SPEAKERS

Psychedelic therapy has long held set and setting as fundamental to the unfolding and transformational processes evoked in psychedelic work. The role of the therapist has largely been in creating a safe and supportive container that allows for the unfolding of the inner process within the participant. Psychedelic therapy, being so intense in its evoked experiences may also benefit from theoretical perspectives and somatic interventions grounded in experiential therapies. The current presentation will offer the “Hakomi Principles” of Mindfulness, Organicity, Body-Mind Holism, Non-Violence, Unity and Loving Presence as a foundation for the therapeutic setting as well as offer somatic interventions based in the Hakomi Method of mindful somatic psychotherapy as a way to catalyse transformative processes. The presentation will explore bodily cues as possible routes into experiential and psychic material and explore these pathways as a way to deepen therapeutic work. Somatic interventions will be explained and contextualized using attachment and trauma theories as well as connected to dimensions in Jungian psychology. Clinical footage from the documentary “Trip of Compassion” will be shown. The documentary describes the Phase 2 MDMA for PTSD trials in Israel and the footage shown will demonstrate this type of experiential work and its implications for psychedelic therapy.