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Training

Empathy and Agency: Why Psychedelic Practitioners Need to be Trauma-Informed

August 30, 2024
Featuring: Deanna Rogers

Modern Western culture has conditioned us to suppress our feelings and bury negativity, exacerbating any existing trauma and often creating more. With the rise in popularity of psychedelic-assisted therapy, just how important is it for practitioners to be trauma-informed?

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Modern Western culture has conditioned us to suppress our feelings and bury negativity, exacerbating any existing trauma and often creating more. With the rise in popularity of psychedelic-assisted therapy, just how important is it for practitioners to be trauma-informed?

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews Deanna Rogers: Registered Clinical Counselor and Vital instructor.

She discusses how trauma grows in our bodies, and the importance of practitioners and facilitators becoming trauma-informed before working with clients. She stresses the need to create the right conditions for clients to be able to work with trauma – to bring compassion to the different parts of their self and build a relationship with the uncomfortable ones, to interrupt negative narratives, and to learn how to exist in a place where they can embrace their window of tolerance and explore discomfort in a safe way. What is the specific container and pace each client needs? How flexible is their nervous system to be able to work with these states? What can be done to bring out the empathetic witness in themselves? And most importantly, how can their sense of agency be improved so that they feel like they’re fully in control of how deep things go?

She discusses:

  • Her early ayahuasca experiences, and her path toward working with others, including working with Gabor Maté and Peter Levine
  • How psychedelics allow us to access our irrational, animal parts, and how this work is often a combination of sacred and messy
  • The need for facilitators to have a basic understanding of the nervous system and fight or flight reactions
  • Moving away from the idea of: “There’s something wrong with me.” What do these chronic narratives do to our bodies?
  • Working with clients to build out the capacity of their nervous system first, before working with any trauma

and more!

Rogers is one of our Vital instructors, featured in one of Vital 4’s new Specializations: Somatics & Trauma. This cohort begins on September 17, and the application deadline is next week, September 3, so apply today before it’s too late!

Links

Deannacrogers.com

Transforming Trauma: Community, Connection, and the Healing Power of Vulnerability, featuring: Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.

Templeofthewayoflight.org

Somethinkofvalue.com: 70 Gabor Maté Quotes About Trauma, Healing, and More

Goodreads.com: Peter Levine quote

PT302 – Dr. Adele Lafrance – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Deanna Rogers

In this Episode

Deanna Rogers

Deanna Rogers is a Registered Clinical Counselor & Instructor in British Columbia, Canada. She has completed her Master’s in clinical counseling, and the Somatic Experiencing training focused on trauma resolution and integration. She also studied and worked with Dr. Gabor Maté, and completed a one-year course in Compassionate Inquiry. Over the last decade, Deanna’s primary focus has been to study and work with plant medicines and psychedelics with the intention of healing and personal or spiritual exploration. She has supported many aspects of plant medicine and psychedelic experiences for people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, both individually and in groups. Her work has included assessment, program design, preparation, retreat facilitation, group processing, integration support, and training healthcare providers in psychedelic harm reduction and psychedelic-assisted therapy. She was introduced to this work through an Indigenous context in Peru, where she worked alongside indigenous healers at the Temple of the Way of Light for several years. She is currently engaged in consulting, curriculum design, and teaching within a clinical context at Numinus. Deanna uses both an embodied focus and the practice of inquiry in her therapeutic work with clients, supporting them to uncover their own truths and integrating different aspects of experience. Curiosity and compassion are two of the main tools that she uses in her therapy practice.

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