The Use of Mindfulness in Psychotherapy

Editor’s note: Hakomi has been a pioneer in the use of mindfulness in psychotherapy dating back to early ‘70s when Ron Kurtz first began experimenting with it. When the Hakomi Institute first started offering trainings in the early ‘80s teaching mindfulness and therapy seemed a bit out of the mainstream. In this article, which surveys the use of mindfulness in the contemporary world of psychotherapy, it becomes obvious how significant and growing a force it is. However, the main uses of mindfulness still tend to be adjuncts to therapy as opposed to the main tool of a psychotherapeutic session as it is used in Hakomi. This article was first published in modified form as “A Survey of the Use of Mindfulness in Psychotherapy” in The Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association Vol. 9 No. 2. (Summer 2006):1524 (www.americanpsychotherapy.com.) Gregory Johanson, Ph.D., LPC is an American Psychotherapy Association Diplomate and a Fellow of the American Association of Integrative Medicine. He is currently the Director of Hakomi Educational Resources in Chicago, IL which offers psychotherapy, teaching, training, and consultation to organizations. He is a founding trainer of the Hakomi Institute, as well as a trainer in Internal Family Systems therapy. He has been active in writing, publishing over onehundred items in the general fields of pastoral theology and psychotherapy, and serving on the editorial boards of six professional journals including the Hakomi Forum as editor. He has taught adjunct at a number of schools, currently in the graduate schools of Loyola Univ. Chicago, Northeastern Illinois Univ. and as Research Prof. of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. Readers may visit his website at gregjohanson.net and/ or email greg@gregjohanson.net.