How Hakomi Helps

Body-Centred Psychotherapy - Listening to the Wisdom of the Body

Hakomi-informed body-centred psychotherapy is grounded in a simple but profound understanding:

The body holds the stories the mind learned to survive.

Rather than trying to change or fix what is happening, this approach supports a gentle turning toward present-moment experience — where long-held patterns can soften and reorganise naturally.

If you are thoughtful, self-aware, and reflective, yet still find yourself repeating emotional or relational patterns, a Hakomi-informed approach may offer something different.

What Is Hakomi-Informed Body-Centred Psychotherapy?

Hakomi is a mindfulness-based, somatic psychotherapy that explores how core beliefs shape emotional and relational experience — not through analysis, but through direct, embodied awareness.

Sessions are guided by:

• Mindfulness and present-moment attention

• Curiosity rather than judgement

• Non-violence and respect for pacing

• The belief that the body organises experience intelligently

Instead of asking “Why am I like this?”

We listen for “How did this pattern help me once?”

Why the Body Is Central to Change

Early experiences — especially relational or developmental ones — are often stored pre-verbally, before language or conscious memory.

They live on as:

• Automatic emotional responses

• Patterns of closeness or withdrawal

• Tension, collapse, or vigilance in the body

• A felt sense of “this is how I have to be”

Hakomi works bottom-up, allowing these patterns to be noticed in real time, safely and gently, so new experiences can emerge.

Change happens not by effort, but by experience.

What Happens in a Hakomi-Informed Session?

Sessions are slow, collaborative, and grounded.

You may be invited to:

• Notice bodily sensations or impulses

• Track emotional responses as they arise

• Explore small, present-moment experiments

• Sense how beliefs live in the body

• Discover what happens when something new is offered

There is no pressure to perform, relive trauma, or push beyond your capacity.

The work unfolds at the pace your nervous system allows.

Who This Approach Is Helpful For

Hakomi-informed body-centred psychotherapy can be especially supportive for people experiencing:

• Developmental or relational trauma

• Anxiety, chronic stress, or emotional overwhelm

• Patterns of people-pleasing or self-abandonment

• Difficulty trusting or resting in relationships

• A sense of disconnection from the body or self

• Repeating patterns despite insight and self-understanding

It is often well suited to those who have “done a lot of thinking” and are ready for something more felt and integrated.

How Hakomi Differs from Other Approaches

Traditional Talk Therapy Hakomi-Informed Psychotherapy

Focus on narrative and insight Focus on present-moment experience

Top-down processing Bottom-up, body-led awareness

Change through understanding Change through embodied discovery

Therapist as expert Therapist as guide and collaborator

Insight is welcomed — but it is experience that transforms.

What Change Often Feels Like

Rather than dramatic breakthroughs, clients often notice:

• More choice and less reactivity

• A softening of long-held tension

• Clearer boundaries without force

• Greater self-compassion

• A felt sense of safety and agency

• Trust in their own inner signals

The nervous system learns that it no longer has to work so hard.

An Invitation

Hakomi-informed body-centred psychotherapy is not about fixing what is broken.

It is about listening deeply to what has been protecting you, and allowing something new to emerge — from the inside out.

If you are curious about a slower, respectful, body-led approach to psychological healing, this work offers a spacious and grounded way forward.