KATE NESTERWITZ ©
Licensed Relationship Therapist and Trained Psychedelic Guide in Denver, CO
Visit our new wellness space in Wheat Ridge!
What are your fees?
$150 per hour for all medicine-related work. Intake, Prep, Integrations, and Journey work.
This is a clinical rate based on being a licensed psychotherapist with 10+ years experience, with additional training in both trauma (EMDR, IFS, body-based trauma-specialties) and in plant-medicine work (Medicinal Mindfulness- Psychedelic Sitter School. Levels 1, 2, and 3, 200 hours).
I operate as a psychotherapist using legal plant-medicine assistance, holding the highest ethical standard of both my state licensure and psychedelic training program. I have accountability to the Colorado State Ethics Board of Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists and to Medicinal Mindfulness.
Your safety, confidentiality, and peace-of-mind is of utmost importance to me. You will be treated with all the same rights and respect as any traditional psychotherapy client.
Trained-psychedelic sitters are also available at a reduced-rate. They will be able to hold space safely, but not provide as much trauma-specific work.
Why Cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapy? How will it even help?
I want to share both professionally and personally about this question. Adding plant medicine to your therapy uniquely helps in a few ways:
- You can get more in touch with your body- the cannabinoid receptors all throughout the body get activated and you can feel sensations and emotions more vividly but with less fear towards the feelings.
- You can access your emotions with assistance and a cushion to the intensity in which you are feeling them.
- It can quiet some of the parts of the psyche that block us from doing deeper work.
- It’s SO gentle and easy to control the dose so there is much more safety and agency than with other plant medicines.
- This is my FAVORITE part of cannabis, especially if you have trauma. Trauma gets resolved by regaining control, autonomy and choice over our own lives. Cannabis allows us to maintain control, consent to how much or little you want, and be able to modulate the intensity of the experience. That is not the case with many other plant medicines.
What makes you different from other psychedelic guides?
I’m not going to beat around the bush with this question…. It’s my ethics and my training. I am committed to upholding the highest sense of safety, consent, and agency. I am trained in trauma-informed care.
I deeply understand our human wounding and the tenderness and safety needed to heal; but also the firm and clear boundaries that NEED to be upheld and enforced to create the safe container to do this medicine work.
The medicine world has its vulnerabilities and corruption. There are folks abusing the power that comes with being a healer and who can take advantage of your vulnerability while they are either on the medicine or after (this is statistically white, cis male therapists or guides).
I understand deeply the power I have as the therapist and am very conscious of maintaining strict, clear boundaries in the work.
If you or someone you know has been taken advantage of in psychedelic spaces, please know you can share your story with me, you will be believed, and we can collaborate to take action against unsafe practitioners.
I stand in alignment with the ethics of the group Psymposia, a leftest group committed to ethics in psychedelics and calling out corrupt, capitalist-driven players in the field of psychedelics. https://www.psymposia.com/about/
Why am I hesitating to call you?
We are creatures of habit. That makes all changes and transitions difficult. Plus, we have an evolutionary fear of the unknown and unfamiliar. I hope my website can answer many of the “unknowns” for you. But if you still have concerns or fears, just use the contact page to write to me, and we can keep exploring it together.
Therapy also has gotten a bad rap. Good ol’ Freud has everyone still thinking we lay on the couch talking about our mommy-issues. May I confidently reassure you that therapy has evolved!
It is for everyone and anyone wanting to understand themselves better and get relief from any overwhelming emotion. In my experience, it’s not “screwed up” people that come to see me. Just the opposite really: it is the brave ones who are willing to be human and seek help for the things they don’t know about.
Therapy offers a choice:
We can unconsciously keep playing out the same patterns, stuck in our own habits and prisoner to our upbringings. Or we can step back, use our higher brains, and gain insight and awareness into our actions. That is how we change.
And…yes, sometimes we do wind up talking about mommy issues
How long will it take to feel better?
I wish I could answer this definitively but the reality is that it depends on many things. I can say that just getting your first session on the books offers people so much relief because you are taking action and moving towards healing.
There is relief in sharing your burdens with me because you don’t have to hold them all alone anymore.
There is relief in learning to feel your emotions, reconnecting with your body and all its sensations, and allowing stuck, old crap to have a space to be looked at, witnessed, and processed through.
There is relief in doing this work in relationship together, in a real human connection versus always trying to heal alone.
So I believe there is relief right away. And then we move into co-creating long term relief and resolution that is sustainable, so that you can work your way OUT of therapy. An average stay in weekly or bi-weekly therapy is around 1 year.
What are you like?
My clients tell me I am laid back, very accepting, confident, and highly informative. I love to joke and will always give a consensual hug to a client who asks.
My partner tells me I can be feisty and energetic while colleagues share that I am articulate, passionate, and a good teacher.
Like many Colorado transplants, I love sunshine, nature, fresh air, my dogs, and craft beer. I’m sure that we can always find something in common!
I struggle to label myself sometimes, but there’s a few things I know I am: Intersectional feminist, moderate psychonaut, and social justice advocate.
Are you LGBTQIA+ friendly?
Most certainly! I was trained in couples and sex therapy in Philadelphia in the heart of the gayborhood (now sporting beautiful rainbow walkways!). I am passionate about social justice issues and I’m a member of the community.
I also specialize in treating a range of ENM (ethically non-monogamous) relationships including polyamory, open-relationships, throuples, and swinging.
You can trust you will be welcomed with open arms at my practice with no judgment about your lifestyle choices. Plus I can offer professional knowledge and training mixed with personal lived-experience.
Why do you do this for a living?
It is a difficult job. I hear many stories of pain and suffering. I stay present with people in their hardest of times. And yet, I do feel it is my calling…my privilege and my purpose.
What I really get to do is watch folks blossom into their truest selves. And its beautiful and honor to be a part of.
I get to teach people how to be healthy, how to have closer relationships, how to understand themselves and their partner better. How to feel their emotions. Reconnect with their bodies. The relief and joy that clients feel as they start to get better lets me know we are doing something profound together. Something meaningful and rich with value.
Do you take insurance?
I do not work with insurance companies. I am considered “out-of-network.”
However, if you would like to seek reimbursement on your own, I am happy to provide a super bill with the necessary information.
Insurance companies are a bit too bossy for my liking. They limit who you can see, the amount of sessions you can have, and pay clinicians a fairly offensive rate. My experience is that they treat my clients as case numbers and diagnoses, instead of dynamic human beings.
For insurance to be used, the treatment must be “medically necessary.” This means that someone has to actually diagnose you with a mental health disorder AND prove that it is impacting your health on a day-to-day basis.
Many of life’s problems are not mental health disorders. Many folks seek treatment before their issue would meet criteria for diagnosis as a mental health disorder, which is exactly what you should do!
*This is a clinical rate based on being a licensed psychotherapist with 10+ years experience, with additional training in both trauma (EMDR, IFS, body-based trauma-specialties) and in plant-medicine work (Medicinal Mindfulness- Psychedelic Sitter School. Levels 1, 2, and 3, 200 hours).
I operate as a psychotherapist using legal plant-medicine assistance, holding the highest ethical standard of both my state licensure and psychedelic training program. I have accountability to the Colorado State Ethics Board of Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists. Your safety, confidentiality, and peace-of-mind is of utmost importance to me. You will be treated with all the same rights and respect as any traditional psychotherapy client.
Get Help When You Need It
If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment, I would be happy to talk to you for a 20-minute free consultation. I can be reached by phone at (720) 316-5625 or you may send me a brief email.
*This is a clinical rate based on being a licensed psychotherapist with 10+ years experience, with additional training in both trauma (EMDR, IFS, body-based trauma-specialties) and in plant-medicine work (Medicinal Mindfulness- Psychedelic Sitter School. Levels 1, 2, & 3, 200 hours).
I operate as a psychotherapist using legal plant-medicine assistance, holding the highest ethical standard of both my state licensure and psychedelic training program. I have accountability to the Colorado State Ethics Board of Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists. Your safety, confidentiality, and peace-of-mind is of utmost importance to me. You will be treated with all the same rights and respect as any traditional psychotherapy client.