A Holistic Approach to Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy and Healing: Integrating IFS, ACT, and ERP with Psychedelic Therapies

Seeking lasting change and a deeper understanding of yourself? Our therapeutic approach combines the evidence-based Internal Family Systems (IFS) model with the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapy to facilitate profound healing and personal growth. We integrate Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) within the IFS framework to provide a comprehensive and powerful pathway to well-being. Inspired by the pioneering work of Dr. Stanislav Grof, we recognize that non-ordinary states of consciousness can unlock powerful insights and promote mental well-being.

We guide clients through the compassionate framework of IFS, helping them explore their internal “parts” and access their core Self. This foundation allows us to then integrate ACT and ERP techniques to address specific challenges. When appropriate and legally permissible, we may integrate the mindful use of substances like cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms, or other psychedelics to enhance the therapeutic process. This unique combination of IFS, ACT, ERP, and psychedelic therapy can help you address a range of challenges, including anxiety, depression, trauma, OCD, and relationship issues, while fostering self-compassion, emotional regulation, and a more fulfilling life. Our practice prioritizes safety, ethical considerations, and a deep respect for each individual’s journey. We provide comprehensive preparation and integration support to ensure that insights gained during psychedelic experiences are translated into lasting, positive change.

Key Principles of Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy:

• Multiplicity of the Mind: Recognizes the mind as composed of various parts, each with its own role, intention, and purpose, which influences emotional and mental health.
• Role of the Self: Emphasizes the Self as the compassionate, wise leader that can restore balance and foster emotional wellness across internal parts.
• Non-Extreme Intentions: Each part, even those that cause distress, has positive intentions for survival or protection. Understanding this leads to healing and self-compassion.
• Unburdening: Focuses on helping parts release negative emotions or beliefs, allowing them to return to a natural, balanced state, leading to emotional well-being.

Neuroscience of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy and IFS

Traditional therapy typically activates the pre-frontal cortex (PFC), which governs rational thinking. While effective for surface-level discussions, this often fails to address deeper emotional patterns linked to trauma. Internal Family Systems (IFS), along with ACT and ERP, and especially when combined with psychedelic-assisted therapy, engages deeper brain regions, like the insula and cingulate cortex, crucial for trauma healing, emotional regulation, and self-awareness. These regions are essential for developing interoceptive awareness, the ability to sense and process your body’s emotional states. By engaging these neural systems, our psychedelic therapy, in conjunction with IFS, ACT, and ERP, helps you directly address the root causes of anxiety, OCD, trauma, and other emotional challenges. The neuroplasticity promoted by psychedelics can be further directed by the focused work of IFS, ACT, and ERP, leading to more targeted and effective change.

Mindfulness in IFS Therapy: Healing Through Self-Energy

A key aspect of IFS therapy is its mindfulness-based approach, which cultivates Self-energy—a calm, compassionate inner core that fosters acceptance and healing. This energy helps you approach internal parts with compassion, providing a safe space for unburdening and emotional healing. ACT complements this by teaching mindfulness skills that allow for greater awareness of internal experiences without judgment. When clients reconnect with their Self, it facilitates brain changes that counteract the negative effects of trauma and support emotional regulation. This mindfulness practice, enhanced by ACT and integrated with IFS, promotes deep, lasting transformations, helping you heal and relate to emotions in a more balanced and harmonious way.

Healing Trauma with IFS Therapy and Psychedelics

Trauma can leave deep, lasting emotional scars. IFS therapy provides a unique opportunity for individuals to unburden the parts of themselves that have carried emotional pain, sometimes for decades. When paired with psychedelic-assisted therapy, this process becomes even more profound. Psychedelics promote neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganize itself and form new connections. This, coupled with memory reconsolidation—the process of updating traumatic memories—can lead to significant healing. By combining IFS therapy with psychedelics, individuals can reintegrate fragmented parts of themselves, restoring internal balance and harmony. Within this context, ERP can be used to gently and safely expose clients to trauma-related triggers, allowing them to process the associated emotions and beliefs held by specific parts, leading to a reduction in avoidance and a greater sense of mastery.

Why Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Works: Enhancing Emotional and Mental Health

The combination of psychedelic-assisted therapy and Internal Family Systems (IFS), augmented by ACT and ERP, unlocks deeper levels of the psyche, offering a pathway to healing that traditional therapies alone may not reach. Psychedelics help open neural pathways, allowing for neuroplasticity and memory reconsolidation, both of which play essential roles in overcoming deep-rooted emotional issues like anxiety, depression, trauma, and PTSD.

When combined with the principles of IFS, which emphasize the healing power of the Self and a holistic approach to mind-body connection, and further enhanced by the practical skills of ACT and ERP, this therapy offers profound and lasting emotional transformation. This combined approach facilitates trauma recovery, emotional healing, and personal growth, helping clients achieve a deep sense of integration and wholeness. ACT provides tools for maintaining this integration in daily life, while ERP helps to address specific fears and avoidance patterns that may arise.

Why Choose Our Approach?

Unlike therapies that focus solely on talking about your problems, we focus on doing—teaching you practical, experiential skills to change your relationship with painful thoughts and emotions. Our unique integration of IFS, ACT, ERP, and psychedelic-assisted therapy offers a comprehensive and powerful pathway to healing and self-discovery. Through our process, you’ll learn to:

• Develop Psychological Flexibility: Increase your ability to adapt and respond to life’s stressors with a sense of calm and purpose, using ACT principles within the IFS framework.
• Align Your Actions with Your Values: Discover and take steps toward what truly matters in your life, guided by ACT and supported by the Self in IFS.
• Create Lasting Change: Our therapy helps you not just manage symptoms, but transform the patterns that contribute to them, addressing both internal parts (IFS) and external behaviors (ERP, ACT).
• Address Root Causes: Beyond symptom relief, we aim to uncover and heal the deeper emotional and psychological causes of your distress, using IFS to access and unburden parts, and ACT and ERP to address related behaviors.
• Integrate Psychedelic Experiences: We provide comprehensive preparation and integration support to ensure that insights gained during psychedelic experiences are translated into lasting, positive change, using IFS, ACT, and ERP to solidify these changes.

Are You Ready for Change?

If you’ve struggled with anxiety, depression, trauma, or OCD—and have tried other forms of therapy or medication without finding the relief you need—our integrative approach, combining IFS, ACT, ERP, and psychedelic-assisted therapy, may offer the healing path you’ve been searching for. We specialize in working with individuals who feel stuck, overwhelmed, or who haven’t experienced success with traditional treatments. We are here to guide you on your journey towards greater self-understanding, healing, and a more fulfilling life.