Category: Uncategorized

The use of psychedelic substances as therapeutic agents is a trend with great promise, and a work in progress. There is an exciting but nascent body of research on efficacy and best practices, and there remains many legal and ethical obstacles.  In the meantime, the use of plant medicines is growing like a weed – quickly, organically and not always in the most desirable way.

“It’s the wild West,” says Dr. Katherine Lawson, a pioneer in using embodied dreamwork practices to facilitate integration of psychedelic experiences. She notes that since people are using plant medicines anyway, and have been for ages, there is a need to help facilitators offer safe, constructive and respectful ways to help clients prepare for and integrate their experiences. This is why she founded Awake in the Dream School.

 

Psychedelic Therapies Show Promise

Anecdotally, Lawson has witnessed dramatic changes in her clients as a result of the use of plant medicine, and in a much shorter time frame than is typical with more traditional talk therapy. “One of the main reasons for that, is that while you are under the influence of the medicine (in this example, MDMA), you do not have much access to shame, fear and guilt. And if you are a skilled facilitator, you can help your client go back and heal things that are not approachable in normal waking consciousness, with all the layers of protective mechanisms. Those are gone. Your clients can see things so differently — from a loving, empathic perspective. That’s the gift of these medicines.”

Research backs this up and is demonstrating the efficacy of these substances in addressing conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction (Carhart-Harris & Goodwin, 2017; Mithoefer et al., 2018; Palhano-Fontes et al., 2019). The proposed mechanisms of action for psychedelics in therapeutic settings include their ability to reduce negative cognitive biases, enhance emotional processing, and promote neuroplasticity (Rucker et al., 2018).

Studies have shown that a single dose of psilocybin can produce rapid and sustained reductions in depressive and anxiety symptoms in patients with life-threatening cancer (Griffiths et al., 2016). MDMA-assisted psychotherapy has demonstrated promising results in the treatment of PTSD, with participants experiencing significant and lasting improvements in symptoms (Mithoefer et al., 2018). Psychedelics may also facilitate mystical-type experiences that can lead to profound personal insights and shifts in worldview, which some researchers believe can catalyze lasting positive changes in attitudes, mood, and behavior (Carhart-Harris & Goodwin, 2017).

The research on psychedelics is still in its early stages, and more large-scale, rigorous clinical trials are needed to establish their efficacy and safety profiles. The specialized nature of psychedelic-assisted therapy, which often involves extensive preparation, guidance during the experience, and integration support, can also limit accessibility and scalability.

 

Education Needed

Lawson has been working with users of plant medicine for a decade, and has learned much about the incredible potential for transformation these substances can bring about. But there is also much of concern in practices stemming from lack of knowledge, desire for a quick fix, and in the worst cases, dangerous and unethical practices. She established her school to educate mental health professionals who want to help those taking psychedelic substances to prepare for the journey and integrate the experiences afterwards. She said without these crucial pre- and post-journey steps, the experience can be no different from taking a drug trip – amazing, terrifying or anything in between.

She does not work with any of the substances directly, nor does she teach about how to administer the medicine and support the actual experiences (‘trip-sitting’). This is because so many of the substances are illegal. And yet there is a grey area, because they are also widely accessible. “The National Institute of Health (NIH) estimates 50 million Americans have interacted with these medicines since 2021, and that figure is probably very low,” according to Lawson.

 

Adapting Dreamwork for Integration

As someone who teaches embodied experiential dreamwork to therapists, I was particularly intrigued by how Dr. Lawson has adapted dreamwork techniques to support the integration of plant medicine journeys. She was one of the early providers of integration sessions via MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

Over the past decade, Dr. Lawson has worked with hundreds of individuals navigating psychedelic experiences and has used her depth of experience to develop a training program to equip practitioners with the skills to support this process. A key distinction in her approach is the emphasis on preparation and integration, rather than facilitating the psychedelic journeys themselves. Her training, for those in the mental health and wellness industries, educates facilitators on 8 different medicines – learning what to expect and how to support clients through the experience. Lawson, said the specific substance and the nature of its use can vary so widely – from deep ceremonial practice to recreational highs. Most often, therapeutic plant medicine experiences are offered in facilitated group or one-on-one guided sessions.

The core post-session integration practice Lawson teaches is based on Embodied Imagination as developed by Dutch psychoanalyst Robert Bosnak. She has found that working with psychedelic visions requires some adaptation. “There’s an intensity to it, there’s a possession by it that’s got a different quality than a dream,” she explained. “If you guide someone back into their dream in a hypnagogic state, they always have a certain awareness of being in a dual state of consciousness. But with a psychedelic experience, for a while, they’re just in it — you can still guide them, but you might have to be more assertive, more directive.”

Another key difference, according to Dr. Lawson, is the need to be particularly mindful of scope of practice and ethical boundaries when working with clients who have had intense psychedelic experiences. “There’s a lot of people out there abusing the power imbalance that’s implicit in serving these medicines,” she said. “So we really lean into things like being trauma-informed and understanding contraindications.” Acute adverse effects can include anxiety, panic, and psychotic episodes, particularly in individuals with a history of mental health conditions (Carbonaro et al., 2016).

Overall, Dr. Lawson’s approach seems to strike an important balance — honoring the profound potential of psychedelics for healing and transformation, while also recognizing the need for skilled, ethical, and trauma-informed support. As someone who has seen the benefits of dreamwork in clinical practice, I’m intrigued by the possibilities of integrating these modalities to help clients navigate their most profound experiences.

To learn more about Awake in the Dream School and Dr. Lawson’s work, check out awakeinthedream.co  For those on my email list, Lawson has generously offered a 10% discount on her 6-month certification program if you use this code upon checkout: AWAKE-Drleslieellis

 

References

Carbonaro, T. M., Bradstreet, M. P., Barrett, F. S., MacLean, K. A., Jesse, R., Johnson, M. W., & Griffiths, R. R. (2016). Survey study of challenging experiences after ingesting psilocybin mushrooms: Emphasis on context and impairment. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 30(12), 1268-1278. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881116662634

Garasic, M. D., & Lavazza, A. (2021). Moral and social reasons to access psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. BMC Medical Ethics, 22(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-021-00588-x

Griffiths, R. R., Johnson, M. W., Carducci, M. A., Umbricht, A., Richards, W. A., Richards, B. D., … & Klinedinst, M. A. (2016). Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 30(12), 1181-1197. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881116675513

Mithoefer, M. C., Feduccia, A. A., Jerome, L., Mithoefer, A., Wagner, M., Walsh, Z., … & Doblin, R. (2018). MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for treatment of PTSD: study design and rationale for phase 3 trials based on pooled analysis of six phase 2 randomized controlled trials. Psychopharmacology, 235(11), 3137-3144. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-018-4988-2

Palhano-Fontes, F., Barreto, D., Onias, H., Andrade, K. C., Novaes, M. M., Pessoa, J. A., … & Araújo, D. B. (2019). Rapid antidepressant effects of the psychedelic ayahuasca in treatment-resistant depression: a randomized placebo-controlled trial. Psychological Medicine, 49(4), 655-663. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291718001356

Rucker, J. J., Iliff, J., & Nutt, D. J. (2018). Psychiatry & the psychedelic drugs. Past, present & future. Neuropharmacology, 142, 200-218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropharm.2017.12.040

Are you interested in deepening your ability to listen in a way that enables another person to touch into their body’s wisdom? Whether you are a mental health professional, partner, coach, parent, friend (or all of these!), focusing is a gift you can bring to every relationship – including your connection with your own self.

In this live, 8-week course, you will learn and practice focusing with master teacher Dr. Leslie Ellis. Join before Sept. 15 for a significant discount for the Proficiency in Focusing Partnership award program (aka How to Become an Exquisite Listener).

For those not familiar with Focusing, it is an amazing method for discovering what the body knows about your life and world.  It’s a profound yet gentle way of getting a sense of yourself from the inside.

Focusing is not designed to do alone – it is inherently a relational listening process – and in this course you will not only learn focusing, but also how to listen in a focusing-oriented way. That is, you will learn to attune in a way that naturally deepens your listening partner’s relationship with their inner world.

In my first course for the Jung Platform, I offered the basics of focusing as a way of Accessing the Body’s Wisdom, mainly as a form of self-inquiry. This course takes you a step further so you can both listen to your own embodied wisdom and guide a partner in this process.

Focusing founder Eugene Gendlin said that the intangible magic of human connection is what makes focusing so effective at moving us toward new understandings. When we, as a listener, absorb and reflect back what the focuser is saying, our receptive presence adds more to the equation. This is felt by the person focusing, and allows them to say something further, to take a step they may not have arrived at on their own. There is a beautiful rhythm that is created, a conversation that is greater than the sum of its parts.

In this live course, we will meet for eight experiential sessions. In each, I will teach you an aspect of focusing, and will demonstrate it. Then you will have the chance to practice in small groups, one skill at a time.

You will learn how to deepen your listening partner’s experience of their own depths, but in a way that is safe and guided by the focuser. I will offer suggestions to help keep the process moving, but also manageable. For example, in one session, we will work with the inner critic, that derogatory voice that often pipes up when we first turn our attention inside.

We will also have fun with creative aspects of focusing, and there will be lots of time for debriefing your practice and for your questions, reflections and sharing of the magical moments that often arise in focusing.

Prior courses or experience are not required, although I do recommend that you read Gendlin’s little book Focusing as an introduction.

For those who want to, you can use this course as a stepping stone toward a deeper practice of focusing. When you complete the course and practice sessions, you will be eligible to apply to the International Focusing Institute for the Proficiency in Focusing Partnership Award. This award demonstrates your ability to listen in a focusing way, and enables you to connect with other focusing partners from around the world.

The PFP award is optional. And regardless of whether you choose to pursue it, you will leave this course with a deeper connection to your own body’s wisdom, and a reliable way to access it. And you will have the ability to guide others in this process so you can continue focusing as a practice well beyond the duration of the course.

Focusing pairs well with dreamwork, can help you as a therapist, coach or teacher to help your client or students find their own answers. It can be used to deepen creativity and connection.

The course is available at an early bird price of $295 until Sept. 15. Regular price is $345. Classes are 8 Tuesdays starting Oct. 8, 10:30am to 12:45. (90 minutes of class time, plus 45-minute focusing practice sessions).

For full details and to register, click here.

With AI flooding the world with all kinds of applications, of course there are now several AI apps on the market for recording and interpreting dreams – my current favorites are Elsewhere and Temenos. Some of the questions that immediately arise: Does AI do a good job with helping us explore our dreams? What are the pros and cons of using this technology as a way to engage in our dreaming lives?

John Temple, the creator of Temenos, a dream tracking and interpretation app, says the technology is useful, but has limits. He spoke at length on this on the June 20 podcast episode of This Jungian Life (well worth a listen). He said that in the process of testing this program, he sent numerous dreams to be interpreted and found it exhausting. “Your psyche recognizes that it’s not another human soul responding.” He suggests Temenos as a useful tool, but not to overdo it. His sense is that what’s healing in the process of dreamwork is the human connection, something AI can’t replace.

That said, an app can offer interesting suggestions you may not have thought of. If you treat its analysis as coming from one of many members of a dream group, as a reflection to consider and take or leave, it can carry your understanding of the dream forward, sometimes in creatively helpful ways. Temple notes that in dreams, our blind spots are often so evident to others and, by definition, invisible to us. Other voices, including the possible interpretations via an app, enlarge our perspective and may enable us to see the very aspects that we’re missing.

Interpretation aside, dream apps can also be used as a way to record dreams easily and store them all in a single, searchable database – much more efficient than searching through stacks of old dream journals. For example, using the Temenos app, you can speak your dream into your phone and it will transcribe it and store it, and it prompts you to add notes about emotional tone and associations, even generates an image of the dream. Over time, you have a long-term, detailed, searchable record of your dream life, and with this, different questions you can explore – like how a dream element or symbol appears and evolves over time. A premium (ie paid) version of the app lets you join a dream community to share dreams with small groups, or the whole community.

Another great dream AI app is Elsewhere, which offers most of the same functions as Temenos (although its community functions are still under development). I tested it out with a dream I had of an Irish Setter that turns into a fox, a slightly wild and unkempt little creature that is ambivalent about being held by me. The app takes care to offer its interpretation as something to consider, not as gospel, beginning its response with: “If it were my dream, I would interpret is as follows…” It then describes the fox as a “cunning, adaptable, and resourceful” aspect of myself that is perhaps undernourished.

This feels both plausible and a little too reliant on generic meaning. It doesn’t resonate. But a later phrase does seem worth pondering, a suggestion that the dream “could be a reflection of your own desire to balance your wild and free-spirited nature with the need for stability and nurturing.” This feels a little closer to home, and yet again, something is lacking for me. I tend to work with dreams in an embodied experiential way, in this case, to enter into a direct experience of this little fox. What I come away with may be similar in sentiment, but reading the interpretation rather than experiencing my own neglected wild-animal nature is qualitatively so different. Another person holding the space for my direct experience is simply richer and more supportive of what can arise in the field between two people.

What Temple concludes about AI dream analysis is that it is a highly useful tool, but does not replace the human-to-human connection that takes place when we experience our dreams in the presence of another soul. There is something intangible and crucial about the intersubjective field that AI is incapable of generating. It is excellent at recognizing patterns, and is getting more sophisticated so quickly. But human beings are more than pattern recognition machines.

As an aside, I just had a relevant discussion about another kind of AI – active imagination – and intersubjectivity with Serge Prengel that you can listen to here: https://activepause.com/ellis-prengel-active-imagination/

There are now AI-supported apps that can provide therapy – usually the more formulaic forms like cognitive behavioural therapy. Although this cannot take the place of another human, it can offer help that is affordable and accessible. The same is true of dreamwork – although deeply sharing dream experience with another person creates a shared field not possible with a machine, not everyone has access to a dream analyst or dream partner. And the insights and avenues to consider that apps like Elsewhere and Temenos offer can often carry the dreamer further in their own exploration.

Dreams often depict our blind spots and areas to consider that we can be surprisingly obtuse about. Having another viewpoint can widen our perspective, regardless of its source. I find the dream apps useful as records of my dream life. And as interpreters, they are like another voice in a dream group – they offer ways to consider a dream that can lead somewhere or fall flat, and how to respond is entirely up to me.