Mindfulness, Compassion, & Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy: What Clinicians Need to Know About Non-Ordinary States

DESCRIPTION
Ever since Freud, psychotherapists have worked with non-ordinary states such as dreams, hypnosis, and free association to explore and heal the heart and mind. In the past decade mindfulness and compassion practices have become mainstream tools, while more recently research on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has mushroomed. Psychedelics, often combined with insights from mindfulness and compassion practices, now offer not only possible breakthrough treatments for PTSD, depression, addictions, and end-of-life anxiety, but provide new insights into the nature of psychological distress, mechanisms of healing.

What can clinicians learn from these developments? What can they teach us about the neurobiology of human suffering and flourishing? How can they inform our practice?

In this 2-day interactive workshop, you will learn practical tools and techniques derived from mindfulness and compassion-oriented treatment and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to help clients with a wide-array of disorders. We will explore ways to help clients integrate split-off traumatic memories, open their hearts, embrace vulnerability, surrender to the flow of ever-changing experience, move from isolation to deep connection with people and nature, appreciate the unreliable fluidity of thought, and find meaning in everyday moments.

You will learn how to use mindfulness and self-compassion practices along with other techniques to harness these healing mechanisms, while also gaining the knowledge necessary to help clients who might be experimenting with psychedelics to integrate and grow from their experiences.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Describe the history of non-ordinary states in psychotherapy Identify the common elements in a wide variety of psychological disorders.
Discuss how mindfulness practices work to resolve psychological distress.
Describe the role of compassion and self-compassion in psychotherapeutic progress.
Analyze evidence for efficacy and mechanisms of action in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
Describe what the neurobiology of meditation and psychedelics teach us about psychological suffering and flourishing.
Differentiate the role of transpersonal or “mystical” experience in both mindfulness-informed and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
Utilize practical strategies to introduce the transformative elements of mindfulness and compassion-informed, and psychedelic-assisted sessions into other forms of psychotherapy.
Identify contraindications for inducing non-ordinary states in psychotherapy.

Agenda:

Day 1:
3:00-4:30 History of non-ordinary states in psychotherapy; common factors in psychopathology and their antidotes
4:30-4:45 Break
4:45-6:15 What are psychedelics? History of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP)
6:15-6:30 Break
6:30-7:30 Origins and effects of different psychedelic agents; cautions and contraindications; structuring PAP.

Day 2:
3:00-4:30 The role of transpersonal or mystical experience in therapeutic change
4:30-4:45 Break
4:45-6:15 What are mindfulness practices and how do they work? Fitting practices to individuals
6:15-6:30 Break
6:30-7:30 Practical ways to introduce the transformative elements of mindfulness into other forms of psychotherapy

Day 3:
3:00-4:30 Compassion: What is it really? Avoiding empathy fatigue; synergies among mindfulness, compassion, & PAP
4:30-4:45 Break
4:45-6:15 The role of transpersonal awareness in healing
6:15-6:30 Break
6:30-7:30 Discovering the extraordinary gift of being ordinary