Psychedelics are Now

As the field of mental health evolves, we are witnessing a profound shift—psychedelic-assisted therapies are no longer fringe; they are here, and neuroscience is catching up with what indigenous and healing communities have known for centuries. At Green Mountain Counseling, we have already begun integrating Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) into our practice. Though ketamine has been FDA-approved as an anesthetic since 1970, its “off-label” use in treating depression, trauma, and anxiety has been studied for over two decades. Research shows that KAP can reduce conditions such as treatment-resistant depression symptoms in up to 70% of cases, often providing rapid relief where traditional therapies stall.

With the passing of Colorado’s Natural Medicine Health Act, we join Oregon as the second state to have a regulated path for legal psychedelic facilitation. Green Mountain partners with licensed facilitators in Colorado that have been through extensive training and are governed by DORA (the Department of Regulatory Agencies).  As the Clinical Director, I will continue to pursue expanded offerings for legal and professional psychedelic facilitation training to serve our clients, and to remain informed and at the leading edge of this movement. Psilocybin shows remarkable promise for complicated grief, individuals navigating significant and terminal medical diagnoses, and entrenched and devastating conditions like postpartum OCD that have proven otherwise untreatable. These are areas where current modalities often fall short, yet psychospiritual approaches like psilocybin therapy create openings for deep transformation—melding neuroscience with the innate human drive for meaning and healing.

Meanwhile, MDMA-assisted therapy is expected to receive FDA approval in the next few years, specifically targeting severe PTSD. Like psilocybin, MDMA represents a new class of medicine that works not by numbing symptoms, but by fostering a state of openness, safety, and connection—conditions that are essential for real healing. Ultimately, with legalization and regulation, this allows for healthcare professionals to collaborate, integrate, and truly help our clients heal in the deepest possible way.

As the landscape of therapy expands, Green Mountain Counseling remains committed to thoughtful leadership, ensuring that these powerful tools are integrated safely, ethically, and in service of true, lasting wellness. And while not all of our payor sources support these treatments, we will continue to offer accessible care as much as possible. And there are many signs that these treatments will be reimbursable through medical insurances, much like chiropractic care and acupuncture are, in the coming year or two.

Trauma Treatment is Not a One-Size-Fits-All

Guiding our team through the diverse and expanding terrain of trauma treatment is one of our highest priorities. Our vision is to serve each client’s experiential and safety needs while offering cutting edge treatment that is evidence-informed and effective. Here is a survey of the various modalities we offer at Green Mountain Counseling.

EMDR focuses on bilateral stimulation (typically through eye movements) to reprocess traumatic memories. It’s an eight-phase approach that helps clients process distressing memories and integrate them without the emotional charge. EMDR is particularly evidence-based and widely used in trauma work, but it can be intense, requiring clients to directly engage with their traumatic memories.

Brainspotting focuses on identifying specific eye positions—referred to as "brainspots"—that correlate with stored trauma. This modality is more flexible than EMDR, allowing for a deep, client-led exploration of trauma without necessarily recounting the details of the traumatic event. It can feel less structured, but offers a more somatic, body-centered approach to healing.

Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) shares similarities with EMDR, using eye movements to help reprocess trauma. However, ART is shorter-term and less focused on the client fully revisiting the traumatic experience. It incorporates imagery rescripting, allowing clients to rewrite distressing scenes in a way that gives them a sense of mastery over their trauma. ART can be an excellent choice for those seeking quicker results or who may struggle with traditional trauma recall.

Narrative Therapy shifts the focus to the stories clients tell about themselves and their experiences. This talk therapy method invites clients to reframe their trauma within a broader context, helping them separate their identity from their traumatic experience. It’s less directive and more exploratory, making it ideal for clients who benefit from a strengths-based, meaning-making approach.

Parts Work, often associated with Internal Family Systems (IFS), views the mind as composed of different parts, each holding distinct emotions and memories. Trauma work in Parts Work involves helping clients understand and integrate their wounded, vulnerable parts with their core Self. This modality is deeply validating and can be especially effective with clients who experience dissociation or complex trauma.

Neurofeedback, a non-invasive brain training technique, focuses on regulating the nervous system by giving clients real-time feedback on brainwave activity. While it doesn’t involve direct trauma processing, it is useful in preparing clients for trauma work by stabilizing emotional responses and improving brain functioning. Neurofeedback can complement other modalities, particularly for clients with complex trauma or dysregulation.

Finally, a peak behind the door of our counseling rooms, professional conversations, and what is now in broader culture: psychedelics and integration work. Treatments such as psilocybin or MDMA can catalyze profound insights and emotional release, but their true healing potential often depends on how those experiences are integrated. Integration helps clients process the emotions, memories, and insights that arise during their psychedelic journey, turning these revelations into lasting change. Therapists may incorporate modalities such as EMDR, Parts Work, or Narrative Therapy to ground these experiences, allowing clients to make sense of their trauma in a safe, structured way.

The Green Mountain providers have different levels of experience and training in these modalities. We are proud to offer the range of possibilities for healing for our clients and community and will continue to grow into these spaces.

What trauma work are you familiar with? What questions do you have? We love having conversations about these things and would love to connect with you - email us with your thoughts.

Integrative Approaches to Treatment

We are offically rolling out Neurofeedback protocols with our clients. We are seeing great results and are now able to offer these services to our Medicaid clients as well.

This has been a long time coming, as I have been studying and researching this service and how to enfold it for years. As a student of trauma and relationships, I have followed leaders like Bessel Van Der Kolk, Dan Siegel, and Gabor Mate. Pooling their wisdom on human development and thriving, it became clear that nNeurofeedback is a must-have service - and here we are.

Neurofeedback is a type of biofeedback that trains individuals to regulate brain activity, typically with the goal of improving mental health, cognition, and overall well-being. It has several benefits, particularly for conditions like PTSD, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and trauma-related disorders. Some key benefits include:

1. Improves Brain Function and Cognitive Performance

2. Reduces Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression

3. Helps Manage PTSD and Trauma

4. Increases Emotional Regulation

5. Improves Sleep Quality

6. Supports Peak Performance

7. Non-invasive and Drug-free

Bessel van der Kolk, psychiatrist and trauma expert, has extensively researched the effects of trauma on the brain and body. He has spoken highly of Neurofeedback's potential in trauma recovery,

"The challenge of trauma is not how to relieve the pain but how to help people find ways to re-engage with the world and re-establish a sense of safety. Neurofeedback is one of the tools that can help individuals regain control over their brain function, allowing them to re-enter the world with a more balanced, regulated state.”

And I can attest to this firsthand. First for myself, when I received Neurofeedback back in 2018 to address my hypervigilant state, even after good and deep neurobiologically-informed therapy. It turns out my brain had a habit of being in fight or flight from a stressful childhood and severe illness in my 20s, and just would not let it go for my own protection. The relief was first felt in my body, releasing tension and then getting better sleep. I then found that my closest relationships felt warmer, and it was easier to do what I knew to do as a long time therapist for myself and with those around me. And now, we are seeing these benefits in our clients as they are 10 to 20 sessions into their protocols.

Neurofeedback is a huge commitment (of time, energy, and finances), but it certainly changes lives. It changed mine, and it is changing my kids now too. It resets your brain to the optimal baseline, and being you in the world just feels that much easier and better. Reach out to me directly if you or a loved one is curious about next steps.

- Lizzy, GMC Owner and Clinical Director

Finding Your Voice in Therapy

A Guide to Meaningful Session Preparation

Picture this: You've done the hard work of finding a counselor you connect with, and now a few sessions in, you are searching for things to talk about each week. You have continued moments of anxiety, depression, and relational difficulties, but by the time you sit down on the therapy couch, your mind draws a blank. You may even begin to feel a bit of stress or even dread before your therapy sessions, because you don't know where to start.

If you relate to this experience, you are not alone! Life can feel like it is moving in fast motion, and it can be easy to lose sight of our emotions and self-reflective thoughts in the midst of work and life priorities. As a therapist myself, I have encountered this experience many times and stumbled into counseling sessions feeling jumbled and confused about what to talk about.

Your Therapist Is There to Help

To this experience, I will first say that you can be assured your therapist is trained to handle the ambiguity and rollercoaster of human emotions. Feel free to tell your therapist that you are unsure of where to start, and they will be more than happy to help you sift through the experiences and emotions coming up that can help you choose a path to go down.

10 Reflection Questions to Prepare for Therapy

However, it can be extremely helpful to have guiding questions to return to throughout the week to help you prepare for your therapy appointment. It may be helpful to run through a few of these questions in the day or hours leading up to your appointment. Save this list to return to if you ever need help checking in with yourself:

1. Do a quick body scan: Take a few deep breaths and work your way through your body, from your feet, to legs, to abdomen, up to your chest, arms, face, and scalp. Notice if you are holding any tension in any areas of your body. Notice if this tension is tied to any particular emotion.

2. Review recent events: Think through the time that has passed since your last therapy appointment. Did you have any upsetting, emotional, or significant moments happen over the weekend, at work, with a family member or friend?

3. Examine your emotional coping: How are you currently coping with negative emotions like anger or sadness?

4. Consider unprocessed experiences: Think through the past couple of years – are there any experiences that you have not processed in therapy that continue to impact you?

5. Reflect on self-talk: How was your self-talk this week – compassionate or shaming?

6. Identify thought patterns: What types of thoughts or thought patterns do you wish you could change?

7. Notice rumination: Have you been ruminating on any thoughts this week?

8. Recognize defense mechanisms: Have you noticed yourself using any defense mechanisms, such as avoidance or denial?

9. Identify authentic moments: When did you feel most yourself this week, and what was different about this time?

10. Evaluate relationships: Are there any relationships in your life currently that you wish were different?

May these questions help guide you towards understanding what might be currently happening in your body, mind, and life that counseling can help you unpack and process.

Our Approach to Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback is a high tech and evolving field, offering a variety of systems and approaches to train the brain through operant conditioning. From dry cap systems designed for quick set-up to advanced qEEG (quantitative EEG) mapping, the range of neurofeedback options is vast and often confusing. Each system has its strengths, from optimizing peak performance to addressing clinical conditions like ADHD, anxiety, and PTSD.

With so many choices, we have spent the last few years researching, practicing and targeting an approach that aligns with Green Mountain’s values and provides the most reliable outcomes for clients. Now, after months of staff experientals and hands-on training, we’re excited to announce that beginning in March 2025, we are officially expanding to offer neurofeedback services to the public from our office in Lakewood.

How it works:

Neurofeedback is a brain-training technique that helps individuals regulate their brain activity by providing real-time feedback on their brainwaves. It starts by gathering baseline data via an EEG for a Brainmap, or QEEG. At Green Mountain we use a wet cap system, which involves applying conductive gel to ensure a strong connection between the scalp and electrodes.  After an in-depth analysis of the raw EEG and QEEG, an individual protocol is created for each client. Protocols typically require 20 to 40 sessions, with at least two or three sessions each week. As clients engage in activities— such as watching a movie or playing a game — the system provides visual or auditory feedback when their brainwave activity shifts toward healthier patterns. Over time this helps the brain learn to self-regulate, leading to improved mental health and cognitive functioning.

We believe in a "less is more" approach when it comes to neurofeedback training. Instead of overwhelming the brain with multi-channel protocols from the outset, we focus on small, intentional changes that build a strong foundation for long-term success. Our goal is to provide clients with an accessible entry point into neurofeedback while ensuring they benefit from the most accurate data possible. This method allows us to tailor each session to the individual’s unique brain patterns, fostering meaningful and lasting progress in their mental health journey.  

If you’re wondering if neurofeedback is right for you, reach out to us at info@greenmountaincounseling.com for a no-pressure consultation.