Christine Dufond, LMFT

• Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP): (Offered In Person or Online for Small Groups, Couples, or Individuals)

I am a trained KAP psychotherapist with Journey Clinical and offer 75 minute (lower dose) KAP sessions as well as 3 hour psychedelic dose sessions both in person and online. Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy is legal in California, Arizona, New York, Oregon, and many other states. Currently, I am licensed solely in California, so I can only offer KAP to California residents. However, I am currently looking into becoming licensed in Arizona and a few other states as well in order to offer online psychotherapy and KAP to individuals in other states besides California. Ketamine enhances neuroplasticity  for a longer time period than any other psychedelic- for an entire 10 days after dosing. Neuroplasticity refers to the brains ability to learn something new, to reorganize itself by forming new neuroconnections, and to allow you to have needed shifts in your consciousness. Breaking a bad habit involves neuroplasticity, as does learning to play a musical instrument, or learning a new language, so this is great for psychotherapy and soul work! Some have reported shifting out of a stuck mindset that was keeping them depressed or anxious with KAP, or even losing their desire to drink alcohol after just one KAP journey. Although I don’t take insurance for KAP, some health insurance agencies will reimburse you for a good portion of the cost if I give you a receipt, especially if you have an HSA, or health savings account. 

Higher Dose KAP - 3 hour session- The three hour psychedelic sessions will start out with safety protocols such as getting a blood pressure reading on the client, making contact with the driver/chaperone who will be driving the client home, and having the client take a bathroom break just before dosing. Then I have the client share their intention. From my own experience with KAP, I understand the importance of this. Writing your intention out ahead of time is good, but speaking it out loud with a safe witness makes it even more likely that the healing process or shift that happens, or that begins to happen during the journey, will be related in some significant way to your desire or intention. Sitting upright, you will then take the oral ketamine, which is a dissolving tablet or tablets, that you swish for 15 minutes then spit out. I will then prompt you to lay down with an eye mask on in order to have an inward journey. I may use some sound healing instruments in the beginning, when you are swishing, but typically, for the inward journey, you will be listening to a playlist of carefully chosen music to enhance the healing and transformative experience of KAP. The Psychadelic journey itself lasts about 45 minutes, and you will go typically go into a more Psychadelic, out of body, dissociative experience that can be very powerful and transformative in and of itself. Afterwards I have you journal, then check in and share anything you feel compelled to share (although holding the experience as sacred and waiting until your integration session to share is encouraged as well). I do encourage clients to share if having a support person to hear or validate some part of their experience feels beneficial in the moment, but journaling is the most beneficial use of time, so that nothing significant is forgotten. Within 3-5 days we will have a follow up 70 minute integration session in which you share more fully about your KAP journey and we can discuss some ways to anchor in the shift, or allow a partial shift to come into a full shift, either via a practice I assist you with such as soul retrieval/ inner child healing, forgiveness work, or self care and meditation protocols, whatever I intuit is needed.  

Lower Dose KAP - 75 minute session- My various therapeutic offerings, such as guided meditations for aligning with your spiritual self, healing ones inner child, or healing from trauma, as well as forgiveness work, and conscious love therapy for couples can be integrated into the 75 minute lower dose sessions, which, with the neuroplasticity benefits of ketamine, can be a catalyst for deeper healing and bigger shifts. Like the 3 hour dosing session, we will start out with safety protocols and intention setting followed by dosing, then a psychotherapy session that involves a dialogue and techniques such as those I mentioned.  

• Soul Work/ Shadow Work:

Shamanic Soul Retrieval and/or inner child healing are part of this process. Soul retrieval is about calling upon your own best nurturer- your multidimensional Higher Self, and then retrieving lost soul parts that have disassociated you during painful or soul traumatizing experiences.

The purpose of this is to heal your core wounds and unresolved traumas (including those that you may not realize are holding you back) that keep you living in survivor mode, which is fear-based, and often accompanied by addictive and escapist tendencies.

The goal is to bring back your full essence, so that you may be in your authentic power, where you can let your Higher Self and Soul guide you and help you discern and navigate the path to your most optimal future.

My process involves guided visualizations, shamanic Journeying, journaling exercises, quantum physics and mindfulness practices, Tibetan Buddhist breath work practices, meditations connecting you with your higher self and the elementals, and energy healing techniques.

• Pre/Post Plant Ceremony Integration: 

This has the same components as the Soul Work/Shadow Work process described above, with the addition of having me to help you prepare for and then process and integrate your work with the plant medicine. I have personally participated in and had incredible healing from ceremonies involving psilocybins, Ayahuasca, and Peyote.

This, along with my 15 years of experience and research in energy healing, Jungian soul work, shamanic journeying, and Ecotherapy have given me a deep understanding of what is helpful for integrating, retaining, and continuing to heal and evolve after a plant ceremony.

• Conscious Relationship:

This is a beautiful process for individuals or couples. Here you will come to understand your Soul mission as it pertains to your relationships. You will learn conscious love - how to keep your higher self in the driver’s seat - in your relationships. You will learn how to have “nurturing talks” rather than relationship, eroding resentment pile ups, and or unproductive conflict. Nurturing talks are a lovely speaker - listener communication technique that I created back in 2009.
In this process you will learn about the common patterns couples can fall into that erode their relationships, attachment styles, love languages, navigating cultural differences, sexuality differences, parenting differences, and how to have a balance of autonomy and connectedness.

For parents struggling with challenges with children, teenagers, or adult children I teach conscious parenting. I myself  am the mother of a young adult son and a teenaged daughter. And since I have had to navigate my own parenting trials and tribulations, some of the best morsels I have to share are in this area of conscious parenting!