SOMATIC & PARTS-BASED THERAPY
Hakomi · Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Eastern philosophy meets Western psychology — now with the body as the guide.
What we think and feel is only part of the story. The other part lives in the body — in the tightening of the chest before a difficult conversation, the breath that shortens under stress, the posture that formed long before you could name what shaped it.
Somatic and parts-based approaches work with this fuller picture. Rather than analyzing experience from the outside, they invite you into direct contact with it — noticing what’s actually happening in the body, getting curious about the parts of you that have been protecting, managing, or hiding, and allowing something to shift from the inside out.
This is not insight therapy. It’s experiential work — slower, more precise, and often more lasting.
HAKOMI · SOMATIC PSYCHOTHERAPY
The body carries what the mind hasn’t yet been able to say.
Hakomi is a body-centered, mindfulness-based method developed by Ron Kurtz that works at the intersection of somatic awareness, Buddhist psychology, and experiential therapy. The central premise: the body is a living record of our psychological history. Our beliefs, coping strategies, and adaptations are encoded not just in thought, but in tissue, breath, posture, and gesture.
In a Hakomi session, we slow down. We bring mindful attention to what’s happening in the body right now — a tightening here, a held breath there, an impulse that never quite completes itself. Rather than interpreting these signals, we stay with them. We get curious. And often, something beneath the familiar narrative begins to reveal itself.
Research on somatic and body-centered therapies supports what practitioners have long observed: working directly with the body can access and shift material that cognitive approaches alone often can’t reach. A comprehensive review published in Frontiers in Psychology found substantial evidence that body-centered interventions effectively reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and trauma by working through the bidirectional communication pathways between brain and body. A 2013 clinical study specifically found that participants who received a Hakomi-inclusive approach showed improvements in mood, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and insomnia. Body-oriented approaches have also demonstrated positive outcomes for trauma survivors, with gains maintained at three-month follow-up.
IFS — INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS
You are not one thing. And that’s not a problem.
Internal Family Systems (IFS), developed by Richard Schwartz, understands the psyche as a system of parts — each with its own perspective, history, and protective function. There is the part that pushes hard and the part that wants to give up. The part that is deeply self-critical and the part that longs to be seen. None of these are pathology. They are adaptations, doing their best with what they had.
Beneath all the parts, IFS posits a core Self — a quality of presence that is naturally curious, clear, and compassionate. The work is not to eliminate difficult parts, but to build a relationship with them from that deeper place. As that relationship shifts, so does the experience of being you.
IFS has a growing research base. A pilot study published in the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation found statistically significant reductions in PTSD symptoms, depression, dissociation, and affect dysregulation following 16 sessions of IFS, with gains maintained at follow-up. A separate randomized controlled study published in the Journal of Rheumatology demonstrated meaningful reductions in pain and depression, alongside improved self-compassion. Research consistently shows that IFS increases self-compassion — which itself predicts better long-term outcomes across a range of presentations.
How Hakomi and IFS Work Together
These two approaches share a fundamental orientation: curiosity over judgment, experience over analysis, the present moment over the explanatory story. Hakomi brings the body as doorway — tracking sensation, impulse, and felt sense. IFS provides a framework for understanding what lives there — which part is present, what it’s protecting, what it needs. Together, they allow for work that is both precise and deeply human.
Mindfulness is not a separate technique here — it is the underlying orientation of both methods. The capacity to be present with your own experience, without immediately trying to fix or explain it, is both the method and, over time, the result.
What this Work Can Address
Somatic and parts-based approaches are particularly well-suited for people who have found that insight alone doesn’t produce lasting change. Common presentations include:
Anxiety and depression — especially when these feel chronic, embodied, or resistant to previous treatment
Trauma and PTSD — including complex or developmental trauma that isn’t reducible to a single event
Disordered eating and difficult relationships with food and body
Self-criticism, shame, and the sense of being at war with yourself
Relational patterns that repeat despite your best intentions
The general sense that something important hasn’t shifted, despite years of effort
Families
Watching someone you love struggle — and not knowing how to help without making things worse — is its own kind of pain. Sometimes the person reaching out isn’t the one who will be sitting in the room.
If you’re a parent or family member looking for the right therapist for someone you love, I’m happy to talk through what brings them here, how I work, and whether this might be a good fit.
Professionals
I welcome referrals from physicians, psychiatrists, dietitians, and other therapists. If you’re working with a client who would benefit from somatic depth work, IFS, ketamine-assisted therapy, or psychedelic integration — and you want a collaborative colleague who will communicate clearly and respect your existing relationship — I’d be glad to connect.
I offer a complimentary 20-minute consultation to see if we’re a good fit. This work isn’t for everyone — and that’s intentional. When it’s right, it’s right.
