The practices and processes of The Oregon Center for Psychedelic Somatic Therapy, or OCPST, are unique among psychedelic schools.

Physical Empowerment Training, or PET, is a basis for both personal healing as well as community support and engagement. In preparation as well as in integration, how one moves, breaths, engages committed actions, and evolves postures of openness and willingness are key themes in our work.

The breath is viewed as a basic somatic practice, which both grounds and strengthens present moment awareness. In Breathing Like a Buddha, Ajahn Sucitto comments: “I went back to the basics of noticing how I was aware of breathing, and picked up on the fluid rhythm of the life force that the physical act of breathing moves and moderates. The Pali word for this is ‘pāṇa’ ….. this embodied energy connects the material to the mental realm. Embodied energy runs through the stirring, stress, calm and gladdening of our entire nervous system: if it’s distorted, it inflames and corrupts the mind; if it’s healthy, it clears it. Accordingly, a trained focus on the energy associated with breathing offers a means to calm, brighten, understand and clear states of mind (and heart).”

Along with this form of breathing practice, which is not unique to meditation, but is central to yoga and many other healing modalities, we bring posturaly effective physical training, to strengthen the mind and awaken the heart, to find a naturally occurring platform for transformation in the psychedelic state, as well as a foundation for ongoing integration.

These physical practices and community connection are the real keys to long term benefit. These are accompanied by a felt sense of pleasure, an expansive sense in which the storms of anxiety and worry, fear and anger, sadness and loss, unfold in the compassionate embrace of the journey.

PET is an integral function within the psychedelic practices of OCPST.

We welcome all levels of fitness, and are willing and able to assist you in recovery from injury, as well as healing from trauma(s) written on the larger landscapes of living, which we all share.

To further draw upon the discourse of Ajahn Sucitto: “with an increase in hyperactive mentality, attention disorders, psychological breakdowns and social dysfunction, as well as a disregard for the natural world, society in general has become disembodied and groundless. This condition speaks of an urgent need to get aligned with the subtle and life-enhancing aspects of our material reality. In the microcosm of our own bodies, …” PET offers us an effective pathway for engagement and healing.

In achieving a firm abiding in ease, we open the doorway to re-regulation of the autonomic nervous system, where, to paraphrase Bessl van Der Kolk, the body really keeps the score.