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 licensed mental health professionals, graduate students working towards becoming a therapist, and licensed healing arts practitioners, and people transitioning into the field of somatic therapy who have experience working 1-to-1 with clients 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

M. Ethics

• Define dual roles and discuss the risk for ethical violations.
• Define the power differential and list the specific responsibilities that accompany power differential roles.
• List the major ethical categories covered in the Hakomi Institute Code of Ethics.
• Identify and discuss the values and dangers in the use of touch in helping professional relationships

Our Level 1 training will be in a hybrid format (8 live online meetings and 1 in-person meeting). Location: Online and in person at Sanctuary in the Pines – Flat Rock, North Carolina: 34 Lake Cove Rd., Flat Rock NC 28731

Faculty:
Certified Hakomi Trainers: Hiromi Willingham, MSW, LCSW; Julia Corley, MA, LCHMCA, Lorena Monda, MS, DOM, LPCC

2025

1) Jan 24-26 online live

2) Mar 7-9 online live

3) April 25-27 online live

4) June 4-8 in person in Flat Rock, NC (5 day in-person module on Hakomi somatic exploratory techniques and use of touch)

5) July 18-20 online live

6) September 12-14 online live

7) October 24-26 online live  

8) December 5-7 online live

9) January 9-11, 2026 online live

Find more details on dates and timing here

80 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.