Hi, I'm Jennifer Allen
After almost 30 years of seeing therapy clients, specializing in trauma and complex grief, my practice has shifted to Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy and Integration of non-ordinary states of consciousness. Working with trauma via Somatic Art Therapy, EMDR and Depth Hypnosis continue to serve me well in this new domain of Integration.
I offer a psycho-spiritual model of growth-promoting preparation, harm-reduction and integration. I believe we all have the right to explore our consciousness, pursue healing and end suffering. Like many others, I patiently await the legalization of psychedelics and have prepared myself well for this movement.
I offer a psycho-spiritual model of growth-promoting preparation, harm-reduction and integration. I believe we all have the right to explore our consciousness, pursue healing and end suffering. Like many others, I patiently await the legalization of psychedelics and have prepared myself well for this movement.
Becoming certified in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy and Research (2018 California Institute of Integral Studies) and in Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (2019 Ketamine Training Center) has woven together my interests and capacities in effective and efficient healing and growth modalities. With professional medical providers, I provide Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy 1:1, with groups as well as 5-day integration trainings for practitioners.
As an art therapist and artist, I understand that creativity itself can be experienced as a non-ordinary state as it unhooks us from what we think we know and puts us in the “flow.” When we allow the unknown, new insights and connections are made available through spontaneous expression of line, shape and symbol. Using this familiar non-ordinary vehicle to prepare one for a psychedelic experience can help orient them to their inner process and navigating the unknown, while it also serves as a “bridge” to less familiar non-ordinary states which are often “beyond words.”
As an art therapist and artist, I understand that creativity itself can be experienced as a non-ordinary state as it unhooks us from what we think we know and puts us in the “flow.” When we allow the unknown, new insights and connections are made available through spontaneous expression of line, shape and symbol. Using this familiar non-ordinary vehicle to prepare one for a psychedelic experience can help orient them to their inner process and navigating the unknown, while it also serves as a “bridge” to less familiar non-ordinary states which are often “beyond words.”
In combination with somatic practices, creativity via art making, writing, movement, self-made ceremony, etc helps one to embody, ground and practice new knowing. The image also provides an object that serves to reflect, affirm, and unfold further discovery, long after the experience. From these principles, I created a bridge integration process: Art for Access and teach this in my groups and trainings.
My personal path includes earth-based traditions, Shamanic practices and dreamwork. My shift into psychedelic assisted psychotherapy weaves my personal and professional paths beautifully and bring together the old and new ways of knowing that hold hope for humanity and all of life.
My personal path includes earth-based traditions, Shamanic practices and dreamwork. My shift into psychedelic assisted psychotherapy weaves my personal and professional paths beautifully and bring together the old and new ways of knowing that hold hope for humanity and all of life.
My Creative Path
In my bones, I know how powerful and transformative creativity is. Almost daily, I witness it with clients. Over and over again, I am floored by how genius people’s psyches are at illuminating their issues and what they need through what initially seems like random colors and shapes. The passion for this “magic” began in my last year of art school and led me into a career as an art therapist.
Art making as a true voice of my inner being was once a jeweled secret I coveted in art school, knowing it didn’t necessarily result in aesthetically pleasing pictures that would hang over someone’s hearth one day. I escaped the confines of my teachers’ ideas by going to Florence, Italy to create my senior thesis. What I returned with was a set of images that contrasted odd combinations of my personal possessions with symbols of daily culture that expressed how the foreign culture impacted me. A painted photo of my journal splayed open on a candle-lit altar in the Duomo showed the questioning that was rising up about my relationship to religion in a dominantly Catholic culture.
Art making as a true voice of my inner being was once a jeweled secret I coveted in art school, knowing it didn’t necessarily result in aesthetically pleasing pictures that would hang over someone’s hearth one day. I escaped the confines of my teachers’ ideas by going to Florence, Italy to create my senior thesis. What I returned with was a set of images that contrasted odd combinations of my personal possessions with symbols of daily culture that expressed how the foreign culture impacted me. A painted photo of my journal splayed open on a candle-lit altar in the Duomo showed the questioning that was rising up about my relationship to religion in a dominantly Catholic culture.
Many years later this process engages me in my work with clients and, at the same time, I know this is living vicariously. For too long I’d not fed my own hunger for that form of creativity and side benefits of a calm buzz and fresh insight that often accompanies it. My hey-day for self-discovery through art was back in my 20’s. But, like many things that took a backseat once children came along, I found myself saying: “Someday, when the kids are grown,” and got by on crumbs of the creative process I preferred: 2-dimensional expression with paint and multimedia. Creative hunger finds ways to get fed creatively. Soon, I found that bringing a certain level of consciousness to almost any act would suffice. A quick mandala on a restaurant napkin, a sand sculpture while at the beach with the kids, making my own greeting cards, seeing metaphors in nature, dancing and drumming, etc. Meanwhile, my personal and spiritual development found great sustenance in practices of the Medicine Wheel, Diamond Approach, and Mystery School group work. Inspired by a vision quest while in this work, I began writing Bone Knowing: A True Story of Coming to Life in the Face of Impending Loss and learned it was quite possible to feed my creative hunger with writing.
Once Bone Knowing was published and my kids became more interested in their peers than their family (teens), I returned to art-making, enriched by the practices of sensing into my body, rituals, ceremony, inquiry, and writing. Ironically, the process that developed into an Esalen workshop was best summarized by my memoir title: Bone Knowing. The story itself evolved out of choices I made from the knowing in my bones. Only with the workshop, the knowing (referred to also as intuition, inner wisdom, higher Self) is accessed with art, sensing, and writing processes through the conduit of the self. It is an honor to practice and share this with others.
Years later, as my focus shifted to psychedelic integration, I created a "bridge" integration process, called: Art for Access, which uses creative expression via images and writing in combination with a drum journey to bridge non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) to everyday life in a mythic and meaningful way. I continue to use and tweak this in my retreats and groups.
My creative process has taken many forms over the years, including the development of therapeutic games for kids and families and more recently, music and song. And now, with my kids all out in the worlds and engaged in their own lives, I have circled back to painting and allow myself to be a conduit of creative source. The result is the collective (unconscious) coming through my unique expression. It is always a surprise what shows up!
Years later, as my focus shifted to psychedelic integration, I created a "bridge" integration process, called: Art for Access, which uses creative expression via images and writing in combination with a drum journey to bridge non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) to everyday life in a mythic and meaningful way. I continue to use and tweak this in my retreats and groups.
My creative process has taken many forms over the years, including the development of therapeutic games for kids and families and more recently, music and song. And now, with my kids all out in the worlds and engaged in their own lives, I have circled back to painting and allow myself to be a conduit of creative source. The result is the collective (unconscious) coming through my unique expression. It is always a surprise what shows up!
A Personal Message about Bone Knowing