This strategy comes developmentally in between the Dependent/Endearing and the Tough/Generous and Charming/Manipulative strategies. It occurs at the very first stage of rapprochement when a child’s first impulses toward individuation happen. External inhibition from the caretaker truncates these impulses, and the resultant strategy of continued merging and compliance with the caretaker develops. Attempts at individuation in adult life are accompanied by feelings of guilt, fear of being bad and/or hurtful to others, and fear of being selfish. This is the core material of co-dependence. Many therapists draw from this strategy.

In true Hakomi style, this class will have didactic as well as experiential components.

Gregory Gaiser, PC, CMT, CHP (demi-gender; pronouns: he/they) is a long-time faculty member who 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.