Spiritual emergency · online

IFS for spiritual emergency

Sometimes practice works "too well" and takes us too far: a retreat, years of meditation, a psychedelic experience or a life event opens something, and ordinary life stops fitting around it. IFS can support you in meeting what's happening part by part, so the whole of you doesn't have to take it all at once.

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First session 95 EUR, then 150 EUR an hour. By video.

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Who it's for

What it can look like

"Spiritual emergency" is Stanislav and Christina Grof's term for a spiritual opening that turns into a crisis. It can look like many things, and meditation traditions have their own names for some of them.

  • After a retreat, the world feels unreal, or you do.
  • A "dark night" — practice that used to bring peace now brings dread, flatness or grief.
  • Energy, visions or experiences you have no framework for, and nobody around you understands.
  • Insight that won't settle — you've seen something true and can't make your ordinary life fit around it.
  • Your spiritual community is part of the problem, and you don't know who to ask.

How it works

Why IFS helps here

Big experiences overwhelm the whole system at once. IFS slows things down to one part at a time, and it is comfortable with experiences that other approaches treat only as symptoms.

  1. 01

    Find ground first

    Before anything else: sleep, food, people, the body. The first sessions are often about stability, not exploration.

  2. 02

    Meet the parts that are frightened

    Some parts are terrified by what's opened; others are trying to shut it all down. Both are doing their job and both get heard.

  3. 03

    Make room for what's opening

    Without forcing it closed or pushing it further. The model's idea of Self overlaps with what many traditions describe, and that helps.

  4. 04

    Bring it back into your life

    Integration is ordinary: routines, relationships, work. That's where the opening either becomes wisdom or stays a wound.

Who you'd work with

Both of us, from practice and from experience

Both of us have long meditation practices and have been through difficult territory ourselves. We won't be shocked, and we won't tell you it's all in your head, or that it's all enlightenment.

What it costs

First session — 95 EUR

The same full session as any other, with either of us.

Single session — 150 EUR

185 EUR for 75 minutes

No commitment beyond the hour.

Ongoing

Weekly work often suits this — the rhythm itself is stabilising. See Ongoing weekly with Pau, or book regular sessions with Alex.

When you need a doctor first

Spiritual emergency and psychiatric emergency can look alike from the inside, and sometimes they overlap. This matters more than anything else on the page.

  • If you haven't slept properly for days, feel you're losing touch with what's real, hear voices that frighten you, or feel unsafe, please see a doctor or go to your local emergency service first, or find a crisis line near you. We can work alongside medical care, not instead of it.
  • Neither of us is a licensed psychotherapist or a doctor. We don't diagnose, and we won't tell you your experience is only spiritual.
  • Parts language can be destabilising for some people during psychosis or strong paranoia. If that's where you are, this isn't the right tool right now.

Questions about spiritual emergency

Is this a mental health crisis or a spiritual one?

It can be both, and it isn't always possible to tell from the inside. That's why we ask about sleep, safety and medical care early, and why we'll say so if we think you need more than we can offer.

Do I need to be religious or have a practice?

No. Spiritual emergencies happen to atheists too, often after a psychedelic experience or a life event.

Will you tell me to stop meditating?

Not by default. Sometimes pausing or changing practice helps for a while; we'll look at that together, with the parts that have views on it.

Do you follow a particular tradition?

No. We both come from meditation practice — mostly Buddhist, in Alex's case — and we work with whatever framework you bring, or none.

Read more

Start with one session

If you're not sure whether this is the right place, write to us and tell us roughly what's happening. We'll be honest about whether we can help.

Book a first session