My Hi, I’m Annalise!
I’m a Pisces, journal addict and animal lover.
Like you, I’ve been on a tender path of becoming and unfurling for years, teasing out what is my surface-level story, and what is the truer, mythic story underneath. The truer story (as I currently understand it) is that my life circumstances perfectly set me up to have a heartfelt longing to find the living pulse of the divine feminine, to embody her, and to share her love in books and poems and art (even when that art is only offering a safe outlet for feral rage and other mysteries), and by helping others find their true, open-hearted, loving nature, bringing love to whatever gets in the way of simply being present with an open heart. The more surface-level story is that I’m a bestselling author/poet and an Integrative EMDR-trained Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapist in private practice. And it is with great reverence and humility that I add: In addition to over a decade of clinical experience, my most important initiations have been the ayahuasca ceremonies I’ve sat in with Shipibo medicine people in Peru, and my opportunity to become lineage-initiated in the medicine ways of the Qero mystics of the Andes. It was through these profound initiations that many lifelong intuitions about the healing process congealed. Longing to bring a similarly powerful and sacred medicine to my own clients, I then underwent a rigorous year-long training at Integrative Psychiatry Institute, developing a robust understanding of psychedelic assisted therapy best practices.
To tell you something more about my identities as you make the best choice for yourself about who might be a great therapist for you : I am a perpetually questioning straight-passing cisgender white woman of largely Scottish and Irish ancestry, and threads of hidden non-European ancestry. I do not expect I will be finished “doing my work” in this lifetime (in terms of understanding hidden motivations and shame around sharing my ancestry, and in terms of dismantling internalized colonialism and walking right in this world as a white woman of relatively great privilege). But doing my work remains a lifelong commitment and a necessity in the project of helping other people do their work too. I am committed to creating a safe therapy container for racialized people, especially now that I am providing psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy – a space where anything and everything in the relational field is amplified. I take my commitment to do no harm in this regard very seriously.
I am here for you.
You might call me a weird mystic poet, forest dweller and total nerd with an unslakable thirst for new knowledge. Really, I’m a companion to you at this moment of your soul’s journey of unfolding and becoming, helping you to join hands with your greatest destiny. When I meet a new client, I am committed to seeing them in their most radiant, awakened light, viewing the work as an invitation into the intertwining of destiny with the heart’s deepest desires, rather than as a mission to fix symptoms or to sedate and control pain. I am more interested in working in a holistic way that shifts pain at the root and re-recruits all of our bound up, painful emotional energy in service to ongoing expansion, and a deepening sense of purpose. And in the case of painful, chronic conditions, we can shift our experience of that pain and the meaning we give to it. So, yes, pain into purpose, mess into message, and all of those tropes that are so often repeated because they are true.
I’m trained in an array of esoteric as well as classic, evidence-based modalities. So you can always ask for oracle cards, astrology, dream-tending, music, somatic meditation, or expressive writing to weave into our work or I might make suggestions. I am constantly learning and adding to my so-called apothecary cabinet, drawing intuitively from what I know in sessions. And it’s not only about my intuition. I believe we are all born with powerful knowing and creativity, and I consider a pivotal part of our work to be the glorious reclamation of that.
My Top Five (Wait, okay, eight?) Auditory Pleasures:
- Terence McKenna (the brilliant psychedelic bard of the 1990s)
- The Brian Jonestown Massacre (a band)
- WITCH (We Intend to Cause Havoc) (another band)
- Amadou et Mariam (delicious music)
- Abner Jay https://youtu.be/WPFMMCQ__f4 (Need I say more?)
- The Craft Soundtrack (So I can pretend like I’m in the movie…..Yeah.)
- Nick Cave. And Roky Erickson (Just saw his last ever show in SF, and love him forever.)
- Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes (In my opinion, the greatest living psychoanalyst, and a writer of books that I would prefer over food even if I was starving. Many of her books are on Audible, and she has a voice that could bind anyone in a spell they’d be glad never to leave.)
“The millennial program is to put the art pedal to the floor.”
-Terence McKenna –
My Creds:
Most importantly, I practice empathic attunement in every single session. Sometimes degrees and credentials can become a clutter, a mask or a distraction from the very most important element of any healing relationship: That you feel truly seen and heard.
Moreover, I’ve taken it upon myself to learn directly and experientially from Shipibo medicine men and women and from other shamanic lineage-keepers, and also from Andrew Harvey (modern mystic and spiritual teacher), from Alexandra Roxo (luminous voice in the divine feminine conversation), Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes (senior Jungian analyst and author of the canonical Women Who Run with the Wolves), and Meggan Watterson (feminist theologian).
- Oxbridge Masters in Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin (2010) (followed by a jaunt to India where I volunteered in an orphanage for HIV-positive children in Jaipur)
- Masters in Social Work (Mental Health Concentration) from USC (2015)
- Ten years of experience in mental health at the time of this writing (working mostly in residential programs and community-based mental health programs for traumatized children and youth, with only one of those years a blend of chemical dependency inpatient and outpatient experience, interspersed with some visits to clients in an adjunct skilled nursing home for people with HIV/AIDS)
- Approved in February 2019 by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences to practice psychotherapy under my own license (hence the ‘L’ in LCSW). (It means I’ve collected thousands of post-Masters clinical hours, done a bunch of post-Masters trainings, and passed a couple of truly butt-numbing exams, years after finishing grad school.)
- EMDR trained and cleared by EMDRIA and the EMDR Institute to use this heavily evidence-based trauma treatment in my practice. (By the way, it’s not ONLY effective for adult-onset, specific, “big T” trauma.) “CBT” has been a buzz word (or acronym?) in mental health for the last couple of decades (mostly because insurance companies love it). Think of EMDR as “CBT-plus”. CBT appears efficacious when outcome measures are taken immediately following treatment. Years later, however, the results do not seem to hold up. It’s because CBT does not address the “root” of the current distress, and modalities that allow for deeper work (as EMDR does) tend to produce longer-lasting results. I think of EMDR as the icing on the cake of the last century of Western developments in understanding the unconscious, blended with modern developments in neurobiology. It’s powerful stuff. (It’s like expedited depth work.)
- SF Jung Institute – Clinical Applications of Jungian Analysis six-month program graduate
- JFK University – Clinical Applications of Deep Imagination certified
- Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes – Original Voice Creativity and Dream-Tending Intensive Workshop Trainee
- Certified Hypnotist
- Portland Psychic School – Psychic Meditation Class Graduate
- Colette Baron-Reid’s Oracle School – Certified Oracle Guide
- Alanna Kaivalya’s Alchemical Astrology School – Certified Astrologer
- In 2021, I introduced my first full-length book, Heal Your Witch Wound to the world with the tremendous support of Paper Raven Books. I was humbled and astounded to watch it become a #1 bestseller in several Amazon categories in its first week.
- In 2022, I became a lineage-initiated mesa carrier, certified Shamanic Energy Medicine practitioner and Holistic Nutrition Coach through Dr. Alberto Villoldo’s Four Winds Academy. I also was privileged to participate in a series of ayahuasca ceremonies with Shipibo medicine men and women in the rainforests of Peru in the same year. These experiences have added to my competency and scope when it comes to finding the overlaps between shamanic work and Jungian work, and to integrating lifestyle medicine interventions (such as awareness of the way nutrition impacts mental health) holistically into the way I work with therapy clients.
- I have completed a rigorous, year-long training and certification at the Integrative Psychiatry Institute. Please visit my KAP page for more information.
- I believe we can be the revolution we all long to see on this planet by resolving whatever is standing between our broken heart and our beautifully broken OPEN heart, our creative brilliance, and our sacred calling. Schedule a free 20-minute consultation call if you’re ready to live the life you were meant to live.
Women’s Journey to Empowerment in the 21st Century: A Transnational Approach
In 2019, I saw the official publication by Oxford University Press of Women’s Journey to Empowerment in the 21st Century: A Transnational Approach, to which I contributed (or, wrote) a chapter. The original tract of writing was completed in 2015.
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