"I was consulting with a psychologist recently about a moment that arose in one of her medicine sessions. She described: "We had talked about touch before the session. We had practiced holding hands, and we discussed that touch would always remain nonsexual. But then, during the ketamine session, he began slowly squeezing my arm. It felt uncomfortable. It felt intimate. It caught me completely off guard.""
"These are the kinds of moments that haven't yet reached textbooks. Even for seasoned clinicians, moments like this-when a client's behavior suddenly feels confusing, charged, or outside the bounds of what we expected-can leave us disoriented. In psychedelic-assisted therapy, where boundaries are softened and emotions are raw and deep, these experiences can be even more complex. This is why therapists need supervision and consultation: ongoing, deliberate, structured spaces for reflection and support."
Even seasoned therapists require ongoing consultation and supervision to process complex, unexpected moments in sessions. Supervision provides a safe, structured space for reflection, ethical clarity, and emotional support. Human therapists bring personal histories, nervous systems, blind spots, and vulnerabilities into sessions, which can influence clinical responses. Psychedelic-assisted therapy often softens interpersonal boundaries and intensifies transference and countertransference dynamics. Consultation and supervision improve clinical judgment, ethical decision-making, and resilience across experience levels. Therapist and client growth occurs within supportive professional relationships that prioritize reflection, boundaries, and deliberate clinical oversight.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]