Psychotherapy in Fremantle

Somatic psychotherapy grounded in the Hakomi Method

Psychotherapy can offer more than short-term coping strategies. It can help us work with the deeper beliefs, emotional patterns, and ways of responding that shape our lives.

At Uplift Counselling in Fremantle, I offer somatic psychotherapy grounded in the Hakomi Method – a unique form of mindfulness-based psychotherapy. This means the work is not only about talking things through or analysing them from a distance. It is about staying present to what is happening in your mind, body, and emotions as it is happening.

Working in this way gives the therapy more depth. It helps us get closer to the underlying patterns shaping your experience, and it creates the conditions for something new to happen.

Some people come because they are distressed. Others come because they want something deeper than insight alone – more freedom, more self-understanding, and more capacity to live in a way that feels true to them.

Ajay is trained in Somatic Therapy, attending over four years of in depth training. Hakomi is mindfulness based Somatic psychotherapy.

What Is Somatic Psychotherapy?

Somatic psychotherapy is based on the understanding that our life experience is held not only in thought, but in the body.

Often people already understand a lot about themselves. They may know their history. They may be able to explain their patterns clearly. But that does not always mean those patterns have changed.

In body-centred, or somatic, psychotherapy, we talk about what is happening in your life now that you find difficult, and how you feel it in your body now.

The beauty of working with mindfulness and somatic therapy is that you do not have to painfully relive past events or tell your whole life story to resolve things. Instead, you can safely get in touch with wounded parts of yourself and with unresolved experiences by finding how they are held in your mind, body, and emotions in the present.

That is one of the things that makes the work so powerful. Rather than only talking about the past, we begin to experience how old patterns are still alive now — and that gives us something real to work with.

We can then find out which limiting beliefs were created by these experiences and how that feels.  When you experience our limiting beliefs in a felt way, as well as intellectually, it goes much deeper. You can see how these beliefs have been shaping your life.

We can also find out where the belief originated from and what it was in your life that created it.

Hakomi psychotherapy is unusual in that it brings mindfulness directly into somatic psychotherapy.

Why Hakomi Works Differently

This means we are not only talking about your reactions, beliefs, and feelings. We are learning to observe them carefully as they arise, from a place of mindful awareness. That changes the quality of the work.

When we are mindful, experience slows down. Subtle things become easier to notice. We can begin to see how a belief, an emotional reaction, or a protective pattern is actually organised in the body and nervous system.

This gives the work more depth and more precision.

It also allows us to work gently. Instead of forcing insight or pushing for catharsis, we create the conditions for deeper patterns to reveal themselves and begin to shift.

How Limiting Beliefs Change

Many of the ways we organise ourselves were learned for good reasons. They may once have helped us cope with hurt, fear, instability, shame, or unmet needs.

Over time, though, these same patterns can begin to narrow our lives. We may become anxious in situations that are not truly dangerous. We may contract in relationships, over-adapt, shut down, brace, or repeat the same emotional loops without really understanding why.

When you experience limiting beliefs in a felt way, and not only intellectually, it goes much deeper. You can begin to see how these beliefs have shaped your life. We can often also find where a belief originated, and what in your experience may have created it.

That is where psychotherapy can begin to move beyond understanding into change.

When people practise mindful awareness repeatedly, they are not only gaining insight — they are also strengthening new ways of responding. Research suggests that mindfulness can support neuroplastic changes in brain function linked to attention, self-regulation, and emotional resilience.

In therapy, this means old reactions can become less automatic. There can be more space, more flexibility, and more choice in how you respond.

The Process

In somatic psychotherapy, we begin with what is alive in your experience now.

We might explore a stressful situation in your life, a conflict in a relationship, a sense of anxiety, anger, or stuckness, and then look at how this is being held in the body. Often there is a pattern there – a tension, a contraction, an impulse, an emotional response, or a familiar way of organising yourself.

As we stay with that experience mindfully, deeper layers can begin to show themselves

Sometimes this leads to an underlying belief. Sometimes it brings us into contact with a younger or more vulnerable part of you that has been carrying something for a long time. Sometimes it reveals an old protective strategy that made sense once, but is no longer serving you.

We might access the felt sense of a hurt child inside you and deliver a sense of safety to that child, if that is what they are lacking. Or perhaps your inner child needs to know that their needs can be met. When we meet these parts of ourselves, in a mindful state of awareness, we can provide a new healing experience that can then replace the painful feeling.

The point is not to push or overwhelm the system. It is to create enough mindfulness, safety, and support for the deeper pattern to be experienced and understood.

When that happens, new emotional learning becomes possible.

Relationship and Couples Work

This way of working can also be valuable in relationship and couples therapy.

Often what keeps couples stuck is not only communication problems, but the speed and intensity of the patterns that take over when people feel hurt, criticised, unseen, or alone.

By slowing things down and bringing awareness to what is happening in those moments, it becomes possible to see the pattern more clearly and begin to shift it.

This can support greater understanding, less reactivity, and more genuine contact.

Mindfulness in Therapy

Mindfulness is central to this work. It helps us stay with experience in a way that is steady, curious, and non-judgemental.

That is part of what gives Hakomi psychotherapy its depth.

An Inclusive and Respectful Space

I welcome people from all backgrounds and identities. My practice is inclusive and affirming of anyone who has felt marginalised or unseen in broader society. Everyone’s story deserves understanding and respect, and I aim to create a space where you can bring your full self — without having to explain, justify, or shrink who you are.

Medicare Rebates and Practical Details

If you have a Mental Health Treatment Plan from your GP, you may be eligible for Medicare rebates for sessions with an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker.

Arrange a First Session

Sessions are available in Fremantle, and online sessions may also be available where appropriate.

If you would like to explore whether this way of working feels right for you, you are welcome to book a session or arrange a brief introductory phone call.

Uplift Counselling is based in Fremantle and works with people across the wider Perth area.