Living Medicine

Dr. Sandra Newes (Sandy) is a Licensed Psychologist with over 25 years of clinical experience. She is the Co-founder of the Living Medicine Institute, offering training and resources to therapists and medical professionals. A full-time KAP provider since 2019, she has facilitated more than 600 ketamine-assisted psychotherapy sessions. Her approach integrates evidence-based psychotherapy with trauma-informed, somatic, and experiential practices, bringing warmth, curiosity, and extensive clinical expertise to her work. In this episode… A psychedelic medicine session may be powerful, but it's only one part of the therapeutic process. Building trust, learning to feel safe in the body, and making sense of the experience are crucial before and after the medicine itself. What helps turn a psychedelic experience into meaningful, lasting change? Dr. Sandy Newes, a doctoral-level clinician specializing in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, explains that meaningful change begins during preparation, not just during a ketamine session. She emphasizes the importance of building trust, establishing informed consent, and teaching body awareness and grounding skills that help clients navigate difficult emotions. Dr. Newes also encourages therapists to let clients discover their own meaning rather than impose interpretations, while using integration to translate insights into everyday life. By focusing on both emotional experiences and practical skills, clinicians can help clients develop greater self-awareness, resilience, and lasting behavioral change. In this episode of Living Medicine, Chad Franzen of Rise25 talks with Dr. Sandy Newes, Co-founder of Living Medicine Institute, about the core principles of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Dr. Newes explains why preparation is treatment, how body awareness supports healing, and why integration matters more than insight alone. She also explores the observer mind and the importance of balancing distress with well-being.

Dr. Sandra Newes (Sandy) is a Licensed Psychologist with over 25 years of clinical experience. She is the Co-founder of the Living Medicine Institute, offering training and resources to therapists and medical professionals. A full-time KAP provider since 2019, she has facilitated more than 600 ketamine-assisted psychotherapy sessions. Her approach integrates evidence-based psychotherapy with trauma-informed, somatic, and experiential practices, bringing warmth, curiosity, and extensive clinical expertise to her work. In this episode… Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy can open the door to experiences that feel deeply spiritual, relational, and transformative — but those experiences can also unsettle a person's worldview and challenge clinicians to be supportive without imposing their own beliefs. How can spirituality be approached in a way that deepens healing while keeping the work grounded, ethical, and connected to everyday life? Five psychedelic therapy and spirituality experts offer practical ways to bring spiritual awareness into psychedelic work. Roman Palitsky, PhD, encourages clinicians to recognize that profound spiritual experiences may arise unexpectedly and to create space for patients to process them responsibly. Matt Zemon suggests treating integration as an ongoing practice by bringing psychedelic insights into daily life, relationships, and the supportive community. Keith Heinzerling, MD, recommends approaching consciousness and spirituality with humility rather than positioning oneself as an authority on another person's experience. Rohini Kanniganti, MD, emphasizes slowing down, resting the nervous system, and returning attention to the body to ground spiritual awareness in lived experience. Will Van Derveer, MD, encourages practitioners to acknowledge the possibility of a deeper, collective wisdom that may emerge through psychedelic work. These approaches can help spiritual insights become meaningful, integrated parts of a person's life. In this episode of Living Medicine, Dr. Sandy Newes looks back on her most insightful episodes. Roman Palitsky, PhD, Matt Zemon, Keith Heinzerling, MD, Will Van Derveer, MD, and Rohini Kanniganti, MD, discuss the spiritual dimensions of psychedelic experiences, the importance of integration and community, and the role of humility and embodiment in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

Dr. Sandra Newes (Sandy) is a Licensed Psychologist with over 25 years of clinical experience. She is the Co-founder of the Living Medicine Institute, offering training and resources to therapists and medical professionals. A full-time KAP provider since 2019, she has facilitated more than 600 ketamine-assisted psychotherapy sessions. Her approach integrates evidence-based psychotherapy with trauma-informed, somatic, and experiential practices, bringing warmth, curiosity, and extensive clinical expertise to her work. In this episode… Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy requires therapists to do more than guide a medicine session — it demands careful preparation, grounded presence, and an ability to follow what emerges without forcing meaning. So how can therapists support deep psychedelic experiences without steering the process? Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy clinician and trainer Dr. Sandy Newes explains that the process begins with safety, curiosity, and resisting the urge to interpret too quickly. Therapists can prepare clients by building trust, understanding developmental history, and helping them notice sensations and nervous system states before the medicine session begins. Dr. Newes also emphasizes accepting that you don't have all the answers, using body-based prompts to deepen awareness, and helping clients gradually become more comfortable with positive emotional states. These practices create space for insight, self-compassion, and meaningful integration without imposing a predetermined interpretation. In this episode of Living Medicine, host Chad Franzen of Rise25 talks with Dr. Sandy Newes, Co-founder and Programming Director of Living Medicine Institute, about the therapist's role in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Dr. Newes explains how curiosity, somatic awareness, and preparation support deeper therapeutic work. She also touches on integration, spirituality, and self-compassion.

Dr. Sandra Newes (Sandy) is a Licensed Psychologist with over 25 years of clinical experience. She is the Co-founder of the Living Medicine Institute, offering training and resources to therapists and medical professionals. A full-time KAP provider since 2019, she has facilitated more than 600 ketamine-assisted psychotherapy sessions. Her approach integrates evidence-based psychotherapy with trauma-informed, somatic, and experiential practices, bringing warmth, curiosity, and extensive clinical expertise to her work. In this episode… Internal Family Systems offers a powerful way to understand the protective patterns, wounded parts, and inner conflicts that can surface during psychedelic therapy. How can clinicians use IFS in a way that supports healing while respecting each client's unique internal system? Four IFS experts offer practical ways to bring greater care, curiosity, and skill into the therapeutic process. Dick Schwartz suggests working with clients' protective parts before a psychedelic experience and gaining their permission rather than bypassing them. Robert Falconer encourages clinicians to learn each client's language and worldview instead of imposing their own framework. Ted Riskin recommends helping clients reconnect with exiled parts, so unresolved trauma can be witnessed and healed. Karen Sprinkel emphasizes developing trauma-informed skills and knowing when active intervention may be more appropriate than trusting the inner healing process. These approaches offer clinicians concrete ways to make IFS-informed psychedelic work safer, responsive, and more effective. In this episode of Living Medicine, Dr. Sandy Newes looks back on her most insightful IFS episodes. Dr. Dick Schwartz, Robert Falconer, Ted Riskin, LCSW, and Karen Sprinkel discuss working with protective and exiled parts, meeting clients with curiosity rather than imposing a therapeutic framework, and applying trauma-informed principles to psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Rohini Kanniganti, MD, MSPH, HMDC, is the Associate Medical Director at Mountain Valley Hospice and Palliative Care, which provides end-of-life and serious-illness care in North Carolina. A board-certified family physician with more than a decade in hospice and palliative medicine, she also works with Trail Winds Hospice and serves on the faculty of the Integrative Psychiatry Institute. Dr. Kanniganti's expertise spans ketamine and psychedelic-assisted therapies, integrative psychiatry, and relational, embodied approaches to easing pain, existential distress, and fear at the end of life. In this episode… Psychedelic therapy is often described as an inward journey, but healing also happens through the body, relationships, and community. Integration can deepen when these connections are treated as part of the therapeutic process. What can change when psychedelic-assisted therapy becomes more relational, embodied, and sacred? Dr. Rohini Kanniganti, a board-certified family physician specializing in hospice and palliative care and psychedelic-assisted therapy, believes healing deepens through safety, attunement, and connection. Her REST framework — relational, embodied, sacred tending — encourages people to slow down, soften into the body, and tend to what is present rather than trying to transcend it. In palliative care, ketamine-assisted therapy may also help address pain, depression, existential distress, and fear around dying. Dr. Kanniganti's approach points toward psychedelic care rooted in embodiment, community, and compassionate presence. In this episode of Living Medicine, Dr. Sandy Newes talks with Rohini Kanniganti, MD, MSPH, HMDC, Associate Medical Director and Physician at Mountain Valley Hospice and Palliative Care, about REST and a relational, embodied approach to psychedelic therapy. Dr. Kanniganti discusses ketamine in palliative care, somatic integration, and the role of connection in healing. She also explores end-of-life care, mindfulness, and approaching death with greater peace.