Listening to Your Inner Healer: A Guide to Ketamine Therapy
Within the world of psychotherapy, including psychedelic-assisted therapy, it is common to hear the term “inner healing intelligence.” However, despite its importance, the meaning of this concept can sometimes feel elusive. Recognizing and trusting this natural capacity is a crucial step in both psychotherapy and psychedelic-assisted therapy.
What is an “inner healing intelligence”?
“Intrinsic healing” is the natural ability of living systems, such as our bodies, plants, or entire ecosystems, to repair, recover, and restore balance after stress, injury, or illness. ‘Intrinsic’ means this healing comes from within, rather than relying solely on external treatments or medicine. For example, if you fall and cut your knee, a doctor may help by cleaning the wound, but your body naturally begins to heal and repair it on its own.
In counselling, the term inner healing intelligence refers to the mind and emotions’ innate ability to recover from trauma, stress, or difficult experiences. Just as doctors and nurses support physical healing, therapists and tools such as ketamine can support a person’s inner healing intelligence, creating favourable conditions for the mind and emotions to restore balance. This approach recognizes that every person already holds a capacity for growth, insight, and self-compassion, even if that part of you feels distant right now.
How Psychedelics Support Your Inner Healing Intelligence
When we say psychedelics help create a favourable environment where your inner healing intelligence can work more freely, we mean that these substances increase neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new connections and shift old patterns, while temporarily quieting certain networks such as the Default Mode Network, which is involved in self-reflection, judgment, rumination, and an excessive focus on the past or future. With these networks relaxed, different parts of the brain can communicate more openly, allowing emotions, memories, and insights to surface in ways that are normally hard to access. This creates space for your innate capacity to heal, reflect, make sense of emotions, and integrate insights more effectively.
How Do Therapists Support One’s Inner Healer in Ketamine-Assisted Therapy?
As described, in ketamine-assisted therapy, ketamine is viewed as a tool and the counsellor is viewed as a facilitator and not the “healer” itself. Moreover, the general aim of the therapist in psychedelic-assisted therapy is to support people in establishing a sense of safety, curiosity and trust to their own inner healing intelligence. In this way, the therapist acts as a “helper” rather than a “fixer”, holding space for your innate wisdom to unfold at its own pace.
Counsellors support this process by:
Encouraging curiosity instead of control during sessions. You might hear, “Maybe it’s a good time to put on the eye shades and headphones and let the medicine guide you.”
Creating grounding rituals to help you feel safe exploring inner experiences.
Trusting the process, even when healing unfolds in unexpected ways.
Helping bridge insights into daily life through integration sessions.
How Can You Continue Listening to Your Inner Healer Over Time?
Psychedelics help create an internal environment where your inner healing intelligence can work more freely. To continue connecting with this inner wisdom after a psychedelic-assisted therapy session, it’s important to intentionally integrate the insights and emotional shifts that emerged during your experience into your daily life. Some ways to do this include:
Attending a psychedelic integration circle
Seeking counselling
Practicing daily meditation or mindfulness
Spending time in nature
Engaging in creative expression through art or writing
Psychedelics can open the door to your inner healing intelligence, while integration helps you embody those insights and support lasting change.
True Healing Comes from Within
At its core, the concept of one’s inner healing intelligence is based on the understanding that true healing comes from within. Just as your body has the power to heal from a cut, your psyche has the power to heal emotional wounds. Psychedelic substances such as ketamine, along with the support of a therapist, help create the right conditions for your inner healing intelligence to do its work. By continuing integration through practices like counselling, journaling, meditation, and time in nature, you strengthen your connection to that inner wisdom and give space for the insights from your sessions to deepen over time.
If you’re curious about exploring ketamine therapy in Kitsilano, Vancouver, consider reaching out for a consultation to learn more about how this approach can support your healing journey and help you reconnect with your inner healer.
Meet Cheyenne Ling
Cheyenne Ling, RCC, is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who supports individuals in exploring past wounds, emotions, and patterns to cultivate deeper self-understanding and connection. With a trauma-informed, person-centred approach, she helps clients access their innate capacity to heal and create more authentic ways of relating.
