi Integrative Somatics. He trained in Somatic Experiencing in the early 1990s and again in 2010. Gregory was on the faculty of the Boulder College of Massage Therapy teaching various courses emphasizing the body-mind-spirit connection. While there Gregory co-developed with Amber Elizabeth Gray, a graduate level course entitled Trauma And The Body, which offered skillful, attuned bodywork to trauma survivors including families of Columbine High School and survivors of the Bosnian War. His life’s work is about helping folks in the embodied application of spiritual principles to their relationships with themselves, their partnerships and families, and their communities.
