UPDATE ON AVAILABILITY: My small therapy practice is currently full. I have not been taking new clients since August 2021, because of my teaching schedule.
Decades of professional work with clients having many kinds of life-changing experiences and my own personal journey have shaped my essential core beliefs and approach to therapy.
I trust that we all have an Inner Healer and, given the right circumstances, our Inner Healer can guide us to become everything we are meant to be.
A special focus of my practice is helping clients integrate the effects of rapid psycho-spiritual development that has already begun during extraordinary (or non-ordinary) states of consciousness.
Many people have transformative, deep experiences these days in doing meditation, breathwork, entheogens and psychedelics, spiritual practices, hypnosis, bodywork or when healing from grief, PTSD, or addiction. The kind of profound reorientation of mind, body, emotions, and spirituality that can happen is still not mainstream. Finding an experienced therapist (or even a friend for that matter) who understands, is not afraid of deep states and unusual experiences, and can support such rapid change can be difficult.
Ordinary and extraordinary states exist on a continuum
We usually spend most of our time interacting with material reality in ordinary life activities like talking, working, studying, mowing the lawn, paying bills, driving, and important activities vital to functioning in the world.
Extraordinary states are less usual, but also quite normal and important to our evolution as human beings. These states can be mild or deep and profound. Reverie, guided relaxation, acupuncture and relaxing massage invite extraordinary states at the more “ordinary” end of the continuum. Lucid dreaming, precognition, childbirth, orgasm, spiritual awakenings, mystical experiences, trauma regression, extreme grief and loss, deep healing and energy release can extend into less familiar territory.
Our innate healing impulse can be trusted
Sometimes we connect with our innate healing impulse gently, an intuitive hunch, a “gut instinct” or a surprise “aha” insight. Other times are less like a gentle illumination and more like the sudden lightning bolt out of the blue. Perhaps you or someone you know experienced transformative, unexpected deep experiences that challenged and reoriented life in dramatic ways. Radical change may be devastating at first yet later reveal a pathway to more authentic living.
Learning how to listen and collaborate creatively with your Inner Healer can make all the difference, and that is where therapy can guide the way forward.
If you have a big experience in an extraordinary state of consciousness it can be quite compelling to want to apply the new information you have been given about life in a practical way. You might want support to skillfully make the changes that are calling to be made and to integrate the new understandings into your ordinary life.
My “compelling opportunity”
In the mid 1980s, my own biggest “compelling opportunity” arrived as a Kundalini opening that initiated profound change in every area of my life. During five years of ongoing turbulent transformation, my perspectives about many things changed. My relationship with my body and my sense of self changed, I moved across the continental USA. My relationships shifted. What I did in my work life changed, and I found myself contributing to life and others in new and fulfilling ways.
As a result of my opening, I studied Holotropic Breathwork® with Stanislav and Christina Grof and completed traditional studies for a M.S. degree and a Marriage & Family license. I worked for nine years in a residential substance abuse treatment center and assisted Dr. Grof in the 1990s in conducting trainings and workshops in the USA and internationally. I was able to observe and support people having many kinds of life-changing experiences. I grew to trust that everyone has an Inner Healer and, given the right circumstances, the Inner Healer can guide a person to become everything he or she is meant to be. It is, as Joseph Campbell called it, “The Hero’s Journey.”
Each client is unique
Every client’s situation is different—in how it begins, what type of opening it is, and how he or she integrates it. As a therapist, I first want to hear about the initial opening experience and what has happened since then. Together we work on the question of how to best embody and manifest the understandings gained in that extraordinary state(s) and how to deal with any accompanying challenges. A central theme of our work is how to integrate new perspectives and insights into relationships and daily life in a practical way.
My therapeutic approaches frequently include gestalt, parts work, expressive arts and writing, Brainspotting (an effective brain/body method for releasing trauma), family systems, family business therapy, transpersonal, existential, and others. I work with individuals to find what seems to fit best for them in their particular situation.
Availability & Fees
I am usually quite available to the local therapy clients with whom I commit to work. I have considerable flexibility in scheduling sessions and usually can do so quickly as needed. I do go out of town for consulting work or vacations usually for two weeks at a time, occasionally for longer periods. I would not be a good choice of therapist for someone who needs a high degree of regularity in scheduling sessions. In most cases, though, I will usually be able to give clients at least one week’s notice before going out of town, and, if I am unable to return emails while away, I will provide clients with other therapists to contact in the case of an emergency. In the case of an immediate emergency need, my clients are instructed to call 911.
I am currently only working remotely via Zoom.
Fee: 1 hour – $150
Payment options: Cash, check, Zelle (to kyleat@gmail.com), PayPal (to kyleat@gmail.com), or credit card through PayPal.
Kylea Taylor, MS, LMFT 