J. Ashley T. Booth, LCSW, MS, is a Journey Clinical Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) provider based in Los Angeles, California. An expert Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapist, Ashley recently authored and illustrated a picture book on IFS designed to make the model more accessible to clients and clinicians alike. You can connect with Ashley through her website.
We spoke with her about her journey into psychedelic-assisted therapeutic work, her approach to combining KAP and IFS, and the transformative experiences she’s witnessed since offering KAP in her practice.
How did you get into Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy (PAP)?
Burning Man is probably the short answer – being part of a community of creative, intentional people who were using psychedelics in a safe and generative way completely shifted my perception. It was life-affirming. From there, I moved into more ceremonial and mindful psychedelic use, and had some profound personal experiences—particularly with 5-MeO-DMT—that changed everything.
At the time, I was working in oceanography, but I came to the realization that we can’t heal the oceans, rainforests, and animals until we heal people. That prompted me to pivot towards mental health – it felt like a better use of my time to be a more vocal advocate for the use of psychedelics and reintroduction of them back into western culture.
I founded the Aware Project, the Southern California Psychedelic Society, and through that community building connected with MAPS. I became a study coordinator and eventually a co-investigator on the MDMA clinical trials. Since then, I’ve worked with organizations like BeckleyPsytech, Compass Pathways, and now I’m in private practice, offering KAP through Journey Clinical and stepping into training roles with my new book.
How is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) different from other psychedelic therapies?
Initially, I was focused on MDMA work and wasn’t that drawn to ketamine. After several years of working with ketamine, I’ve come to deeply appreciate its value. It’s often a gentler medicine, and as my mentor once said to me, it’s “less pushy.”
I think the more that I do trauma-informed work, it’s really important to be able to have non-ordinary states of consciousness that can be gentler, and offer my clients a space where they can feel safer. Obviously, having more intense psychedelic experiences creates important insights that we can learn from, but it’s really nice to have a variety of different tools to work with. Ketamine is such a beautiful way to move into non-ordinary spaces and you can work with it in so many different ways. I do a lot of psycholytic work with Internal Family Systems (IFS), and being able to do either low-dose work or higher-dose work makes ketamine such a versatile tool.
I think ketamine is also a medicine for our times, in a way. There’s a message that often seems to come through in the experience: “Everything’s going to be okay.” For all of the anxiety that’s present in a world that feels very tumultuous and uncertain, it’s a medicine that can help us lean into a different relationship with fear.
Who is an ideal candidate for KAP?
I don’t often use KAP with clients if they haven’t done some self-reflection work in the past, whether through therapy, meditation, breathwork, or yoga. I tend to point them towards those first because that creates a much better foundation before people enter into non-ordinary states of consciousness.
My focus is often on clients dealing with trauma. I think KAP is a really beautiful tool for that because of how it lowers activity in the amygdala and helps people re-pattern.
How do you incorporate IFS with KAP?
IFS is a beautiful fit with any kind of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy, including KAP. What’s so important about IFS is that it helps clients understand what our protection systems are and start to approach them without pathologizing them. We’re being more welcoming and curious about what those patterns are instead of rejecting them, and it creates a really helpful framework for people to approach their internal struggles in a gentler way.
People that have been struggling for a long time often develop a level of rigidity within them – they’re trying to get better, and to be able to have some support into softening around that process can be immensely helpful.
What does it look like to combine IFS and KAP?
The way that I use IFS with KAP depends on the dosing. If we’re doing psycholitic work, I often do a normal IFS session while the client is under the influence of low-dose ketamine. The ketamine softens their protective systems and allows the client to access more Self-energy and process previously unreachable emotions. If someone was looking in from outside the room, it would just look like a deeply focused IFS session. The client might have their eyes closed or be wearing their eye shades, but I’m engaging with them in that IFS framework.
For the deeper psychedelic work—when clients are having inward journeys and have less direct interaction with me—IFS is primarily a part of the preparation and integration phases of KAP. During the dosing sessions themselves, I may do a guided meditation that draws on IFS-related principles, such as checking in with parts or inviting in more Self-energy. In that sense, IFS serves more as the container for the psychedelic experience than the central content of it.
Can you talk about the patient outcomes you’ve seen through KAP?
One client comes to mind. We did a KAP dosing session, and even though she had done it before, this time she became very disoriented. Her husband and I were there, supporting her and reminding her to lean in and be curious.
Suddenly, she started laughing. It was this moment when the tension and fear broke – I see this a lot in psychedelic work, where it comes to this peak at one end of the spectrum of emotion and flips to the other end of the spectrum. She kept laughing and laughing, and moved into a space of recognizing this as previously held fear that was released into a ‘cosmic laughter.’ She was able to contextualize that later and use that laughter as a portal to feel safe and be open again. These are the types of magical moments that happen with clients, and being able to witness and be present for that is really special.
What role does music play during KAP sessions, and how do you curate playlists for your clients dosing experiences?
I have given several talks about music in KAP, particularly in trainings with Lauren Taus. I think the biggest piece of advice I have is to test your playlists – make sure it feels resonant to you, and that it works within the experience. If you’re using someone else’s playlist, make sure that you listen to it all the way through, because sometimes people will include songs that don’t fit for the experience midway. When selecting songs, I never include any with words, which is the standard suggestion that we learn at MAPS. I tend to use a lot of neoclassical or contemporary music because I find that to be the most accessible option for most people. The wrong music can pull people out of the psychedelic experience.
I like to use music that has a directionality to it. During a dosing session, you’re already getting a bit lost in the inward experience, so ambient music that doesn’t go anywhere just keeps you floating out in that space. Music with direction helps people move forward. Longer tracks or smooth transitions are best, so the client doesn’t feel like they’re shifting into a different space every few minutes.
I’ve made so many playlists for KAP sessions over the years at this point – it’s become a fun art form to play with. Most of my clients like them. If there’s something that they don’t like, I invite them to sit with it for a bit and see what it’s bringing up for them. Obviously, if it’s really bothering them, we can change it – but it’s important to be curious about what the music is bringing up for them because that’s what it’s intended to do. I always preface that to my clients so they’re prepared for it, and nobody’s ever had an issue with it so far. That said, I’ve sort of phased out singing bowls – they can get a little too intense for some people!
.png)
What led you to write your new book, Quieting the Storm Within?
When I started implementing IFS into my practice, I found it took several sessions to introduce the model to my clients – it just felt clunky. I’d recommend books, but they were often dense. No Bad Parts is a really great introductory book, but it still is a full-length book. Some people just don’t like to read, or it takes them a really long time.
I knew I needed a picture book because the model itself feel so visual to me. I’m dyslexic, so when I’m doing IFS work with clients, I tend to imagine spatially what their parts look like and how they are oriented to one another. It made sense to translate that into a picture book.
I couldn’t find a book that presented IFS in the way that I was hoping for. They were either too simple or started off with the concept of the Self right off the bat, which is a hard sell for someone that feels broken or for people who are really struggling. My book was intended to meet people where they’re at – you’re able to give it to your client as you’re starting with the model. The book takes about 20–30 minutes to read, includes some practice activities, and helps clients quickly get a shared language and framework.
Today, a client told me her teenage daughter, who’s dealing with some mental health challenges, picked it up. At first, she didn’t want to read it. Then, she started reading through the first few pages and said, ‘Oh, this is so me.’ and kept reading – even when her mom left the room. Now they’re planning to go through the book together a second time to talk about it more. That was my intention – to have IFS be really accessible and visual to support people that maybe wouldn’t normally pick up a book about self-reflection and self-inquiry.