PRATI alum Dr. Tatyana Kholodkov has attended every training PRATI has offered: our Foundational KAP Training, Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Group Training, and End-of-Life Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Training. This year, she will be volunteering at our End of Life Training. She is an integral part of the PRATI community, and we’re happy to be able to uplift her and her work here! A committed psychedelic therapist, her mind-body wellness company Project Yes PLLC provides public education and therapy services, including psychedelic psychotherapy, to clients in Durham, North Carolina and PSYPACT states.
In this interview, she said: “My vision for the world is to live in such a way that we do not lose sight of our inter-connectedness: that we are not separate from one another, our planet, and the intelligence/mystery that we experience as aliveness.” Thank you Tatyana for the ways you live out this vision through the work that you do in PRATI, your practice, and in the way that you move through this world!
Tell us a little about your therapeutic practice and your vision for the world.
The purpose of Project Yes PLLC is to promote mindful, conscious living. This includes being present and embodied for all that life may entail: the joys and sorrows, clarity and feeling lost, making changes, and accepting things as they are. We support adults across the lifespan, including helping individuals at various existential junctures, the crescendo of which is end of life care. My approaches blend Western psychology with Eastern wisdom traditions, somatic, and ritual work. I specifically focus on trauma, its intersection with depression and OCD, as well as end of life work (including offering KAP for all of these life experiences). The therapy practice also is explicitly LGBTQIA and neurodiversity affirming, sex and body positive. We value radical authenticity.
My vision for the world is to live in such a way that we do not lose sight of our inter-connectedness: that we are not separate from one another, our planet, and the intelligence/mystery that we experience as aliveness. Inspired by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, I want to walk softly on this earth. My teacher Sri Dharma Mittra says, “there are infinite levels of compassion.” I aim to spend my days continuing to practice how my compassion can be improved, and to relieve suffering for beings known and unknown to me.
What do you appreciate most about using KAP/PAT as a modality with your clients?
I deeply appreciate that KAP can be a tool that not only helps clients experience relief but also look beneath the surface of what they carry. I see it in some ways as a gentler option than other psychedelics, and yet one that has just as much potential for being a catalyst for transformation. I enjoy supporting clients in also being patient with themselves to see how the process unfolds, rather than looking at it as yet another part of life where input = specific output. The PAT model also just intuitively makes sense to me, and confirms what I have believed: all the answers are within, and we have a natural propensity towards healing if given the right conditions to bloom. I also find KAP a refreshing shift from the idea that I’m there to “fix” something, and instead, that folks go in to explore and do their own work. It is such a privilege to sit with people and allow them to go as far and deep as they need to.
I am particularly passionate about group-based KAP/PAT healing, which reminds us of our common humanity and fosters connection. In groups, I have also witnessed the process leading to increased creativity, exhibiting care towards each other, and re-igniting altruism.
What advice would you offer to a provider interested in starting to practice KAP/PAT?
Keep learning! There is so much to continue to study, some of which can be learned through the intellect, and the rest needs to be felt and experienced. It is helpful to do your own integration (even of non-medicine experiences), somatic practices, and taking time to play with the very things you want your clients to try. Our own work helps us have a clearer container when holding space.
I also like to do centering practices before I arrive to the office, and again along with my client when we settle in. I encourage finding ways to be really present in the sessions, as subtle shifts in energy/mental preoccupation can be sensed when folks are in an expanded state. Stay curious and have more questions than answers. I learn from each person I sit with, and expect that will never change.
Is there anything else you would like to share with our community?
In offering psychedelic therapy services, you will likely have a range of what unfolds. Sometimes you will have those who you will have to turn down and also non-responders, folks with huge transformations or insights, and others with small, subtle changes you will have to help reflect back to them. I find it useful to remember that each being is on their own path.
