The Korea Herald/Asia News Network Friday, Nov 02, 2012

Korean oriental medicine doctors are embracing "Hakomi," a body-centred, somatic psychotherapy developed in the United States, to treat mental illnesses.

Professor Kang Hyung-won of Wonkang University Oriental Medical Center has been leading a group of doctors to develop Hakomi-based programs to treat mental and emotional disorders from depression to "hwabyeong," a repressed anger syndrome.

The word originates from the Hopi Indian language, meaning "How do you stand in relation to these many realms?"

The group recently won a project grant from the Ministry of Health and Welfare to develop therapeutic programs for post-traumatic stress disorder patients. Kang plans to apply Hakomi to existing oriental medicine therapies for the programme.

"Hakomi is powerful. It helps both patients and practitioners to experience amazing changes," Kang told The Korea Herald on Tuesday at his clinic located in Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province.

"The most difficult part when treating post-traumatic stress disorder patients is that they are emotionally unstable. The Hakomi method, however, makes patients feel safe and discover good and positive resources from themselves and help them move forward," he said.

In the US, a majority of PTSD patients are those who experienced war and those who went through a series of natural disasters in Japan. However, most PTSD patients in Korea have had traffic accidents.

"There are many who were suffering from PTSD after they had a car accident. But they don't usually have chances to treat their mental illness because PTSD though a traffic accidents doesn't get insurance coverage nor is it recognised as a mental disorder," Kang said.

The number of PTSD patients is on rise along with emergence of violent random crimes and particularly, child sex crimes, he said, noting that Hakomi method would have positive results in patients.

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When Hakomi meets oriental medicine