Psychedelic Assisted Therapy
I am a Psychedelic-Assisted Therapist whose clinical work integrates Internal Family Systems (IFS), mindfulness-based interventions, and trauma-informed care. My approach is grounded in ethical responsibility, cultural humility, and respect for Indigenous peoples who have stewarded plant medicines and ceremonial practices across generations.
Within an IFS framework, psychedelic-assisted therapy is understood as a catalyst for increased access to Self-energy and greater awareness of internal systems. Careful attention is given to preparation and integration as essential components of the therapeutic process. Preparation focuses on building internal safety, strengthening Self-to-part relationships, clarifying intentions, and developing the skills needed to navigate non-ordinary states with curiosity and regulation. Integration supports clients in making meaning of their experiences, engaging insights with compassion, and translating internal shifts into sustainable changes in daily life.I practice with a clear commitment to reciprocity and non-extractive engagement with Indigenous plant medicine traditions. This includes acknowledging the cultural, spiritual, and ecological lineages from which many psychedelic medicines originate, engaging in ongoing education, and supporting ethical pathways that honor Indigenous sovereignty, consent, and knowledge systems. Psychedelic-assisted therapy, when practiced responsibly, requires accountability not only to clients, but also to the communities and ecosystems connected to these medicines.
Psychedelic substances are currently not legal in the state of Montana. I do not provide or facilitate the use of illegal substances. Instead, my work supports clients through legal and clinically appropriate preparation and integration services. This includes helping individuals reflect on past psychedelic experiences, prepare psychologically and emotionally for experiences that may occur in lawful contexts elsewhere, and integrate insights in a way that supports mental health, safety, and personal growth.
My role as a therapist is to provide a structured, clinically sound container that emphasizes safety, informed consent, preparation, and integration. I work collaboratively with clients to support psychological flexibility, emotional regulation, and internal leadership, guided by IFS principles of curiosity, compassion, and respect for the wisdom of the internal system. Healing is approached as a relational process that extends beyond the individual to include community, culture, and the more-than-human world.
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Across cultures and millennia, humans have explored altered states not as escapes from life but as profound ways of connecting more deeply with it. In Indigenous and traditional settings, psychedelic plants were used in ceremonies guided by elders and healers. Clear intentions and ethical boundaries held these experiences as sacred opportunities for insight, reconciliation, and healing.
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They served as catalysts for personal and communal transformation. Within ritual and ceremony, psychedelics were approached with reverence and structure—never casually—because they were understood as powerful teachers capable of revealing deep emotional or spiritual truths.
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In the mid-20th century, clinical researchers began to study substances like LSD as potential tools for psychological healing. When combined with skilled therapeutic support, these experiences were found to access unconscious material and transpersonal experiences that talk therapy alone often could not reach.
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Dr. Stanislav Grof is a pioneering psychiatrist whose work in psychedelic-assisted therapy demonstrated how non-ordinary states of consciousness could facilitate deep healing. After psychedelic research was halted, he continued exploring these states through holotropic breathwork, offering a non-drug pathway to similar transformative experiences.
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By the late 1960s, public and political backlash led to strict legal restrictions, which stopped most scientific work. Yet much of the knowledge persisted within clinical and underground practice, and through continued exploration of breathwork and consciousness-based therapeutic methods.
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Today’s renewed research and therapeutic use draw from both Indigenous wisdom and modern scientific understanding. Psychedelic-assisted therapy now follows strict clinical protocols that prioritize safety, consent, trauma-informed care, and integration. The focus is not on the psychedelic itself but on the healing process it helps facilitate within a contained therapeutic environment.
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Healing emerges from the intentional framework—the preparation, the trust between therapist and client, and the integration that follows—not just from the medicine. The psychedelic experience can open meaningful psychological or emotional material, but the integration work turns that insight into lasting change.
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The essence of psychedelic therapy is remembering what Indigenous traditions long understood: that healing arises through conscious engagement with one’s inner world, held within safety, structure, and care. Psychedelics are catalysts within a therapeutic process centered on human connection, mindfulness, and meaning.