Psychedelic Integration
While psychedelics are regaining credibility in the science and academic fields, I feel it is essential to acknowledge that women and peoples from indigenous cultures throughout the world have been using plant medicines to heal for millennia. My approach to integration work is rooted in this ancient wisdom and my belief in your innate capacity to heal.
At this time, it is only legal to use these substances in the United States through FDA approved studies, offering clinical trials to clients suffering with PTSD, addiction, life-threatening illness, end-of-life anxiety and palliative care, among other issues. While a number of psychedelics are under research, the two that are on the fastest track towards legalization are MDMA (often referred to as more of an empathogen than a psychedelic) and psilocybin.
The research from ongoing clinical trials repeatedly demonstrates that, administered in the right set and setting. psychedelics are proving invaluable to some of the people with conditions that are notoriously difficult to treat: Veterans and first responders, victims of sexual abuse, medical and/or surgical trauma, and palliative care. We are seeing that when these medicines benefit the client, they serve to indirectly benefit their partners, family members and friends as well.
These clinical trials with MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD (regardless of the cause) are achieving results far and above any previously established treatments, medications or therapeutic interventions. A recent MAPS Phase 2 trial with veterans, firefighters, and police officers resulted in 68% of the participants no longer qualifying for the diagnosis of PTSD.
In MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy, MDMA is only administered three times, unlike most medications for mental illness, which are routinely taken every day for years, and sometimes for life.
While I am not advocating the use of psychedelics outside of a legal research setting, and I do not work with these medicines—I do, however, practice psychedelic integration. Research is showing that integration is key to receiving lasting benefits and is oftentimes where the deeper work begins. This holds true whether the experience was ecstatic and mystical or deeply disturbing.
Are you returning from a journey in another country involving indigenous ceremonies with plant medicine? Preparing to enter or exit an FDA approved clinical trial? Yearning to weave a shift in consciousness, insights or epiphanies from a psychedelic experience into your everyday life? Still trying to process and make meaning from a difficult experience? Grappling with other non-ordinary states of consciousness or a spiritual emergency?
Talk to me. I am committed to creating and maintaining safe and sacred space in which psycho-spiritual transformation and healing can occur. Alongside my years as a ritualist, I hold a certificate in Psychedelic Therapies and Research from The California Institute of Integral Studies.
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy
I have been trained in Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy by Dr. Phil Wolfson and Julane Andries, MFT, at The Ketamine Training Center. I am collaborating with Integrative Psychiatrist Dr. Christine Schneider to offer Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy to established clients who serve to benefit. We are Associates with The Center for Transformational Psychotherapy and actively contributing to the research with The Ketamine Research Foundation. Please contact us for more information.
Psychedelic Resources
If you are interested in learning more about research and how these medicines, in conjunction with psychotherapy, are changing lives, check out:
MAPS – Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
Psychedelic Feminism – Cosmic Sister
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