About

I study and operationalize the elements common to transformative experiences. I believe that the intersection of contemplative practices, psychedelics, science, and nature projects a blueprint by which to formulate a new clinical model. My work looks at the past, present, and future.

What I’m Building

I seek to found and run an Institute for Integration, a lab + facility that operates at both an inpatient and outpatient level. The primary function of the facility is to conduct highly tailored and integrative therapy sessions, which take into account a large variety of state-of-the-art technologies and methods to facilitate psychic ‘integration’. I define this integration as a pulling together of the natural parts of the human psyche and a discarding of excess contents. This integration will be supported by all means necessary. Such means include but are not limited to: historic, naturalistic, biological, philosophical, and scientific education, psychotherapy, psychedelic experience, use of AGI, nature immersion, and contemplative discussion. In this way, such an institute may function as a sangha, a laboratory, and a hospital all at once. 

The institution will be based on a central philosophy, the central declaration consisting of a belief that the human being can integrate itself to some degree regardless of most circumstances. The therapeutic approaches to be utilized will all simply spring up as variations of an underlying truth, which will need to be exploited, this being the fundamental non-dual nature of man. Theologically speaking, it appears that man is a non-dual creature due to his non-dual nature. That is to say, it accords with logic that a soul in a human’s body should come to see that it is more than its host, more than its world. This appears to be processed on the physiological level, as well as on the phenomenological level, and appears to also accord with many other theories and items. For example, the fact that any distance can appear between desire and person—a person may ‘see’ their desire—appears to speak to something larger than the entire interaction. Who, or what, perceives this desire? Our pointing to consciousness does not merely raise the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, but also illustrates an innate sense of ‘alienation’ that is felt regarding the ‘human problems’. We ask why it is that we are here, why there is existence, and why we have to suffer. In general, the human problem is one of existence itself, whereas other fauna and flora appear to manifest a one-sidedness of our nature, a purely worldly existence devoid of opposition to circumstance. 

The attempts in such an institution to facilitate a recognition of the non-dual nature of human beings appear to strongly accord with the present facts. It is my goal to work on formulating the clinical model required for facilitating interaction, while at the same time, constructing the scientific formulation behind such an approach. My work’s reliance on the synthesis of available research already demonstrates a likelihood that my approach will gain increased empirical footing over the coming years. A central problem I identify is disjointed communication between scientific and contemplative domains. Another problem I identify is the introduction of AGI, which I believe will both cure and destroy the psyche.

Background in Brief

I currently work as a Substance Use Specialist, having previously worked as a residential counselor at a school for traumatized adolescents. Between counseling, intakes, crisis intervention, case management, care coordination between clinicians, psychiatrists, and nurses in both in and out-patient, I have experienced and dealt with schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, addiction, and psychosis. Since it occurs to me that therapy in its current shape cannot by any sensical means outrun the pace by which mental disorders are proliferating, I have been led to seek the larger patterns responsible for any given state of consciousness.

Current Questions / Writing and Research

Longitudinal studies on brain morphology following certain kinds of non-dual questioning, or rather, embodied therapy—CBT but dialed up. Add-on: limitations and necessary directions of CBT. CBT as the central therapeutic method. Teleology of CBT and patient responses—CBT needs a goal. Non-duality represents this. The operationalization of non-duality necessitating re-naming. Non-duality is base experience of human beings; without non-dual integration, it is difficult to attain mental health. A clear bar and line drawn in the sand.

  1. Non-duality as a positioned base consciousness automatically creates a functional, non-negotiable morality. Study: we may study the correlation between non-duality, morality, and cortical integration between brain regions

  2. Brain region integration may correspond with mental health.

  3. Affective disorders and symptoms of psychosis may correspond to current non-dual baseline. Non-duality as a deepening, sideless spectrum: it is something which can be tapped into ad infinitum. 

  4. Non-duality as multi-modal: looking for clear physiological markers and indications of nonduality. Examination of multiple pathways toward non-duality, each with their specific physiological indicators + indicators common across pathways. 

  5. Physiology of non-duality 

  6. Define integration operationally: a composite change in (a) affective precision/expectancy calibration, (b) DMN self/other network flexibility, and (c) mirror-system gain—each tied to symptoms and functioning.

  7. Exploration of CBT and MBCT as existing as the same side of two coins

Work with Me

If you’re building aligned research, designing training for clinicians, or want help turning complex inner-life data into something measurable and actionable, I am open to collaboration.