Puzzle Box Heart

Meaning-making in a psychedelic experience belongs to the person taking the journey, not the facilitator. Safety comes in many forms, sometimes it means ensuring that everyone’s seatbelts are fastened, sometimes it means staying on well-lit paths, and sometimes it means placing our trust in someone else and wandering into the unknown. When a client places their trust in a facilitator, I believe that we can honor that trust by doing our best to allow the journey to safely unfold without undermining the client’s authority over their own narratives.

I believe that by holding space with empathy and engaging in a non-directive way with a client experiencing an extraordinary state of consciousness, we may access multiple layers of healing. One obvious benefit is that in cases where the client is working with fraught memories or long held echoes of trauma, the client is really the only person positioned to both examine and compassionately recast those experiences. Beyond that, this process likely improves the client’s sense of agency and authority over their own lived experience. By developing a supportive alliance with the client, we will be positioned to invite the client to explore their inner life and to become the owner of their life story - which might result in additional layers of personal benefit and actualization.