Matt Baldwin LMFT
CA License #109632
South Pasadena, CA 91030
510-296-5682
contact@mattbaldwin.net
Psychology Today
Matt Baldwin LMFT
CA License #109632
South Pasadena, CA 91030
510-296-5682
contact@mattbaldwin.net
Psychology Today
FAQ
What is it like to work with you?
I've been told that I have a warm, intuitive style. When necessary, I can be very direct. My work is based on the very old idea of making the unconscious conscious. This involves having an adventurous attitude towards the unknown dimensions of human experience.
What is the difference between psychotherapy and coaching?
While therapy and coaching both address present experience, therapy tends to place a greater emphasis on uncovering elements of your past in order to understand how they have shaped the person you have become. Coaching, on the other hand, is future-oriented and focuses on what you want to actively create in your life going forward.
Coaching is an unregulated business while psychotherapy requires extensive educational and state licensing requirements. Both approaches have their strengths and I am happy to practice either way, depending on your specific needs.
What is ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and how does it relate to psychedelic psychotherapy?
Psychedelic psychotherapy is an emerging field that involves using expanded states of consciousness to radically and temporarily deepen one's identification with a much larger sense of self. There is ample evidence coming out of the world's top research universities indicating that psychedelic psychotherapy can be extraordinarily helpful in the treatment of a variety of mental health conditions, while at the same time, it can be used for the "betterment of already well people" and to enhance overall creativity.
Originally an anesthetic, ketamine was later revealed, within a certain dosage range, to have its own psychedelic properties. Ketamine provides rapid anti-depressant effects and also helps to create experiences of deep personal meaning and insight, which are then brought into therapy for processing. Ketamine work often points directly at areas of your life that need to change. Psychotherapy involves figuring out how to carry out these changes.
I like working with ketamine because it is relatively short-acting, gentle, and deep. While it is only appropriate for certain clients, I have seen many cases in which thoughtful ketamine treatment led to profound, lasting change.
Why the emphasis on creativity?
The deeper I have gone into my therapeutic and creative practices, the more I come to believe that the unfolding of human life is, in the deepest sense, a primal creative act. Growth involves taking responsibility for this fundamental creative faculty. Our work together will involve figuring out what you want to create, how to bring it into being, and then how to maintain it.