Spiritual Emergence Therapy & Non-Ordinary Experiences
There are times when life can shake up the way you understand yourself, your life, or reality.
You may feel more open, connected, sensitive, or spiritually alive. You may also feel disoriented, overwhelmed, confused, or unsure whether what you’re experiencing is something meaningful, something psychological, or both.
Sometimes people describe this as a spiritual awakening. When the process becomes more intense or destabilizing, it may be understood as a spiritual emergency.
These experiences can happen after psychedelics, meditation, breathwork, grief, trauma, a near-death experience, a major life transition, or a period of intense inner work. Sometimes they seem to arise without an obvious cause.
Therapy can offer a grounded place to slow down, understand what is happening, and explore the experience without immediately dismissing it or forcing it into a particular interpretation.
I offer online therapy for adults located in Colorado and New Jersey.
Schedule a Free 15-Minute Consultation
What Is Spiritual Emergency?
The term "spiritual emergency" was coined by Stanislav and Christina Grof. The term, as the Grofs mention, is a play on words. The word "emergency" suggests a psychological or spiritual crisis, but it also hints towards an opportunity to "emerge" from the crisis -- accessing and gaining a higher level of spiritual and psychological awareness (Grof, 2000). Grof believes that even though an individual may suffer, what appears to be a psychotic episode or budding psychosis, if supported properly, one can move through the experience and "emerge" to the other side -- suggesting radical psychosomatic and emotional healing and transformation.
One of the most important implications of the research of holotropic states is the realization that many of the conditions, which are currently diagnosed as psychotic and indiscriminately treated by suppressive medication, are actually difficult stages of a radical personality transformation and of spiritual opening. If they are correctly understood and supported, these psychospiritual crises can result in emotional and psychosomatic healing, remarkable psychological changes, and consciousness evolution (Grof, 2012, p. 121).
Spiritual emergencies do not always have a clear beginning. Sometimes they develop gradually, while other times they seem to follow a particularly intense experience or period of change.
They can emerge in connection with:
Psychedelic experiences, including difficult, overwhelming, or deeply transformative journeys
Intensive meditation or contemplative practice
Breathwork and other practices that induce non-ordinary states
Near-death experiences
Mystical or spontaneous spiritual experiences
Kundalini or energetic awakening experiences
Grief, loss, or encounters with death
Trauma or the resurfacing of unresolved experiences
Major life transitions, including relationship changes, career shifts, relocation, or changes in identity
Periods of existential questioning or crisis
Intensive retreats, spiritual practices, or religious experiences
Serious illness, injury, or other experiences that change your relationship to life and mortality
Periods of significant stress, isolation, or disruption
Experiences of synchronicity, archetypal imagery, or an intensified sense of meaning
Experiences that seem to arise spontaneously, without an obvious trigger
Not every intense spiritual experience becomes a spiritual emergency. Often, it is the combination of the experience itself, how overwhelming it feels, the support available, and how much it begins to affect everyday life that determines whether additional help may be useful.
Experiences You May Be Navigating During a Spiritual Emergence
You might experience:
A major shift in your sense of identity or purpose
Mystical or spiritually significant experiences
A heightened sense of meaning, synchronicity, or interconnectedness
Ego dissolution or changes in your usual sense of self
Unusual dreams, imagery, or symbolic experiences
Changes following meditation, breathwork, or psychedelic experiences
Questions about death, consciousness, spirituality, or reality
Increased sensitivity or emotional intensity
Difficulty feeling grounded in ordinary life
A sense that something important is happening, even if you cannot fully explain it
Difficulty talking about your experience with friends, family, or other clinicians
You do not need to know what the experience means before coming to therapy. We can start with what you are actually going through.
A Grounded Approach to Spiritual Awakening & Non-Ordinary Experiences
My approach is curious, grounded, and open to different ways of understanding what you are going through. We may explore the psychological, emotional, somatic, relational, symbolic, existential, or spiritual dimensions of the experience.
We may also focus on very practical things:
Getting more sleep.
Creating more structure.
Reconnecting with your body.
Reducing overwhelm.
Understanding what seems to intensify the experience.
Finding ways to stay connected to relationships, work, and everyday life.
The goal is not to rush toward an explanation. It is to create enough stability and space to stay in relationship with what is happening.
My Background With Spiritual Emergence
My own interest in this work began after a near-death experience when I was 16. That experience changed the way I thought about death, consciousness, spirituality, identity, and what it means to be human.
At the time, I did not have much of a framework for what had happened. Trying to understand that experience eventually led me into transpersonal psychology, breathwork, psychedelic studies, somatic psychology, and clinical mental health counseling.
My clinical background has also included work with people navigating anxiety, trauma, major life transitions, early episode psychosis, psychedelic experiences, and other forms of psychological and spiritual disruption.
If you are moving through a spiritual emergence, spiritual emergency, awakening, or another non-ordinary experience and are looking for a grounded place to explore it, we can work with it together.
I offer individual psychotherapy via telehealth for adults located in Colorado and New Jersey.
Frequently Asked Questions
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I don’t think these always have to be understood as separate things.
Spiritual emergence offers us a framework and language for understanding intense periods of psychological, existential, and spiritual change that may otherwise be viewed only through the lens of a traditional mental health diagnosis.
At the same time, spiritual emergence can coexist with significant mental health symptoms or a more acute crisis. One framework does not necessarily cancel out the other.
What I find helpful about the spiritual emergence perspective is that it gives us another way to ask what may be happening: What is changing? What meaning does the experience hold for you? What support do you need to stay grounded and safe? And how can we make room for the psychological or spiritual dimensions of the experience without overlooking your day-to-day wellbeing?
Sometimes having this broader language can make a difficult period feel less like something that simply needs to be labeled and more like an experience we can begin to understand and navigate together.
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No. You do not need to hold any particular spiritual or religious beliefs.
Some people understand their experience in spiritual terms. Others see it as psychological, existential, symbolic, or simply difficult to explain.
We can work with the experience in a way that respects your own beliefs and perspective.
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Yes.
Spiritual emergence and other non-ordinary experiences can sometimes arise after psychedelics, meditation, breathwork, intensive retreats, grief, trauma, or other significant life experiences.
If psychedelics are a central part of what you are navigating, you may also want to learn more about my Psychedelic Integration Therapy services.
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I provide telehealth psychotherapy to adults located in Colorado and New Jersey. You’ll need to be physically located in one of those states at the time of our session.
My practice is based in Breckenridge, Colorado, where I offer in-person services and also offer virtual sessions.