Most people haven’t applied that same thinking to therapy. But maybe it’s time we did.

Something Is Shifting in the Mental Health World

Over the past several years, the mental health industry has attracted enormous amounts of outside investment. Venture capital firms, private equity groups, and even large insurance corporations have recognized that demand for therapy is growing- and they’ve moved in accordingly.

What this looks like on the ground: therapy platforms that advertise heavily on social media, promise fast access and low prices, and operate at massive scale across dozens of states. Independent practices that were once owned by a local clinician get acquired and absorbed into larger networks. Insurance companies have begun investing in or partnering with the very therapy platforms they reimburse, creating a cozy arrangement that raises real questions about whose interests are actually being served.

We want to be clear- we’re not saying everyone who works at or uses these platforms is doing something wrong. Many good therapists work within these systems because they have to, and many clients find them because they don’t know there’s another option. What we are saying is that the forces reshaping the mental health landscape right now are primarily driven by profit, not care. And that matters.

When Therapy Becomes a Product

There’s a reason therapy has traditionally been a deeply local, deeply human practice. Healing happens in relationship. It happens in the particular way your therapist remembers what you said three sessions ago, or notices something shift in your body before you’ve found the words, or stays curious about you as a whole person rather than a set of symptoms to be managed.

That kind of care is hard to scale. And scale is exactly what large, investor-backed platforms are trying to achieve.

One concern we hear more and more in our field is the push- quiet for now, but real- toward replacing human therapists with AI-driven tools. Chatbots. Automated check-ins. Algorithmically generated coping suggestions. We want to name this plainly: we don’t believe an AI can provide therapy. We believe therapy is a fundamentally human exchange, and that any system that positions automated tools as a substitute for a real therapeutic relationship is cutting corners in ways that can genuinely harm people. This isn’t technophobia. It’s a values statement. Humans deserve to be cared for by other humans, especially when they’re vulnerable.

What Gets Lost When Local Practices Disappear

When a locally owned therapy practice closes or gets absorbed into a larger network, the community loses something specific and hard to replace.

Local therapists are embedded in the communities they serve. We know Tucson. We know its particular stressors- the heat, the border politics, the housing crunch, the tension between rapid growth and a city that wants to *stay weird*. We have relationships with other local providers, with community organizations, with the social and cultural fabric of this place. That context matters clinically. A therapist at a national platform handling hundreds of clients across five states doesn’t have it, and can’t.

How to Shop Local for Your Mental Health Care

So what can you actually do? Here are some concrete steps:

Ask who owns the practice. It’s a completely reasonable question. Is this a locally owned business, or is it part of a larger network or platform? Independent practices will usually be proud to tell you.

Be skeptical of heavy advertising. Local therapists generally don’t have marketing budgets. If you’re seeing a lot of polished ads for a therapy service on social media, it’s worth asking how they’re funding that- and what they expect in return.

Check Psychology Today and TherapyDen. Both directories let you filter for independent practitioners. TherapyDen in particular has a strong emphasis on values-aligned, social-justice-oriented therapists if that matters to you.

Ask about insurance arrangements. Some large platforms have exclusive or preferred relationships with certain insurers. A local therapist who takes your insurance independently is a different arrangement than one whose practice is effectively co-owned by the company reimbursing them.

Refer your people to local therapists. Word of mouth is how independent practices survive. If you’ve had a good experience with a local therapist, tell someone. That referral is genuinely valuable in a way that liking a social media post is not.

If cost is a barrier, ask directly. Many local therapists offer sliding scale fees. We would rather work with you at a reduced rate than lose you to a platform that doesn’t actually have your best interests at heart. The conversation is always worth having.

This Is About More Than Therapy

We’re living in a moment when consolidation of power and money is happening everywhere- in healthcare, in media, in housing, in retail. Small, human-scale institutions are being steadily replaced by large ones optimized for shareholder returns. Therapy is not immune to this, and neither is Tucson.

Choosing a local therapist is a small act, but it’s a meaningful one. It’s a vote for the idea that care should be provided by people who are genuinely invested in your wellbeing and in the health of this community not by platforms that see your mental health as a market to be captured.

We’re here because we love this work and we love this city. We’d be honored to be your choice for such personal, healing work.

Integrative Science Vision, aka Common Ground, painting by Basma Kavanagh retrieved from Google 5/7/26

Amy’s Reflections

The Psychedelic Culture conference is hosted by Chacruna, the institute for psychedelic plant medicines, gathers speakers from all over the world — including Indigenous leaders who practice traditional medicine healing — to encourage conversation and education about social justice issues in the Psychedelic Renaissance.

Research into the use of psychedelic medicines to treat mental health concerns has been accelerating since its resurgence in the late 1990s.

On April 18, 2026, the President of the United States signed an executive order directing the FDA to fast-track its review of psychedelic medicines, including Ibogaine, a psychoactive compound derived from the Iboga plant native to Central Africa, shown to be effective in treating addiction and traumatic brain injury. This order was signed while several hundred people were gathered at the Chacruna conference.

Reactions in the room were mixed.

Western science often focuses narrowly on the drug’s interaction with the brain, stripping away cultural and contextual factors.

The field risks producing findings that are not only incomplete, but extractive —taking from Indigenous traditions without accountability to those communities and dismissing the wisdom of the very knowledge systems from which this healing modality originated.

The most important takeaway I received from this conference is the importance of relationships. Many presenters spoke about reciprocity, a concept I have been immersed in this semester through a class in my doctoral program called Traditional Indian Medicine (TIM). TIM is a worldview encompassing scientific philosophy, ceremonial practices, and healing traditions centered on relationships — to land, water, air, animals, people, ancestors, and the cosmos. At its foundation is the understanding that all things are composed of energy, which TIM calls spirit. A core teaching is that human survival depends on the earth, and through the principle of reciprocity, we are responsible for protecting her, most especially water, recognized as a living being.

Reciprocity holds that when we are cared for, we return that care through gratitude, protection, or caring for others — a circular, self-sustaining exchange of energy.

This is why there is such a significant need to indigenize clinical research into plant medicines and psychedelic compounds. Scientific inquiry will be most impactful when conducted through the lens of Native scientific philosophy, which relies on observation much as Western science does, but with a broader scope. Rather than isolating the relationship between two variables, it situates those variables within larger systems and includes the subjective experience of the observer as part of the inquiry — with the understanding that all phenomena exist through the nature of energy and relationships.

In psychedelic-assisted care, the relationship between participant, medicine, environment, and support systems all potentially contribute meaningfully to outcomes. Yet some researchers maintain that the mechanism of action is purely the drug’s interaction with the brain, and that contextual factors are merely safety measures with no relevance to outcomes. This debate is not new to mental health. Researchers Wampold and Imel spent three decades investigating which therapeutic factors actually drive healing, initially expecting to confirm that specific interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy were most responsible. What they found instead was that so-called “extratherapeutic factors” — the client’s motivation, the therapeutic relationship, social and cultural context — contribute to healing in a much larger way.

These findings mirror what Indigenous epistemology has long held: that healing cannot be understood by isolating its parts.

These ideas have been central to my doctoral work, and they brought me to the Two-Eyed Seeing model, developed by aboriginal elders Cheryl Bartlett and Murdena and Albert Marshall of the Mi’kmaw Nation in Canada. The model represents Indigenous ways of knowing coming to a common fire with Western ways of knowing, so that the two can share wisdom. My professor, Dr. Milicent Pepion, said that a fire does not discriminate against who she warms — she invites all to come and be warmed. Each knowledge system has something to offer.

The conference was held over Bicycle Day, the anniversary of Albert Hofmann’s first intentional LSD trip in 1943. One of the speakers made the observation that we are all on that bicycle right now, not entirely sure what is happening or where we are going, and that the task is to sit with the discomfort and the contradictions rather than reach for false clarity. That felt true to me all weekend.

I went to this conference as a therapist and as a founder, but also as a queer person, a neurodivergent person, a parent, and someone who has her own lived relationship with altered states of consciousness. I was not there as a neutral observer. And one of the things the conference kept returning to was that there is no such thing, really. The presence of the observer is always part of the inquiry.

One of the things that moved me most was a line from Bia Labate’s opening remarks. She asked:

“How did we arrive here? Where a trial has more legitimacy than a ceremony? Where a licensed therapist has more than a curandera? Can we name what has happened? We must.”

I kept coming back to that question all weekend.

At TCA, we have been doing ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for some time now, and I have sat with clients in those spaces and felt something that data alone does not capture. Sound is one example. I had my own experience with Joe Tafur that involved icaros, the healing songs used in ayahuasca ceremony. I felt the music as something physical, something that moved through the body rather than simply into the ears.

Sound is touch. That is not a metaphor.

The conference kept pointing at this kind of knowing, the kind that lives in the body and in relationship, and asking us to take it seriously as evidence.

I also attended a workshop that wove together parenting, ritual, and psychedelic states in a way I was not prepared for. The presenter talked about mothering as a form of ritual practice, and care as a kind of ceremony. I thought about rubbing lotion on my 3 year old daughter’s feet and suddenly that small nightly act felt like something worth honoring. The workshop talked about lullabies as tools for helping children develop what they called agency, the capacity to navigate state changes, to self-soothe, to enter and exit altered states of consciousness with some sense of authorship. The idea that we can teach our children to be agentic in their dreams, to turn and face the monster rather than run, and that this develops a skill they will carry into waking life, was one of the more quietly radical ideas I encountered all weekend.

There was also a line that has stayed with me from the storytelling session. Mikaela de la Myco talked about the importance of telling your story to people outside of this community, people who are not already convinced. She said: just tell your story and the right people will hear it. And when you tell your story, you get it right. It inspired me to share more and reminded me to make time to do it.

The conference closed with some tension, a protestor stood up and challenged one of the MAPS founders about the organization’s work in Israel rather than Gaza. The room got uncomfortable. But Bia had told us at the very beginning that we would need to practice sitting with discomfort, and there it was, right at the end, a chance to do exactly that.

Complexity is a precondition to progress.

That was another line I wrote down and did not want to forget. I left feeling the way I sometimes feel after a good ceremony. A little tender. More porous than when I arrived. Recommitted to the work, and to doing it with more honesty about who I am and what I am still learning. At TCA, we talk a lot about being a practice that is for humans, by humans. What this conference reminded me is that being fully human means staying in relationship, staying curious, and being willing to not yet know.

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You made an appointment to see someone for help, well done! Anxious for the appointment?

Here’s what you need to know.

This can feel really overwhelming or even a little scary and that makes sense. A reminder: doctors are there to help and guide you, not judge you. Not every doctor is the right match for every person. 

Unsure what to expect going into the appointment? First up…paperwork! (how exciting). This includes two forms called the PHQ-9 and GAD-7, these measure the level of anxiety and depression symptoms you are having, and how much they interfere with your day. Honesty is key. It helps your doctor know how to best help you!

Self-check: What stressors do I have around me? Stress in me (how do I talk to myself and treat my body)?

Self-check: Did any other questions come to mind? What worries do you have? 

Don’t want to take medication or not ready? Other alternative treatment or combination treatment:

• Talk therapy 🙂
• Lifestyle approaches (this may be challenging due to the intensity of your symptoms and that’s okay!)
• Track your mood daily to highlight any patterns here 
• Peer support groups
• Mindfulness or meditation try this! or this one! 

Ketamine assisted therapy (we have this at TCA)

Quick reminder: Depression can be a normal reaction to abnormal life events. The human experience is impacted greatly by the things happening around us. Medication is not meant to be a bandaid to the concerns. It is meant to be a tool that supports lifting you up, to allow you the space to process and grow. This is also where therapy comes in! A combination of talk therapy and medication can improve outcomes and lower changes of recurrent symptoms. 

Whatever you decide to do, trust yourself! You know yourself and your symptoms best! You can always speak about it to a therapist as well. Reach out using the button below to schedule with one of ours.

Self-check: How do you and those around you view mental health? How was it viewed growing up?

More than 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness every year, with 15.5% of U.S. adults experiencing Major Depressive Disorder . Depression symptoms are common and can be debilitating, impacting day to day functioning at work, school, or at home.

Common symptoms include: 

• Feelings of sadness, hopelessness, or worthlessness
• Angry outbursts or irritability
• Loss of interest in normal activities (hobbies, sex, sports)
• Sleep changes, insomnia or sleeping too much
• Change in appetite – eating too much or too little (compared to your normal)
• Frequent or recurring thoughts of death, suicidal ideation, or suicide

Self-check: Do any of these feel familiar? What is that like for you?

Wait, what is suicidal ideation?

Suicidal ideation, or suicidal thoughts, are thoughts that are intrusive, recurring, or distracting around suicide and death. So what can these thoughts look like? There are two types: passive suicidal ideation and active suicidal ideation. 

Passive suicidal ideation:

I wish that I won’t wake up tomorrow.

Today was so difficult, I wouldn’t mind if life was over. 

*no current plan or intent to make these thoughts a reality

*does not = suicide or self-harm

Active suicidal ideation:

Persistent, specific thoughts of a plan to end one’s life including details

Warning signs can include giving away important things to others, writing a note, creating a specific plan with a means (a way to do it)

If you are reading these and have these thoughts, contact emergency services (911 or 988) for immediate help.

Self-check: Do any of these feel familiar? What is that like for you?

What causes depression?

A mixture of social, psychological, and biological factors (ex: adverse life events like unemployment, grief, trauma, and even genes inherited from your parents). Life comes with many difficult and straining challenges that can impact us deeply. What helps while waiting for an appointment? Try these: TIPP skills or relaxation skills  

You are not alone in the human experience, or in having these symptoms! Reach out for support!

References

 Mental Health By the Numbers. (2025). Retrieved from https://www.nami.org/mental-health-by-the-numbers/

 Depression (major depressive disorder). (2026). Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20356007

 Cleveland Clinic (2025). Suicidal Ideation (Suicidal Thoughts). Retrieved from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/suicidal-ideation

 Depressive disorder (depression). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression

Miller shared Aron’s estimate that this trait makes up 20% of the general population, and around 50% of therapy clients. Given that most therapists are also clients, many of us therapists are likely carry this trait as well! This was demonstrated in the group of us, with most of us nodding our heads along, throwing “me!” in the chat box, and considering other diagnoses we’ve been given and how they might relate to masking this trait, or wondering how much conditioning has played a part in the experience of mental illness. What if these traits were valued instead?

For a general overview of the traits, Miller recommends a handy-dandy acronym (don’t we love those in this field!?)

D.O.E.S

D-Depth of processing-slow to make decisions, deep thinking and feeling, commonly perfectionistic tendencies

O-Overstimulation/Over-Arousability-overstimulated by sensory input, but also novelty, sudden change, complexity, transitions, potentially easily overwhelmed by having many things to process

E-Emotional Reactivity-a strong reaction to positive and negative experiences, easily impacted by the emotions of others, may cry easily

S-Sensitive to Subtle Stimuli-ability to notice subtle differences or changes through their sensory fields.

André Solo (2023) outlines 4 Scientific Theories Behind this trait, noting that these are currently the dominant theories and models presented:

1. Sensory Processing Sensitivity: This is Elaine Aron’s theory, and the most widely known. Aron proposes that sensitivity is a trait, and that sensitive people are processing information differently at the level of the brain, which has not been fully proven. She theorizes that this sensitivity leads to traits like empathy, sensitivity to subtle sensation, and overstimulation. According to Solo, researchers estimate this trait is more proposed to be around 30% of the population, not 20%.
2. Differential Susceptibility-J. Belsky’s theory was organized around the question of why some had these traits and others didn’t. He points toward the evolutionary advantage and describes those with this trait as more shaped by how they are nurtured than non-sensitive people, who remain somewhat fixed. This is nature’s adaptation for the best opportunity for survival. He theorizes the sensitivity trait will propel children along who grow up in nurtured, safe environments, and keep those who have had less than nurturing environments alive and surviving, due to their ability to adapt.
3. Biological Sensitivity to Context-Similar to Differential Susceptibility, this theory, proposed by W. Thomas Boyce and Bruce J. Ellis, focuses on child development. Instead of proposing that those with the trait are born this way, they proposed that their environments shaped them to be more sensitive.
4. Diathesis-Stress vs. Vantage Sensitivity-These models are combined into a theory about advantages and disadvantages of the sensitive. On the one hand, sensitive people have a more difficult time under stressful circumstances, but they also benefit more from positive ones than the average person.

Miller shared with us some gems I’d like to share with you here (and thus hopefully remember them myself!)

We talk a lot about safety in therapy. Our brains scan for safety 4 times a minute and there are 3 layers of it:

1. Interoceptive Safety (what are we feeling in our bodies?)
2. The environment
3. Interpersonal: relating with the other, specifically their nervous system

In the therapeutic relationship, all are important! But the most pronounced is the relationship itself. Miller differentiated between two types of self-disclosure: a hot topic for therapists, and the theme of many hilarious therapist reels and memes. See below:

image from @cloud09therapy

The classical way we tend to think of self-disclosure is one where we share personal information. But the other, particularly important as highly sensitive people working with other highly sensitive people is something she refers to as “Therapist’s self-involving (TSI) interventions, utilizing the nervous system and emergence in the field of the therapy as an intervention, i.e. “I noticed something shifting when you said that. What are you feeling now?”

Sound like something you’re interested in engaging with? We’ve got you. Reach out now to inquire about our therapists that specialize in working with Highly Sensitive populations and other neurodivergent traits.

References

Sólo, A. (2023, November 22). The 4 wildly different theories researchers use to explain highly sensitive people. Sensitive Refuge. https://highlysensitiverefuge.com/four-theories-of-sensitivity-highly-sensitive-people/

Miller, Katherine. (2026, March 5) Self-Disclosure, Felt Safety, and the Highly Sensitive              Person. Tucson Counseling Associates

Still can’t figure it out? We’ve got you. Reach out now to inquire about our family therapy services.

What Clients Rarely See Behind the Scenes

When people hear that a therapist or practice doesn’t take insurance, the assumption is often that providers are being greedy or inflexible. The reality is far more complicated.

Insurance companies can:

• Change policies with little notice

• Retroactively take back payments for sessions that happened months or even over a year ago

• Admit billing errors were their fault—and still delay returning funds

• Reduce reimbursement rates with no negotiation

• Deny care that was previously authorized

• Create administrative requirements that increase costs while reducing access

Meanwhile, premiums and deductibles continue to rise for clients, while reimbursement for mental health clinicians continues to shrink.

Why We Stay In-Network Anyway

Despite all of this, we continue to fight to accept insurance because we believe our clients deserve to use the benefits they work hard to pay for.

As a practice, we:

• Spend countless unpaid hours dealing with claims, audits, denials, and appeals

• Monitor policy changes that could affect your care

• Advocate directly with insurance companies when access is threatened

• Absorb rising overhead costs—rent, payroll, training, licensing, compliance, technology

• Offer reduced rates and flexibility when we can

• Push back when changes would harm clients or clinicians

We do this not because it’s easy or profitable—but because access matters.

When Insurance Denies Care or Requests Payment

When insurance companies deny claims or retroactively take money back, it can sometimes result in a balance owed by the client. We know this is frustrating and confusing—especially when you’ve done everything “right.”

We ask for grace in these moments.

Please know:

• These situations are rarely due to clinician error

   

• We advocate whenever possible

   

• Denials are often the result of opaque, shifting insurance rules

   

• We are navigating the same system you are—just from the provider side

   

We will always communicate transparently, work with you when possible, and treat these situations with care and respect.

How Clients Can Advocate for Their Mental Health Benefits

One of the most powerful forces for change is insured members speaking up. Insurance companies respond far more quickly to pressure from clients than from providers.

You can help by:

• Calling your insurance company when care is denied and asking why

• Requesting written explanations of policy changes

• Filing formal complaints with your state insurance regulator

• Contacting elected officials about how these decisions affect real people

• Asking insurers to explain how mental health parity laws are being upheld

• Sharing accurate information when clinicians are blamed for systemic failures

Your insurance is not a favor—it’s something you pay for. Mental health care is not optional or expendable.

But the past two years have shaken that confidence. I was somewhat of an early adopter of AI tools, fascinated by what they could do and curious about how they might help my clients. I still think they can be genuinely useful for certain tasks. But I’ve also watched something else happening- a consolidation of power so rapid and enormous that it feels almost mythic. Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine once wrote that companies like OpenAI or Anthropic could “create God and then ask it for money” (Levine, 2023). I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that line. The biggest pattern of the past couple decades is that Silicon Valley keeps remaking the world in pursuit of scale, profit, and novelty, while being almost completely uninterested in the fallout.

Therapy is very much part of that fallout.

Most people don’t think about the fact that AI lives inside enormous, resource-hungry data centers that companies like Amazon are racing to build. My own community in Tucson, AZ recently fought against one. We were told it would be “water positive,” that it would secure our place in the next tech boom, that it would bring jobs. But it felt like propaganda, and my neighbors, people who had done their homework, challenged every slide the developers tried to peddle in our community town halls. When the project was voted down, the company refused to accept the result and began pushing it through anyway. It was the thinnest veneer of progress laid over a deeper engine of corporate greed.

This same dynamic is creeping into mental healthcare. I’m not actually afraid for my own job. If we ever reach the point where AI fully replaces therapists, there will be much bigger societal problems—mass unemployment, widespread destabilization, grief and confusion on a scale that no amount of “mental health tech” can fix. What I am afraid of is something more mundane: the slow, bureaucratic shift where insurance companies start steering people toward chatbot “therapy” by waiving copays or raising them for real humans. When I say this to colleagues, we give each other that momentary look—the one that mixes horror with recognition. Because we know that dystopia isn’t that far off based on how insurance companies already treat us. 

Meanwhile, the psychological risks are already here. There’s a growing body of cases describing something like AI-induced psychosis—individuals incorporating chatbots into delusional systems, or interpreting AI-generated messages as divine, threatening, or conspiratorial. Psychologist Azadeh Joon has documented emerging patterns of clients who spiral into psychosis fueled by generative AI interactions (Joon, 2024). There are also early legal cases alleging that AI conversations contributed to a child’s suicide (Bloomberg Law, 2024; Guardian, 2024). Vulnerable minds are being shaped by systems designed to maximize engagement, not wellbeing.

And even for people who aren’t psychotic, the lines get blurry. One of my clients, who is working on trusting her own intuition, started using ChatGPT late at night after arguments with her partner to check whether she was “being reasonable.” I gently asked her, “Does this align with your goal of trusting yourself more?” She immediately understood what I meant. But the pull was strong, AI is always awake, always validating, often sycophantically so.

I felt that pull myself. One night at 2 a.m., stuck in an OCD spiral, I decided to try using AI for support. I wasn’t seeking reassurance, I knew I was in an obsessional loop, and I wanted strategies. I know ERP well, and I explicitly instructed the model not to reassure me. To my surprise, it actually helped. I even shared the transcript with my own therapist, who specializes in OCD, and we were both impressed.

Mary Shelley understood this long before any of us. In the recently released Frankenstein movie, Victor is asked whether he considered the consequences of creating life, and he sheepishly admits he hadn’t. The danger wasn’t just playing God, it was the utter lack of emotional intelligence and foresight. Many scholars argue Shelley was not only critiquing hubris but also the early roots of a mindset that would later animate Silicon Valley: “move fast and break things” without stopping to ask what—or who—might shatter.

AI is here to stay. It will make some things easier. It might even enhance therapy in certain ways. But I believe with my whole heart that it cannot replace what happens between two human beings sitting together in a room. And if we lose that, we lose more than a profession, we lose a piece of our ability to know ourselves and to be in community with each other.

So I’m trying to imagine the world I want for my children, and the world I want to practice therapy in. A world where we fight—politically and culturally—to keep human connection at the center. A world where we slow down, where we gather, where we remember what it feels like to be held in another person’s presence.

Because the portal is opening regardless. But how we walk through it—together or alone—is still up to us.

Did you know each person dreams, on average, 6 dreams a night? That means if you live to be 80 years old, you will have spent 6 years of your life dreaming! There are many solid theories about why we dream and research that shows us dream deprivation leads to poor health outcomes. So we know that dreaming is important, even if we don’t recall them upon waking.

Instead of speaking to functionality, as there is extensive information and research out there on that, I want to know:

What would it look like for you to cultivate a relationship with your dreams?

Dreams are as natural as our breath, our digestion, our heartbeat. I want to propose that a relationship with our dreams is a deeper relationship with ourselves. Sure, we don’t need to pay attention to these processes in order for them to keep functioning but when we do, we enter into a greater sense of aliveness, awareness, and sensitivity. We move from objectivity into relationship. Cultivating, and tending to it, is inherently meaningful.  Dreams humble us with their ludicrousness, horror, beauty, awe. They invite us into a deeper dialogue with nature, ourselves, and, as a result, those around us.

Many dreamworkers, while coaching people to enhance dream recall, will firstly invite people to take an interest in their dreams, and will subsequently offer a variety of ways to enhance dream recall. Journaling, recording, or drawing them for instance, even if they are simple fragments or feelings or colors. However, the late Jeremy Taylor, beloved and revered dreamworker, reverend, and activist, proposed that most people struggle with recall because they don’t have safe and encouraging spaces of interest to speak of them.

What if the therapy room could be one of those spaces?

Dr. Leslie Ellis, author of A Clinician’s Guide to Dream Therapy: Demystifying Dreamwork, lists the following reasons that it should be:

• They are creative and engage our clients in the therapy process
• They point to our most salient emotional concerns
• They bypass our internal editing process and normal defenses and so are honest representations of our life situation
• Dreams can bring a new and wider perspective on a situation that is stuck or static
• Dreams provide diagnostic information and can be indicators of clinical progress
• Dreams help to regulate our emotions and are implicated in memory consolidation
• Dreams can be a safe pathway to working with trauma

I like to think of dreaming as the space where our egos go to bathe and merge back into the source from which they came. And working with our dreams intentionally, while we’re awake, helps us integrate what we saw, heard, felt, and experienced, allowing our new sense of ego to emerge in the process.  But most of all, it communicates to this part of ourselves that it is valuable, worthwhile, and meaningful.

Taylor refers to dreams as “over-determined”, meaning that they have many meanings. On a physical level, they may bring us information about our health. On an emotional level, they might show us feelings that are repressed or inflated. On a spiritual level, they can reveal where we truly feel connected in our lives.  Dreamwork inspires us, literally breathing life into us, as the etymology of ‘inspire’ goes. And the more dreamwork we do, the more flexible our egos, and the more adaptable we become. We already work on the flexibility of our egos in therapy, but why not bring in the voice of our inner therapist?

Go ahead. Try it out. Let me know how it goes!

Interested in exploring your dreams more intentionally? Reach out here to schedule!