Strong personal intentions but flexible external expectations

With the many portrayals of psychedelic experiences in the media, it is easy for someone uninitiated in this realm of experience, to create expectations about what a ketamine-induced state might be like. You might expect sacred geometry designs and objects in fluorescent colors to dance around you to the music of an Ascended or mythological being playing the flute while you float above your body and see it all from a bird’s eye-view perspective. Those experiences are certainly a part of ketamine-induced states and states arising from taking other psychedelic substances. However, it is a very real phenomenon, that sometimes a ketamine experience might just be a feeling, such as a feeling of calm or clarity.

On the other end it might be a tight sensation around your chest or forehead that creates pressure and tension contributing to feelings of unease and anxiety. These less technicolor-like psychedelic experiences are not to be underestimated in regards to their benefits for healing work. They are the gateway to better self-knowledge and insight and initiators of the more life changing experiences so many of us are after when doing the work of healing and transformation.

To better harness the healing effects of even less awe-striking ketamine experiences, Jungian Active Imagination can be a most helpful adjunct. By using Active Imagination, the healing practitioner invites the client to focus on the feeling, sensation or thought that arises, and allow it to express itself in the way that feels most natural and seamless to it. The feeling might become an image or a sound, and it might want to blare out loud, radiate in waves, or bounce from one corner of the room to the other, to finally rest gently on the client’s lap. The practitioner might finally ask the client what the best thing to do with that blob of energy might be, of course with its agreement. The technique of Active Imagination is a great gateway to more spontaneous ketamine and other psychedelics experiences.

Non-Ordinary Experiences Through Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)

I want to take a moment to discuss Non-ordinary consciousness as I am getting started with providing KAP. Non-ordinary experiences can arise in a person’s consciousness regardless of any substances being administered externally. This is because the pineal gland in the human brain, also known as the third eye, naturally secretes ketamine. There are factors in today’s post-modern world that can have an effect on these natural secretions. Coming into contact with fluoride that is used for various purposes, including water treatment both for tap water and pools among other uses, can contribute to the calcification of the pineal gland to various degrees. There are other factors too.

I want to shift here from speaking in generalities to my own personal experience with non-ordinary consciousness, by way of sharing with you why I feel so glad I am now able to provide this modality of treatment.

In July of 2024 I moved in to the apartment style rental property where I currently pay the lease for the place I call home. It was a time of major transitions. I was moving after sharing an apartment with my soulmate for almost 4 years. I was also transitioning between jobs and considering my next income opportunity. Most notably, it was the first time I was living all by my self.

This was in the context of receiving holistic coaching services consecutively between two local providers and one who provided services virtually from Australia. I make a point to emphasize the coaching, because it was through the practices that I learned from these health providers that I was able to garner the opportunity of living alone and having a dwelling all to myself, that I learned to welcome the non-ordinary experiences not as something to be suppressed, but as something to be allowed into awareness, and even expressed as a way to release it.

I started drawing the visions I was having, and took this as an opportunity to join an art therapy online club and even get my personal certification as an Art Therapy practitioner. I intuitively guided myself through visualizations to regulate the emotions I was allowing myself to feel for the first time that seemed to scare me with the risk I would be overwhelmed beyond the threshold of what I could cope with.

I was using Amplification, an Analytical Psychology technique masterminded by Carl Jung to exaggerate some of the feelings and thoughts that barely make it into conscious awareness due to suppression, but poke the surface enough to create a feeling of haunting unease. Jung and other Analytical Psychologists use Amplification to allow these thoughts and feelings fully into awareness, so that they can finally be released, instead of staying stuck and poking the surface of awareness like poisonous needles. Without this technique of exaggeration, they would stay stuck and frozen in unconscious layers, perpetuating pathology through ages and even generations.

On one occasion, I left the leaving room in the early morning hours to get some sleep in my bed, only to be caught in what I thought was a channeling of demonic voices that were screaming at me and “tearing me apart”. I cried aloud in the middle of the night until they were gone.

On another earlier occasion I had a vivid vision that seemed to be directly projected from footage I had been exposed to as a child of horrific war scenes, that I had completely and totally buried below consciousness (or so I thought).

If it wasn’t for my various Holistic Coaches and Empath Channelers I was working with, I would have not dared to let my self off the hook without committing myself to a psychiatric ward. But I took it as confirmation from them that yes, I could allow myself to treat it as a spiritual experience and not hold myself to any scientific medical obligation to pathologize my experience.

I knew something was happening. I was able to connect the dots with the monthly readings on psychedelic therapies I had been initiated on through my subscription to the Psychotherapy Networker. So, I said, I can allow myself not to be too mystified by this to the point of overwhelming fear.

I started getting used to referring to this as my psychedelic experience, in conversation with people close to me. It was only natural to want to learn more about Journey Clinical, a virtual mental health platform training a network of therapists in providing KAP, and resourcing them with what they needed to do so.

When I received an email from them to interview for the opportunity to join their team, I had no hesitation. I have now completed my training, gone through the onboarding process, and have my first case here at Pathfinder that has agreed to KAP.

If you are curious or have an interest in anything I shared in this post, feel free to reach out to me at teda@woundedhealerpsychotherapy.com or dm me on Instagram at @pathfinder.psychotherapy.

Blog Post Title One

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Two

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Three

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.