(831) 277-9348 boneknowing@gmail.com

Services

My office suite includes a large, sunny space as well as a cozy talk-therapy room and a bathroom. 

In this comfortable and creative atmosphere, I offer Ketamine assisted psychotherapy and integration of non-ordinary states. Integration may include art, movement, breathwork, shamanic journeying, bilateral tapping, depth hypnosis, etc. 

My yurt office is about 25 minutes south of carmel on private property. I use this for group work and some individual work. It is held in a grove of redwood trees where the beauty of the natural world is easily accessed.

I also have Telehealth services available if you are unable to come to session in person. 

  • Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy
  • Psychedelic Integration
  • Shamanic Drum Journeying
  • Depth Hypnosis
  • Art Therapy
  • Earth-based Ceremony for integration 
  • Cacao Ceremony
  • EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing)
  • Focusing (Somatic Sensing)
  • Somatic Art Therapy
  • Treatment of Past and Recent Traumas
  • Grief Ritual
  • Life Transitions
  • Sand Tray Therapy

Telehealth sessions are available if you are unable to come to session in person.

  • Hope is On the Way: Psychedelics in Mental Health
  • Set, Setting and Integration: Making the Most of you Psychedelic Experience
  • Cultivating Dream Medicine – using Shamanic Drum Journey
  • Art and Writing, The Benefits and Navigation of Non-Ordinary States
  • Creative Interventions for Children’s Anticipatory Grief and Bereavement
  • Understanding Anticipatory Grief in Adults
  • Setting up Support Networks for Loved-Ones
  • Being a Companion to Someone at the End of Life
  • The Art of Using Art in Your Practice. 

Hours

Monday 12pm-5pm
Tuesday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Wednesday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Thursday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Friday Groups
Saturday Groups
Sun Closed/Groups

Common Questions

Psychedelic Integration

Psychedelic Integration: Individual Sessions, Workshops and Closed Groups

As the mental health benefits of psychedelics becomes increasingly mainstream, more people are seeking experiences to ease suffering or to expand consciousness through the non-ordinary states of psychedelic medicines. While I am limited to providing psychedelic assisted therapy with legal drugs (ie. ketamine), I’m an advocate of preparation and integration for those having psychedelic experiences on their own. I offer 1:1 sessions for preparation (set/setting) and follow up integration sessions that are geared toward harm reduction and maximizing the potential of the experience for the individual.

Another powerful venue of integration I offers is group work via drop-in workshops and ongoing closed groups. The drop-in workshops allow one to get a taste of my integration process and group process. Group work provides ongoing threads between group members and the sharing of wisdom teachings. Over time, a synergistic “basket” of the collective field is woven, which is its own dynamic container that holds individual and group development.

Workshops, retreats and group work use a myriad of integration practices, including my Art for Access process focusing on felt sense, art process, shamanic drumming/ritual, writing, and sharing to “grow corn” with the experience, versus having an interesting adventure that ends with the experience. I believe that when we respect the medicines by orienting to them ahead, using intention and by fully integrating their messages, we are in “right relationship” with them as allies and they can continue to teach us, well after the medicine experience.

What is Art Therapy?

There is a reason for the saying: “A picture paints a thousand words.” Especially with trauma and loss, words often fall short. Images are the language of our body, spirit, and emotions. In our development as a species and as infants to adults, we have communicated in images before language. Images and sensory experiences come to us before we form words for experiences, only most of us aren’t aware of these and look to words to make sense of things.

Art therapy is the practice of using image making to access, express, and transform one’s experience on a deeper level. It isn’t about being an “artist”, but rather, learning to use image-making and other creative, symbolic expressions for inner-exploration, understanding, and guidance. Once images are accessed, reflection, sharing, and words help integrate and apply the new knowledge.

The use of Art Therapy with families provides a vehicle to activate and shift family dynamics by using art experiences that metaphorically facilitate new perspectives and change. In groups, Art Therapy can encourage both individual expression and a connection among members. When complex emotions are safely felt and expressed, the congruence between thoughts and feelings increases.

The incongruence between these is often the culprit of stress. Medical Art Therapy helps patients with pain management, stress, understanding what is happening in their body, and the expression of emotional and spiritual issues that arise from illness or disability.

The American Art Therapy Association defines Art Therapy as “a mental health profession that uses the creative process of art making to improve and enhance physical, mental and emotional well-being. The creative process involved in artistic self- expression helps people resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, reduce stress, and increase self-esteem and self-awareness.

Art therapists are master’s-level professionals who hold degrees in art therapy and/or a related field. The educational requirements art therapists must fulfill include coursework in theories of art therapy, counseling, and psychotherapy; individual, group, and family therapy; human and creative development; assessment and evaluation; multicultural issues; research methods; ethics and standards of practice; and practicum experience in clinical and community settings.

Art therapists are also trained in applying a variety of art modalities as part of assessment and treatment, including drawing, painting, sculpture, and other visual media.”

What is Somatic Art Therapy?

In my private psychotherapy practice and in my workshops, I integrate focusing with art therapy, as the body’s felt sense often carries an image or metaphor. Drawing from the felt sense and then dialoging with the image or an element of it, usually brings forth surprising results.

Both the body and the creative process elicit implicit knowing via felt sense and imagery. This knowing is a deeper wisdom than our conscious mind’s best efforts to figure things out. I refer to this practice as Somatic Art Therapy.

Is Art Therapy for Me?

You don’t have to have any art experience for Art Therapy to be effective for you. Nor do you have to be a kid (though it is a natural fit for kids). Using art in a healing way calls upon an innate capacity we all have.

It is especially helpful for people who get frustrated trying to “figure” their way through feelings, and who feel like they just aren’t getting anywhere with talking about problems. Art-making puts one in their body—it is a sensory experience, accessing the right hemisphere of the brain.

After creating an image or sculpture, an Art Therapist facilitates reflection on the work, which helps integrate new understanding into the left hemisphere of the brain. Although there is an aspect of Art Therapy that is assessment, most often it is used in a way that supports the client’s discovery of their own internal symbolic language.

Often, people worry that their images will expose something they aren’t ready to deal with. Although it is true that using art tends to bypass the usual verbal defenses we are accustomed to, a trained Art Therapist supports your process of understanding the image at your pace.

How are Art Therapists licensed?

From the American Art Therapy Association: “Art therapists who meet rigorous education and experience requirements are credentialed by the Art Therapy Credentials Board. The “Art Therapy Registration” credential (ATR) is granted to art therapists who have completed graduate education and post-graduate supervised experience requirements and the “Board Certification” credential (ATR-BC) is granted to Registered Art Therapists who pass a written examination.

Credentialed art therapists are entitled to use the professional designation of ATR or ATR-BC after their name. The credentials are recognized by all states and D.C. and are maintained by meeting stringent continuing education requirements.”

What is Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy?

About ketamine

Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that has historically been used in anesthesia.  It has a safe profile and in low doses, is used “off label” for chronic, treatment resistant, conditions such as depression, anxiety and physical pain. It is also used to treat substance dependencies (alcoholism), PTSD, suicidal ideation, and psycho-spiritual crisis and can promote psycho-spiritual growth.  It is currently a schedule III medicine that requires a perscription.

How it works in the brain is complex. In a nutshell, ketamine is an NMDA antagonist, working through the glutamate neurotransmitter system vs the serotonin system where many other psychedelics and psychiatric medications are active. It helps “unstick” patterns that may have been in place for years in response to chronic stress or trauma.

It is dissociative, which means it can disconnect you from your ordinary reality. This can be a “time out” from chronic patterns, including reactive dissociation, and provide an opening for new experiences and even internal resources to emerge. Like other psychedelic medicines, ketamine catalyzes the “Inner Healer” —a capacity we all have that helps direct the healing process, but which we often override with our ego minds and defenses.

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)

When ketamine treatment is combined with the safe container of the therapy relationship, it can help you gain perspective on your belief systems, defense mechanisms, and habitual thought patterns. Ketamine can create space to see the patterns vs identify with them. There can also be experiences of new states of consciousness when the Default Mode Network (DFN), our chatter mind, is quieted. The experiences, insights and perspective gleaned in the medicine sessions are integrated through psychotherapy that follows the session, either directly after or within a day or two, supporting lasting relief from symptoms. Ketamine gives you a “window” to engage in new patterns and promote new perspectives, so it is best paired with the support of therapy. You may notice results during the treatment, up to hours, days and weeks after.

With the dose range offered in ketamine assisted psychotherapy, you will likely experience anxiolytic, mild anesthetic, anti-depressant and potentially, psychedelic effects—especially with cumulative doses. The active phase of the medicine is between 30 min and 2 hours.

Ketamine is administered sublingually with either lozenges, rapidly dissolving tablets, or liquid that is held under the tongue for about 12 minutes and/or via intra-muscular (IM) injections. You may have both sublingual and IM or only IM, depending on your goals and tolerance. You may have heard of intra-nasal form of esketamine called “Spravato” and IV ketamine therapy. Neither of these will be used for our KAP sessions. The medical prescriber  will talk with you about what dose and form of ketamine will best meet your treatment goals. For clinical purposes, dissociative and psychedelic response with higher doses may be correlated to positive outcomes.

Treatment with Ketamine, similar to other psychedelic medicines, is different than other psychiatric medicines as it continues to work when it isn’t in the system. Different than other psychedelic medicines, it works best in a cumulative series of doses (ie. 6 -12 within a month) Depending on why it is being used (ie TRD) and the individual, dosing may differ and it will depend on your response. The medical provider can talk to you more about this and help make a treatment plan based on your responses. This may or may not include a prescription for home use. Some people need repeated treatment after 4-6 weeks. Some need a booster session weekly (done at home), and some don’t need follow up doses. Everyone is different and every ketamine experience is different.

What is EMDR?

EMDR International Association defines EMDR as  “an evidence-based psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In addition, successful outcomes are well-documented in the literature for EMDR treatment of other psychiatric disorders, mental health problems, and somatic symptoms.

The model on which EMDR is based, Adaptive Information Processing (AIP), posits that much of psychopathology is due to the maladaptive encoding of and/or incomplete processing of traumatic or disturbing adverse life experiences. This impairs the client’s ability to integrate these experiences in an adaptive manner. The eight-phase, three-pronged process of EMDR facilitates the resumption of normal information processing and integration.

This treatment approach, which targets past experience, current triggers, and future potential challenges, results in the alleviation of presenting symptoms, a decrease or elimination of distress from the disturbing memory, improved view of the self, relief from bodily disturbance, and resolution of present and future anticipated triggers.” (for more information please visit EMDRIA http://www.emdria.org/)

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (BLS) to stimulate right and left brain hemispheres to integrate memory and internal resources. This can be done by the therapist or client tapping on right/left shoulders or knees in a steady rhythm, the therapist moving her fingers back and forth while the client tracks with eye movement in a right/left rhythm, using a device that has a light for the client to track with the same right/left rhythm, or using a device that has headphones that deliver a tone alternating in the right and left ears, while simultaneously holding small vibrating paddles that are synchronized with the tones.

This is done with particular pacing to the client’s internal experience of a memory or emotionally charged situation. Prior to BLS, the client has identified the specific trigger and the negative assumption that often goes with it. EMDR uses “sensing into the body” similar to focusing, as part of its protocol.

What is Sand Tray Therapy?

Sand Tray Therapy is an expressive therapy similar to Art Therapy in that it is non-verbal and uses the imagination, subconscious, and metaphor and can be useful to children, teens, adults, families, couples, and groups. Sand Tray Therapy allows a client to create a reflection of their inner and outer worlds by arranging miniature figures in the sand tray.

The “world” created can illuminate new understanding and provide opportunities to resolve conflicts, remove blocks, and explore new scenarios in a way that is unthreatening. This form of Sand Tray Therapy is called “World Technique.” Often, especially with children, the sand tray an ongoing inter active story and can involve the therapist role-playing figures as directed by the child’s “story.” This form of sand tray is similar to Play Therapy.

Children who have experienced trauma often aren’t able to talk about their emotional states. Not only are sand, art, and play natural arenas for kids to feel secure and comfortable, they are metaphoric and natural languages for children. The therapist follows the child’s lead in sand and play, interacting upon request.

This allows the therapist to normalize and psycho-educate about emotional reactions to trauma. Independent play or interactive play allow the child to express feelings and their understanding of what happened, while also empowering them with a sense of control and movement toward healing resolutions.

What is Focusing?

The term, Focusing, was originated by Eugene Gendlin, Ph.D in the 60s. The concept is based on bodily knowing; meaning that your body picks up and holds more about situations and feelings than you consciously are aware of.

Learning how to sense into your body and hold open attention there, to allow what arises to inform you toward resolution is the practice of focusing. EMDR uses a similar sensing into the body as part its protocol. (For more about focusing visit: http://www.focusing.org)

What is Play Therapy?

Children naturally use play for healing. Through play they express feelings, what is troubling them, and their understanding the world around them. Play also allows them a way to try new solutions. Often children’s play remains in metaphor. Art Therapists understand metaphor and can support the child’s movement toward healthy resolution.

Play can be in the sand tray as interactive “sand tray”, using puppets, a doll house, dolls, and therapeutic/board games. Games are used in groups and family therapy as they help facilitate sharing, cooperation, structure, patience, and good sportsmanship.

Contact Jennifer

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Address

26485 Carmel Rancho Blvd.,
Suite 5
Carmel, CA 93923

Call

(831) 277-9348

Email

boneknowing@gmail.com