Experiential Healing with Psychotherapy and Plant Medicine is a 6-month program of deep exploration and transformation, facilitated with a combination of indigenous healing traditions and modern psychotherapy.

Through individual therapy, group therapy, and plant medicine ceremonies, each participant will undergo and integrate their own personal healing process. As a group, we will come to understand the breadth of experience that is possible within therapeutic and ceremonial plant medicine settings. 

By sharing our healing journeys with each other, we will have the opportunity to strengthen the collective healing process, and build meaningful relationships within a safe container of vulnerability and authenticity.

This program includes:

• Individual talk-therapy session once a week, via Zoom

• Group talk-therapy session twice a month, via Zoom

• One weekend of plant medicine ceremony every other month, for a total of three ceremonies. Each ceremony will include two to three nights. Ceremonies will be held at a location to be determined in northern California.

Each participant will receive:

• A consistent container for individual therapy, self-reflection, and personal growth.

• A safe and intimate community of peers in which to share one's process with others, give and receive support, and create a collective healing environment.

• Opportunity to cultivate a relationship with plant medicine in a ceremonial setting, based in one's own therapeutic process. 

• Experiential awareness of the variety of states of consciousness, as well as personal and collective healing processes, that plant medicine can help to create.

This program is for you if:

• You are ready to commit to a personal journey of self-exploration, reflection, and healing.

• You are ready to help cultivate a safe space for the healing experiences of others, and to engage in a collective healing process.

• You are willing to respect and uphold traditional cultural guidance and observances that are necessary to undertake traditional plant medicine ceremonies.

• You are ready to hold challenging growth processes with compassion and curiosity.

• You identify as male. In modern western culture, there are few spaces for men to experience emotional connection and vulnerability with each other. This group in part seeks to address this. I believe that certain layers of our experience can unfold more fully in a male-identified container that is held with the intention of healing. 

• You meet certain physical and mental health eligibility criteria. The program may not be able to accommodate people experiencing certain physical or psychiatric conditions, but individual therapy and one-on-one guided sessions may still be an option.

Investment

This program is offered on a sliding scale of approximately $4,000 - $8,500 total. The cost is determined by the rate set for your individual therapy, group therapy, and three plant medicine ceremonies of two or three nights each. I will meet with participants individually to determine your individual rate and payment plan.

Dates
Open: week of Jan 8th 2022
Close: week of June 10th 2024
Tentative dates for the 2024 ceremonies:
February 23rd & 24th, with the option to join on the 22nd
April 5th & 6th, with the option to join on the 4th
May 24th & 25th, with the option to join on the 23rd

How to join

If you are interested in participating, please fill out the Interest Form below. This program is limited to 8 participants. Filling out the Interest Form does not guarantee your participation. I will contact you to arrange an interview upon receiving your Interest Form.

For questions about the program, please email me at gerardartesona@proton.me 

Facilitator Background

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and have worked intimately within the traditions of Amazonian plant medicines since 2010. I offer a synthesis of these perspectives based on my education and training, my experience as a mental health practitioner, and my ongoing learning with the powerful entheogen Yaje. As a mental health practitioner, I have worked in group rehabilitation homes, psychiatric hospitals, community mental health settings, and in private practice.  While working at John Muir Behavior Health Hospital in Concord, I facilitated group and individual therapy sessions for adolescents and adults. I have worked with people at all ages and life stages, including people who are coming of age, navigating major life transitions, undergoing detox and treatment for addiction, and experiencing altered mental states and spiritual emergence. I currently focus my work on my private practice. 

I have had interest in the healing potential of entheogens since 2005, which inspired me to relocate to California from Delaware to pursue graduate studies in Transpersonal Psychology. Shortly after moving to California, I was exposed to the medicine of Ayahuasca for the first time. Through the years, I have worked with cultural elders in Peru, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Ecuador. Currently, I am focusing my learnings on the narratives and perspectives surrounding the use of Yaje within the Tukano speaking lineages of the Koreguaje and Secoya; tribes that are native to present-day Colombia and Ecuador, and which share a great level of cultural similarity and have historically existed as a single social unit. You can read more about my approaches to plant medicine and psychotherapy here and here.

Reciprocity

I have worked directly with indigenous Amazonian communities and with community liaisons to help support indigenous-led projects, and to help ensure that elders themselves are able to continue their roles as healers to their own communities. In an effort to ensure reciprocity of this program, part of the proceeds of this program will be donated to Amazon Frontlines, a non-profit organization that works in solidarity with several vulnerable Indigenous communities that I work with in Ecuador. Seeking reciprocity and supporting indigenous Amazonian communities in their struggles for justice is an ongoing area of work, and any feedback or ideas on how to be of better support are always welcome.