Psychotherapy to support you before and after psychedelic-assisted treatment
Psychedelic-assisted therapy involves much more than the medicine experience itself. What happens before and after can be an important part of the therapeutic process.
I offer psychotherapy for people preparing for, or integrating experiences from, psychedelic-assisted treatment provided through appropriately regulated clinical services.
I do not prescribe, supply or administer psychedelic medicines, and psychedelic dosing sessions are not offered through Brave Therapy™. With your consent, I can collaborate with your treating psychiatrist, psychedelic-assisted therapy clinic or other members of your treatment team.
My role is to help you prepare psychologically and relationally for the experience, and afterwards to make sense of what emerged and find ways of bringing it into your life.
Preparation: creating a foundation
Preparation is not about deciding what your psychedelic experience should be. It is about creating a foundation from which you can meet whatever may emerge with greater safety, curiosity and capacity.
Preparation might include exploring your intentions and expectations, your personal and relational history, fears or concerns about treatment, and the resources you already have available to you. We can also work with emotional regulation, bodily awareness and recognising what happens when your nervous system begins to feel overwhelmed.
For people with complex trauma, I believe this preparation deserves particular care.
Experiences of vulnerability, trust, control, surrender, safety and relationship can become especially significant. Understanding how you organise yourself in relationships, and how your nervous system responds to safety and threat, can provide an important foundation for psychedelic-assisted treatment.
Integration: what happens afterwards matters
A psychedelic experience does not necessarily arrive with a clear explanation of what it means.
You may come away with new perspectives, powerful emotions, memories, bodily experiences, imagery or a changed understanding of yourself. Sometimes the experience can also feel confusing, disappointing, unsettling or simply difficult to put into words.
Integration provides a therapeutic space to stay curious about what happened without rushing to interpret it.
Together, we can explore what the experience means for you. We can consider how it connects with your history, your relationships and your present life, and pay attention to what may be emerging through the body as well as through thoughts and emotions.
The aim is not simply to understand the psychedelic experience intellectually. It is to help what was experienced become meaningfully integrated into your ongoing life.
A relational, psychodynamic and body-oriented approach
My approach to preparation and integration is grounded in the same principles that underpin my broader psychotherapy practice.
I work relationally and psychodynamically, with particular attention to attachment, trauma and the nervous system. I combine academic knowledge with the body’s deep wisdom.
Over many years of clinical practice, I have developed an integrative approach drawing on Somatic Experiencing®, EMDR, Brainspotting, Deep Brain Reorienting, attachment-focused psychotherapy and co-regulating touch, alongside my experience of working with the body through yoga and martial arts.
Rather than applying one technique or protocol, I draw on these different ways of working according to the person, what is emerging and what is needed within the therapeutic relationship.
This can be particularly valuable in psychedelic preparation and integration because significant experiences do not always emerge as thoughts or stories. They may appear through sensation, movement, emotion, imagery, memory, relationship or changes in the felt sense of self.
Complex trauma, attachment and the body
My specialist areas are complex trauma, attachment and Functional Neurological Disorder (FND).
These expertise sits naturally alongside preparation and integration work, where experiences can be intensely embodied and may not immediately be accessible through language.
For people with histories of complex trauma, I am particularly interested in pacing. More is not necessarily better. An intense experience is not automatically a therapeutic one.
The work is about supporting enough safety and capacity for an experience to be approached, processed and integrated rather than simply endured.
My training in psychedelic-assisted therapies
I am currently completing the Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies (CPAT™) with Mind Medicine Australia.
This training builds upon, rather than replaces, my existing psychotherapy, trauma, attachment and somatic training.
I bring to preparation and integration work the clinical skills I have developed over many years of working with complex presentations, including the capacity to work with intense affect, altered bodily states, traumatic material, attachment dynamics and experiences that may initially be difficult to understand or put into words.
Working alongside your psychedelic-assisted therapy team
Preparation and integration do not need to happen in isolation from the rest of your treatment.
If you are undertaking psychedelic-assisted treatment through a regulated service, I can provide psychotherapy before and/or after your treatment.
With your permission, I can also collaborate with your treating psychiatrist, psychedelic-assisted therapy clinicians or other members of your treatment team. This allows your preparation, psychedelic-assisted treatment and subsequent integration work to form part of a more connected therapeutic process.
This may be particularly helpful if we are already working together and I have an established understanding of your history, relationships, attachment patterns and ways of responding to stress and safety.
An important distinction
Brave Therapy™ does not prescribe, provide, supply or administer psychedelic medicines and does not provide psychedelic dosing sessions.
Psychedelic medicines used within psychedelic-assisted therapy are subject to specific regulatory and clinical requirements in Australia and must be provided through appropriately authorised medical services.
My role at Brave Therapy™ is psychotherapy for preparation and integration: helping you prepare for your treatment and supporting you afterwards to understand, process and integrate what emerges.
Considering psychedelic-assisted therapy?
If you are preparing to undertake psychedelic-assisted treatment through a regulated clinical service, or have already had a psychedelic-assisted therapy experience and would like support with integration, you are welcome to contact me.
Enquire about preparation and integration
Book a session
Appointments can be booked directly online, in person in Woollahra or by secure video anywhere in Australia.
