Our Philosophy
Our Treatment Philosophy
We are aligned to support evidence-based models of care in the functional, integrative, psychedelic treatment space.
We embrace a biopsychosocial-spiritual view of healing that necessitates healing on different levels.
We support people to unleash their inner healing potential. We are not gurus. We do not heal people but rather we enable people to heal themselves and remove obstacles for self-healing to occur.
We believe in multimodality and interdisciplinary integrative experiences. We respect and embrace a range of healing practices and therapeutic modalities.
We focus on group and community interconnection as an essential and primary element of healing and treatment.
We embrace cultural humility, self-awareness, and accountability. We aim to recognize our cultural blind spots as individuals and as an organization.
We offer critical, creative, and reflexive treatment practices.
We provide safe, informed, and caring drug-assisted psychotherapy treatments.
Preparation for treatment includes ample discussion regarding:
what to expect throughout the treatment experience
the guided journey itself
recovery and self-care after the journey
how to use insights gleaned during the sessions for one’s healing
integration of the experience in the context of one’s life
Our Journey Philosophy
So often in life, we find ourselves in places where we feel lost, or out of our center. Depression and anxiety rob us of the joy of living. Trauma pulls us from the present to the past when we were harmed or afraid.
We help people find their way back to their center. To be Centered is to be present in one’s own life. When we are Centered, we can open ourselves, sometimes for the first time, to the joys of life.
We believe that while medication can be a necessary step to help correct imbalances or support a person through their suffering, it is only one part. We maintain that the road to health and wellness is a journey. A significant part of the journey is how we come to understand or “make meaning” out of our experiences from the past and the present. Traditional psychotherapy is an example of one modality that can aid or accomplish effective meaning-making. However, Ketamine Assisted Therapy is another approach that we offer to some patients who meet certain parameters.
Ketamine Assisted Therapy sessions are steps along a journey to the center, and to self-understanding. Our sessions begin with a thorough assessment by our staff who are trained doctors, nurses, therapists, and guides.
Our experience leads us to believe that small groups of people sharing powerful experiences before, during, and after can amplify the overall healing experience. The shared experience of healing from suffering can build a powerful foundation of a community on a journey of individual and collective wellness.
Any philosophy of practice must be based on a theory of the self and of suffering (or dis-ease): what causes it, what alleviates it, and what the role of the therapist is in the process.
If we theorize based on the prevailing biomedical model, we see the “self” as a process based predominantly on genes, proteins, neurons, neurotransmitters, neurocircuitry, and “suffering” as symptoms of a problem on one or more of these levels, then it would follow that medicine or other interventions would be a necessary and sufficient course of action to relieve suffering.
If we theorize with Freud and the analysts that the “self” is a process developed through the repression of desires within the family structure, and our suffering is the inevitable result of the frustration or pain of not getting our needs met, we would use talk therapy as a way of untying the knots of neuroses.
Common between the biomedical model and many psychological models is a structural power differential where the analyst, doctor, clinician, or therapist is an expert in the pathological process that causes the suffering of the subject. They then intervene with the authority of one who knows how to correct the defect, dis-ease, or dysfunction. Another commonality between the biomedical and analytic models is the notion that pathology (illness) resides within the individual and that the cure must be applied on a solely individual level.
By contrast, our philosophy of practice is based on a self that is a dynamic manifestation of the material (human) substance within a social and environmental context. This is as true for the practitioners as it is for those who come seeking care. From family relations to socio-economic status to race and ethnicity, to gender, to sexual orientation, and the historical background of all of these, our social context creates meaning for individuals.
Empirical data and our collective experience demonstrate the nature of the self that is in constant flux within a given environment, with varying degrees of maladaptation, rigidity, inflexibility, and stuckness. Some of these are due to pathological physiological processes. Some are due to the wider context, and some involve complex systems that generate feedback between the physical and social; producing a self that with likely endure some form of suffering.
Our role then is to provide care as skillful guides who are familiar with the territory of healing, and the reliable paths from dis-ease to centeredness. As guides, therapists, and fellow travelers, we skillfully employ the use of contemporary medication and traditional approaches as well as the careful, deliberate creation of settings that facilitate healing. We support those who are suffering to connect with others and find their center. We prioritize integration and community for people within the context of the larger community around us.
