Our Why

We believe healing and knowing the goodness of life is our nature and birthright, we have a training mission dedicated to making high quality, legal psychedelic therapy available to all who seek it. 

Saj Razvi is the Founder and Director of Education at PSI. He is a former clinical researcher in the MAPS Phase 2 trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. He is faculty at Synthesis and taught PTSD studies at the University of Denver, and a PhD course at the University of Copenhagen. He is one of the primary developers of the Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy (PSIP) modality which is a next generation, primary consciousness oriented psychotherapy. The focus of PSIP is to maximize the relational and autonomic healing capacity of psychedelic medicine to treat complex, childhood developmental trauma.

Saj's primary focus is to train clinicians to provide legal, effective psychedelic treatment in their private practice settings utilizing readily accessible medicines such as cannabis and ketamine. He provides PSI trainings and supervision to students internationally. In 2015, he was part of a harm reduction effort that was unsuccessful. Saj is open about these events and invites you to read his story here.

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Robin Temple, MA, MSW, Applied Existential Coaching. With her roots in Transpersonal Psychology and Gestalt Therapy, Robin has been in practice for 28 years as a couple's therapist and experiential workshop leader.  She is a Master Teacher and Trainer for PAIRS (Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills) and co founder (along with her husband Michael) of Couples.us--Tools for True Love.

After decades of helping thousands of couples, as well as training other therapists and clergy to do so, she sees intimate relationships as the most fertile ground for healing attachment trauma and working with transference. She is passionate about the unparalleled ways in which PSIP dramatically accelerates the healing of attachment trauma, and the promise of using this modality to help individuals to experience secure and meaningul love relationships. Incorporating PSIP into her life, both personally and professionally, has been deeply rewarding. She is enlivened by facilitating this work and equipping other mental health professionals with this profound tool to expand the capacity for joy in the lives of their clients.  Robin is based in Longmont, CO.

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Jackie Meltz is a Clinical Social Worker and holds a doctorate in Clinical Psychology. She has been a practicing psychotherapist for 25+ years. She specializes in treating developmental trauma, using a psychodynamic, somatic and psychedelic therapy approach. She has extensive training in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), an accelerated, somatic based, psychodynamic approach, and provides clinical supervision and trainings to therapists learning this therapy modality. She has found that ISTDP and Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy, combined, provide a very comprehensive approach to treating developmental trauma, as both access and work with trauma directly in the body. Jackie has also taught psychology and social work at California State University Los Angeles, University of Colorado at Boulder, and Colorado State University Fort Collins. She is now teaching faculty with the Psychedelic Somatic Institute, providing immersive trainings to therapists wanting to learn this model of psychedelic therapy. She feels passionate about teaching this type of therapy to therapists and using it with clients, seeing that it has the ability to access and help people work though trauma that no other type of therapy modalities currently out there does. She is based in Boulder, Colorado and Los Angeles, California. Jackie also provides PSIP supervision to students wanting to enhance their proficiency in the model.

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Daniel (SEP) works with developmental trauma, attachment trauma, and Complex PTSD through a somatic and relational lens. Over 9 years of working with various psychedelic medicines emphasized to him the necessity of integrating the body and the therapeutic relationship to effectively resolve complex trauma.



His passion for PSIP is fueled by his own depth of healing he received within this model. During his training, he experienced a profound reparative experience around an early attachment wound he was unable to access despite previous psychedelic retreats and years of somatic therapy. This led him to fundamentally shift his private practice and understanding of trauma resolution. 


 

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Eric believes that working through trauma is one of the most courageous, meaningful, and beautiful things that humans do. With his training in psychedelic and somatic therapies, Attachment Theory, Interpersonal Neurobiology, and Nonviolent Communication Eric brings a wide range of skills, knowledge, and sensitivity to his work as a PSIP Therapist. Eric specializes in attachment trauma, PTSD, and Complex PTSD.

Prior to discovering PSIP, Eric worked for twelve years with various psychedelic medicines and therapies for his own healing. PSIP has become the focus of Eric's healing work because it has helped him go much deeper into his own attachment trauma than any of the previous healing he has done.

Eric is also a musician, storyteller, and the author of Meet Me In Hard-to-Love Places: The Heart and Science of Relationship Success. Before he became passionate about healing trauma, Eric was an expedition river guide and whitewater kayaker. Much of what he learned on the river and in the wilderness continues to inform his work as a trauma therapist.

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Georgeanna Lewis, MA, MSW, LICSW, brings experience and training in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, EMDR, Brainspotting, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Dance Movement Therapy, Internal Family Systems, and the Adult Attachment Interview. Her clinical foundation is in developmental theory and attachment. She has also completed graduate work in English and Creative Writing (Poetry). Georgeanna understands all early trauma to result in both an attachment rupture and a rupture within the self. PSIP has been a revelation for her, both personally and professionally, in the way it greatly facilitates processing the embodied energy of trauma, dismantles unconscious structures created to cope with the trauma, restores trust in and connection to the self, and fosters creativity. She has found her foundation in attachment-based somatic work invaluable in preparing clients to work with medicine, while conversely, her experience using PSIP has deepened her understanding of nervous system dynamics and in the process transformed her non-PSIP work. She feels a sense of mission about training others to do this work. Georgeanna is based in Minneapolis, where she co-owns Springbox Therapy, a group practice, with her husband, therapist Sean Toren.

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Dr. Ampolos received her MA and PhD in Clinical Psychology, with an emphasis in Health Psychology, at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego, CA. She received her BAs in Psychology and Spanish at the University of San Diego. She completed her pre-doctoral training at Wai’anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center on O’ahu. She is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner (IFMCP), and is certified in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). She completed the post-graduate Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy certificate program at Naropa University, the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) training for MDMA-assisted therapy, and is certified in Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy (PSIP). Her specialities include treating complex trauma and PTSD, personality disorders, eating disorders, nutrition and mental health, depression, anxiety, couples in crisis, and chronic health challenges, including pain and autoimmune disease management. She specializes in providing mind-body, root-level healing. She is passionate about providing access to care and strives to create a warm, open and non-judgmental healing environment at Illuminate Wellness, of which she is the founder and Clinical Director.

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Gwen has been a healing arts practitioner for over 20 years, currently specializing in developmental, attachment, and intergenerational trauma, from both a personal and collective perspective. She is a somatic experiencing practitioner (SEP), Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapist (PSIP), and Luminous Awareness energy healer, with additional training in somatic IFS, pklyvagal theory, dreamwork, mythosomatic qigong, anti-oppression work, and several non-dual traditions.

Gwen began her varied career designing and building Muppets for Sesame Street. She received her masters degree in philosophy, became a thought leader in adult transformative play, and has applied her insights about play to a variety of fields including design-thinking, coaching, spirituality, leadership, and healing & development. In the past five years, Gwen has dedicated herself to trauma healing as the doorway to liberating our inherently playful nature. Gwen is also the author of The Wonderful W, a children’s book for grownups about how holes become Wholes.

After a lifetime of searching and experimentation Gwen is thrilled to have found PSIP, a modality that can heal levels of developmental and attachment trauma that she’s found no other method can reach.

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Todd Brossart, LCSW, BCD, graduated with his Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Denver. His post-Master’s clinical experience currently spans over 16 years, with over a decade of psychotherapy experience at the Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient mental health clinic. Currently, Todd has a private psychotherapy practice in Denver, CO. He has completed Level 2 Certification of Completion in the Psychedelic Somatic Institute's, psychedelic-somatic interactional psychotherapy apprenticeship program. Todd has also been an ongoing student of the advanced business education and study of Transactional Philosophy through Influential U. Over a two-year period, Todd has studied transactional behavior, delving into the mechanics and practice of building complex transactions. He is also the founder of the Daily Mindfulness Lab, a psycho-educational mindfulness curriculum that aims to increase psychological flexibility in an uncertain and complex world.

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I move from the space that nothing is ever separate, that everything, EVERYTHING is connected. We are a body and embodiment is the liberatory path. I use relationship as a container to renegotiate the misattunements, the fraught experiences of our childhoods (and those of our ancestors); a space to unwind generations of colonizing beliefs; and a playground to explore new ways of being with ourselves and each other.

I am a mother, wounded healer, devotee of the breath and a weaver of interbeing. I root deep and expand wide to support the letting down from the pressured grip of dominant culture as it presents through us. I believe that slowing into the womb of the relational is the healing - being seen, felt and held so tenderly that our tissues can unwind and rest into the larger web.

The PSIP model has been revelatory on my path of awakening to my true nature as the layers of conditioning revealed themselves through the viscera to be held and transmuted on the lap of the good enough mother.

I am committed to supporting a collective remembering that we are all connected and that when you suffer, I suffer and when you heal, we all heal.

I practice in Frederick, MD and virtually.

Jean primarily oversees the organization’s daily operations and administration, and she is responsible for ensuring that our training candidates are a fit for our trainings, and vice versa.

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Jean holds a degree in Hospitality, Restaurant, and Institution Management, with a Major in Culinary Arts. Before joining PSI, Jean has managed her own business and has gained most of her professional work experience from the hospitality industry. She has also overseen her family's business, which has contributed to her business management skills.

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But although she enjoys the kitchen life to this day, she has been touched by this work (PSIP) and has experienced how transformative it can be. Which is why she is now dedicating her efforts to growing PSI, nurturing our community, and bringing PSIP to the world.