Fill out a contact form as a first step to see if we’re a good fit. If we decide to work together, I’ll suggest some dates and times for our first online session. Once we set our appointment, I’ll send you a Zoom link.

For preparation and integration coaching, I provide online sessions only, usually between 9am and 5pm Pacific time.

Yes! Integration is just as important as the ceremonies themselves. While I strongly recommend doing preparation work beforehand, I understand this isn’t always possible.

Ayahuasca Preparation Coaching Sessions:

Integration coaching sessions are also client-centred and tailored to your individual needs. That being said, our first integration session – ideally within the first week after your last ceremony – will likely include:

• Your reasons for wanting to drink ayahuasca and your specific intentions for the retreat
• Any past psychedelic experiences
• Where and with whom you plan to attend ceremonies
• Any hopes and fears you may have. 

We may also practice skills to help you navigate the upcoming ceremony, and lay the foundation for post-ceremony integration. 

If you’re already familiar with ayahuasca, we’ll focus on your current needs – as examples, deepening your clarity, addressing vulnerabilities, revisiting or strengthening your in-ceremony navigation skills, or grounding your intentions. 

If you feel more preparation would be helpful, we can arrange for up to two more sessions before your retreat.

Ayahuasca Integration Coaching Sessions:

Integration coaching sessions are also client-centred and tailored to your individual needs. That being said, our first integration session – ideally within 48 hours after your last ceremony – will likely include:

• Exploring the parts of your journey that stood out the most to you
• Deepening your connection to these experiences through your body, emotions, thoughts, relationships, past experiences, and current situation
• Bridging ceremony insights into your daily life to support your healing and growth
• Developing realistic goals to help you implement positive changes.

In the second integration coaching session, we’ll check in on your integration process – exploring what’s working and any challenges that have come up – to help you maintain your clarity and inner alignment.

Ayahuasca can sometimes open us up in ways that require longer-term therapeutic support. If you’d like continued assistance after we conclude our integration sessions, I’ll work with trusted colleagues to source the names of therapists who are familiar with ayahuasca. I’ll be here for future preparation and integration coaching if you decide to participate in more ceremonies.

Some ayahuasca integration specialists are coaches while others are therapists. Aspects of these services can overlap depending on the provider’s background, training, and credentials.

I view ayahuasca integration coaching as a practical, time-limited approach that prioritizes clarifying intentions and goals, developing in-ceremony skills, and taking concrete steps toward positive life changes post-ceremony. It’s designed for people seeking specialized, short-term support in preparing for, processing, and integrating ayahuasca’s teachings so that the insights gained can be applied in everyday life. Unlike therapy, ayahuasca coaching does not require a postgraduate degree or licensure. 

An ayahuasca integration therapist, on the other hand, can provide longer-term therapeutic services. And, depending on the therapist’s approach, there may be deeper exploration of past experiences and how they shape present well-being, behaviour, and relationships. An ayahuasca therapist may also provide services for mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Licensing and postgraduate degree requirements will vary by jurisdiction.

Ayahuasca retreats vary considerably, so there’s no single answer. What happens depends on the ceremony leader’s training, the purpose of the ceremonies, the location, and many other factors.

Most Western-style retreats focusing on psychospiritual healing, self-discovery, and personal growth include:

• A screening and orientation process
• One or more ayahuasca ceremonies in which participants drink ayahuasca in a group setting led by one or more ceremony leaders and their assistants 
• Post-ceremony group sharing activities.

Healing practices such as music, songs, and tobacco may be offered. Some ayahuasca retreats also include other medicines such as kambo, hapé, or huachuma. It’s important to ask about these details in advance, as well as about the retreat’s specific format, the practitioners’ backgrounds and training lineages, and the ingredients in their ayahuasca and who prepared it. It is also important to ask about the availability of support during ceremonies.

This is a complex question. Stories abound of ayahuasca changing lives for the better, while other people have found the experience to be negative or not at all transformative. Something that’s not talked about much in Western ayahuasca ‘culture’ is that some people experience their trauma becoming more entrenched with ayahuasca use. 

In the Indigenous ayahuasca lineages I’m most familiar with, my understanding is that ayahuasca offers transformation by enabling the practitioner to communicate with the spirit world, helping them to perceive and diagnose the root causes of a person’s illness, misfortune, or other concern. Ayahuasca then acts as a guide in the healing process, working alongside the practitioner to bring harmony and balance to the person’s system.

From a Western scientific standpoint, research on ayahuasca is still in its early stages, but studies suggest it may help with anxiety, depression, suicidality, problematic substance use, and eating disorders. For example, research shows that drinking ayahuasca may have antidepressant effects, and improvements in addiction severity and overall wellbeing have also been reported. In one study, 90% of people with anxiety felt less anxious after drinking ayahuasca.

However, ayahuasca isn’t for everyone. While research is ongoing, there may be risks for people who:

• Have certain heart or liver conditions
• Have a personal or family history of bipolar disorder or psychosis
• Are taking medications like SSRIs.

Also, an unsafe ceremony setting (among other factors) can result in trauma or retraumatization. It’s essential to evaluate your own health, resilience, and support network, as well as the ceremony environment, before drinking ayahuasca.

In summary, ayahuasca has the potential to offer positive change, but experiences and results can vary. Drinking ayahuasca should always be approached with care and respect.

From the Indigenous viewpoints with which I’m most familiar, ayahuasca is considered to be a bridge between the physical and spirit realms. It helps practitioners connect with the spirit world, enabling them to diagnose the root causes of a person’s illness, misfortune, or other concern. Ayahuasca then provides the practitioner with a roadmap to healing so that the practitioner can use their healing technologies, for example icaros (healing songs), to support restoration of harmony and balance to the person’s system. In earlier protocols, only the practitioner consumed the ayahuasca and worked with the plant spirits to facilitate healing. In current Western-style retreats, participants also drink ayahuasca and actively engage in their own healing process.

From a Western scientific perspective, ayahuasca alters brain function by reducing higher cognitive control and allowing information to flow more freely from the bottom up. This creates a more flexible and interconnected brain state, leading to somatic (body-based), emotional, and introspective experiences. Ayahuasca seems to enhance self-awareness, deepen spiritual connection, and offer new insights.

In my personal experience, ayahuasca has an uncanny ability to bring hidden psychological content to the surface, bypassing self-protective mechanisms that were once necessary when I was a child but are no longer as helpful. It’s invited me to face and process the emotional core of these hidden experiences, collaborating with my Highest, Wisest Self to kindle my natural capacity for healing. While this process has often been extremely uncomfortable, it’s resulted in profound and surprising breakthroughs that have led to increased wholeness and freedom. 

Many feelings can arise during and after an ayahuasca ceremony, and it’s difficult to predict what might come up. Ayahuasca acts as an amplifier, intensifying emotions and bringing to the surface whatever in our nervous system is seeking release, healing, nourishment, or integration.

After a ceremony, there may be a sense of afterglow or aftermath (or both). Some people feel energized while others feel drained. Feelings of love, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, relief, emotional strength, or euphoria may be present. Fear, grief, anger, shame, fragility, or heartbreak may also emerge. Some might feel peaceful, whole, and connected, while others feel unsettled, destabilized, or alone. All these experiences offer possibilities for making positive and meaningful shifts from a place of inner authenticity. In a well-supported ceremony or retreat, they are met with skill by ayahuasca practitioners and their teams, and can continue to be worked with afterwards, including in coaching or therapy.

Although ayahuasca can be beneficial for people for whom it is indicated and when taken in the right settings, positive ceremony experiences and outcomes aren’t a given. Some potential downsides of ayahuasca can include:

• Encountering extremely difficult or intense ceremony experiences
• Experiencing vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, or headaches (although in ceremonial ayahuasca contexts these are usually considered manifestations of cleaning and release)
• Experiencing content that feels like too much to face
• Feeling emotionally overwhelmed 
• Experiencing that one’s world or worldview has been shaken up
• Experiencing one’s trauma as becoming more entrenched.

Here’s an article that discusses when people feel worse after ayahuasca.

Some potential downsides may be avoided or reduced when: 

• Ceremony leaders: 
  • Provide a safe ceremony environment, including one-on-one support as needed
  • Have extensive training, experience, and skills
  • Conduct adequate screening and orientation
  • Offer appropriate doses of ayahuasca

• Ceremony participants:
  • Assess their personal readiness before drinking ayahuasca
  • Honestly disclose their health and mental health history to retreat organizers
  • Maintain supportive practices (e.g., meditation, yoga, journaling)
  • Seek formal or informal support before and after ceremonies.

Ayahuasca was discovered – and has been preserved and used by – Indigenous peoples in the Global South for generations. It has served a range of purposes, including medicinal, spiritual, practical, artistic, and recreational. The various knowledge systems, practices, and cosmologies associated with ayahuasca, while far too numerous and varied to describe here, hold a wealth of understanding with respect to mechanisms of action.

From a Western scientific perspective, there are ongoing efforts to understand how ayahuasca affects the brain, but here’s a brief overview of what’s known so far.

Ayahuasca is made by pounding the stems of the ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and boiling them for many hours with (usually) the leaves of the chacruna plant (Psychotria viridis) into a reduction.

Chacruna contains N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ayahuasca’s main psychedelic compound. However, DMT is broken down quickly in the body when taken orally, thus limiting its effects. Adding the ayahuasca vine (which contains monoamine oxidase inhibitors – MAOIs) to the chacruna prevents this breakdown and allows the DMT to cross the blood-brain barrier, producing psychedelic effects.

Once in the brain, DMT activates serotonin pathways by binding to 5HT-2A receptors. The ayahuasca vine also contains beta-carbolines, including tetrahydroharmine, a weak serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that may contribute to ayahuasca’s therapeutic effects.

Some researchers theorize that this process disrupts the brain’s usual processing by reducing higher-level cognitive control and increasing the flow of raw sensory and emotional information from deeper brain regions. This more flexible and interconnected brain state leads to somatic (body-based), emotional, and introspective experiences.

Scientists also recognize that ayahuasca’s effects result from more than just its chemistry – the person’s mindset ("set") and the environment in which they drink it ("setting") play critical roles in shaping the experience.

It can, but experiences vary from person to person and ceremony to ceremony. Drinking ayahuasca can prompt a range of physical responses including vomiting, diarrhea, shaking, crying, and yawning – collectively referred to as “purging.” The ceremony leaders we interviewed for our research described purging as an “energetic” process, a form of cleansing that clears emotional, physical, or spiritual blockages, releases trauma, or addresses the root of a problem. </span>

Other researchers have suggested that, for most ceremony participants, ayahuasca-induced purging plays an important role in healing by helping people make sense of their ceremony experiences, allowing them to understand and work through the emotions and insights that arise.

The psychoactive compound N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in ayahuasca is the main reason for legal restrictions. Laws vary by country – ayahuasca is fully legal in some places (e.g., Brazil) while in others it is classified as illegal due to its perceived lack of medical use or potential for abuse. Some countries allow exemptions for religious or research purposes (e.g., the United States). In Peru, ayahuasca is legal and the knowledges and practices associated with it have been officially declared a cultural heritage of that nation. 

As the DMT in ayahuasca is considered a controlled substance in most countries including my own (Canada), I do not promote, encourage, or condone ayahuasca use outside of legally sanctioned contexts, ethically responsible research studies, or cultural ceremonies. I do not provide illicit substances of any kind, nor do I provide recommendations or referrals to ayahuasca retreats or other psychedelic services. 

Rather, the ayahuasca coaching I provide supports people before and after their ceremonies, which I see as an ethical responsibility to help minimize harms and maximize the benefits of drinking ayahuasca. It is not illegal to talk about ayahuasca experiences in coaching or anywhere else.

For more information on legal status, see here.

There are endless ayahuasca retreat options, each with their own set of factors that can affect physical and psychological safety. And, what feels safe to one person may not be safe for another. The truth is, you might not know how safe a retreat is until you’ve connected with the leadership team, asked them questions, or even experienced their ceremonies for yourself.

Things you can do to help assess whether a retreat offers a sufficiently safe environment include: 

• Asking for a personal referral from someone you trust who’s attended one or more retreats with the ceremony leaders
• During the screening and orientation process, remembering that you’re also interviewing the retreat team. It’s important to ask questions and feel how your body responds to the answers:
  • How is safety promoted in your retreats?
  • How much experience do the practitioners have, what is their training lineage, and what plant diets do they hold?
  • What is the approach to dosing?
  • What ingredients are in your ayahuasca, and where does it come from?
  • What kind of in-ceremony support is available? Is support available 24/7?
  • What types of challenges has your team encountered, and how were these handled?

To further enhance your safety at an ayahuasca retreat, you can:

• Consult with your family doctor about any health or mental health conditions that might exclude you from drinking ayahuasca
• Honestly disclose your health and mental health history to retreat organizers
• Maintain supportive practices (e.g., meditation, yoga, journaling)
• Seek formal or informal support before and after ceremonies.