change 1
Autor: Julio Cesar Tafforelli | Publicado: 2011-09-20T14:09:00-07:00

I need to change,
but don’t change me.
Hakomi Trainer and Somatic Psychotherapist, MANUELA MISCHKE REEDS, introduces some
key concepts from Continuum Movement and illustrates how a simple movement instruction can be
used as a therapeutic intervention in Hakomi Therapy.
Continued on page 4
2
1 I NEED TO CHANGE, BUT DON’T CHANGE ME:
Hakomi Trainer, Manuela Mischke Reeds,
introduces some key ideas from Continuum
Movement into her Hakomi Practice.
3 TALK AND TOUCH :
Linda McClure, Hellerwork trainer and practitioner,
blends her work with Hakomi to deepen
her practice of integrating soma and psyche.
8 HAKOMI PACIFICA TEAM:
HPT Administrator, Lorella Ricci, gives us an
update on Hakomi in the Pacifica region.
10 DBT &amp; HAKOMI:
Sandi Plummer, PhD, Psychologist and
Hakomi Student looks at Dialectical
Behaviour Therapy via the Hakomi Lense.
17 WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE?
Ryta Kunciunas interviews Hakomi student
Gai Longmuir.
18 CASE REVIEW
Hakomi Teacher, Suhari Bohm, offers suggestions,
in response to a clinical vignette,
submitted by Hakomi student Carol Perry.
20 BOOK REVIEWS
23 REGIONAL ROUNDUP
Hakomi organisers from around Australia
report on recent activities.
24 AUSTRALIAN DIARY DATES &amp; CLASSIFIEDS
Advance notice of upcoming Hakomi workshops
and trainings around the country.
in this
issue
Hakomi News is published by the Hakomi Australia
Association, a non-profit organisation incorporated
in NSW. Please send your comments, editorial submissions,
questions or suggestions to &lt;haanews@hakomi.org.au&gt;
HAA committee update
from the editor
With so many people bringing years of experience
and knowledge to their study and practice of Hakomi, I
thought it would be interesting to see how people integrate
their different worlds: how they bring other modalities
into Hakomi, or how they take Hakomi into their other
work. Manuela Mischke Reeds, Sandi Plummer and Linda
McClure share their experiences and give us an opportunity
to open up to other practices via the language of Hakomi.
I’d like to thank them for their insights, time and energy in
writing a feature article for this newsletter. I’d also like to
thank Suhari Bohm for her Supervision piece and regular
contributors Ryta Kunciunas, Narelle Scotford, Monika
Mischke-Renner and Philip Hilder.
As John Perrin has taken a well-earned break from the
editing, design and production of this newsletter, I’ve had
the opportunity to experience how much work he so often
does single-handedly! Thanks for your relentless effort, John.
And finally, congratulations and bessings to Philip Hilder
and Sarah on the birth of their little girl, Metta.
– Lorella Ricci, Co-Editor
I have some good news for the beginning of 2006.
Our application to join PACFA was addressed at their last
board meeting. PACFA reviewed all of our documents and
they have accepted our application, albeit with one matter
outstanding.
The matter outstanding is that of our Ethical
Grievance Procedure. PACFA require some significant
changes to the procedure. “The major issues stem from
what appears to be a complex relationship between a professional
association and a training body. This document
appears to have been written essentially for a training
institute and not a professional Counselling Association”
(PACFA audit, 2005). As the HAA Ethical Grievance
Procedure was developed from the Hakomi Institute
International’s Ethical Grievance Procedure, it reflected
much of the Institutes regulatory structures. Our task is
now to revise the Procedure to reflect the Association’s key
role and the Institute’s minor one.
We are currently looking to employ a competent
person to take on the project of revision of the Ethical
Grievance Procedure. If you feel you could help or provide
a suitable referral please contact myself on 0419 681 040.
– Philip Hilder, For the HAA Committee of Management.
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Talk and Touch.
Bodyworker, LINDA McCLURE gives us her perspective on the dance
between psyche and its physical expression.
As a Hellerwork practitioner and a graduate of
the two Hakomi trainings (Developmental &amp; Trauma) I
have had a unique chance to see how the principles of
these two therapies intermingle and support the way I do
my work. At their base or foundation there is a commonality
that abides. The following is an attempt to explain how
I use the principles of Hakomi in my Hellerwork practice
and how this mix deepens the work of integrating soma
with psyche.
What is Hellerwork?
In a Hellerwork series we take our clients
through 11 sessions of bodywork, movement and dialogue
where each session has a psychological theme
that is loosely linked to childhood developmental issues.
Because of my Hakomi training these themes provide
a wonderful framework for discovery and growth for clients.
We introduce topics such as what inspires them,
and where do they feel support in their lives. The first
3 sessions are working with the superficial tissue and
from the psychological point of view are based around
the early years when survival, nourishment and sense of
self are some of the lessons we hope to learn. The next
four sessions work deeper with the core tissue, and correspondingly
we open up the topics of control and surrender
where ideally we learn about healthy control, and
when to let go and trust. Dialogue also touches upon our
ability to listen to our body and intuition, where we learn
to trust what our body is telling us. We also open up the
topic of our emotional expression and creative power
and whether we hold back our self expression. As we
progress through the program we start to look at the 21st
century disease of being “all in ones head”, balancing our
passion with reason, and having a whole body experience
that invites communication between the head and the
heart. The next section is called the integrative section
where more mature topics are introduced, such as masculine
and feminine energies and values, integration and
completion.
Commonality
The principles of Hellerwork and Hakomi have
much in common. In Hellerwork, like Hakomi, we hold
as a premise that all living systems have a kind of innate
organizational capacity given their shape, size condition,
(story) which gives rise to the living expression
of what/who they are. If we are able to understand this
we can begin the healing process. When we pay attention
and listen we are being mindful – we get to find out
what the body is trying to tell us. The Hakomi therapist
and the Hellerwork practitioner hold in common a basic
premise that we take time to study the client’s experience.
In Hellerwork this kind of mindful attention could be
expressed in how the practitioner took time to meet and
greet the tissues of the body – both client and Hellerwork
practitioner could study how that is – does the tissue
feel receptive, or is it somewhat guarded. In hanging out
with it we discover more. Often the tissue is expressing
something to us if we take time to listen with our hands.
This is where I think Hellerwork mirrors Hakomi’s principle
of non violence. Listening to the tissues and taking
time before moving in to a bodywork stroke creates a
collaboration with our client and a permission from the
body’s tissue that is felt as a kind of ease. This could be
construed as a contradiction when you consider the depth
and intensity of some aspects of Structural Integration;
however, we can go deep without damage if we listen
and get permission. There is the lovely dance of following
and leading in a Hellerwork session, where we have
an overall experiment unfolding that involves seeing what
happens when a person’s body moves towards being
aligned in the gravitational field. We study the process as
we go, seeing what the rules are and where the psychological
and physiological stances intertwine and how they
Continued on page 14
Based on what my client comes in with,
I am looking at how this person is organizing
themselves around the abiding force of gravity.
I am looking for what moves and what doesn’t
move in their structure. What is held or frozen,
and how they are negotiating around it.
4
meditation away from the present moment into a state of
perceived healing and well-being.
“Scared, very sacred”, I could hear myself mumble
as I reflected on her being in the world. Yet there must
be a determination to change, otherwise why would she
make the effort to come to therapy. Some part of her
knew that is was time.
Lauren was confirming herself in a positive way
through her light meditations and affirmations, but her
body told me a very different story. Internally she kept
reaffirming very negative and destructive beliefs about
safety and how to be in relationships. She looked like she
carried a few bumper stickers saying: “Don’t come close,
I will break into pieces. If you come closer I will have to
disappear, not exist. So better not feel myself.” Her refuge
was another world, private and unavailable for others to
enter. She looked like a very unhappy woman on a path
towards restriction and pain.
Continuum Movement, has long made the claim
that our stiff, rigid bodies are more a product of our
emotional attitudes than a lack of exercise. We pay little
attention to cellular health and regeneration as it intersects
with our beliefs and attitudes. The way we feed our
own negative thinking has a direct impact of how we feed
our cellular body. There is a known link between healthy
immune system functioning and positive experience and
physical health.
Change is constant, yet the human psyche has
the hardest time getting friendly with that notion. We
desire change, but when faced with it, we remain faithful
to old patterns, fearful of the unknown or that what we
will encounter will be even worse. And with that fear we
stay in a cycle of restriction in our bodies, not allowing
new experiences to change us.
We don’t usually invite change into our lives.
Change comes upon us, unexpected, unwanted. When
faced with hard or challenging circumstances, we desperately
long for it. Like Lauren, longing for a life that would
be filed with love, kindness and a life partner. Her waking
hours often spent daydreaming about the life she could
have had. Her daily life riddled with fears, too common
for her to even detect them being a problem. The fears
were “part” of her, almost like a personality trait, accepted
long ago in the confusion of love turning into threat.
Cell Regeneration
The body regenerates itself cellularly every 7 years.
Cell death happens slowly without the apparent outer
structure of the person changing. Most of the cellular
structures are being rebuilt (some organs don’t). We
are capable of renewing, “shedding our” skin like a
snake for cellular renewal. Cells are able to decide to
commit suicide and self destruct. To make this more
palpable here a few facts of how long some cellular
regeneration takes in different regions of the body of
our approximately 75 trillion cells:
• Brain – 1 year
• Blood – 4 months
• Skeleton – 3 months
• DNA – 2 months
• Liver – 6 weeks
• Skin – 4 weeks
• Stomach lining – 5 days
• Taste buds- 6 days
(adapted from Dr. George Malkmus)
What makes a cell decide
to commit suicide?
The balance between:
1. the withdrawal of positive signals; that is, signals
needed for continued survival, and
2. the receipt of negative signals
If we take the withdrawal of positive signals and
receipt of negative signals as a metaphor, we can
view, how critical it is for us humans to be in relational
exchange that confirm us in a positive way. How
we are being perceived by others and how we feed
ourselves becomes not just psycho emotional health
but also has an impact on our cellular health.
I need to change, but don’t change me
Continued from page 1
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When change arrives, we find fault. We don’t like how
change looks: “Oh no, not that person, that can’t be, they
are supposed to look tall, beautiful ... life partners are
supposed to be perfect, ... they don’t fit my idea of a life
partner ... they should be more like ...”
Engaging in the practice of change means
consciously participating in opening the body and mind
into the fears and dreams of changing. This is a very
physical event. It means: seeing, feeling, sensing and
being with the textures of longing and desire. It also
means befriending the textures of fear and the patterns
of negative thinking, feeling the embodiment of fear. That
embodiment is of course the medicine in how to be with
these fears.
The practice of Continuum Movement is a
detailed process for gaining self-discovery on a cellular
level. Through sounds, breath, and small micromovements,
the body is explored as itself just, as it is. Small,
incremental movements that are already occurring in the
body are tracked and entered into as a conscious dance
of present-moment sensation. Moment-by-moment
the mover arrives into being present with what already
is occurring and what unfolds from there. Awareness
is brought to the fluid system, the blood pulsing and
streaming, cerebral spinal fluids moving in tides and
waves. The sensations are experienced and followed as
movement without any stories or past. The Continuum
mover follows the inner songs and dances of the body,
listening deeply to what nature has already designed so
magnificently.
The underpinning of Continuum Movement is that
we are movement, we are change, we are in flux; our task
is to join the ride and discover. The goal is to get comfortable
with the constant change that is occurring in our
bodies and, therefore, metaphorically in our lives. Rather
than clinging to the static views and the fears of what
will disappear on us. In Continuum we call this a kind of
culture boundedness, a psycho-emotional and therefore
somatic limitation that keeps us spinning in familiar and
limited emotional territory. Our perceptions narrow and
we are in a vice of our own body-mind.
The practice of Continuum engages deeply the
process of change that we are as an organism. We are
process in motion, yet we like to believe we are our
views, attitudes and physical belongings. When practicing
Continuum, the mover can experience extraordinary states
of consciousness, ranging from the ordinary fears about
the body, aches and pains, aging and loss, emotional stories
emerge stored deeply in the memory cells of the body.
These are passing events, not to be dwelled upon as the
identities we have subscribed to faithfully for most of our
lives. We mistake the meanings of our pains as life itself,
forgetting that we are here to experience fully, to evolve
and change.
There are also states of consciousness to be
reached that offer a new and more liberating view on all
of this. States of ease and flow, being in the movement
and fluidity of the body, even with great physical limitations
and injuries (Continuum is practiced with severe
spinal cord injury patients with great success). Feeling
one’s fluidity, feeling space, feeling and sensing the body
beyond its confinement of the mind and body – all these
can bring great peace and bliss. Of course this can be perceived
as threatening to the psyche, which likes to have
concrete meaning and a plan. Entering into Continuum
Movement as a practice is giving up this little bit of comfort
and diving head-on into the mystery of life.
Feeling one’s body in the fluidity of self enables a
new perception of oneself and the old identities can begin
to loosen, subtle changes enter the mover, new places
in the body are found that are free from pain, free from
stuckness. Change is then on the way.
The change I am speaking of, of course, is the
change of “being changed”, the very thing my client asked
not to do. This had to be done carefully and experientially
without revealing my intention. Lauren had to experience
herself in fluidity, so she could explore safely what had
made her so fearful in the first place. Without the motivation
to want to find out what organized her fear therapy
can be challenging. The therapist needs to ally herself with
the client’s motivation for change, providing a major force
in the process of transformation.
Continuum Movement offers a variety of breaths
to be explored. In the usual circumstance of a Movement
practice the mover lies on the floor, explores herself in
movement and breath. This can be too threatening in the
context of psychotherapy. Especially given Lauren’s apprehension
regarding not wanting to change, an invitation to
lie on the floor would have ensured that our first movement
session would have been our last. In the comfort of
Continuum Movement has long
made the claim that our stiff, rigid bodies
are more a product of our emotional
attitudes than a lack of exercise.
6
the therapy chair, the client can begin to alter her breathing
patterns, and she can also be introduced to some
simple movements that do not require shifting out of the
seating position.
“Lauren, I am noticing that your breath is moving shallow
in your upper chest, when you talk about your past
marriage partner.” She nods and confirms this as her
experience, “I wonder if you would try something here
with me?”
Having established her shallow breathing pattern she
was eager to understand how to “fix” that.
The process instructions are simple:
1. Shift the attention to the intention of the breath
– “notice how you are breathing right now, and see
what is and wants to happen?”
2. Introducing a simple “to do breath” for exploration
– in this case I introduce the Lunar breath.
3. Waiting for the impact – giving space for the client
to explore and notice as well as tracking on the
therapist’s side for their experience.
4. Asking the client to open her attention to what IS
occurring (not what has happened) – keeps the
explorations current and continuous.
“I feel a tightness, I don’t like it” Lauren whispers,
holding her body even more tightly.
“Lauren, you notice that when you stay with the shallow
breath, a tightening happens and uncomfortable
feelings arise.”
Now, this is a critical moment, as this client is phobic to
experiencing any pain, change or hardship, so she will
inevitably go towards resistance or avoidance, or aborting
the experiment of self-discovery.
I follow up by: “Let’s try the Lunar breath right here
with me.”
The Lunar breath is a soft, long sustained exhale
that resembles the image of a silken mist diffused in the
morning summer sun. It involves an exhale through the
nose, mouth closed, in the back of the throat. Barely audible,
it streams out of the nose with its intention to soften
any boundaries or hardness in the body. With the Lunar
breath one is invited to sink, soften and release into oneself.
A normal inhale follows and again the slow, deliberate
exhale stream through the nasal passages and back of
the throat. The attention softens and can be directed at
times towards body areas that want to be engaged, such
as a tight place in the chest or neck.
Lauren tries this and finds great pleasure that
she can “do” something. As doing gives her great comfort
she is more pliable in trying this. This is, of course,
feeding the part of her that wants to fix her state rather
than change herself. I invite her into sensing, into open
attention of what is occurring right now. She experiences
a softening in her breathing and in her chest and reports
a spaciousness and an opening, which surprises her.
“Feelings of anxiety are not there right now”, she says. “I
didn’t know you were anxious”, I reply. “I wasn’t either. I
think I live most of my life in fear, in fact, there is no safe
place anywhere”, she bows down her head with that last
statement. She has clearly entered a feeling state.
In the spaciousness of the moment she is feeling
herself, a first in the session. Without having to make it
explicit she is feeling her un-safety in a contained way. The
vehicle of the lunar breath gives her the safe structure to
explore and yet, paradoxically, opens her into deeper layers
of herself. I direct her into more of the lunar breath. She
is discovering small movements that want to follow in her
shoulders and neck, she has renewed energy and curiosity
to follow this now. Gently, she is changing before my eyes.
Introducing small breaths and movement
explorations such as these can be a tremendously valuable
pathway into the body and into working with deep-seated
belief systems. They can provide a physical way into what
the client might otherwise argue with or try to understand
desperately in her mind.
Shifting the reference point of the therapy into
breath, movement, and sounds can be in itself a shift in
perception of how we are doing therapy. Therapy can be
heavily patterned and the therapist can fall prey to their
predictions and routines. Even in Hakomi Therapy, where
we are striving to stay with the present moment, our interventions
can be at times repetitive and predictable. We
can be in danger to “know” what the client’s experience
will be or how it will unfold. The more experience we have
with clients, the more we are in jeopardy to get sleepy
with our perceptions. To stay fresh, curious and innovative
in how we “see” our clients is a real challenge as the
skill of the practitioner grows and masters her techniques.
Exploring movement with our clients can help us to train
our eyes to see anew, allowing ourselves to be delighted in
the small expressions of our clients.
In Continuum movement the emphasis is not on
being expressive but rather staying tuned to the momentto-
moment experience of one’s body. The client’s deep
journey into themselves is in itself a gift to the client as
well as Therapist.
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In Lauren’s case, her frozen chest became a theme
in the therapy. It emerged in many different facets: frozen
feeling parts, frozen in dialogue with people that mattered
in her life. Frozen became the bumper sticker of her life.
Over and over again we explored this theme until she
was able, with small micromovements, to gently thaw the
frozenness she had experienced all her life. She intellectually
had grasped the pattern of frozenness in her life, but
it was only as she explored it with breath and movement
that she somatically understood the physical implications
of such a belief. She began to befriend the frozenness,
turning fear into fearlessness.
There can be a dramatic difference between
“letting the body explore” whatever a client experiences
in the moment compared to guiding the body gently with
a particular breath or movement, such as in Continuum
Movement. Some clients don’t know how to enter into
a moving experience. It is often with much judgment,
shyness or shame that clients approach the attempt to
“move” their body. Moving can be perceived as acting,
dancing or performing.
In supervising beginning therapists, I often hear
instructions such as: “Just let your body move. How does
it want to move?” That offer can be too big and inviting
the inner judgments, therefore stifling the very attempt the
therapist is making towards explorations and freedom. By
giving very deliberate and small instructions that have the
attitude of open explorations, the client can warm themselves
towards movement without threat: “ Notice how
the chest is moving ever so slightly, what is that like? “If
you could imagine the breath slowly streaming out of your
nose right now, what do you notice in your chest?” “As you
move your attention to this area of holding, what small
movement do you detect right there?” The client is invited
into what is already there: there is no new thing to make
up, or to get to; we are just changing the focus of our
bodily interaction. As the client slowly orients around this,
a sense of doable achievement arrives and the client is
invited into themselves. In that exploration the client finds
variation, play, and change as they begin to experiment :
“I am noticing when I exhale even longer I feel a sense of
peace in my belly, I can stay there a little bit.” These discoveries
can produce much excitement and pride.
Continuum has many breaths, sounds and
movements, with different intentions (e.g. to dissolve
one’s boundaries, or to infuse ones body with more energy),
but most of all the intention of Continuum is to allow
the mover to experience themselves as free from identities
that confine and restrict the body and mind.
Of course the trap in offering such interventions
is that they can be perceived as directive or guiding
towards an agenda of the therapist. I view this in the way
I approach any intervention we make in Hakomi Therapy:
as an experiment. We are offering in the attitude of the
experiential mind so that the client can gravitate towards
or away from the suggestion. The outcome is not known,
with the intent being to offer something helpful for the
client to explore so they can view themselves from a different
perspective. They can see their belief enacted in the
stories of their body-movements. Once that is somatically
felt, the client has a much easier time accepting this reality
and is able to engage with the deeper meaning levels
of it as well.
As for Lauren, her explorations with small
micromovements – breaths of safety, as she called them
– opened her to experience her body on a more realistic
level. After a few sessions she was able to sense and
feel in the present moment, rather than taking refuge
in abstract ideas and fantasies. She was able to feel her
body, and her relationship with me, and therefore begin
the journey of experiencing the sadness and grief in her
chest. A life long held pain of not being seen by her father
emerged. The patriarch of the family that expected her to
run the family business as a man, he never saw his daughter
and never wanted to acknowledge the sensitive woman
she had become in teenage years. Her blooming sexuality
threatened him and he negated her existence by treating
her as non-existent.
She began to change, and she enjoyed her
change. Changing was something her father did not allow
her when she was growing up. He wanted her to be his
girl, yet had not wanted to acknowledge her womanly features
and beauty at the same time. He wanted her frozen
in time, and demanded that she run the business like a
son would.
In one pivotal session she was able to look at me
in a sustained eye contact and express that she felt “safe
Continued on page 16
Some clients don’t know how
to enter into a moving experience. It is
often with much judgment, shyness or
shame that clients approach the
attempt to “move” their body.
8
Update from the
Hakomi Pacifica Team.
With so many trainers and teachers in town for the 8th Segment of the Sydney training,
the Hakomi Pacifica team took advantage of a rare opportunity to hold its annual meeting
locally, rather than the US, which meant that nearly all the team could attend.
Team administrator LORELLA RICCI gives us an update.
Not surprisingly, there was a notable difference
between this meeting and our usual disembodied phone
conferences that we have during the rest of the year. Not
only did it mean that we had extra time to devote to more
time-consuming areas such as future planning and the
processing of more thorny issues, but it was a lot more
fun and nourishing. For some reason, it’s a lot easier to
make decisions in person than it is on the phone.
One of the big decisions was the exciting and inspiring
news that John Perrin and Neil Rodgers have officially
been appointed Hakomi Teachers. John is currently
apprentice teacher on the Sydney Training, was a tutor
on the previous training, is the Sydney organiser, an
HAA committee member and a rather large slab of the
foundation of Hakomi in Australia. Neil Rodgers, equally
prolific, is a tutor-come-apprentice teacher on the current
Sydney Training, the continuity teacher on the Perth training,
has taught on various segments in New Zealand over
the past two years and is an HAA committee member. On
behalf of the team, I’d like to send them both our best
wishes and gratitude for their hard work and dedication to
Hakomi and the development of its students.
Pictured L-R: John Perrin,
Halko Weiss, Maya Shaw Gale,
Neil Rodgers, Suhari Bohm,
Moshe Perl, Jules Morgaine,
Manuela Mischke-Reeds,
Lorella Ricci and Marilyn Morgan.
( Julie Murphy and Halka Beseda
were unable to attend).
Hakomi is taught throughout the world under the
auspices of the Hakomi Institute, a non-profit
educational organization, founded in 1980.
The Faculty is divided into a number of regional
teams. The Hakomi Pacifica Team comprises the
teaching staff and organisers who work in
Australia and New Zealand. The current team are:
TRAINERS:
Halko Weiss, Marilyn Morgan, Manuela
Mischke-Reeds, Maya Shaw-Gale and Julie Murphy.
TEACHERS:
Suhari Bohm, Jules Morgaine, John Perrin
and Neil Rodgers
ORGANISERS:
John Perrin (Sydney), Halka Beseda (Perth) and
Moshe Perl (Melbourne)
ADMINISTRATOR: Lorella Ricci
9
Another decision was around the certification process for students
in Australia. Whilst the details will be finalised within
the next couple of months, the development of a Certification
Program is finally underway. The program will be offered to
qualified graduates, as a way of developing skills and having
their work overseen by teachers and trainers. As entry to the
program will require a certain criteria and a level of experience,
the traditional system of getting tapes approved by two
trainers will still be in place.
So that you have a sense of what the Hakomi Pacifica Team
are working on at the moment, here is an outline of the other
agenda items covered at the meeting: formalising procedures
for staff development; centralising teaching materials; presenting
at Australian conferences; curriculum development;
administration; redesigning the Hakomi logo / branding;
teacher feedback; business development; strategic planning
and long-term development; and yearly scheduling. A huge
agenda, especially when you’re hoping to achieve this with a
spaciousness to allow a natural unfolding and also attend to,
and honour, all the individual aspects of this group.
It’s hard to summarise two days of meetings without getting
pedantic and detailed – so I’ll convey two main strands that
really stood out for me. Firstly, there was a focus on attending
to the relationships, such as the relationship between the
teaching team and the organisers and the relationship within
the teaching team itself, and how to make this as clear, supportive
and mutually beneficial as possible. The other main
aspect of the meeting was working on a business development
for Hakomi, including the development of a viable business
model for this region, through to the establishment of
long-term plans for trainings, workshops, introductory workshops,
supervision programs and post-graduate programs.
It took a lot of concentration and energy to stay focused,
especially considering that the majority of the team had just
finished teaching a 9-day segment.
As a treat, Moshe Perl (Melbourne organiser) gave us a compelling
presentation on Neuro Feedback, which received a
vibrant and enthusiastic response from everyone. It was great
to get a bit of professional development in the middle of it all.
Even though the team are spread out around the world, we
are in constant email and phone contact, have a team phone
conference every three-four months and meet up once a year
face-to-face, if possible. If you’d like to share anything with the
team, individual teachers, or ask any questions, you can send
me an email and I’d be more than happy to pass it on.
Lorella Ricci, HPT Administrator
HPTadmin@hakomi.net.au
Right Use of Power:
The Heart of Ethics
Announcing the publication of Cedar Barstow’s
book: Right Use of Power: The Heart of
Ethics. For those of you who don’t know her
well, this approach to ethics comes from an
integration of Hakomi theory and experiential
methods, ceremonial work with the four
directions, and her passion for using power to
promote the well-being of all.
“When the generativity and
responsiveness of our power is guided
by loving concern for the well-being of
all, we will have an ethical and sustainable
world. Power directed by heart.
Heart infused with power. This is the
key to right use of power.”
I’m happy to let you know I have now completed
a second book about the right use of
power. This book is smaller, narrative, perfect
bound, and focused toward the needs and
interests of health care practitioners, leaving
out the sections designed for teaching this
program. This new book is selling well and
available for sale (USD $24 and 254 pages) at
her website: www.RightUseOfPower.com. According
to a map on her wall, book owners live
in all but 10 states and in 20 countries. She
has now trained 106 people to teach Right Use
of Power Ethics.
A quote from the book jacket - Right Use of
Power: The Heart of Ethics is a dynamic,
inspiring, and relational approach to ethical
awareness. In a time of great misuse of power,
it offers sound guidance for an emerging ethic
that brings compassion to power. Original and
engaging, the approach highlights four dimensions
of personal and professional power: Be
Informed, Be Compassionate, Be Connected,
Be Skillful. This book provides the skills to use
power with heart.
10
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
and Hakomi
As a specialist in issues of complex trauma, Canberra based Psychologist, Hakomi student and
former Lecturer, SANDI PLUMMER, PhD, has undertaken various trainings in behavioural strategies
and somatic therapies in the search for a mindful, validating and compassionate response.
Yet the integration of these approaches is not always an easy path.
Some months ago I was asked if I would be
prepared to write an article for the Hakomi Newsletter
about Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and how it
“interfaces” with Hakomi. I am a trainee in Hakomi and
I study, teach and supervise in a modified DBT approach.
As I still feel like I have so much to learn in Hakomi, and
DBT, for that matter, my thoughts were that I don’t know
enough to prepare such an article, yet I jumped at the
opportunity. As I started, I found it hard to distil the truth
of “What is DBT?” or “What is Hakomi?” Both Hakomi
(as we are being taught) and DBT are relatively new therapies
which have managed to integrate previous therapeutic
strategies into new and evolving approaches. In other
words neither approach seems to be static or finished in
its evolution toward providing a therapeutic approach to
facilitate change in an accepting and collaborative manner.
In addition, I also have personally struggled with
integrating these two approaches in my own therapy. I
have personalized DBT and have watched the various
Hakomi teachers personalized the Hakomi method. So
how could I write an article to compare and/ or contrast
these approaches when they are both still evolving
and I personally find myself in conflict between the two
approaches?
What I decided to offer is a broad account of DBT
which allows me to make statements relative to my interpretation
of DBT with my clients and my own personal
style. Within this I will highlight where I find some of
the conflicts and similarities, hoping that others may be
able to use the dialectic to resolve these conflicts. If you
want to know more about the “real” DBT follow the references
at the end, especially those by Marsha Linehan. For
research purposes, the Linehan camp seeks to have DBT
practitioners adhere to particular regimes. Practitioners
in the field however are applying DBT to wider and wider
areas, relying on the principles delineated by Linehan, but
not adhering to all the regimes.
What is DBT?
DBT is a treatment for individuals of various age groups
(adolescents and adults) with complex, difficult to treat
and multiple difficulties. These difficulties may be present
in clients meeting the criteria for:
• Borderline Personality Disorder, especially with suicidal
and self-harming behaviours
• Depression and Anxiety
• Complex PTSD
• Eating Disorders
• Substance Abuse and other Addictive Disorders
DBT may therefore be applicable to clients with more
complex mental health difficulties than Hakomi.
DBT has been used in out-patient, in-patient, partial
in-patient, community, and forensic settings. It is used by
psychologists, nurses, community health professionals,
correctional institutions, and community service providers.
It does not see itself as a psychotherapy but as a
psychological evidence-based therapy. It emerged from a
therapist, Marsha Linehan, who has a strong behavioural,
Zen, and 12 Step background.
Therapeutic Understandings
I see DBT as a therapy which weaves together
Developmental, Behavioural, Zen, and Dialectical
Understandings. Assumptions from the behavioural
point of view include: all behaviour has causes and
effects, complex behaviours have complex and interconnected
causes and effects, new behaviours can be learned,
learned behaviours can be and are constantly changing,
behaviour is functional, and bodily responses are learned.
Many of these assumptions are similar to Hakomi, with
DBT recognizing the complexity of the mind body interface
and of complex operations of feedback loops and
mind body systemic interactions.
11
DBT is more linear in its focus than Hakomi and
believes more strongly in the possibility of predictability
of complex behaviour. DBT also does not use touch and
places much more emphasis on cognitive and behavioural
interventions than on sensory or body work. DBT is primarily
a learning/ teaching approach.
The developmental assumptions also have some
similarity to Hakomi Principles. Assumptions that change
occurs over time, that early influences are embedded in
physical and cognitive structures, that change is neither
random nor arbitrary, that there are individual differences
in learning and make-up, and that there are common
drives, may be more or less shared with Hakomi.
Therefore there is an acceptance of a type of organicity,
however the belief that healing is an act of self-recreation,
and that the individual holds the strength for healing
themselves is not seen as necessarily the case. Many
organic processes are known to turn the body against
itself and DBT sees this as the case for some clients.
That is that the normal organic processes may lead to
short term resolutions with long term detriment, avoidance
being a case in point. Therefore DBT takes a more
psycho-educational role in the change part of the therapy
than I see in Hakomi.
To my mind, one of the most important theoretical
strands in DBT are the assumptions that flow from the
emphasis on Dialectics. These are also some of the most
compatible with the spirit of Hakomi. DBT is based on a
notion of synthesis of what appear to be opposites. This
synthesis provides the opportunity for change without
conflict or over-reliance on confrontation. It allows DBT
to be much less violent than many of the older behavioural
models. Assumptions flowing from the dialectic
include: that the world is neither polar nor dichotomous,
that learning is neither didactic nor one way, that possibilities
for change emerge from within, that all humans exist
in relationship and in a holistic and interconnected manner
with complex oppositional and inter-relationships, and
that most importantly for the method that the world is full
of paradox which can be dealt with by expanding possibilities
and allowing change. There is much emphasis placed
on the notion that learning is willing and not wilful. These
assumptions fit nicely with non-violence, mind/body
holism and unity Hakomi Principles. DBT however also
stresses that change is and can be controlled. Many of the
skills teach clients to control the change process.
Finally DBT is compatible with the Zen path to
Enlightenment. When I teach DBT, these assumptions
become a very important part of the DBT process. Some
of these assumptions include a warning against reification
of concepts into reality. This is especially important when
using maps such as diagnostic categories, or labelling
individuals with certain personality or other disorders. It
is important to remember that the map is not the territory.
This leads to a notion that concepts are judgmental illusions,
that rules are often arbitrary and yet necessary, and
that experience is the only way to know the world. DBT
works in the present moment and relies on a middle and
non-compromising way. Within a DBT framework it is
easy to see that “there is suffering, there is an end to suffering,
and that there is a path or way to obtain an end to
suffering in that moment.”
Mindfulness
DBT incorporates mindfulness both as a principle
of practice, and a technique for achieving a therapeutic
relationship, and an optimal level of arousal or window
for change. In DBT however, there is a set curriculum for
teaching mindfulness. And while this learning process is
based on willing or allowing mindfulness, it is nevertheless
a taught rather than discovered quality of presence.
View of the client
The DBT model views clients as skill- or capabilitydeficient
in terms of difficulties in self-regulation of emotions,
interpersonal relationships, and distress tolerance.
The model also views the client’s developmental and current
environment, internal and external, as motivationally
dysfunctional, in terms of invalidating the client’s reality,
punishing the client’s current skills and reinforcing dysfunctional
behaviours including avoidance.
In other words, the client’s process of selforganisation
or organicity is conflicted by external invalidation
of their process which then causes the client to turn
to outside sources for self-understanding, while still being
driven by internally directed processes. A simple example
might be a child who gets upset when the environment is
changed and their emotion is invalidated by a parent who
says you should be happy about this change. Obviously,
the more the invalidation a child has the greater the internal
conflict. Childhood sexual abuse is one area in which
there is on going invalidation of the child’s inner reality,
but there are many more which may be more subtle and
nevertheless just as destroying of a sense of self.
As the client deals with an internal view of self
which is not supported externally, the client learns to
invalidate themselves and to try to stop or avoid the emotional
responses which have been deemed to be abnormal.
Avoidance of emotional reactions leads the client to
greater sensitivity when the emotion inevitably re-occurs.
This leads to many responses such as drug and alcohol
abuse, self- harming, top-down management, and numbing
in an attempt to quell the emotions. As this continues
the client may also increase the intensity of their response
so that it might match how they feel. “I feel like death
warmed over so if I try to kill myself others might see
how much I hurt.” I see clients as being SIPS or sensitive
invalidated people.
DBT assumes of the client that they are:
• Doing the best they can
• Want to improve
• Need to do better, try harder, and be more motivated
• Have not caused all their problems
• Must solve their problems
• In lives unbearable as they are currently being lived
• Must learn new behaviours in all relevant contexts
• Cannot fail
DBT assumes of the therapist that the
• Most caring thing a therapist can do is to help clients
change and come closer to their own goals
• Clarity, precision, and compassion are the most important
elements
• The therapeutic relationship is a real relationship
between real people
• Principles of behaviour are universal, affecting therapist
and client
• Therapists working with these clients need support
• Therapists can fail
• Therapy can fail even when therapists do not.
Standard DBT format
The standard format for DBT is quite different
from Hakomi. DBT is comprised of Skills Training
Groups, Individual Therapy, Telephone Coaching, Case
Management, and Consultation Groups for the Therapists.
Group Skills Training
In DBT there is a set curriculum that is provided
for clients in a 2 1⁄2 hour per week Skills Training Group.
This group runs for 6 months with four 12 week modules.
The clients may repeat the 6 month training.
The modules include:
Mindfulness – Teaching the client to pay attention to their
experiences by observing and describing what is perceived
and focusing on one thing at a time in a non-judgmental
and effective way. This skill allows clients to note urges
to react before reacting and to stay with emotional experiences
long enough to learn about them. DBT does not
believe that the awareness that comes from mindfulness
is sufficient for change. They do believe that it is essential
for change. DBT constantly calls for a balance between
acceptance, and change or intervention strategies.
Emotional Regulation – Teaches the client how to analyze
and modulate their emotions. It teaches them how emotions
are typically expressed and how to recognise emotions.
Again this is a taught process and not a discovery
process.
Distress Tolerance – Teaches clients crisis management
and acceptance skills. These include self-soothing, distraction,
radical acceptance, changing the moment.
Interpersonal effectiveness – Teaches clients how to recognise
different types of interpersonal interactions and how
to skilfully ask for their needs to be met and how to skilfully
say no.
Individual Therapy
In order for the client to stay in the Skills
Training Group they are required to have individual therapy
for one hour per week. This therapy, with the primary
therapist, focuses on problems from last week using chain
analysis, developing alternatives and exploring blocks
to change. In both the individual therapy and the Skills
Training Group the client is expected to complete homework
which has a practice component and a self-analysis
component. There are standard diary cards and analysis
processes.
Telephone coaching
Clients are provided with telephone coaching
from the primary therapist or someone trained in DBT.
This telephone contact is to allow coaching on skills
learned in therapy and skills group at the time that the client
is in need of using the skills. Often this will be at the
time that the client is in crisis or has urges to self-harm
or suicide. Ideally telephone coaching would be available
24 hours a day seven days a week. This is rarely practical;
however one does have to be available outside of the normal
1 hour per week during business hours. The coaching
is always focused on how the client can use learned skills
and is not a therapy session.
Consultation Group
All therapists attend a consultation group in
which DBT principles and skills are practised, and therapists
experience analysis of their own behaviour, with the
assistance of others in the group. There is a facilitator
who rotates and the use of a mindfulness bell to remind
therapists to come to and practice mindfulness. The content
is learning to work better with specific clients.
General Working Style
While the format of DBT is very different to
Hakomi, the general working style is not incompatible
with Hakomi. There are, however, differing emphases.
DBT, through the use of the dialectic, focuses on
achieving a balance of acceptance and change. Validation
of the client, somewhat similar to contact statements, is
used to demonstrate acceptance. This validation often
provides a “missing experience” for the client and provides
an opportunity for change.
The general working style which promotes this
balance of acceptance and change includes 1) validating:
respect for different values, encouragement, focus on
capabilities, searching for the “kernel of truth”, staying
near and in contact with the client. 2) accepting: active
observing and listening without bias, verbalising unverbalised
experience back to the client, active searching for
the validity of the experience, 3) mindfulness 4) dialecticalinclusive
– expansive: tolerating and modelling ambiguity,
“and” not “but”, “yes/also”, extending, allowing, willing
not wilful, 5) collaborative: curious, experimenting, commitment-
enhancing, building on the client’s desire to
change, using homework, 6) balancing: stability balanced
with compassionate flexibility, nurturing balanced with
benevolent demands, focus on capabilities balanced with
facilitation of skills development, problem solving balanced
with validation of now, emotion regulation balanced
with mindfulness, acceptance balanced with change, and
7) oriented to building more skilful means: encouraging the
development of a structure for analysis and experiments,
encouraging an increase of mindfulness of now, allowing
for the possibility of positive change and reinforcing and
generalizing the person’s chosen positive change.
Finally DBT works in stages with a lot of emphasis
placed on what they call pre-treatment. During the pretreatment
phase the therapist establishes a collaborative
therapeutic relationship and facilitates the client to state a
focus for the change work. The therapist and client develop
a contract and commitment from the client. During
this time the therapist would also introduce mindfulness
and, work to stabilise the client’s self-harm. Goals start
with life-threatening behaviour, next are therapy-interfering
behaviours, and finally quality of life interfering behaviours.
In treatment, the therapy works on stabilization
and behavioural and cognitive control, followed by feeling
better, changing quiet desperation into non-traumatic
emotional experiences, opening the client to experiences
of ordinary happiness, resolving problems of living and
finally finding joy.
Summary
While much of DBT is compatible with the Hakomi
Principles, the techniques and formats are quite different
with DBT being much more cognitively structured education
rather than body experiential. DBT is gentle and
non-violent, emphasizes relationship and mindfulness,
acceptance and change. DBT encourages self-study and
awareness through mindfulness, encourages staying with
emotions and experimenting with change, and contacts
the present experience of the client in a respectful and
accepting manner. The major, and for me most difficult
to resolve or synthesize, difference is that DBT believes
that change is created through effort following awareness
and that awareness and organicity are not sufficient for
appropriate change. The therapist and client are therefore
much more doers and thinkers. As an Industrious Overfocused
person, I find DBT easier because it is harder or
more effortful. I guess I feel more competent when I am
doing. It also works for me and for most of my clients.
References:
Kreger, R. and Shirley, JP (2002) The Stop Walking on
Eggshells Workbook. New York: New Harbinger Press
Kurtz, Ron (1990) Body-Centered Psychotherapy: The
Hakomi Method. California: Life Rhythm
Linehan, MM (1993) Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of
Borderline Personality Disorder. New York: Guilford Press
Linehan, MM (1993) Skills Training Manual For Treating
Borderline Personality Disorder. New York: Guilford Press
Marra, Thomas (2005) Dialectical Behavior Therapy in
Private Practice. Oakland, California: New Harbinger Press
Marra, Thomas (2004) The Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Workbook for Overcoming Depression and Anxiety.
Oakland, California: New Harbinger Press
Spradlin, SE (2003) Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your
Life, New York: New Harbinger Publications
Behavioraltech.com – Website for Linehan DBT research
and articles
Sandi Plummer, PhD, psychologist and past lecturer at the
University of Canberra is currently a Hakomi student. She
was the Head of the Community Counselling Program at the
University of Canberra for over 18 years and has been working
in private practice for over 25 years.

Sandi currently specialises in issues of Complex Trauma,
working with individuals and organisations providing
services to people with complex trauma issues and self
harming behaviour, particularly those meeting the diagnostic
criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. She has
undertaken specialised training in Dialectical Behaviour