Training
PT392 – Vital Psychedelic Conversations
February 23, 2023
Featuring: Carla Kieffer
In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Kyle interviews Carla Kieffer: psychedelic educator, Certified Psychedelic Facilitator, Community Liaison at Maya Health, and Founder of Kairos Integration, a company offering psychedelic training, preparation, facilitation, integration, and microdosing support.
In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Kyle interviews Carla Kieffer: psychedelic educator, Certified Psychedelic Facilitator, Community Liaison at Maya Health, and Founder of Kairos Integration, a company offering psychedelic training, preparation, facilitation, integration, and microdosing support.
This episode was recorded in-person, in between the first and second psilocybin retreats at Atman Retreat in Jamaica, where Kyle, Johanna, and a large group of Vital students just worked with Carla last month. Many participants that attend retreats are new to psychedelics, and often don’t know each other, so it was powerful to have a group of classmates follow the breathwork model of having sitters and journeyers take turns (which is the same model she uses for her Psychedelic Guide Training and Certificate Program), and demonstrates how much one can learn when taking the role of the sitter and how the journey becomes the teacher. They talk about how big the therapy part of psychedelic-assisted therapy is, in how rare it is to have someone attending to your every need for hours on end, and wonder: How can we take that aspect of holding space for each other and apply it to everyday life?
She discusses the importance of data collection and how her Internal Family Systems training has helped her balance her love for the mystical with her more science and data-based mind; the importance in facilitators meeting some sort of baseline harm reduction and safety training (and the need to establish an agreed-upon set of standards); the need for increased accessibility; how important it is to further educate about and normalize conversations about psychedelics; and how integration isn’t just a box you check off as part of the experience, but a continuous process and part of our lives, where checking in on ourselves should be a regular practice.
Notable Quotes
“If we could hold space for each other to have our own experiences, I think there might be a lot of learning on both sides.”
“The medicine is one part, but it’s also that experience of being held in a container – being heard, being witnessed. I think we also have to acknowledge that about this type of work. Even if it is individual therapy, if it’s psilocybin or MDMA-assisted [therapy]: when do you have somebody just there for you for six hours, giving so much attention to every little need? Does that have a healing quality to it?” -Kyle
“How can you do that in your life: show up for people in support and name what you need and really feel held by each other? I have visions of communities and spaces as we move forward with psychedelics and psychedelic awareness, where people can actually actively listen and avoid the need to interject, and any competitive talking goes away. …I think that, in turn, will reverb into the rest of the world.”
“In the end, you are the medicine. Whether you’re working with psilocybin or LSD or breathwork, these are just ways to access your true self, your higher self (whatever resonates for you), and really, as you move through life, as you have these journeys, whatever they may be, just continuing to integrate that into your life, integrate that into your higher self.”
Links
Being True To You Coach Training Program
The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School Center for Psychedelic Research & Therapy
Greathimalayannationalpark.org: Parvati Valley
Bakertilly.com: How Section 280E is hindering the cannabis industry
Psychedelics Today: PT271 – Jeremy Narby, Ph.D. – Anthropology, Ayahuasca, and Plant Teachers
