I began my clinical practicum at Bloom Psychedelic Therapy & Research Institute in early September. This clinic is just over three years old and I am their first practicum student. This was a goal of mine before I started this program, as I have experience with ceremonial psychedelics and I had heard anecdotes about the clinical psychedelic experience being void of much of what I had found so profoundly healing and transformative in the “underground” offerings. This of course has shifted and changed over the course of the three years that ketamine has been granted special status to be used in regulated clinical environments for therapy. I loved the idea of learning more about the regulation process and to bring some warmth, love and spirit into a medical model that has the propensity to be described as sterile. Bloom stood out to me as soon as I began exploring their website and had my first tour of their space. An aesthetically soothing environment accompanied by warm practitioners and staff. An ideal environment to learn more about the medical model parameters that govern the use of psychedelics in therapy. I pursued the opportunity to be their first practicum student and was lucky that the timing aligned in many ways.

At this point of my writing I am a little over the halfway point in this practicum and I have already learned so much. Above and beyond the lessons learned regarding the regulatory process, I have been deeply moved by the feedback I have received from my supervisor. While I am assured by my skills and ability in many ways, the constructive feedback points to a gap in my facilitation as it lacks the essential quality of occasionally being directive. This has been an ongoing and fascinating area of reflection and curiosity for me through these first few months in the clinic. And this is a key area that I will focus on for the remainder of this capstone, as the insights this has propagated in my personal work and discovery have been important and fruitful in many ways. 

To highlight this next phase of my experience and development, I will share some reflections and insights from my own ketamine experience, the continuation of that internal work that transpired in a cranio-sacral session I experienced, and the culmination of wisdom that arose during my winter solstice ritual which led to the beginning formation of the art piece that is evolving in my minds eye as I move through this capstone process.