Certificate Programs in Grof® Psychedelic Therapy, And Grof® Breathwork
A Program for Training Psychedelic therapists In Grof® Transpersonal psychology, Grof® Psychedelic Therapy, and Grof® Breathwork
Grof® Transpersonal Psychology allows us to
understand with great lucidity and detail the profound
territories of the human unconscious and complex
psychodynamics of psychedelic and holotropic states. It makes possible safe therapeutic work in holotropic states of consciousness in its maximum fullness and power minimizing potential risks. This vision and method are applicable to Grof® Breathwork (holotropic breathwork as developed By Stan and Christina at Esalen) and to Grof® Psychedelic Therapy with various psychedelic compounds such as MDMA, Psilocybin, LSD-25, Ketamine, and 5-MEO-DMT.
Emerging from groundbreaking psychiatric psychedelic clinical research carried out in Europe and USA, Stan´s modern consciousness research covers and integrates decades of psychedelic research and clinical experience. It offers all that is necessary to accompany in an informed and coherent way the different dimensions of the holotropic process.
Grof® Psychedelic Therapy carefully considers the whole procedure from the screening of the main contraindications, to a comprehensive theoretical preparation of the subject and to the establishment of the ideal context (set and setting) that is required.
It also covers all the crucial ethical and practical aspects, as well as the ideal music and therapeutic interventions.The method allows for a better, deeper and clearer resolution and grounding of the psychedelic experience. This is done when necessary by specific Bodywork interventions, effectively releasing psychological, emotional, and somatic tensions that
may have been unresolved during the course of the session.
This is very important to minimize any potential problems after the session. Alternatives and practical methods to integrate, ground and deepen the therapeutic process in between psychedelic sessions will also be covered.
“If I am the father of LSD, Stan Grof is the godfather; nobody has contributed as much as Stan for the development of my problem child.”
Albert Hofmann
This program designed, expanded and updated by Stan and Brigitte Grof in 2020, relies on the vast experience accumulated by one of the most important psychiatrists in history and leading researcher and pioneer of psychedelics in therapeutic clinical practice. This form of therapeutic work in holotropic states has been safely applied to tens of thousands of people for over 45 years with extraordinary results. An important part of the course consists of pre-recorded classes with Stanislav Grof M.D PhD. These will be complemented with readings, classes, Q & A sessions, study groups, personal work, role playing and extensive personal experiences with Grof® Breathwork and psychedelic medicines, both as client and as therapist.
Your deep personal process of self-exploration and healing, along with accompanying many others in holotropic states, will deepen and enrich your personal and therapeutic path in a unique way, and will be of paramount importance when accompanying clients, providing deep trust grounded in real personal experience.
In more than 20 books and 160 scientific articles that support this
approach, Stanislav Grof M.D PhD. recontextualizes emotional symptoms and psychopathologies from the rigorous scientific research with psychedelics. It offers a remarkable therapeutic method as well as a process that enhances the natural holotropic movement towards transpersonal development, as well as considering their social and ecological implications. We will also address the crucial and practical, effective and informed support for people going through the emergence of their spirituality and
particularly for working with powerful psychospiritual crises (spiritual emergencies).
Elements of the Program
The Foundation Courses are The Way of The Psychonaut Part A and Part B
Enrolment is currently underway for the fourth cohort of The Way of the Psychonaut Part A, starting Fall, 2023 .
The Way of the Psychonaut Part A. This is a 18 week on-line course that is the first pre-requisite foundation course for all that follows.
For each 2-week period of the course there will be about 1.5h of video, 1.5h of reading, 1.5h class zoom call, and a 500 word reflection and a short usually about 10 question quiz, totalling about 5 hours every 2 weeks.
Topics covered by prerecorded video of Stan and readings are:
The History of Psychonautics: Ancient, Aboriginal, and Modern Technologies of the Sacred
The Revision and Re-Enchantment of Psychology: Legacy from a Half Century of Consciousness Research
Maps of the Psyche in Depth Psychology: Toward an Integration of Approaches
Architecture of Emotional and Psychosomatic Disorders
The Transpersonal Domain of the Psyche
Self-Exploration and Therapy with Psychedelics: Importance of Set and Setting
The Inner Healing Intelligence
Spiritual Emergency: Understanding and Treatment of Crises of Transformation
Grof Breathwork: A New Approach to Psychotherapy and Self-Exploration
In addition to the videos (approximately 1 1/2h per 2 weeks) and readings (approximately 1 1/2h per 2 weeks), a usually 10 question quiz, are class zoom calls every 2 weeks for 1 1/2h to discuss the readings and videos. There is also a 500 word written reflection to be uploaded every two weeks, to be discussed in small group format on the zoom call. There will also be 2 Grof®Breathwork experiential workshops, one in BC and one in Ontario. Students are expected to attend one of the workshops for completion of this course. Each workshop is 5 days and 4 nights. Each student will experience 2 breathwork sessions as a breather and 2 sessions as a sitter at each workshop. The price of the workshops are not included in the price of the course.
Enrolment is currently underway for the The Way of the Psychonaut Part B starting Feb 21, 2023
The Way of the Psychonaut Part B. This is 20 week on-line course that is the second pre-requisite foundation course for all that follows.
For each 2-week period of the course there will be about 1.5h of video, 1.5h of reading, 1.5h class zoom call, and a 500 word reflection and a short usually about 10 question quiz, totalling about 5 hours every 2 weeks.
Topics covered by prerecorded video of Stan and readings are:
Mystical Experiences In Non-Ordinary States
The relationship between Transpersonal Psychology, Holotropic States of Consciousness, and the Hard Sciences
Synchronicity: C. G. Jung’s “Acausal Connecting Principle”
Holotropic States of Consciousness and the Understanding of Art
The Promethean Impulse: Higher Creativity
Archetypes:Guiding Principles of the Psyche and Cosmos
Roots of Human Violence and Greed:Consciousness Research and Human Survival
Psyche and Thanatos: Psychospiritual Dimensions of Death and Dying
The Cosmic Game: Exploration of the Farthest Reaches of Human Consciousness
Epilogue: Psyche and Cosmos by Richard Tarnas, PhD
In addition to the videos and readings are class zoom calls every 2 weeks for 1 1/2h to discuss the readings and videos. There is also a 500 word written reflection to be uploaded every two weeks. There will also be 2 Grof Breathwork experiential workshops, one in BC and one in Ontario. Students are expected to attend one of the workshops for completion of this course. Each workshop is 5 days 4 nights. Each student will experience 2 breathwork sessions as a breather and 2 sessions as a sitter at each workshop. The price of the workshops are not included in the price of the course.
Mandatory Modules
Ethics of Working with People in Holotropic States of Consciousness
Spiritual Emergency
Bodywork
This is an on-line module that includes readings, videos, role playing, group zoom classes, and quizzes. We will be using and discussing various professional guidelines from professional licensing authorities and juridictions. We will also go over recommendations that have been published in the professional literature on this special area of psychedelics and ethics. One of our texts will be Kylea Taylor’s book on ethics. There will also be an in person experiential component that will use holotropic methods.
Topics include, psycho-spiritual crisis and treatment, the therapeutic potential of these state, the potential for the emergence of spirituality, different categories, different triggers, and the relevance of these states.
This is an on-line module that includes readings, videos, role playing, group zoom classes, and quizzes. There will also be an in person experiential component that will use holotropic methods.
This is an in person experiental module. There will be holotropic sessions where the proper and ethical use of bodywork will be demonstrated
The process of intensifying tensions and consequent relaxation tends to move from one
part of the body to another in a way that varies from person to person in holotropic
states. The number of muscle tensions and intense emotions associated with them
decreases with the number of sessions.
Psychedelics and Grof® Breathwork changes the body’s chemistry in such a way that
blocked physical and emotional energies associated with different traumatic memories
are released and put at our disposal to be processed and discharged peripherally. This
allows the previously repressed content of such memories to emerge into
consciousness and thus can be integrated. It is a healing process that we want to
encourage and support, and not a pathological process that must be suppressed, as it
is normally done in conventional medicine.
In holotropic states the process usually takes us from the psyche to the body. It may
facilitate the resolution of unresolved somatic and emotionals problems. By working
effectively with them, in a brief time, we may reach a fuller and more grounded
integration.
This module includes the practice of body work in transpersonal therapy with expanded
states of consciousness, the psychodynamic understandings that guides it and the
precise way it is used in Holotropic Therapy applying different techniques, when
indicated.
Music and Integration
Legal Experiential Retreats, Grof Breathwork, Psilocybin Mushrooms, MDMA, LSD, and 5-Meo-DMT
Certification Module
This is an in person experiental module.
In Grof® Breathwork and in psychedelic therapy, the expanding effect of consciousness is enhanced by the use of evocative music. Instrumental music and other forms of sound technology – monotonous percussion, vibrations and singing – have been used over the centuries, or even millennia, as primary tools in shamanic practice, healing rituals and rites of passage in many parts of the world. Independently, many pre-industrial cultures have developed percussion rhythms that in experiments conducted in Western laboratories have demonstrative effects on the electrical activity of the brain
There will be multiple retreats scheduled so that participants are able to have at least 3 legal personal experiences with each of the medicines used to enter holotropic states. During these retreats the student will also act as a sitter for their holotropic partner.
This is an in person experiental module.
In this module we will review, practice and integrate the learning achieved during the training. This module is for those who have completed our training program in Transpersonal Psychology, and Grof Psychedelic Therapy, or Grof® Breathwork and allows them to obtain International Certification as Psychedelic Therapist by the GROF® LEGACY TRAINING.
Elective Modules
Working with Ketamine
Trauma and MDMA
The Ultimate Journey: Preparation for Death and Understanding Grief
This is an experiential Module. There will be a didactic component and an experiential component working with different doses for different therapeutic effects
MDMA is not really a halucinogen but is much better described as an entactogen (a heart opening medicine). It releases hormones that increase bonding, and turn off the amygdala (the fear centre) in the brain so a person is able to process trauma without being overwhelmed by the fear response. This module will be on-line, with readings, videos, and discussion groups via zoom. There will also be a residential component.
This module will be on-line, with readings, videos, and discussion groups via zoom. There will also be a residential component. We will be reading Stan’s books “The Ultimate Journey”, and “The Cosmic Game” and will also have readings from other books. The residential retreat will be in Jamaica using psilocybin mushrooms where they are legal.
Additional Requirements for Certification
Apprenticing
Individual consultation hours
External Grof Breathwork experiences
You will need to apprentice in at least 2 modules before the certification module.
10 individual consultation hours will be required before the certification module. The consultation hours will need to be with a Grof® Certified instructor and will cost $100/h. It would be good to have at least 3 different instructors. The individual hours should be stretched over the three years it will take for certification.
In order to achieve the number of Grof® Breathwork sessions required for certification it will be necessary to participate in some Grof® Breathwork sessions outside of the training program. We will post a schedule of Grof® Breathwork sessions that are available. There will be at least 7 in the training program and a total of 13 will be required.
