What Is Cannabis-Assisted Therapy?
What Is the Difference between Recreational Cannabis and Cannabis for Psychedelic Therapy?
If the idea of using cannabis therapeutically sounds great to you, you may feel like rushing to your nearest dispensary or weed cabinet and getting started with some at-home therapy. Not so fast! Cannabis is typically consumed alone or with someone who isn’t trained to process what can arise during your experience. They might even be consuming cannabis alongside you! Working with a professional like a practitioner at the Innate Healing Center of Boulder is a night and day difference. They are trained to help you access the benefits of the involuntary reactivity that happens in your body, mind, and nervous system when you consume cannabis. Recreational cannabis use is completely different than therapeutic usage for a few reasons:
Set and Setting. Having a safe container, a trained professional, and the correct type and amount of medicine can only be guaranteed if you work with trained practitioners like the Innate Healing Center of Boulder.
Dosing. If you’ve ever taken one too many edibles, you know how important dosing is. Your cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapist will help you determine a dose that will help you go beyond the recreational aspects of cannabis, and tap into the therapeutic doses.
Strain. When you shop at one of the many legal dispensaries, you are faced with a bevy of options. Indica vs. Sativa? Hybrid? CDB or CBN? Should the plant be entourage effect-based, full-spectrum, or high potency? Do organics matter? A cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapist has the training to point you to strains that will enhance a therapeutic mind and body experience.
Type. If strain options felt overwhelming, the next step of consumption can be even more daunting: what form of cannabis should you consume? Tinctures, joints, flowers, edibles, vapes, and bongs all provide different effects on different timelines. Your Innate Healing Center of Boulder practitioner will help you choose the correct type of consumption method to elevate your therapeutic experience.
Science-Backed Processes. Even if cannabis-assisted psychotherapy feels mystical, there’s a lot of scientific evidence to back what is happening in your autonomic nervous system, default mode network, sympathetic nervous system, and parasympathetic nervous system. These opportunities to let our body do trauma-processing work are lost if we do it alone.
Safety. While health effects are not an issue, feeling safe and secure in moments of vulnerability are absolutely crucial to your therapeutic experience. By doing pre-session and integration with your Innate Healing Center of Boulder practitioner, you are in the ideal setting to access areas of vulnerability.
Integration. Processing what happened during your session and making meaning of your experience in the context of your life and your goals is a crucial aspect of using any psychedelic. At the Innate Healing Center of Boulder, your practitioner is trained to help you make the most of your experience through intentional integration.
How Does Cannabis Assisted Psychedelic Therapy Work?
To understand the potential of cannabis in therapy, we must first understand the way that cannabis interacts with the brain— specifically when using cannabis in a therapeutic setting. The way that cannabis works in the brain is similar to other psychedelics. Psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and cannabis reduce activity in the brain’s default mode network [1]. When the default mode network is disrupted, new channels and pathways in the brain form [2]. By working with a licensed psychedelic therapist, you can utilize this time to process thoughts and build new habits.
While all of these psychedelics can work in powerful ways, cannabis is emerging as a therapeutic tool because of how accessible it is for patients who want help healing from trauma, anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. Cannabis is legal in Denver and Boulder, and you don’t need a medical marijuana card to use it. Because of this, many citizens of Colorado enjoy cannabis recreationally. As our understanding of neuroscience increases, we are seeing more and more benefits of Colorado residents using cannabis in therapeutical, guided settings like the Innate Healing Center of Boulder.
Recreational cannabis is used to provide euphoria or relaxation. Cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapy takes this a step further and allows you to access deeper memories or thoughts while in a state of relaxation. Because of the disruption of the default mode network, the stories that unconsciously dictate your life become more visible. Your goal won’t be to cover up anxiety or depression; instead, your Innate Healing Center of Boulder practitioner will help you use this state to uncover the roots of what gives you anxiety and depression.
Why Offer Cannabis Assisted Therapy?
Cannabis-assisted therapy can be an excellent tool to take your spiritual explorations and personal growth to the next level. Using cannabis recreationally does not unleash the full potential of the plant. Working with a practitioner like the Innate Healing Center of Boulder who is trained in cannabis-assisted therapy can help you tap into the spiritual and psychological aspects of cannabis. Cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapy is incredibly powerful if you have trouble accessing your own feelings, want to work through trauma, or want to explore the roots of your behaviors.
When you use cannabis in an intentional setting with a professionally trained psychedelic guide, the medicine can help you uncover body sensations, repressed feelings, and memories from your unconscious mind. While this loss of control might feel scary— especially if you have experienced trauma and like to remain in control— having the right setting and guide make it an incredibly safe experience that needs to happen for body-based trauma processing to occur. In fact, many people find it more powerful than traditional verbal therapy. The Innate Healing Center of Boulder’s cannabis-assisted therapy program can be a great tool to “level up” your current self-exploration and transformation practices.
Healing requires that we engage with our unconscious in intentional ways, and that’s what having a trained practitioner, set, setting, and integration is all about. Professional support is what makes the difference between successfully integrating new insights into your lives in meaningful ways, instead of losing these experiences when you return to normal states of consciousness. Learn more about the Innate Healing Center of Boulder’s Cannabis Assisted Psychedelic Therapy program here.
What Does Cannabis-Assisted Psychedelic Therapy Integration Look Like at the Innate Healing Center of Boulder?
Integration is the process of synthesizing the experience of the body and mind after achieving an altered state of consciousness. The meaning-making that is crucial to Cannabis Assisted Therapy happens by sharing challenges, exploring your experience, and examining your insights with your Innate Healing Center of Boulder practitioner. Your practitioner will take what they know about you from your pre-session, and help you understand how to make meaning from your experiences to inform your day-to-day life. Integration from a trained professional increases the potential and longevity that psychedelics have to offer.
Your Innate Healing Center of Boulder practitioner is trained to help you navigate difficult feelings and emotions in a safe container. During your cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapy session, they’ll guide you through vulnerability, and then help you emerge to regular consciousness in a meaningful way. By having a trained professional to guide you through your cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapy experience, you are able to see, feel, and process your experience as it happens, while still feeling safe in vulnerability. Your therapist is there to help you make meaning of what you experienced during your session through an intentional integration process.
Our cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapy protocol includes dedicated time for integration immediately following each cannabis experience during medicated sessions. Engaging in integration during and after your cannabis experience minimizes the possibility that the healing benefits of the medicine will be buried or “lost” as ordinary consciousness returns.
Are you interested in seeing how Cannabis-Assisted Psychedelic Therapy or Ketamine Assisted Therapy can help you heal? Get in touch with us to start the conversation about which of our services is the best fit for you.