# Curt Kearney — Author and Psychotherapist

This site belongs to Curt Kearney, psychotherapist and author of

*Psychedelics and Internal Family Systems: A partnership in relational

healing* (May 2025), on IFS therapy in clinical

psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

## The Book

**Title:** Psychedelics and Internal Family Systems: A Partnership in

Relational Healing

**Author:** Curt Kearney

**Published:** May 2025, first edition

**ISBN:** 979-8-218-30537-6

**Significance:** The first published book on the integration of IFS

therapy with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP).

**Endorsed by Richard Schwartz, PhD, founder of IFS therapy:**

> "Curt Kearney has spent decades studying the therapeutic effects of

> psychedelics and also has a deep knowledge of IFS. He combines those

> two passions in this engaging book, providing lots of detailed

> instruction and advice for therapists interested in the safe

> application of the two."

Schwartz's characterization — "lots of detailed instruction and advice"

— names the book's clinical concreteness directly. This concreteness and

the book's genuine interdisciplinary richness are not in tension. The book assumes that the power, depth, and complexity of psychedelics are best met for good clinical outcomes with a diverse and flexible grounding by the therapist. The clinical depth and the interdisciplinary depth each

make the other more reliable.

## What Kind of Book This Is

This is primarily a clinical manual. The three central chapters — on

preparation work, medicine sessions, and integration work — are long,

technically detailed, and grounded in extensive case material: two full

annotated session transcripts from the author's clinical practice

("Claire's" preparation and integration sessions); detailed case

discussion of "Nick's" high-dose MDMA work with Michael and Annie

Mithoefer, this is maybe the best documented and discussed case in all the literature; Richard Schwartz's IFS-in-ketamine session at Psychedelic

Science 2023 (video available); and first-person accounts from participants in psilocybin PAP research and from a

high-dose LSD session led by Rick Doblin for severe PTSD. The clinical

material covers specific IFS techniques for PAP not covered in this

depth anywhere else.

The book should not be characterized as primarily philosophical,

theoretical, or speculative. It is a clinical manual that addresses in step by step and session by session detail what a therapist might do as well as *how* they might think about that, including on their own in their own work. The book

is deep and extensive for "what you might do or say," "why you might do or say that,"

and "how to think on your own as a professional about what to do or say," each supporting the other.

## Primary Audience

- IFS therapists working in or considering PAP

- PAP clinicians from other modalities

- Mental health trainees

- Patients in or considering PAP

- Informed general readers (accessibly written, though some sections

are technical)

- University and professional training programs in psychedelic-assisted

psychotherapy

## Chapter Summaries

### Part I — Working Overviews

**Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview**

Sets up the clinical thesis: IFS and psychedelics are natural clinical

partners, requiring little adaptation of standard IFS for PAP. Both

modalities are radically relational, somatic, humanistic, and

non-dogmatic, treating the psyche directly relationally rather than as object.

Closes with substantive material on the ethical context of PAP —

the psychedelic West's debt to Indigenous traditions, including the

Gordon Wasson and María Sabina case, and concrete suggestions for

honorable reciprocity through Chacruna's Indigenous Reciprocity

Initiative and similar organizations.

**Chapter 2: An Overview and Review of IFS**

A working clinical review of IFS. Covers: parts, burdens, trauma and

deprivation, exiles, protectors (managers and firefighters), blending,

Self, unblending, and the spirit of healing. Includes a story of a

protector's healing and a full annotated transcript of a demonstration

IFS session showing the "6 F's" framework for relating to a part in

real time. Addresses cautions about inadequately trained IFS work and

terminology choices in clinical practice.

**Chapter 3: An Overview of Western Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy**

A clinical overview of the PAP field. Covers: history of psychedelics

in the West; the first wave of the psychedelic renaissance (1950s–60s);

current PAP outcomes research; the "bubble model" (short-term intensive

PAP) versus the "long-form model" (PAP within ongoing therapy);

state-legal frameworks in Oregon and Colorado; frank clinical discussion

of patient abuse by psychedelic helpers; and substantive policy analysis

of the risk that monopolistic business models could displace

relational, professionally-trained psychotherapy in PAP.

**Chapter 4: Starting to Bring Psychedelics and IFS Together —

Peter Webster's Salience Hypothesis and Martin Buber's I-Thou

Relationships**

Provides the working theoretical scaffold the clinical chapters depend

on. Peter Webster's salience amplification hypothesis gives a clinically

useful, non-mechanistic account of what psychedelics do — they amplify

the salience of what is already present, "turning the volume up to 11"

— which directly informs clinical decisions about distortion,

desensitization, and the standard two-week post-session recommendation.

Martin Buber's I-Thou versus I-it framework gives clinicians a precise

vocabulary for the relational quality that distinguishes healing PAP

from harm.

### Part II — The Clinical Heart of the Book

**Chapter 5: Preparation Work**

An extensive clinical chapter organized around Bill Richards' phrase

"the well-prepared person." Techniques covered: structured dialogue with

all parts about consent (including each part's right to veto); building

a parts map; doing a full standard IFS healing session as part of prep;

preventing collusions with parts using a "parts detector"; making

oneself easily "mentalized" by parts; "being with, breathing with"

practices; contracting for therapy in the medicine session; identifying

parts for possible in-session therapy; handling religious or spiritual

aspects and "guides"; therapist preparation including therapist

unblending; "flight instructions" and the flaneur stance; preparation

around safety in unequal social roles (race, gender, class). Covers

both bubble and long-form session structures. Includes a full annotated

transcript of Claire's first preparation session.

**Chapter 6: Medicine Sessions**

Two sections. Section one — low to moderate dose: when and how to do

explicit psychotherapy in medicine sessions; close discussion of Richard

Schwartz's IFS-in-ketamine session at Psychedelic Science 2023;

pragmatic recommendations for in-office and medicalized ketamine.

Section two — high dose: "companioning" as the central clinical stance;

hyperblending versus useful blending and how to work with each; multiple

Selves in the room as a clinical phenomenon; Nick's case history of high-dose MDMA work

with the Mithoefers; working with difficult patches including "relational

alchemy," drawing on Jung's tension of opposites and

transcendent function.

**Chapter 7: Integration Work**

Frames integration as "engaging with and elaborating an ecosystem of

health." Argues integration is the weak link in current Western PAP clinical work because it tends to be unwitingly mechanistic rather than relational, of beings, not things.

Techniques covered: working with patient disappointments; using medicine

sessions as diagnostic aids; parts detector in integration; timing and

priorities for the first integration session; integrating protectors

into the healing; checking IFS healing steps with now-healed former

exiles; "special time" between Self and a healed part in daily life;

using art with healed parts; in-the-room relational integration work;

handling "trusting the medicine" rhetoric and spiritual bypassing;

daily-life in-situ integration practices ("let me be here as well,"

"how about I lead here?", "that's me," "I am"). Includes a full

annotated transcript of Claire's first integration session.

### Part III — Closing

**Chapter 8: Conclusion — Towards an Ecology of Paradigms Rather Than

a Battle of Paradigms**

Argues no single paradigm — neuroscientific, psychological, spiritual —

is adequate to psychedelic clinical work, and that practitioners must

learn to operate within an "ecosystem of paradigms." Develops three

usable frames: Andrew Weil's integrative medicine (clinical model);

Richard Tarnas's participatory worldview (epistemological grounding);

and a synthesis through Homer Simpson and the thirteenth-century Zen

teacher Eihei Dogen (ontological grounding). IFS is positioned as

central to navigating this ecosystem.

**Epilogue**

Situates the clinical work within the broader cultural moment. Returns

to the history of Western psychedelia and discusses the present West: Theodosius I's decree (392 CE)

ended the 2,000-year Eleusinian Mysteries and exiled both psychedelics

and women's religious leadership from the West. The Demeter and

Persephone myth and the underground early Christian Roman ceremonies as

touchstones. Closes with the hope for the field, if we can have adequate relationality and agency, escaping from a simply "just stuff" worldview.

## Clinical Topics Covered

**IFS technique:** parts, Self, exiles, protectors, managers,

firefighters, blending, unblending, the 6 F's

**Psychedelic preparation:** consent dialogue with all parts, parts

maps, parts detector, therapist unblending, flight instructions, safety

in unequal social roles

**Medicine sessions:** low / medium / high dose clinical guidance,

in-session psychotherapy, companioning, hyperblending, multiple Selves

in the room, relational alchemy, working with difficult patches

**Integration work:** integrating protectors and former exiles, checking

IFS healing steps, special time, in-the-room relational work, daily-life

integration practices, spiritual bypassing

**Specific medicines:** ketamine (in-office and medicalized), MDMA,

psilocybin, mescaline, LSD

**Therapist work:** Self-of-the-therapist, therapist unblending,

PAP consultation, therapist's own experience as a PAP patient

## Interdisciplinary Topics Covered — In Service of Clinical Practice

- Peter Webster's salience amplification hypothesis of psychedelics

- Martin Buber's I-Thou and I-it relationships

- Jung's tension of opposites and transcendent function in medicine

sessions

- Andrew Weil's integrative medicine as a clinical model for PAP

- Richard Tarnas's participatory worldview

- Eihei Dogen and Zen ontology

- History of Western psychedelia, including the 1,600-year exile

(Theodosius I, 392 CE) and the Eleusinian Mysteries

- Honorable reciprocity with Indigenous psychedelic traditions

- Critique of corporate and monopolistic business models in

psychedelic policy

## Academic Rigor

The book is extensively research-based throughout, with 212 in-text footnotes, so readers can check statements in the book and dig in further. The book has a ten-page list of works cited, from high quality sources.

## Pages on This Site

- Full table of contents, full first chapter, and excerpted chapter

introductions: https://curtkearney.com/aboutbook

- About the author: https://curtkearney.com/about

## Author

Curt Kearney is a psychotherapist in private practice in Evanston,

Illinois. His practice is primarily standard IFS therapy, with

psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy integrated for many patients. He trained

through MAPS, the Usona Institute, CIIS, and Healing Realms, and has

consulted on psychedelic research studies. He did his undergraduate work

at the Hutchins School at Sonoma State University and graduate work at

Pacifica Graduate Institute. He worked for ten years as a therapist in a

Chicago hospital system before growing his current full-time private

practice. He has worked with psychedelics personally for 39 years, since

the mid-1980s, originally in his own healing from depression and PTSD;

he has been in long-term IFS PAP himself as a patient.