Experience-Based Learning

The Art of Psychedelic Therapy and the Personal Process of the Practitioner …

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.

The Innate Path Model of Therapy

  • The body has innate ways of releasing what it holds, but for many reasons, modern humans suppress this system. As time goes on, suppressed emotion, looping memories and unresolved nervous system charge build up. The accumulation of unreleased material, carried at the subconscious level, causes symptoms associated with anxiety, depression and PTSD.

    By reigniting our natural instinct to release, we can heal our symptoms. As we bring awareness to sensations in our bodies, we begin to open up an innate healing channel. The body then begins to release and digest what it holds allowing the intelligence of our symptoms to be revealed. Psychedelics, or ‘expressive medicines,’ support this process tremendously.

  • Humans are children much longer than any other mammal, because it takes that long for us to learn all we need to develop the complexity of an adult human. Early developmental programming, attachment styles, beliefs and roles within our families have deep subconscious influence. This programming can lead to problems in adulthood with relation to our selves, the world and others.

    We also tend to compartmentalize aspects of ourselves during childhood, forming parts. These parts can be strategically suppressed if we think they are bad, or they hold threatening experiences and memories.

    Psychedelics take us to a timeless place allowing us access to childhood parts and early programming which when brought into the present moment can be healed, integrated and/or updated.

  • When working with psychedelics we access our minds in a non-ordinary way, which can also be accessed through many years of meditation. Buddhist psychology maps the non-ordinary mental terrain in a way that helps us understand ourselves better.

    Originally understood to address the suffering of the mind, Buddhist wisdom in the psychedelic realm is a powerful, much needed tool for the modern world. It gives us tools to work with symptoms that exist in the realms of mind, such as inner conflict, perseveration, limiting beliefs of self and inauthenticity.

  • Trauma symptoms can be described as stored (encapsulated) passive defense responses, experienced when an overwhelming event occurs and encapsulated when not released after the fact. Our main passive defense when overwhelmed, acutely or chronically, is dissociation.

    We can dissociate in many ways, through our sense of self and other, physically, mentally and even, and sometimes most profoundly, spiritually.

    Symptoms of dissociation are seen as the trickiest symptoms to treat in therapy. This is where the magic of psychedelics can help us the most, in getting access to our dissociative symptoms. Trauma cannot be fully healed without processing and integrating dissociative charge and encapsulations of memory or parts.

  • Larger dose psychedelic experiences, can put us in touch with the ineffable, a non-egoic experience which brings insight into ourselves and the world. These ‘big’ experiences are what is often thought of when we think about psychedelic healing. They are beautiful and helpful but afterward require us to apply the insight into our lives. Over time this can become a struggle and feel like another therapeutic failure, continuing the hope and fear cycle of ‘self improvement’.

    Another thing to consider when using larger doses is the intimidation factor which can put psychedelic therapy out of reach for many.

    In contrast, a psycholytic approach (using mid-range doses of psychedelics) gives us access to daily life struggles, not the ineffable but our human world, where are very human wounds reside. With the support of lower doses we get in touch with our personal subconscious, through a waking dream-like state, where our bodies and minds are present allowing us to steer the experience. This state is ideal for contacting inner healers and undoing blocks.

    When we address this level of our consciousness, the shifts we make during sessions are permanent, bottom-up releases or updates. This type of healing does not rely on insight or management from our conscious minds. A reduction in fear is also possible because there is no need to relinquish control.

    That is the promise of a psycholytic approach to psychedelic therapy, a type of therapy that does not overwhelm our conscious control and allows us to bring to the surface our buried habitual suffering so we can experience lasting resolution. Working with lower doses allows us to build a conscious relationship with our inner world. It also allows for more therapeutic support, reducing fear, building trust and carefully addressing therapeutic goals.

10-Week Immersive Training

Applicable Theory

We will spend 2 full days preparing for experiential session and getting an overview of the guiding theory.

Day One: Preparing for the 10-week experiential sessions, as participant and witness.

Day Two: Two weeks later we will meet again, after everyone has received and witnessed a session, to go deeper into the theory and the tools to support our innate healers.

Direct Experience

This is where the heart of the training lies. All dyads are led by one of the instructors and are held at Innate Path.

Each week, for two hours, one person will receive and the other observe a therapeutic psychedelic experience using either ketamine or cannabis.

(Before the training begins you will be given a weekly schedule of days/times to sign up for both witnessing and receiving).

Process Groups

As a group each week, we come together to share our experiences, offer support and dive deeper into the theory, guided by the questions emerging from the sessions.  

Being in community as we go through a process of healing also brings up the wounds of belonging we all share and give us an opportunity to do some healing on that level as well.

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First Full Day - all day training, Saturday 9am-4pm (2024 - Spring: Feb. 3rd, Summer: April 20th, Fall: September 7th)

Second Full Day - all day training Saturday - 9am - 4pm (2024 - Spring: Feb. 17th, Summer: May 4th, Fall: September 21th)

Every week - Thursday evening process group - 6-8pm

Weekly sessions - either as witness or participant - held during the days Tues - Friday and will be scheduled individually (schedule will be sent out the week before the first day and available times will vary depending on the instructor)

Experiential Requirements of Other Psychedelic Therapy Training Programs

We have recently changed our training by adding additional weeks to our model to meet the most common experiential requirements set by MAPS, Naropa, and other programs.  Total hours include: 12 classroom, 20 observation, 10 direct experience with medicines, and 20 case consultation.

$4,500 Tuition
Payment plans available upon request.

* Ketamine prescription and cannabis are not included in the cost of the training.

Reflections on Training from Former Cohort Members:

  • “As I digest the past 3 months, I have more time to reflect on what this training meant to me. I've been in many training programs and this one had a unique flavor to it. I noticed how the small and down to earth component to it is something I appreciate and makes my system feel safe. The understanding of dissociation, the nervous system and the somatic release that is dying to happen has been super insightful. The personal examples that you all shared with us helped me learn one of the most important things I am getting out of this: that showing up as me, Lucia, is great. I don't have to pretend to be more proficient, knowledgeable and have more answers than the ones I have. I simply need to follow the client and care for them. There is an expansive quality about being with someone that I love. I've sat for a few people these past couple of weeks and have loved the experience.”

    Lucia LPC, 2021

  • “Innate Path's training is so much more than a clinical overview of holding space in the psychedelic therapeutic container. This training is very experiential and the modality has been transformative for both me personally and my clients. I have always been drawn to trainings where I get to learn through my own personal therapeutic growth and see other participants heal and grow rather than intellectually take in a conceptual model, and Innate Path offers this in such a beautiful way. Clients who I see using this model have experienced benefits ranging from gaining sobriety for the first time in decades, eliminating dissociative episodes, healing trauma which then allows them to show up with much more spacious kindness in their relationships, and more!”

    Aaron LPC, 2021

  • “As someone who defaults to sharing vulnerability, being in the role of the "client" during the innate path training felt natural and easy; and I felt held by both the instructor and cohort members. What surprised me about my own process was how the waves of deep grief and despair felt satisfying, and literally changed how I occupy my body.”

    Diane LPC, 2022

  • “I took the Innate Path training and found it to be enriching to both my personal and professional life. During the training, I found myself digging into parts of my psyche that I didn't know were there. I had developed so many skills to be an adult and present in a certain way that some things were long buried. I believe that medicine assisted psychotherapy is actually the cutting edge in terms of healing and personal growth. The teachers in the program also inspired me throughout the program to trust myself in things I was already doing with clients like welcoming their whole experience to sessions, speaking about consent and the value of it and validating their own coping mechanisms. Now, that I have completed the training, I am working to bring Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy to select clients who I work with who I believe will benefit from it. It is a good tool in my toolbox to use with anyone who has trauma and wants to go deeper into their mind to safely examine and heal their wounds.”

    Marcy LPC, 2022

  • "Innate Path's experiential approach to psycholytic therapy training has been invaluable in my work with clients and has totally revitalized my individual personal growth work. The theoretical framework [body, mind, spirit], paired with the opportunity to experience therapy as a client & witness others’ therapy sessions, allowed me to digest & embody the content in a way that simply wouldn’t otherwise be possible purely via lecture or discussion. Since the training, I’ve noticed that my container for holding others experiences has undoubtedly widened and I have been continually reminded that my ability to help others grow and heal in medicine spaces hinges on my ability to do the same. IP also provided me with a community of like-minded practitioners that have supported me personally & professionally, for which I’m forever grateful.”

    Lee LPC, 2021

  • “The Innate Path training is a definitive introduction to one of the most substantive therapeutic modalities currently being used in the Psychedelic space. The relational, somatic, and multiplicity based stance taught within the training is specific and powerful. The training has created a toolkit that will be with me throughout my career and forever changed the way I look ketamine & cannabis.”

    Clayton MSW Student, 2022

  • “The Innate Path training has been life changing both professionally and personally. I've always been interested in psychedelics for healing, and chose the Innate Path training because of the focus on the experiential aspect. The model that was taught was so different from previous training I have done as a therapist, but it made so much sense to me, and has proved very effective and groundbreaking for my clients. The instructors, and community at Innate Path are nothing short of amazing, and when anyone asks me for a recommendation for other psychedelic therapists in the area, or for a training program for therapists, I don't hesitate to share about Innate Path's training and community. I wish I could do the training every year!”

    Hannah LPC, 2022

  • “The experiential model of being in the client’s seat was very impactful in the Innate Path training. I became connected to my body, emotions, intuition, and innate healer in ways that I hadn’t before. I was also highly impacted by being seen in such a vulnerable state and held with safety and empathy by the therapist and the other participants. Being supported in my own sessions and witnessing other participants’ sessions brought a felt sense of connection and healing. I am so grateful for this training and community.”

    Betsy RN, 2022

  • “As a patient, the therapist allowed me to be in control of my experience, while also facilitating an experience that helped me to get at the deeper, stickier parts that had been inaccessible on my own. My therapist was active in helping me explore relational and somatic aspects of my experience without being overly directive. I felt safe and supported enough to go to some very vulnerable, hard places and come out the other side feeling lighter and clearer about what I need.

    The training left me feeling confident about offering this mode of therapy to clients who can benefit and how to utilize it in ways that are purposeful and meaningful. I've since worked with practitioner's who were trained in other models, and I specifically appreciate the way Innate Path taught me to integrate relational aspects of work, both in terms of transference and countertransference, but also parts and attachment-focused work within the client (rather than the client being left to navigate the journey without therapeutic facilitation, which can be overwhelming, frightening, and non-therapeutic for many clients).”

    Laura PhD, 2021

  • “When I first signed up for this training I had no intention of actually doing this work with clients. I knew a little about the method and was just doing it for my personal growth and healing. After observing the sessions of others, and having my own unique experiences, I ended the training with excitement to bring this work to my clients. I saw first-hand how medicine-assisted therapy can help get people out of the mind-traps we can get into and move into the somatic awareness of what is held deeply within. The results can include big shifts in awareness and profound healing. I'm grateful for this experience!”

    Michelle LPC, 2021

  • “Innate Path is a critically valuable and unique training — it’s foundations involve modalities which are powerful, rare, and specialized. Being trained in the masters of Contemplative Psychotherapy/Buddhist Psychology, in Somatic Experiencing as well as Gestalt — and several well-known large dose ketamine therapy trainings which generally take a much less relational and active approach to this work — I can say that Innate Path is unique in its approach. Nowhere else will you be exposed to trauma-specific training from a contemplative/Buddhist psychology and somatic lens, which brings in working directly with severe trauma and the nervous system in such a robust manner. I have actually brought the Innate Path training principles into my non-psychedelic somatic work: by willing to challenge the rote axioms of many approaches to trauma, I have been able to facilitate much deeper, faster access to clients' internal healing systems. The training brings in some of the best elements of many modalities which would be inaccessible if done separately. As an adjunct to the large-dose psychedelic trainings, this program allows for exponentially deeper and broader skill-sets, capacities for being with clients' experiences, and a way of working with the nervous system, body and client's history which is often needed to avoid bypassing wounding. There is not just one way to engage psychedlic medicines or somatic work, and this training provides a rare approach I have yet to see in any contemporary training.”

    Joel LPC, 2022

  • “The Innate Path training offers both professional training in working with clients as well as the first person experience of being the client in a medicine session. The emphasis on the body and the somatic experience offers a deep way to access and heal trauma, old conditioning and in finding new ways of being in the world. An additional benefit for me was all the wonderful personal connections in our cohort.”

    Julian LPC, 2022

  • “I did months of due diligence before choosing a direction for my Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy training. At the last minute, after leaning toward another provider, I switched to Innate Path, and I'm SO glad I did! I was swayed by the focus at Innate Path on people-centered, experiential learning including opportunities to do my own work. There's certainly plenty of important scientific information to be learned regarding psychedelic therapies, and that's what drove my initial search. But I realized that the scientific information is available in abundance on the Internet, podcasts, online seminars, national conferences, and research journals. What I really needed that I couldn't get elsewhere was personal, practical, hands-on learning about how best to help the clients sitting in my office. Innate Path offered that through a small-group cohort experience that nurtured trust and acceptance within the group. Based on a foundation of honest, reciprocal caring, I felt completely comfortable sharing my own process, and the processes of others. I felt cradled in safe hands throughout the process while feeling deeply connected with others in the cohort (with whom I still remain in contact). As a licensed therapist for almost 30 years, I've had plenty of opportunity for self-reflection, so I was pleasantly surprised when my own experiences at Innate Path had such profound and immediate positive impacts on my relationships with myself and others. Since graduating from Innate Path, I've continued my own KAP work, trading services with others in my cohort, an instructor, and other local professionals. I've integrated KAP into my practice, consistently holding one or two KAP sessions each week.”

    Paul LMFT, 2021

  • “The training at Innate Path offers the finest combination of theory and practical application of assisted psychedelic psychotherapy. All the instructors not only walk the walk but want you to walk it with them. They offer a safe, honest, and open space to explore and learn with others and your own process. This pioneering program provides the support, experience, and guidance you need when stepping into the psychedelic therapeutic space. I couldn't recommend it more!”

    Sonja, Yoga Teacher/Author - 2021

  • “This training has truly been revolutionary for me. Innate Path is an extraordinary group of diverse professionals who possess a unique blend of confidence and humility in their finely tuned crafts of instruction and facilitation.The Innate Path model has greatly expanded my horizons of what's possible in the realms of healing and integration. The hands-on, experiential approach to somatic processing therapy, using a psycholitic dose, has undeniably been a breakthrough. It's not only transformed the way I understand trauma but has also deeply impacted how I serve and support others, as well as propelled me past points of stuckness in my own personal healing journey.

    I've participated in numerous plant medicine ceremonies, explored altered states, meditated, and ventured through various therapy modalities since I was 14, none have left as profound an imprint as Innate Path's approach. There’s no going back now; I feel I have entered a deeper and broader level of working with trauma, the nervous system, psychedelics, and integration. Witnessing and personally experiencing authentic healing within this context has been nothing short of revelatory. Jen is remarkable. The cohort model is great, as it fosters strong bonds and a true sense of healing in community. The practitioners are wonderful, and they deliver this training with a seamless blend of wisdom, humor, and grace, enriching the entire experience. I am profoundly grateful to now be part of this community of like-minded individuals, all dedicated to the path of healing and service.”

    Mike, Facilitator, 2023