A Professional Training in Mindful, Somatic, and Experiential Coaching

Hakomi-Informed Somatic Coaching (HISC) Program

Applications for our 2027 cohort are now open.

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Hakomi-Informed Somatic Coaching Program (HiSC) is a professional training that integrates the mindfulness-based, somatic, and relational principles of Hakomi into the practice of coaching.

This experiential online program teaches coaches to bring mindful attention to present-moment experience – including the sensations, emotions, beliefs, and habitual responses that arise within the coaching conversation. Participants develop their own capacity for embodied presence along with practical skills that support clients toward greater awareness, choice, and meaningful change.

Through Hakomi’s gentle and curious approach, coaches learn to listen beyond the content of what a client says and to attune to how the client is experiencing themselves in the moment. Rather than interpreting, fixing, or directing, coaches create conditions in which clients can discover more about themselves and access their own wisdom.

HISC is designed for experienced coaches who want to deepen their work through somatic and mindfulness-based approaches, as well as newer coaches who want these principles at the foundation of their practice.

Will ICF CCEs be offered?

Hakomi-Informed Somatic Coaching is approved by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) as a Continuing Coaching Education (CCE) program. Participants who successfully complete the program receive 40 ICF CCEs. (34 Core Competencies, 6 Resource Development). CCEs can be used to apply for ICF Certification through the portfolio path.

Receiving ICF accreditation is a significant achievement that underscores our commitment to providing high-quality, ethical, and professionally designed coaching programs. This accreditation validates that our program adheres to the highest industry standards, equipping our coaching with the necessary skills, knowledge, and competencies to deliver exceptional coaching experiences.

The ICF accreditation process is rigorous, involving a thorough evaluation of our program’s structure, content, instructional methods, and alignment with the ICF’s stringent core competencies and code of ethics. By meeting these exacting criteria, we demonstrate our dedication to fostering an environment of continuous learning, growth and professional development for our coaches.

Learning Outcomes

What is Hakomi?

What is Coaching?

Coaching vs. Psychotherapy

HiSC will support you to:

Apply core Hakomi-informed methodology and principles to your coaching practice.
Deepen your somatic self-awareness so you can remain grounded and present in the coaching relationship.
Track clients' verbal and nonverbal experience with greater sensitivity and curiosity.
Bring mindful attention to beliefs, emotions, habitual responses, and embodied experience as they emerge in the present moment.
Use experiential practice and mindful explorations to support client awareness and discovery.
Develop a trauma-informed approach to coaching while working within appropriate scope and boundaries.
Support client autonomy, choice, and access to their own inner resources.
Join a community of trauma-informed, Hakomi-informed coaches committed to mindful, somatic, and relational practice.

Hakomi-informed coaching draws on a mindfulness-based, somatic approach to self-study that has been practiced around the world for more than 40 years. It rests on five core principles: mindfulness, nonviolence, organicity, mind-body holism, and unity. Together, these offer a gentle and experiential way of exploring how we organize our experience.

A Hakomi-informed approach pays particular attention to what is happening in the present moment, including thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, impulses, beliefs, and habitual responses, and meets all of these with curiosity rather than judgment.

Within coaching, these principles help coaches slow down, listen more deeply, attend to the whole person, and support clients in discovering insights and possibilities that may not emerge through conversation alone.
HiSC applies selected

Hakomi-informed principles and practices within the scope and ethical framework of professional coaching.

Learn more about the Hakomi Method.

Here is how the ICF (International Coach Federation) defines coaching:

Partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership.

In HISC, we understand coaching as a collaborative process in which clients remain the experts of their own lives. The coach's role is not to diagnose, prescribe, or provide answers, but to create conditions that support awareness, learning, choice and movement toward what matters to the client.

How is Coaching different from Psychotherapy?

Both coaching and psychotherapy support clients in navigating the normal, and sometimes painful, ups and downs of the human condition. Both professions can help clients gain more clarity, take action, and feel more satisfied in their work and lives.

Psychotherapists have an additional role and responsibility as mental health clinicians. Psychotherapists are trained to diagnose and treat a wide range of clinical mental health conditions that are outside the scope of coaching.

Ethical coaches understand the boundaries of their scope of practice, recognize when a client's needs may be better served by a mental health professional, and develop trusted resources for consultation and referral.

Program Curriculum: 40-Hour Live Online Training

HiSC is a 40-hour live online program.

Teaching will be both didactic and experiential with practice groups in between each module. Please note that the curriculum is subject to change.

Module 1: The Being of Coaching

Step into the essence of what it means to be a coach—not just someone who “does” coaching.

Ground yourself in the Hakomi principles of Mindfulness, Unity, Organicity, Mind-Body Holism, and Nonviolence, weaving them into the foundation of your practice.
Cultivate loving presence and compassion to develop psychological safety, relational trust, so clients feel seen, accepted, and supported.
Learn the arc of the Hakomi-informed coaching process while embodying the qualities of a collaborative partner who supports awareness, learning, insight, and change.

Module 2: Trauma-informed Coaching

Bring a trauma-informed lens to coaching with safety and care.

Develop a trauma-informed coaching lens.
Apply somatic resourcing practices that can support grounding and present-moment awareness and self-regulation techniques.
Practice Embodied Wisdom™ approaches to self-regulation and embodied presence for the coaching presence.

Module 3: Somatic Tracking

Develop the art of listening to the body as deeply as you listen to words.

Practice relational attunement to your client’s subtle physical cues, gestures, and shifts in embodied presence.
Explore somatic tracking as a mindfulness practice for both client and coach.
Deepen your ability to listen to the nonverbal realm of experience, where new awareness and insight can emerge.

Module 4: Contacting the Present Moment

Explore present-moment awareness as a foundation of Hakomi-informed coaching.

Explore present-moment awareness as a foundation of Hakomi-informed coaching.
Practice bringing attention to present-moment experience.
Learn Hakomi-informed contacting, a technique that invites deeper awareness and exploration.
Practice brief, accurate, contact statements that name the client's present experience without interpreting it.

Module 5: Applied Mindfulness

Bring mindfulness into every aspect of your coaching.

Cultivate relaxed, nonjudgmental awareness in yourself and support this quality of awareness in your client.
Support clients in bringing mindful awareness to experiences that may not emerge through ordinary conversation.
Practice elegant ways of inviting mindfulness into the coaching conversation.

Module 6: Accessing Techniques

Help clients go beneath the surface with gentle precision.

Learn the four-step Hakomi-informed accessing technique to deepen the coaching process.
Practice inviting attention to the body as a pathway to insights, images, emotions, and other aspects of present-moment experience.
Learn to notice and gently explore beliefs, inner narratives and habitual responses as they emerge in the coaching process.
Support clients in accessing their own inner resources through somatic practices.

Module 7: Mindful Explorations

Cultivate curiosity and experiential learning.

Understand the purpose, principles, and intention behind mindful explorations.
Use mindful explorations to deepen awareness and invite client discovery.
Practice somatic tools that help clients notice, stay with, and learn from their present-moment experience.

Module 8: Coaching Barriers

Meet emotional barriers with curiosity and compassion.

Deepen your understanding of common barriers and challenges that arise in coaching.
Explore beliefs and patterns that may be limiting choice and possibility.
Work with choice points to suggest greater awareness, clarity and choice.

Module 9: The Emerging Experience

Learn to recognize and support new possibilities as they emerge in the present moment.

Learn to attune to the body as a source of insight, learning, and emerging possibility.
Notice and support new experiences as they arise, opening space for greater freedom, choice, connection, and aliveness.
Facilitate embodied awareness so that emerging experiences can be noticed, explored and integrated.

Module 10: Integration & Action

Support insight to become embodied learning and meaningful action.

Apply integration practices that help clients recognize and anchor their learning.
Guide mindful integration as clients move toward completion.
Support clients in identifying practices and tangible actions that bring their learning into everyday life.

Module 11: Completion & Practice

Closing with intention and supporting the emerging action.

Practice intentional approaches to completion and closure, both within a session and at the end of a coaching engagement.
Support clients in translating new awareness into meaningful, embodied next steps.
Integrate HISC skills through practice and real-world application.