TEMENOS
Center for Integrative Psychotherapy
Inside each of us, there’s a voice that knows
exactly what we need, where we need to go.
~ Alice Walker ~
Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy in the San Francisco Bay Area
Welcome
Temenos Center for Integrative Psychotherapy is a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy center. Our services support the integration of mind, body, and spirit towards psychological health, and towards the transformation of the individual and the greater community.
“Temenos” is a place dedicated as a sanctuary for connecting with that which is sacred. Temenos Center for Integrative Psychotherapy is a place created for psychological healing and transformation which incorporates legal psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy as part of the process.
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is very different from the recreational use of psychedelics — it uses psychedelic medicines within the framework of the psychotherapeutic relationship to discover new perspectives on old problems, work through defensive structures, and gain purchase on transformative practices. (“Psychedelic” means “mind manifesting.”) Using psychedelic medicines in collaboration with an experienced psychotherapist optimizes their transformational potential. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapists help prepare 'set and setting,' and provide structures to help integrate experiences into life in a way that facilitates enduring transformation over time. Temenos is committed to bringing psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy into the mainstream through the research and application of legal medicines.
To this end, we currently offer Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP).
Ketamine has been safely used as a dissociative anesthetic in medical settings since 1970. Over the past 20 years it has increasingly been used as a treatment for severe depression and other serious psychological issues.
Ketamine has a physiological effect on depression, often times allowing individuals to break through a depressive or suicidal episode. In addition, it can help relax defensive structures for a timeout from destructive thinking. In KAP we build on these antidepressant and timeout effects through an orientation to awareness and acceptance of our inner psychological structures. We intentionally open to the mind-expanding perspectives that ketamine can offer in order to develop insight and new life-perspectives. (More about KAP.)
Temenos is affiliated with MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) toward the possibility of providing MDMA-assisted psychotherapy through the FDA Expanded Access Program. If approved, clinics such as ours will be able to provide MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for people who meet the diagnosis of severe PTSD. (We anticipate taking applications for this in 2023). (Click here for more about the MAPS program.)
The FDA has provided ‘break through status’ for both MDMA and psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy. This means that, based on early research results, these treatments have been demonstrated as superior to current treatments for a variety of psychological ailments. So the FDA will “fast track” them through the approval process. Temenos plans to offer both MDMA and psilocybin assisted psychotherapy when they become available (in addition to ketamine).
Temenos also provides services designed to educate the community about the effective use of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and reduce the harm from the misuse of psychedelics. We offer this through professional training, community presentations, information and referral resources, and integration and support for individuals, couples, families and groups.
“There is a wealth of information built into us … tucked away in the genetic material in every one of our cells … without some means of access, there is no way even to begin to guess at the extent and quality of what is there. Psychedelics allow exploration of this interior world and insights into its nature.” ~ Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin ~
“There is a wealth of information built into us … tucked away in the genetic material in every one of our cells … without some means of access, there is no way even to begin to guess at the extent and quality of what is there. Psychedelics allow exploration of this interior world and insights into its nature.” ~ Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin ~
What is Ketamine?
Ketamine is a psychoactive drug classified as a dissociative anesthetic. It has been used in the United States as an anesthetic in medical settings since 1970 and is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. It has been used off label in sub-anesthetic doses to treat chronic pain, treatment-resistant depression, and for other mental health issues for the past 20 years.
For people suffering from treatment-resistant depression or suicidal ideation, it can often times provide immediate relief. While the antidepressant effects tend to be temporary, multiple treatments and treatments in conjunction with psychotherapy have proven to have an enduring effect, successfully alleviating symptoms in approximately 30 - 60% of individuals with treatment-resistant depression.
Another characteristic of ketamine is that it creates novel states of mind. These mind states vary from individual to individual, but offer an opportunity to surrender habitual destructive states, explore underlying psychodynamics, and open to new perspectives.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) uses low doses of ketamine to enhance and deepen psychotherapy, to loosen the grip of habituated patterns and coping mechanisms, and to amplify and prolong the curative effects of ketamine.
The literature suggests that ketamine sessions are most effective when paired with psychotherapy. Change is best facilitated within a structured, supportive psychotherapeutic environment with trained and skilled clinicians who are focused on assisting you with your issues, hopes, desires and struggles.
KAP provides an opportunity for the temporary softening of psychological defenses, allowing for deeper self-reflection and psychotherapeutic processing. The process is characterized by the relaxation of ordinary concerns and usual mindset, all while maintaining conscious awareness. This can lead to a disruption of negative feelings and obsessional preoccupations. Many clients find that this interruption can produce significant shifts in overall well-being. KAP can lead to greater clarity and insight into inner psychodynamics, a new capacity for handling life's challenges, and increased ability to surrender into interconnectedness, as well as facilitating a sense of meaning.
KAP includes sessions that will prepare you for your ketamine sessions and assist you in integrating your experiences after and in between medicine sessions.
Is KAP right for you?
Ketamine is used off-label to address a variety of mental health disorders, including depression, chronic pain, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, OCD and addiction.
Some medical and psychiatric conditions need to be treated before you can safely work with ketamine. These conditions include hallucinations, untreated mania, cardiovascular disease, uncontrolled hyperthyroidism, increased intracranial pressure, cystitis, or evidence of liver disease.
We strongly encourage our KAP clients to be in ongoing psychotherapy in conjunction with and after their KAP treatment. We will further discuss this with you and and will make appropriate referrals to local resources as needed.
Ketamine as a Psychedelic Medicine
In moderate doses, ketamine has psychedelic effects, which have been shown to facilitate profound transpersonal experiences. A ketamine medicine session has the potential to create a non-ordinary state of consciousness and to facilitate transpersonal or mystical experiences. These kinds of experiences have been shown to expand one’s sense of self and one’s understanding of existence. Ketamine may also enable you to access your own inner healing intelligence in a manner that is valuable. Our Temenos clinicians serve as guides to assist you in processing the experience and its impact.
We encourage you to explore additional information about ketamine. We offer some useful links here.
What to Expect in KAP Treatment
Your inquiry about KAP begins with a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation in which we discuss your symptoms and determine whether ketamine-assisted psychotherapy might be of benefit to you. If it seems likely that KAP could benefit you and you are interested in proceeding, you can fill out our Intake, Informed Consent, and Client Information forms and schedule a Medical/PsycoSocial Assessment session with a psychotherapist and our physician. A fifty-minute in-person initial consultation is also available if desired. We ask that you complete and return the forms to us prior to your initial medical/psychosocial intake appointment.
During the Medical/PsycoSocial Assessment session you will meet with one of our psychotherapists and our physician. In this session, we will review your medical and psychosocial history, further discuss the use of KAP to address your concerns and issues, answer any questions you have and prepare you for your first medicine session. Our physician will also provide you with a prescription for the sublingual ketamine lozenges which you will bring with you to your first medicine session, and which will remain stored in our clinic. We may suggest additional preparatory sessions before scheduling your first medicine session depending on what arises in the intake session.
Ketamine medicine sessions typically last from 2 ½ to 3 hours. The psychotherapist with whom you met at your Intake appointment will be with you during the entire session and each session is overseen by our physician. Sublingual lozenges will be utilized during your first medicine session, beginning with one 100 mg lozenge. After 20 minutes or so, you may be offered additional lozenges depending on how you respond to the medicine. You will begin to feel the effects of the medicine within 15-20 minutes, and feel its full effect for approximately 40 minutes, after which time the effects will dissipate over the next 1-2 hours.
Positive impacts on mood have been shown to last over the following days and sometimes weeks.
After your first medicine session, you will meet with your psychotherapist for an integration/psychotherapy session during which time we will discuss how you responded to the medicine, address any questions or concerns you may have, and review the balance of your treatment plan. These integration/psychotherapy sessions are further addressed in the “Integration” section below.
Generally, multiple ketamine medicine sessions are required in order to experience lasting effects. After your initial ketamine lozenge session, ketamine is generally administered in an intramuscular injection administered by our physician.
Information about our fees is here.
What is Ketamine?
Ketamine is a psychoactive drug classified as a dissociative anesthetic. It has been used in the United States as an anesthetic in medical settings since 1970 and is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. It has been used off label in sub-anesthetic doses to treat chronic pain, treatment-resistant depression, and for other mental health issues for the past 20 years.
For people suffering from treatment-resistant depression or suicidal ideation, it can often times provide immediate relief. While the antidepressant effects tend to be temporary, multiple treatments and treatments in conjunction with psychotherapy have proven to have an enduring effect, successfully alleviating symptoms in approximately 30 - 60% of individuals with treatment-resistant depression.
Another characteristic of ketamine is that it creates novel states of mind. These mind states vary from individual to individual, but offer an opportunity to surrender habitual destructive states, explore underlying psychodynamics, and open to new perspectives.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) uses low doses of ketamine to enhance and deepen psychotherapy, to loosen the grip of habituated patterns and coping mechanisms, and to amplify and prolong the curative effects of ketamine.
The literature suggests that ketamine sessions are most effective when paired with psychotherapy. Change is best facilitated within a structured, supportive psychotherapeutic environment with trained and skilled clinicians who are focused on assisting you with your issues, hopes, desires and struggles.
KAP provides an opportunity for the temporary softening of psychological defenses, allowing for deeper self-reflection and psychotherapeutic processing. The process is characterized by the relaxation of ordinary concerns and usual mindset, all while maintaining conscious awareness. This can lead to a disruption of negative feelings and obsessional preoccupations. Many clients find that this interruption can produce significant shifts in overall well-being. KAP can lead to greater clarity and insight into inner psychodynamics, a new capacity for handling life's challenges, and increased ability to surrender into interconnectedness, as well as facilitating a sense of meaning.
KAP includes sessions that will prepare you for your ketamine sessions and assist you in integrating your experiences after and in between medicine sessions.
Is KAP right for you?
Ketamine is used off-label to address a variety of mental health disorders, including depression, chronic pain, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, OCD and addiction.
Some medical and psychiatric conditions need to be treated before you can safely work with ketamine. These conditions include hallucinations, untreated mania, cardiovascular disease, uncontrolled hyperthyroidism, increased intracranial pressure, cystitis, or evidence of liver disease.
We strongly encourage our KAP clients to be in ongoing psychotherapy in conjunction with and after their KAP treatment. We will further discuss this with you and and will make appropriate referrals to local resources as needed.
Ketamine as a Psychedelic Medicine
In moderate doses, ketamine has psychedelic effects, which have been shown to facilitate profound transpersonal experiences. A ketamine medicine session has the potential to create a non-ordinary state of consciousness and to facilitate transpersonal or mystical experiences. These kinds of experiences have been shown to expand one’s sense of self and one’s understanding of existence. Ketamine may also enable you to access your own inner healing intelligence in a manner that is valuable. Our Temenos clinicians serve as guides to assist you in processing the experience and its impact.
We encourage you to explore additional information about ketamine. We offer some useful links here.
What to Expect in KAP Treatment
Your inquiry about KAP begins with a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation in which we discuss your symptoms and determine whether ketamine-assisted psychotherapy might be of benefit to you. If it seems likely that KAP could benefit you and you are interested in proceeding, you can fill out our Intake, Informed Consent, and Client Information forms and schedule a Medical/PsycoSocial Assessment session with a psychotherapist and our physician. A fifty-minute in-person initial consultation is also available if desired. We ask that you complete and return the forms to us prior to your initial medical/psychosocial intake appointment.
During the Medical/PsycoSocial Assessment session you will meet with one of our psychotherapists and our physician. In this session, we will review your medical and psychosocial history, further discuss the use of KAP to address your concerns and issues, answer any questions you have and prepare you for your first medicine session. Our physician will also provide you with a prescription for the sublingual ketamine lozenges which you will bring with you to your first medicine session, and which will remain stored in our clinic. We may suggest additional preparatory sessions before scheduling your first medicine session depending on what arises in the intake session.
Ketamine medicine sessions typically last from 2 ½ to 3 hours. The psychotherapist with whom you met at your Intake appointment will be with you during the entire session and each session is overseen by our physician. Sublingual lozenges will be utilized during your first medicine session, beginning with one 100 mg lozenge. After 20 minutes or so, you may be offered additional lozenges depending on how you respond to the medicine. You will begin to feel the effects of the medicine within 15-20 minutes, and feel its full effect for approximately 40 minutes, after which time the effects will dissipate over the next 1-2 hours.
Positive impacts on mood have been shown to last over the following days and sometimes weeks.
After your first medicine session, you will meet with your psychotherapist for an integration/psychotherapy session during which time we will discuss how you responded to the medicine, address any questions or concerns you may have, and review the balance of your treatment plan. These integration/psychotherapy sessions are further addressed in the “Integration” section below.
Generally, multiple ketamine medicine sessions are required in order to experience lasting effects. After your initial ketamine lozenge session, ketamine is generally administered in an intramuscular injection administered by our physician.
Information about our fees is here.
What is Ketamine?
Ketamine is a psychoactive drug classified as a dissociative anesthetic. It has been used in the United States as an anesthetic in medical settings since 1970 and is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. It has been used off label in sub-anesthetic doses to treat chronic pain, treatment-resistant depression, and for other mental health issues for the past 20 years.
For people suffering from treatment-resistant depression or suicidal ideation, it can often times provide immediate relief. While the antidepressant effects tend to be temporary, multiple treatments and treatments in conjunction with psychotherapy have proven to have an enduring effect, successfully alleviating symptoms in approximately 30 - 60% of individuals with treatment-resistant depression.
Another characteristic of ketamine is that it creates novel states of mind. These mind states vary from individual to individual, but offer an opportunity to surrender habitual destructive states, explore underlying psychodynamics, and open to new perspectives.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) uses low doses of ketamine to enhance and deepen psychotherapy, to loosen the grip of habituated patterns and coping mechanisms, and to amplify and prolong the curative effects of ketamine.
The literature suggests that ketamine sessions are most effective when paired with psychotherapy. Change is best facilitated within a structured, supportive psychotherapeutic environment with trained and skilled clinicians who are focused on assisting you with your issues, hopes, desires and struggles.
KAP provides an opportunity for the temporary softening of psychological defenses, allowing for deeper self-reflection and psychotherapeutic processing. The process is characterized by the relaxation of ordinary concerns and usual mindset, all while maintaining conscious awareness. This can lead to a disruption of negative feelings and obsessional preoccupations. Many clients find that this interruption can produce significant shifts in overall well-being. KAP can lead to greater clarity and insight into inner psychodynamics, a new capacity for handling life's challenges, and increased ability to surrender into interconnectedness, as well as facilitating a sense of meaning.
KAP includes sessions that will prepare you for your ketamine sessions and assist you in integrating your experiences after and in between medicine sessions.
Is KAP right for you?
Ketamine is used off-label to address a variety of mental health disorders, including depression, chronic pain, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, OCD and addiction.
Some medical and psychiatric conditions need to be treated before you can safely work with ketamine. These conditions include hallucinations, untreated mania, cardiovascular disease, uncontrolled hyperthyroidism, increased intracranial pressure, cystitis, or evidence of liver disease.
We strongly encourage our KAP clients to be in ongoing psychotherapy in conjunction with and after their KAP treatment. We will further discuss this with you and and will make appropriate referrals to local resources as needed.
Ketamine as a Psychedelic Medicine
In moderate doses, ketamine has psychedelic effects, which have been shown to facilitate profound transpersonal experiences. A ketamine medicine session has the potential to create a non-ordinary state of consciousness and to facilitate transpersonal or mystical experiences. These kinds of experiences have been shown to expand one’s sense of self and one’s understanding of existence. Ketamine may also enable you to access your own inner healing intelligence in a manner that is valuable. Our Temenos clinicians serve as guides to assist you in processing the experience and its impact.
We encourage you to explore additional information about ketamine. We offer some useful links here.
What to Expect in KAP Treatment
Your inquiry about KAP begins with a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation in which we discuss your symptoms and determine whether ketamine-assisted psychotherapy might be of benefit to you. If it seems likely that KAP could benefit you and you are interested in proceeding, you can fill out our Intake, Informed Consent, and Client Information forms and schedule a Medical/PsycoSocial Assessment session with a psychotherapist and our physician. A fifty-minute in-person initial consultation is also available if desired. We ask that you complete and return the forms to us prior to your initial medical/psychosocial intake appointment.
During the Medical/PsycoSocial Assessment session you will meet with one of our psychotherapists and our physician. In this session, we will review your medical and psychosocial history, further discuss the use of KAP to address your concerns and issues, answer any questions you have and prepare you for your first medicine session. Our physician will also provide you with a prescription for the sublingual ketamine lozenges which you will bring with you to your first medicine session, and which will remain stored in our clinic. We may suggest additional preparatory sessions before scheduling your first medicine session depending on what arises in the intake session.
Ketamine medicine sessions typically last from 2 ½ to 3 hours. The psychotherapist with whom you met at your Intake appointment will be with you during the entire session and each session is overseen by our physician. Sublingual lozenges will be utilized during your first medicine session, beginning with one 100 mg lozenge. After 20 minutes or so, you may be offered additional lozenges depending on how you respond to the medicine. You will begin to feel the effects of the medicine within 15-20 minutes, and feel its full effect for approximately 40 minutes, after which time the effects will dissipate over the next 1-2 hours.
Positive impacts on mood have been shown to last over the following days and sometimes weeks.
After your first medicine session, you will meet with your psychotherapist for an integration/psychotherapy session during which time we will discuss how you responded to the medicine, address any questions or concerns you may have, and review the balance of your treatment plan. These integration/psychotherapy sessions are further addressed in the “Integration” section below.
Generally, multiple ketamine medicine sessions are required in order to experience lasting effects. After your initial ketamine lozenge session, ketamine is generally administered in an intramuscular injection administered by our physician.
Information about our fees is here.
INTEGRATION
in
PSYCHEDELIC-ASSISTED PSYCHOTHERAPY
Psychedelic experiences, by their nature, take a person to a non-ordinary state of consciousness. Occasionally the experience of a particular non-ordinary state can effect someone so profoundly that deep psychological and/or spiritual transformation results.
In psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy we help create a mind-set and provide a physical setting that optimizes transformation. And we emphasize the importance of follow-up integration sessions which help to translate and anchor the teachings from the medicine sessions into life.
Ketamine treatment interrupts long-held body-based defense structures, sometimes offering insight into the unproductive assumptions and beliefs related to past trauma. Integration sessions can help to understand, accept and integrate these previously unconscious beliefs and patterns of behavior. Integration sessions also help develop practices that take lessons from ketamine experience into life.
INTEGRATION SESSIONS
From
OUTSIDE PSYCHEDELIC WORK
Temenos provides integration services for people who have used psychedelics and want support for how to integrate the experience into their life.
Sometimes people seek integration services because a psychedelic experience has triggered anxiety, depression or a difficult identity issue. Other times, people want support and guidance to help them bring the teachings and healings of their psychedelic medicine experiences into daily life.
Our therapists are knowledgable about most psychedelics and can assist individuals to integrate material from a psychedelic experience whether psycho-therapeutic, ceremonial or recreational.
Temenos does not support the illegal use of psychedelics. We are aware however, that many people who use psychedelics have a need for additional support and can benefit from our expertise.
Temenos Staff
Temenos was born on the shores of Tomales Bay in Marin County, California at the Marconi Conference Center in June 2018 where the four of us (Jim, Carl, Christina and Jessica) came together in the CPTR (Certificate in Psychedelic Therapies & Research) program through CIIS (California Institute of Integral Studies), and shared our visions and dreams of bringing psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to our community. All of us are graduates of that program, as well as certified in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and trained by MAPS to offer MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. As founders of Temenos, we bring our combined decades of clinical practice and experience, along with our profound passion for and commitment to this work.
Christina Ingenito, LCSW
My life’s work culminates in Temenos. Transpersonal psychotherapy, hospice work, restorative justice, exploration of non-ordinary states of consciousness, and my own healing through psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy have all shown me the transformation that is possible. http://www.christinaingenito.com
Jim Matto-Shepard, PhD
Temenos Center is the culmination of my 40 years of training and experience. Work with psychedelics, somatic psychology, meditation, relationship and ritual have provided a basis for understanding and assisting others through transformational experiences. I am a licensed psychologist, a psychotherapist and a Soul Motion Conscious Dance teacher. www.drjms.com
Jessica McIninch, PsyD
I use a depth-oriented approach in the treatment of complex trauma, depression and psychospiritual issues. For the past 20 years my clinical work has combined neuropsychological principles, contemplative practice and psychodynamic modalities. I am passionate about the use of psychedelic-assisted therapy as a potential catalyst for personal and collective healing.
.jpg)
Carl Spitzer, MD
I have a keen interest in how the Western medical model and the transpersonal realm can inform each other for psychological wholeness. We each have an inner healing wisdom that knows the path to our own well-being; it is the job of the practitioner to assist the client in uncovering and reclaiming their innate power. Temenos is the sacred space for that rediscovery to occur.
Felicia Matto-Shepard, MFT
As a lifelong student of art making, dreamwork and psycho-spiritual development, I see creativity as a fundamental source of meaning and inspiration. I am a Certified Jungian Analyst. I offer integration workshops and sessions using process art. FeliciaMattoShepard.com
