Level One offers a thorough grounding in the theories and techniques of Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy. Level One includes in-depth coverage of the Hakomi principles, Hakomi theories, maps and models as well as specific techniques. Training weekends include a mix of didactic material, experiential exercises, discussion, movement/embodiment exercises, group maintenance time and supervised practice times.

This training is for professional therapists, clinical social workers, and counselors, students and interns of clinical social work, counseling, and psychotherapy, licensed healing arts practitioners, and people transitioning into the field of somatic psychotherapy who want to learn the method in its entirety.

The goals of the Training are to provide students with: first, a deep understanding of the principles of the Hakomi Method and the ability to work within them in an attitude of loving presence. Second, an understanding of the techniques of the Hakomi therapeutic process and the ability to use these precisely and appropriately. Third, an understanding of the organization of personality and character into patterns that reveal developmental and cultural wounding, and the ability to use this understanding discriminatingly. Fourth, an understanding of one’s own inner organization and the process of using self as an instrument for therapy.

Learning Objectives:

A. Hakomi Principles

• Apply the Hakomi principles of unity and nonviolence in therapy to create safety and build a relationship of equality between therapist and client
• Apply the Hakomi principles of body-mind integration to discover unconscious psychological information in the body
• Apply the Hakomi principle of organicity to tailor therapeutic interventions to each client’s unique situation and transformation process.

B. Hakomi Skill: The Therapeutic Relationship

• Utilize the practice of Loving Presence to enhance the therapeutic relationship and create safety.

C. Hakomi Skill: Mindfulness

• Utilize psychodynamic mindfulness do bring clients into deeper experience and self-awareness
• Demonstrate the ability to be mindful (as therapist) while facilitating the session
• Demonstrate the ability to guide the client from a focus on presenting verbal content to experiential awareness, including mindfulness of key themes and “indicators” of unconscious material in the body
• Assess when the client is mindful and when they are in ordinary consciousness.

D. Hakomi Skill: Tracking

• Demonstrate the ability track subtle, somatic cues in the body and habitual patterns
• Demonstrate the ability to track for emotion
• Demonstrate the ability to track the client for safety and to make adjustments in the process that allow the work to safely deepen.

E. Hakomi Skill: Contact

• Utilize verbal contact to create safety and collaboration with the client
• Utilize verbal contact to bring client’s unconscious material to consciousness and deepen the client’s experiential process.
• Demonstrate the ability to verbally contact the many aspect of the client’s experience (eg. thoughts, emotions, body cue, themes, barrier)

F. Hakomi Skill: Identifying Themes

• Identify key themes in the client’s presenting issues to create access routes to core unconscious material
• Assess the client for ‘missing experiences’ and unmet development needs

G. Hakomi Skill: Working with Regressive (Child) States

• Identifying regressive (child) states in the client
• List the differences between Child Consciousness and Adult Consciousness

H. Therapeutic Interventions

• Demonstrate the ability to help the client to safely stay with somatic awareness, with emotion, and with unconscious material as it emerges
• Apply Hakomi skills and principles in the therapeutic process
• Work experientially to allow the client to “take ownership” of the process
• Demonstrate the ability to use the mindfulness experiments of verbal probes and taking over and explain the difference in these interventions, so as to make clear therapeutic choices.
• Create experiments in mindfulness to help the client access explore unconscious core material
• Utilize experiments in mindfulness to uncover client’s unmet developmental needs and to provide corrective experience to the client.
• Revise experiments as new information arises from the client’s exploration, so as to deepen and expand the clients experience.
• Utilize experiments in mindfulness that work with a variety of client experiences: emotions, thoughts, introjected voices, memories, and bodily experience, so as to expand the client’s ability to tolerate and process these experiences.

I. Transformation: Working at the Nourishment Barrier

• Identify ‘nourishment barriers’ in the client, so as to work with ‘resistance’ to change.

J. Integration

• List and utilize integration techniques to help the client accommodate and solidify new experiences.

K. Stages of the Hakomi Process

• List the stages of the Hakomi Process: Safety, Accessing, Deepening, Processing, Transformation, Integration, Completion

L. Trauma

• Describe traumatic activation
• Identify traumatic activation when it arises in a client so as to make appropriate therapeutic decisions.
• List the ways that traumatic activation differs from developmental wounding
• Explain the “Window of Tolerance”
• Apply appropriate therapeutic interventions to help client return to Window of Tolerance

The Colorado/Northeast Hakomi team has a deep history in Colorado and the Northeast that spans the last 30 years. We’ve trained over 750 students in our Comprehensive Trainings, and close to 2000 people in Intro Workshops. We aim to continuously develop and refine our training approach, in collaboration with our Hakomi colleagues around the world.

Our team currently offers an innovative Hybrid structure that meets two Fridays a month live-online, with four in person immersions over Levels 1 & 2. One third of our live class hours are in person. The online cohorts include students and teaching assistants from 13 states, while in person modules meet in smaller groups regionally. We love this mix because it provides students access to a larger faculty and more diverse cohort online, with a more intimate group experience for in person modules.

As a faculty we are passionate about our own growth and development as a team. We continue to update our curriculum and practices to increase accessibility and inclusion for people in marginalized communities. We will continue to integrate new learning in the fields of neuroscience, attachment theory, cultural impacts on identity, and trauma recovery – including intergenerational and collective trauma.

Faculty:  

Trainers:  Melissa Grace, MA, Lead Trainer;  Jaci Hull, MA, LMFT;  Julia Corley, MA, LCMHC

Teachers: Ariana Tosatto, MA, LPC;  Kate Mazuy, MA, LPC; Sylvie Lam, MA, LPC; Rupesh Chhagan, CHT, TCMP

2026 Level 1 Dates 

Mar 13 & 27 

Apr  10 & 24 

May 1

May 13 – 16 

Jun 5 & 26

Jul 10 & 24

Aug 7 & 21

Sep 11

Sep 30 – Oct 3

Oct 16 & 30 

Nov 6 & 20 

Dec 5 & 6

Level 1 Hours

Friday hours (on Zoom):  8am – 2pm PT / 9am – 3pm MT / 11am – 5pm ET 

In person immersion hours:  Wed/Thu/Fri 9:30am – 5:30pm / Sat 9:30am – 3:30pm

CEs 

60 CE’s: (ACEP #5476): Hakomi Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP No. 5476.) Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Hakomi Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the program.