👉🏽 Subscribe for thoughtful, bite-sized emails — from Liz Zhou, a neurodivergent therapist — on how to take care of your nervous system & understand your brain.
Reflections on Brainspotting & ketamine-assisted psychotherapy 🌀
|
Last weekend, I attended a Brainspotting & Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy training in Portland, Oregon. I gathered with a group of lovely therapists to explore the integration of low-dose ketamine (a consciousness-shifting medicine) with Brainspotting (a brain-body therapy). The training - led by my dear friend Mari at Awaken Consulting & hosted at the beautiful sanctuary of Empathy Grove - covered important topics like:
(If you want to learn more about ketamine, check out this blog post.) During the training, we each had the opportunity to sit as the therapist & as the client, and to experience the ketamine in our own nervous systems. There’s so much I could say about how it feels to receive Brainspotting, while under the effects of a consciousness-shifting medicine. In a nutshell:
As I continue to integrate today, I’m reflecting on what it means to use psychedelic medicines as a catalyst for healing… versus as an escape. After all, context is everything. What makes ketamine a therapeutic resource is not just the ketamine itself. Rather, it is the context surrounding the medicine – the intentions you bring into the experience, the people around you, the physical space that you’re in, the preparation leading up to the journey, and the integration afterward – that is what makes the healing possible… and longer-lasting than just a temporary “high.” The truth is, anyone can use any substance - ketamine, cannabis, psychedelic medicines, alcohol, nicotine, other drugs, even screens & technology - to escape their reality & run away from their problems. Escaping is easy (and I don’t judge any parts of you or me that want that - in fact, I get it). What’s much harder is to actually sit with our own stuff - our deepest emotions, scary thoughts, and painful memories - and to allow space & time for the nervous system to actually process through it. That is what psychedelic-assisted therapy is about. It’s not about escaping - it’s about facing what’s here & moving through it. In other words: intentionality is what transforms a substance like ketamine from an escapist “drug” into a therapeutic medicine. Whether you are interested in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy or not, I hope this letter reminds you that we always have choice in how we relate to what’s happening. Therefore, it’s worth asking ourselves: what intentions am I bringing to this experience, right now? With care, P.S. Know someone who needs to hear this? Forward it along. New readers can subscribe here. P.P.S. If you’re interested in working together, I’d love to support you. 🌻 For folks who are overwhelmed & burnt out, but too busy for weekly therapy, I offer Nervous System Healing Intensives — three 90-minute sessions, using brain-body modalities (Brainspotting, IFS, EMDR) that go deeper than talk therapy & help you feel better, sooner.
Intensives are a type of short-term, accelerated therapy — for folks who prefer a hyper-focused approach to healing; who need longer than 50-min sessions to warm up & process deeply. 👉🏽 If you want to get an Intensive on the books, click here to book an intro call. I help highly sensitive, neurodivergent adults heal their nervous systems & connect with their authentic selves. 💗 Need a nervous system reset? —> Join me for a Calm Place meditation. |
Liz's Neurodivergent Letters
👉🏽 Subscribe for thoughtful, bite-sized emails — from Liz Zhou, a neurodivergent therapist — on how to take care of your nervous system & understand your brain.
Lately, my favorite way to take care of my nervous system has been through daily walks in nature. My nervous system enjoys the visual stimulation (soft lighting and vibrant colors), as well as the auditory input (birds chirping, the creek flowing, and a deep sense of quiet). On a psychological level, being in nature helps me slow down - which I welcome, as my mind can spin pretty quickly sometimes. 🌊 Sitting next to a creek, my body naturally releases tension, and starts to breathe more...
I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers a month ago. It was every color of the rainbow - so vibrant and bright, I literally squealed with delight when I saw it. 💐 Every week since then, I’ve watched the flowers transform - from a state of blooming & expansion, to eventual shrinking & contraction as they completed their cycle of life on earth. The change of color, texture, and size of the flowers was fascinating to observe. Every few days, I would enjoy trimming the flowers, adjusting the...
This weekend marked the solstice - a transition across seasons, the longest day of light in the northern hemisphere & the longest night in the southern hemisphere. 🕯️ To me, these types of transitions feel important to celebrate & acknowledge – whether through the simple lighting of a candle, a moment of connection with nature, or a gathering with loved ones. This time of year reminds me of other types of transitions as well - endings, new beginnings, goodbyes, and hellos. Several years ago,...