Blending Psychedelic Integration with Existential Exploration with Kile Ortigo Ph.D.

With the re-emergence of psychedelics in Western societies, the public and therapists alike are confronting new areas of exploration with few comprehensive guides to aid in the profound process of integrating powerful and mystical-like experiences into one’s daily life. While psychedelic-enhanced psychotherapy offers one useful model for this work, it remains largely illegal and access to care will likely remain a problem, just as it is in traditional therapy due to expense and inadequate specialized training. The immediate future remains shrouded in uncertainty, even in the face of expanding interest and promise.

Join clinical psychologist, founder of the Center for Existential Exploration, and author Dr. Kile Ortigo for an introduction to a new resource for exploring profound questions that bridges the psychospiritual and therapeutic potential of psychedelics. This resource, Beyond the Narrow Life, offers practical insights and guidance around the process of deeper meaning-making and integration. Whether you’re a practitioner, experienced psychedelic voyager, or a curious seeker, Dr. Ortigo presents a unique synthesis of diverse frameworks, spanning evidence-based cognitive-behavioral therapy, Jungian depth psychology, existential philosophy, compassion and mindfulness practices, comparative mythology, and popular film, which all serve to connect us to the larger mysteries and considerations of our human experience. During this 90-minute session, Dr. Ortigo will also facilitate a reflective exercise to invite participants to explore their own deeper questions around our interconnectedness and search for meaning.

This event will include two activities from Beyond the Narrow Life, the first of which will be a small-group opportunity using breakout rooms, where participants will reflect on personalized representations of three qualities (curiosity, acceptance, wisdom) that can help aid them in their journey and then discuss this process and share their choices with their small group (to the extent each person's comfortable). The second will be a ~10-min original meditation from the book that centers interconnectedness and purposeful engagement in our collective journey. 

This is a live event, but a recording will be sent within 5 days to all ticket holders. 

About your Speaker

Kile M. Ortigo, Ph.D., is an award-winning clinical psychologist and founder of the Center for Existential Exploration, which supports people exploring profound questions about identity, meaning, life transitions, and psychospiritual development. He also serves on advisory boards of Psychedelic Support, an online training and clinician directory for legal, psychedelic-informed care, and Project New Day, a non-profit organization providing harm reduction resources for people using psychedelics in their addiction recovery process. For several years, Dr. Ortigo worked at the National Center for PTSD (NC-PTSD) where he collaborated on technology development and implementation projects, ranging from apps like Mindfulness Coach to online programs like webSTAIR. With colleagues at NC-PTSD, NYU, and Harvard, Dr. Ortigo coauthored Treating Survivors of Child Abuse & Interpersonal Trauma: STAIR Narrative Therapy (2nd Edition), which was released in June 2020.

About Beyond the Narrow Life

With the second renaissance and re-emergence of psychedelics in Western society, the public and therapists alike are confronting new areas of exploration with few comprehensive models available to aid in the profound process of integrating such powerful and mystical-like experiences into one’s life. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy offers one useful model for this work, but access to even traditional therapy is limited due to expense and inadequate specialized training. With questions surrounding legal access, criminalization, and medical indications and contraindications, the immediate future of psychedelic-assisted therapy remains shrouded in uncertainty, even in the face of expanding interest and promise.

Beyond the Narrow Life: A Guide for Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration seeks to ‘thread a needle’ by addressing profound themes elicited by psychospiritual and therapeutic use of psychedelics while avoiding merely ‘preaching to the choir.’ This book explores common topics that emerge during psychedelic journeys by integrating several frameworks, spanning evidence-based cognitive-behavioral therapy, Jungian depth psychology, existential philosophy, compassion and mindfulness practices, comparative mythology, pop culture, film, and scientific understandings of the cosmos. Instead of a dry overview of big ideas, Dr. Ortigo gently guides readers through an awe-inspiring journey that confronts the deeper questions and concerns we all face as humans in this modern time.

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