Whether for awakening, healing, or simple joy, every psychedelic experience should begin with an expression of gratitude to the many people and traditions who have come before us, without whom our journey would not be possible.
Single Flower Psychotherapy
The Work
I’m surprised by the psychedelic renaissance. Ketamine available off label, plant medicines decriminalized, and MDMA likely to get some federal approval in 2024. People are excited and want to try this medicine. And there is no doubt that an incredible amount of suffering is relieved when psychedelics are used appropriately. It’s a gift to be able to participate in our change in attitude.
I have been working individually on an ad hoc basis with an eclectic population; elders, spiritual seekers, people microdosing for anxiety, and others.
Please contact me if you’d like talk about what you’re after and what’s possible.
So much of this work rests on the fit of the client, therapist, medicine, setting, and intention. I’m happy to help you find what’s best.
The Buddha’s
flower sermon
There is a famous story about a sermon the Buddha gave at Vulture peak mountain. In it the Buddha took his place as usual in front of hundreds of his disciples. Everyone settled into their seats expecting to hear about wisdom or meditative states or the insubstantiality of the self, but instead, the Buddha only silently raised a single flower. No one understood except Mahakasyapa, who smiled. The Buddha recognized Mahakasyapa’s enlightenment in front of the assembled Sangha. It is often said that this was the beginning of Zen, a transmission beyond words and speech. The story figured prominently in my own Zen training in some very old temples in Korea.
Interestingly, these days it’s not unusual for a guide to offer a client a single flower toward the end of a guided psychedelic journey, particularly a psilocybin journey.
In my own experience, meditation and medicine work have somethings in common and the two practices can support each other as we forward through our lives. Adopting the name ‘Single Flower Psychotherapy’ helps me keep this teaching front and center in my work with other people.
I would really love to work in a nonprofit psilocybin assisted treatment center with clients who have been confronted by their own mortality. The regulations for psychedelics and ‘healing centers’ in Colorado are now being written with the first licenses issued in late 2024. Wouldn’t it be amazing if something like this could actually happened?
Read some of the research.
Griffiths et al, 2016; Grob et al, 2011; Ross et al, 2016
A Vision for the future
RB Stewart, LPC
The arc of my career might be: sculptor, zen monk, intensive psychotherapist, stay-at-home dad, psychedelic psychotherapist.
After art school and more than a dozen years on the road practicing in Zen monasteries in Korea and elsewhere, I got an MA in contemplative psychotherapy from the Naropa Institute and spent a decade as an individual therapist and team leader focused on psychosis and other extreme states of mind. That time was also filled with sweat lodges and Vision quest. In more recent years I’ve been in private practice working with clients interested in meditation and dreams, and spending time on long solo retreat deepening my Zen practice.
My journey with the Medicine in both therapeutic and ceremonial contexts began in the ‘80s in the community of talented underground guides and therapists in Northern California, with whom I remain connected.
These days I live with my wife in Fort Collins, CO and spend as much time as I can on the west coast of Scotland.
Contact me:
singleflowerpsych@gmail.com
(970) 286-5385
Fort Collins, CO 80524