Experiential Trauma Focused Psychedelic Therapy Training

A competent psychedelic therapist is someone committed to their own inner work, someone who knows the path they ask their clients to walk. Psychedelic therapy is not a new tool, pharmaceutical or modality that makes traditional therapy more effective. It is a wholly different experience of what it means to heal and have health. Through psychedelics we are given access to our subconscious depths and what we find there is an innate intelligence and a drive to heal. To effectively navigate this inner landscape we need to know the rules and what it’s like to recover our own health. We will need to know how to unwind deeply ingrained defenses, accept and integrate parts of ourselves that we have rejected and feel into challenging emotions we may have suppressed early in life. The reward is renewed self love, freedom and authenticity, but we cannot support clients to achieve this if we have not made our way there ourselves. This is a principle we have lost touch with in western medicine, and often find ourselves spending money looking for answers externally, learning concepts and theories that we think are impactful, but that we don't feel and know personally are impactful. Additionally, there are ways in which working with psychedelics intensifies common therapeutic pitfalls. If, for example, we do not attend to our personal work on that deeper level, we risk projecting onto clients what remains unresolved within ourselves, or limit the depths they can go with our presence.

Learning through experience:

The Innate Path model begins with theory and quickly moves into applying it, learning during the psychedelic experience, rather than from it or about it. This learning doesn’t fundamentally happen by thinking or doing, but by feeling the complexity of how we experience our bodies, emotions and minds and learning the innate pathways to healing.

Learning in community:

Psychedelic therapy is a deep dive into individual and collective trauma. It is important to recognize that we cannot hold the weight of it all alone. Many of us have tried and gotten overwhelmed, burnt out or lost in the hopelessness that our clients may feel while processing their trauma. That is why a supportive community of other practitioners dedicated to their personal work is so important.