Workshop | Increasing the safety of ayahuasca ceremonies, before and during the session.

Safety practices around ceremonial work with plants

 

Description

Over the past few years, ICEERS has been collaborating with facilitators, scientists and therapists worldwide to collect best practices for safety around the ceremonial use of ayahuasca. This workshop is designed for experienced ayahuasca facilitators and their helpers and is not course on facilitating ayahuasca sessions. Interactions with medications, health counter-indications, exclusion criteria, emergency guidelines, ethical considerations. We will share the latest information that has been validated by experts and will discuss the primary issues to be considered for maximizing benefits and minimizing risks of working with ayahuasca. 

This workshop focuses on considerations for “before” and “during” the session and is a compliment to the Psycheforum workshop on the following day, which will focus on the “after. Take both workshops together for a special discount.

Participant requirements

This workshop is designed for ayahuasca facilitators and their helpers who would like to increase the safety of their practices. This is not a course for how to run ayahuasca sessions nor does it replace the arduous training required to be a facilitator. This session will synthesize the best protocols for physical and psychological safety that have been developed by experienced guides worldwide.   

Facilitators
David Londoño is a clinical psychologist from Colombian with 15 years of experience as a “patient and student” of traditional indigenous medicine. As a psychologist he has worked in the rehabilitation of addicts in Colombia, Argentina and Peru. He also worked for 5 years as a psychotherapist and coordinator of the therapeutic team at the Takiwasi center. In Spain he has coordinated the clinical team of the Hermanosis center developing a training in psychological integration of work with master plants. He is an ICEERS team member, researching and promoting models of best practices around work with ayahuasca outside the Amazon.  For the past 6 years, he has been living in the Peruvian Amazon where he continues to deepen his practice of psychotherapy, traditional medicine and the bridges between them.

Jerónimo Mazarrasa is an ayahuasca community activist. He works as Social Innovation Coordinator for ICEERS and is a member of the Platform for the Defense of Ayahuasca (Plantaforma). Over the past decade, he has produced and written two documentaries about ayahuasca. The first about the Brazilian Ayahuasca churches and the second about the use of ayahuasca in the treatment of drug addiction. He has traveled extensively through South America, researching a broad range of ayahuasca practices and has lectured internationally on ayahuasca tourism and the appropriation of indigenous knowledge.  

Schedule
10:00 – 19:00, Lunch 14.00-16.00

Date
May 28 – Spanish
May 29 – English
Please specify which day you’ll be attending in the comments section of your order.

Location
Spanish session: Hall 10 – Congress Centre
English session: Indigenous Space – Congress Centre

Price
€80
20% discount if booked together with PsycheForum in English. Contact us.

PsychēForum | Workshops (English)

PsychēForum will be a two-day event featuring several workshops with expert trainers. The days will be grounded in a common focus, which is to offer to offer a broad and enriching perspective, as well as tools and resources, about how to support others in the integration of psychedelic experiences, with an emphasis on ayahuasca. The first day will be held in Spanish and the second in English, with unique content on each of the two days.

Mental wellbeing in the use of ayahuasca and dieting in the Peruvian Amazon

 

Workshop content
This workshop will provide a overview of mestizo shamanism in the Peruvian Amazon from an anthropological perspective, with a focus on the types of psychological and emotional integration that shamans, mental health workers, and clientele speak about in relation to their processes with the plants.

The term “integration” has become a widely-used term in the psychedelic and plant medicine community, but what exactly does it mean to people who engage with “integration therapy” or other techniques of processing? Participants in this workshop will be invited to explore what integration means to themselves and to those who conduct and participate in plant dietas and ayahuasca ceremonies in Peru’s Amazon.

Facilitator
Olivia Marcus received her Master’s in Public Health with a focus on sociomedical sciences and health behavior change. After years of focusing on sexual health and HIV prevention, particularly with respect to the uses of traditional, complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine, she began her PhD in Medical anthropology. She has been conducting fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon since 2015, investigating therapeutic pluralism in urban and semi-urban spaces, with a focus on the movement of people who seek mental health care through ayahuasca shamanism and plant diets.

 

Nature of the headless cobra: emergence, relationship & integrity

Description
What practical tools are essentials to shaping a path of whole person integration? This interactive module will explore creative processes that serve health, wholeness and transformation, from traditional ecological knowledge to agency for self-healing and collective imagination, how do we orient towards essential nature, where outward and inward experiences resonate with each other in full expression. 

Facilitator
Jeff Leifer is a community designer, social entrepreneur and founder of Circadian, a cross-sector experience lab focused on regenerative systems and whole person integration.  For the past two decades, Jeff has worked extensively throughout the Amazon rainforest, shaping alliances with indigenous communities and advocacy groups to establish a sanctuary for land-based wisdom and practices. Jeff created an executive practicum to develop next-generation leadership, incorporating social technologies that include story-based strategy, projective dream work, ecosystem mapping, somatic learning, plant ally social “dietas” and sacred Council practice. Jeff co-founded the Psychedelic Research, Education and Policy grants committee at the Threshold Foundation and currently serves on the Ketamine Research Foundation board which focuses on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Jeff holds an MBA from Yale University and a bachelorʼs from University of California, San Diego and has served on boards of directors for numerous organizations, including Amazon Watch.

 

The therapeutic relationship with ayahuasca: How to identify core psychological issues

Description
The personal relationship with the plant spirit of ayahuasca offers us different dimensions and healing opportunities. This workshop will focus on how to maximize the therapeutic benefit of self-acceptance and compassion, basic trust and attachment issues, trauma, and the capacity for objective witnessing or meta-awareness. The format will include short writing dynamics, sharing and clarifying intentions.

Facilitator
Rachel Harris, PhD, is a psychologist with clinical and research experience. She was in the 1968 Residential Program at Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA. Rachel has received the New Investigator’s Award from the National Institutes of Health and has published more than forty scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals. She has worked in the private practice of psychotherapy for thirty-five years. Rachel is the author of “Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety”. Her website is www.listeningtoayahuasca.com

Psychotherapeutic approaches to the integration of psychedelic experiences

Description

The integration of psychedelic experiences has become a matter of interest in the community of seekers, therapists, facilitators and people in contact with psychedelics and master plants. However, the praxis of integration is still developing and there is no consensus about what integration really is.

In this workshop we will explore different dimensions of the integration of psychedelic experiences, emphasizing the different profiles and demands, and the implications this has for the practice of integration from a therapeutic perspective.

Facilitator

Marc B. Aixalà is a psychologist, psychotherapist and certified Holotropic Breathing facilitator, specialized in helping people who face difficult experiences in expanded states of consciousness. During the last 5 years he has supported hundreds of people through the Integration and Support Servicesof ICEERS, works in the psychedelic crisis care service KosmiCare since 2010 and teaches in conferences and workshops.

 

Language
English

Duration/ Schedule
09:00 – 20:00, Break for lunch: 14.00-15-30

Date
May 30

Location
Hall 1 – Congress Centre

Price
1 day: €90
2 days: €175
*Note that the first day of the forum will be in Spanish and the second in English (with different content each day)Please specify which day you’ll be attending in the comments section of your order.

PsychēForum | Workshops (Spanish)

PsycheForum Aya2019 will be a two-day event featuring several workshops with expert trainers. The days will be grounded in a common focus, which is to offer to offer a broad and enriching perspective, as well as tools and resources, about how to support others in the integration of psychedelic experiences, with an emphasis on ayahuasca. The first day will be held in Spanish and the second in English, with unique content on each of the two days.

 

 

Ayahuasca ceremonies: Fusing knowledge with lived experience

 

Description
Some people have very strong experiences with psychoactive plants. Often, the messages that they bring us are not entirely clear, which can lead people to believe that there might be something more to understand or to know.

In this workshop, we’ll explore the variety of insights that people experience, depending on the time or stage of life, or where they are at in the therapeutic process. We will also describe and explore integration techniques that can be useful when working with people who are having these experiences.

Some of the questions we will explore are:

  • What is integration and what is its function when working with psychoactive plants?
  • Is integration indispensable, and if so, why? What are the typical risks that someone from the West might face in their integration process? What are the factors that lead to successful integration?
  • What information, training and skills should a person who provides integration services have?
  • How can integration be used to approach psychological, spiritual, physical and energetic aspects? What criteria can be used to distinguish between helpful and unhelpful interpretations? How can clients be supported in interpreting their visions or dreams?

Facilitators
Claudio Kutzwor is Argentinean who has lived in Spain since 2001. He began his initiatory process in Argentina with Wachuma (San Pedro) and purgative plants in a therapeutic and shamanic context in 1994. In 1996 he was initiated in ayahuasca and did dietas in Amazonian Traditional Medicine. He worked with several healers for the following 15 years and, to this day, continues studying in the Amazon. Founder of the Association for Human Development Somos Todos Hermanosis, he has supported people with dietas at his center of Spain and conducted seminars, workshops, and retreats in Europe and America. He is also a Member of CISEI (Interamerican Council on Indigenous Spirituality) and a founding member of the Plantaforma for the defense of ayahuasca.

Esteban Kutzwor is a humanistic psychotherapist, who specializes in working with increased states of consciousness. He is also a kinesiologist, psychotherapist, and healer. He has been a student of the plants for 25 years and is a chemical technician with three years training in pharmacy and biochemistry, business administrator, gestalt psychotherapist. and transactional analyst. Esteban is a holistic physiologist trained in non-violent communication, TRE, and the enneagram and communications. He is trained in psychotherapy-assisted MDMA treatment for PTSD cases by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Esteban also has 15 years of experience in coordinating retreats groups and dietas in 9 countries. He is the founder of Association Somos Todos Hermanosis.

Integrating of visionary experiences with Amazonian master plants

 

Description
This practical and participative workshop will explore how to integrate experiences with psychedelic substances, particularly Amazonian master plants, through techniques that allow to express one’s own creativity. Participants will be invited to draw their own experiences, share, and comment on the illustrations.

Participants will learn the skills needed to lead group integration processes of visionary experiences and will gain an understanding of how these processes work and why they are so important in achieving therapeutic results and avoiding possible complications post-session. 

Facilitator
Manuel Villaescusa is a psychologist and musician specialized in psychotherapy with master plants. He has a master’s degree in Integrative Psychotherapy and has been trained in various ayahuasca traditions, learning from healers and vegetalists in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. He has been leading groups and workshops throughout Europe for over 15 years, integrating approaches from occidental psychology with traditional Amazonian medicine. As a musician, he has released 5 albums: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/manuelvillaescusa

 

From the labyrinth to a new path: Integration following consciousness expanding experiences

Description
Expanded states of consciousness are a source of healing and inner guidance. However, after these experiences that often generate new perspectives and awareness, we return to our regular lives, where the familiar labyrinth draws us back in. And, often, after a few days evidence the deep healing has occurred begins to fade.

In this workshop, we will review preparation and post-experience integration, providing insights and tools for maximizing benefit from an experience of consciousness expansion, such as unblocking wound healing, freeing ourselves from egoistic conditioning. We will explore the development of an action plan based on the nine areas of Existential Coaching that can provide for a more effective transformation process.

Facilitator
As a pioneer in coaching and creator of Existential Coaching, Nona Martin accompanies people through paradigm shifts and develops the skills necessary to achieve their desired goal. She is trained in Gestalt, systemic and integrative therapy, and is a Master-Trainer in Neurolinguistic Programming and Epistemologist, trained by Allan Santos, Robert Dilts and Steve Gilligan. Nona has also been a student and collaborator with Claudio Naranjo for over than 15 years, accompanying processes of personal growth so that the person can explore and become aware of his existential trajectory.  For over 15 years, Nona has accompanied experiences of consciousness expansion, specializing in applying Gestalt therapy and Existential Coaching. As a consultant, pioneer for almost 20 years in the methodology of Experiential Training, Nona specializes in high impact actions in organizational environments from the experiential-humanist approach, as well as in applications of Neurolinguistic Programming to the business world, which enables the development and change of people within organizations. As a trainer, she teaches coaching, communication, leadership and systemic and integrative psychotherapy to support attitude change and skill development. Currently, Nona is an organizational consultant and manages the Existential Coaching School. 

 

 

Psychotherapeutic approaches to the integration of psychedelic experiences

 

Description
The integration of psychedelic experiences has become a matter of interest in the community of seekers, therapists, facilitators and people in contact with psychedelics and master plants. However, the praxis of integration is still developing and there is no consensus about what integration really is.

In this workshop we will explore different dimensions of the integration of psychedelic experiences, emphasizing the different profiles and demands, and the implications this has for the practice of integration from a therapeutic perspective.

Facilitator
Marc B. Aixalà is a psychologist, psychotherapist and certified Holotropic Breathing facilitator, specialized in helping people who face difficult experiences in expanded states of consciousness. During the last 5 years he has supported hundreds of people through the Integration and Support Services of ICEERS, works in the psychedelic crisis care service KosmiCare since 2010 and teaches in conferences and workshops.

 

 

Language
Spanish

Schedule
09:00 – 20:00, Lunch 14.00-15.30

Date
May 29

Location
Hall 10 – Congress Centre

Price
1 day: €90
2 days: €175
*Note that the first day is in Spanish and the second in English. Each day will have different workshops. Please specify which day you’ll be attending in the comments section of your order.

PsychēForum Workshop | Therapeutic relationship with ayahuasca: How to identify core psychological issues

Workshop description

The personal relationship with the plant spirit of ayahuasca offers us different dimensions and healing opportunities. This workshop will focus on how to maximize the therapeutic benefit of self-acceptance and compassion, basic trust and attachment issues, trauma, and the capacity for objective witnessing or meta-awareness.

Workshop will include short writing dynamics, sharing and clarifying intentions.

Facilitator

Rachel Harris, PhD, is a psychologist with clinical and research experience. She was in the 1968 Residential Program at Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA. Rachel has received the New Investigator’s Award from the National Institutes of Health and has published more than forty scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals. She has worked in the private practice of psychotherapy for thirty-five years.

Rachel is the author of “Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety”. Her website is www.listeningtoayahuasca.com

Workshop | Music in Psychedelic Therapy

An exploration of music’s transformative potential in psychedelic therapy and beyond.

Description
Recent years has seen an unprecedented rise in interest and clinical research on psychedelic therapy, an approach that combines psychedelics, music, introspection, and person-centred support.  The combined use of music and psychedelics is ancient and universal, yet with the rise of psychedelic therapy many questions are emerging on the function of music and how to use it within in this context. This workshop will take co-creative approach, combining introspective music listening, a presentation on relevant research , and a group discussion about music’s function in psychedelic therapy.

Participant requirements
Please bring an eye-mask to wear during the listening sessions.

Facilitators
Mendel Kaelen, PhD is a psychedelic researcher,  neuroscientist and founder of Wavepaths. During his academic research at Imperial College London he studied the mechanisms and use of music in psychedelic therapies. Within Wavepaths Mendel leads a growing team of researchers, designers, therapists and technologists to research and develop a new category of accessible psychotherapeutic tools and environments.

Schedule
10:00 – 12:30
13:00 – 15:30

Date
May 30

Language
English

Location
Espai Gestalt

Price
€80

Workshop: Art Salon & Intimate Dialogue with Luis Tamani

Content/Programme Description

We invite you to a unique opportunity to spend the day with the visionary artist Luis Tamani. Join us for an intimate dialogue where Luis will talk about his life, his work, the history and evolution of his art, his inspiration and the message he hopes to share through his art.

Luis will present a slide show of his work and discuss his artistic techniques in detail. He will answer questions about those techniques.

In addition, he will have samples of his art on display and will identify various techniques he used in painting the pieces. Luis will also demonstrate techniques for participants and answer technical questions.

Participants will receive classroom instruction on multiple painting techniques and on cultivating inspiration.

Attendees Requirements

Participants are encouraged to bring their sketchbooks. Recording of the session will be permitted so feel free to bring your cameras and video devices.

Facilitators

Luis Tamani, Peruvian artist from the Amazonian rainforest

Duration/ Schedule

Morning session:  10h – 13h
Lunch:  13h – 15h
Afternoon session:  15h – 18h

Date
TBA

Language
Spanish

Price
TBA

What Ayahuasca is Trying to Teach Us: An Interview with Dennis McKenna

Dennis McKenna was already deep into psychedelics when he first tried ayahuasca in 1981. Him and his brother Terence had traveled to the Colombian Amazon ten years prior in search of oo-koo-he, psychedelic beans that come from the Anadenanthera peregrine tree. Instead, they discovered a psilocybin-containing mushroom called Stropharia cubensis, launching their careers as luminaries in the psychedelic field.

Workshop | The Role of Archaic Instruments in Ayahuasca

Description
Throughout the history of humankind the simplest musical instruments such as maracas, drums, gongs and of course the voice, have been used for rituals and ceremonies. Sound, as a vehicle to link the world of mystery and the unknown, is used on countless occasions, with naturalness, efficiency and functionality. Yet, are we aware of what moves when we feel an instrument in the context of rituals assisted with brews such as ayahuasca? How can we use archaic instruments to benefit to the maximum from their properties?

During this practical workshop, we will experience the depth and uniqueness of the Tibetan bowl, gong, didgeridoo, monochord, diphonic chants, mouth harp, harmonic flute, drums, etc., in order to understand how to use them in ayahuasca ceremonies.

Aimed at all kinds of people, musicians or not, who are interested in knowing, experiencing or deepening the power of music and how to use it.

Practical and theoretical workshop. We will delve into the use of music in the states of transition based on the theory of basic perinatal matrices described by S. Groff and sound archetypes (Jung).

Participant requirements
Please bring your own instruments, if you have them. There will also be some available for group playing (optional).

Schedule
9:30 – 13:30
15:00 – 16:00

Location
Espai Gestalt

Facilitators
Joel Olivé, music therapist

Language
Spanish, English translation available

Price
€94