Worksheet Under constructionCriterion 29 examines behavior, attitudes, and feelings through the framework selected in Criterion 27. The client considers how these interact and whether anything noticed during the psychedelic experience resembles a pattern in daily life. Those connections are explored as possibilities for the client to evaluate. Most of this work takes place during integration, when the person can reflect on what happened and consider the facilitator's questions. During ceremony, the attending responsibilities in Criterion 26 continue to govern the response.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this module, the trainee will be able to:
- Distinguish examining a client's inner patterns from exploring a problem's outward ramifications (Criterion 28).
- Examine the three targets of this criterion: behavior, attitudes, and feelings, and how they interact.
- Explore possible connections between a client's response during the experience and patterns they recognize in daily life.
- Use open questions that invite the client to reflect on their experience.
- Link inner experience from the journey to outer behavior in daily life.
- Work with attitudes as interpretive filters and with feelings as carriers of information.
- Time this work correctly, deferring deep examination to after the experience, per Criterion 26.
- Hold insight and compassion together so a client examines themselves without collapsing into shame.
Key Terms
Behavior. What a client does, the actions and responses they enact in the world and in the ceremony. One of the three targets this criterion examines.
Attitudes. The stances and beliefs through which a client interprets reality, functioning as filters that shape what they perceive and how they respond. A hostile filter, for instance, reads threat where another reading is possible.
Feelings. Emotional states that can be explored in relation to events, interpretations, needs, and behavior.
The behavior attitude feeling cycle. The dynamic interaction of the three: an attitude can feed a behavior, which can deepen a feeling, which can harden the attitude, a self perpetuating loop that examination can interrupt.
The ceremony and life parallel. A possible connection between how a person responded during a psychedelic experience and a pattern they recognize in daily life. The client evaluates whether the connection fits.
Gentle inquiry. Open questions asked with curiosity and attention to the client's readiness to continue.
Connecting experience with daily life. Exploring whether an insight, feeling, or response during the experience is relevant to the client's ordinary decisions and relationships.
Compassionate examination. Looking closely at patterns while attending to the client's strengths, circumstances, and capacity for change.
Core Teaching
Examining behavior, attitudes, and feelings
In Criterion 28, the client considered how a problem affects several areas of life. Here, the conversation looks more closely at the responses involved: what the person does, how they interpret situations, and what they feel. A client might notice that they withdraw when they expect criticism, or become angry when a situation leaves them feeling powerless. Examining those responses can help them understand how a recurring problem is maintained.
An experience may have brought a pattern into view in a particularly vivid way. The client may remember feeling a familiar fear or responding to uncertainty as they do at home. The facilitator helps them examine that observation and place it in context. The conversation should leave them with something they can recognize in daily life and consider when making choices.
How the responses interact
Behavior, attitudes, and feelings can reinforce one another. Someone who expects rejection may interpret an ambiguous comment as hostile, respond defensively, and then feel isolated when the other person withdraws. That outcome can strengthen the original expectation. Looking at the sequence gives the client several places to consider a different response.
Start with a specific situation and ask what happened, what the client understood it to mean, how they felt, and what they did next. They may notice the feeling before they can identify the interpretation, or recognize a behavior only after discussing its consequences. There is no requirement to begin at one particular point. The facilitator helps make the sequence understandable and supports the client's decisions about what they want to change.
Include what was happening around the person and in their body. A difficult conversation after a night without sleep may unfold differently from the same conversation after rest. Noise, pain, hunger, or an abrupt change of plans may also belong in the account. Ask about these circumstances before assigning a stable trait such as hostility or avoidance. The aim is to understand a particular sequence well enough to identify an action the client can recognize and practice.
For example, a client receives a short message from a partner and reads it as anger. Their chest tightens, they reread the message several times, and they send a defensive reply. Ask what the message actually said and what they expected would follow. Then ask what happened after the reply. The client might decide to clarify an ambiguous message, pause before answering, or discuss a pattern with the partner at another time. Each option addresses a different part of the sequence, and the client can judge which is realistic.
Connections between the experience and daily life
Sometimes a response during a psychedelic experience resembles a pattern the client recognizes elsewhere. A person who struggled with uncertainty during the session may describe similar difficulty when a partner makes plans without them. Another may notice a familiar tendency to avoid asking for help. These connections can provide specific material for integration when the client finds them relevant.
Offer the observation carefully and ask whether the connection fits. Difficulty during a ceremony can have several explanations, including the immediate conditions of the session, and should not be treated as evidence of a fixed personality trait. If the client does recognize a parallel, help them describe it in their own terms. If they do not, allow that response to guide the conversation. The facilitator's observations are useful material for inquiry, and the client remains free to interpret the experience differently.
Ask about exceptions as well as repetitions. When has the client handled uncertainty with less distress? Who was present, what did they know, and what support was available? An exception may reveal a useful skill or an environmental condition that has been overlooked. It may also challenge a broad judgment such as “I always shut down.” A more precise account gives the client something they can test without requiring them to redefine their whole personality.
Be especially careful when a participant's conduct during ceremony is used to explain their character. Wanting an eyeshade removed may reflect discomfort with the eyeshade. Asking a facilitator to move away may be a reasonable boundary. Examine the conditions of the session and the staff response before treating these actions as a recurring personal problem. The client may identify a connection later, and they may also conclude that the concern belonged to the setting.
Choosing the time for reflection
Detailed examination usually belongs in the integration sessions after the experience. During ceremony, the participant may be too absorbed, suggestible, or distressed to evaluate an interpretation. Criterion 26 therefore emphasizes attending, reassurance, and safety while allowing questions about meaning to wait.
The facilitator can remember an observation to discuss later. A brief reflection may be appropriate when the participant is clearly able to engage and asks for it, but that invitation does not require opening a deeper analysis. Consider the person's state and the purpose of the response. Once ordinary awareness has returned and the client is ready, there is more room to examine alternatives, disagree, and decide which interpretation is useful.
Research on suggestion gives a further reason to keep interpretations tentative. Carhart-Harris et al. (2015) found increased suggestibility under LSD in a small study of healthy volunteers. That result does not establish whether a particular recollection is accurate. It does support care with questions that imply an expected answer. When uncertain memories arise, avoid filling in missing details, naming a presumed perpetrator, or treating emotional intensity as corroboration. A client who needs help with distressing memories should be supported by an appropriately qualified practitioner.
The client may also speak with unusual certainty about a life decision after an experience. Ask how they reached the conclusion, what they have observed since returning home, and what information they would want before acting. They can take an insight seriously and allow it time to develop. Where a proposed action affects work, finances, or a relationship, discussing likely consequences gives them more room to choose responsibly.
Questions that support examination
Begin by asking the client to describe what they noticed. Open questions allow detail to emerge without requiring agreement with an interpretation. You might ask how they responded to a difficult moment, what they expected would happen, or whether the feeling was familiar. From there, help them connect the experience with specific situations in daily life.
Attitudes can be examined through the meanings the client assigns to events. A person who expects hostility might consider whether another explanation fits the same situation. Feelings can be explored by asking what was happening when the emotion arose and how it influenced the next action. Anger, grief, or fear may reveal concerns the client wants to understand, although an emotion does not provide an infallible account of what occurred.
The framework selected in Criterion 27 guides the methods used. Cognitive approaches may examine automatic thoughts; a trained parts practitioner may explore competing responses; an appropriately trained somatic practitioner may attend to bodily experience. Use only methods within your competence and continue checking whether the conversation is manageable for the client.
An experiment in daily life can be modest and reversible. If the client believes asking for help always leads to rejection, they might choose a small request to a trusted person and decide beforehand what they want to observe. Review what actually happened, including partial help, an inconvenient time, or a response that was genuinely hurtful. Avoid arranging an exercise that requires contact with an unsafe person. The result is information for the next discussion, and the client should be free to conclude that the situation needs a different response.
When reviewing change, ask about daily functioning separately from the felt significance of the experience. In the Johns Hopkins follow up by Gukasyan et al. (2022), ratings of personal meaning and mystical experience predicted later wellbeing but did not predict improvement in depression. The study therefore gives reason to keep those outcomes distinct. A moving account of the session leaves open questions about sleep, relationships, symptoms, and the concerns that originally brought the person to care.
Relationships and compassionate examination
Family or group participation can sometimes help a client understand how a pattern affects other people. Their accounts may add detail that is unavailable in an individual session. The training, consent, and confidentiality requirements described in Criterion 28 apply before involving anyone else.
Whether the work is individual or relational, the client needs room to examine difficult behavior without being reduced to a list of faults. Acknowledge the effort involved in discussing it and remain specific about what happened. If the person becomes overwhelmed by shame, slow the conversation and assess what support they need. Self understanding is more useful when the client can remain engaged with it long enough to consider a different response.
Language can make this examination easier. “You noticed yourself leaving the room when the conversation became tense” gives the client an event to discuss. They may explain that leaving prevented an argument, or that it made a problem harder to resolve. Ask what they wanted in that moment and what options they can see now. Respecting the purpose a behavior served helps the conversation move toward a workable alternative without requiring the client to condemn the part of themselves that used it.
When attention to the body becomes uncomfortable
Exploring a feeling does not require a person to stay focused on a bodily sensation. If noticing the chest makes fear rise, ask whether they want to stop that part of the conversation. They may find it easier to describe what happened before the feeling, name something they can see in the room, or return to an ordinary activity. Offer a choice that fits their circumstances and observe how they respond. Closing the eyes, slowing the breath, and scanning the body should each remain optional.
Suppose a client reports that their heart seemed louder during a quiet exercise and that they became frightened. Begin with their description of the sequence. Check for a physical concern requiring assessment, including symptoms that continue after the exercise stops. If discussion can safely continue, ask what they thought was happening and what they did next. This gives the client room to explore a possible connection between sensation, interpretation, and behavior. It also leaves open the possibility that the exercise itself was poorly suited to them. Criterion 27 discusses the evidence on unwanted effects of contemplative practices.
Avoid assigning every response to a longstanding psychological pattern. Pain, fatigue, an uncomfortable chair, or the pressure to answer a question may be enough to explain what happened in that moment. Record the client’s explanation and any alternative they want to consider. If they later choose to try a practice again, agree on its purpose, a brief duration, and a clear way to stop. Repeated exposure to a feared sensation as treatment requires the relevant competence and a separate, informed agreement.
Clinical and Decision Tools
Tool 1. The three targets and the cycle
Explore how behavior, attitudes, and feelings influence one another. Ask where the client notices an opportunity to respond differently.
Target | What it is | Where to intervene |
|---|---|---|
Behavior | What the client does in the world and in ceremony | Notice the action; experiment with an alternative |
Attitude | The filter through which they interpret reality | Question the stance; try a reframe |
Feeling | The emotional state and its message | Stay with it; learn what it responds to |
The cycle | Attitude feeds behavior feeds feeling feeds attitude | Break in at the point the client can reach |
Tool 2. Possible connections with daily life
Ask whether a response during the experience resembles a pattern the client recognizes elsewhere. Use the client's answer to decide whether that connection is worth exploring further.
Observation during the experience | A question to explore later |
|---|---|
The client struggled to let go | Does the client see any connection with trust in daily life, or did the session itself feel unsafe? |
The client sought control or declined guidance | What did the guidance feel like to them? Does control have a similar role elsewhere? |
The client moved away from an emotion or changed the subject | What did they need at that point? Do they recognize a similar response in other situations? |
The client became more open or receptive | What helped that happen? Is there anything they want to draw on in daily life? |
Tool 3. Timing the examination (in vs. after)
Return to detailed reflection during integration, when the client can evaluate and discuss interpretations. Follow Criterion 26 for attending during ceremony.
Timing | Discussion to consider |
|---|---|
During the experience | Attend to support and safety; allow interpretation to wait (Criterion 26) |
A brief question during the experience | Respond simply when appropriate, without initiating a detailed analysis |
Early integration | Ask about readiness and explore possible connections at a manageable pace |
Ongoing integration | Examine patterns more fully when the client wants and is able to do so |
Tool 4. Examination checklist
Review the timing, questions, possible connections, and the client's response to the discussion.
Check | Done? |
|---|---|
Discussion opened with curious questions | Yes / No |
Detailed exploration timed to the client's readiness after the experience | Yes / No |
Possible connections offered tentatively and checked with the client | Yes / No |
Connections with daily life explored where the client recognized them | Yes / No |
Attitudes and feelings considered alongside behavior and circumstances | Yes / No |
Methods within the facilitator's training | Yes / No |
Any relational work met consent, confidentiality, and competence requirements | Yes / No |
Strengths and growth included; distress and shame attended to | Yes / No |
Worked Example: From a Journey Pattern to a Life Pattern
This fictional example explores a possible connection with daily life during integration, with the client's agreement.
Context: In an integration session a week after a psilocybin experience, a client mentions, almost in passing, that they could not let go during the ceremony and kept fighting it.
Initial inquiry: The facilitator asks what the struggle felt like and what the client was concerned would happen if they stopped resisting. They give the client time to describe it before suggesting a connection.
Possible connection: The client describes needing to remain in control. The facilitator asks whether that feeling is familiar in another setting. After considering it, the client identifies a similar response in their marriage.
Daily life: The client describes pulling away when their partner tries to get close. They consider whether the need for control during the ceremony helps them understand that response, while leaving room for differences between the situations.
Emotion: The client identifies fear beneath the need for control. With time to explore it, they describe concern about being let down. The facilitator asks how that fear influences their choices with their partner.
Timing: The discussion takes place a week after the ceremony, when the client says they feel ready to examine it. The facilitator continues checking how the conversation is affecting them.
Closing: The facilitator acknowledges the difficulty of the conversation and asks what the client wants to take from it. They agree on a manageable next step and leave room to return to the concern later.
Case Vignettes
For each vignette, identify the concern, consider the client’s needs, and describe how you would respond. Use the companion worksheet when available, or record your responses separately.
Vignette A
Mid ceremony, a facilitator observes a client avoiding a difficult emotion and immediately begins interpreting the avoidance to them, explaining the pattern and its likely roots while the client is still deep in the experience. The client becomes confused and destabilized.
Guided questions: What timing error was made? What does Criterion 26 establish about analysis during the experience? When should this examination have happened?
Vignette B
A facilitator, seeing a clear behavioral pattern, confronts the client with it directly and bluntly the morning after their experience: naming the client's avoidance as the reason their relationships fail. The raw client becomes defensive and shuts down.
Guided questions: What assumption did the facilitator make? How did the client's readiness affect the conversation? What questions could open an exploration of the pattern?
Vignette C
A facilitator examines a client's behaviors and attitudes thoroughly and accurately, but frames the whole examination around what is wrong with the client, cataloging their maladaptive patterns. The client leaves seeing themselves clearly and drowning in shame, and does not return.
Guided questions: How did the facilitator's account affect the client? What strengths or circumstances were overlooked? How could the same concerns be discussed with more care?
Vignette D
A facilitator trained only in basic coaching decides to run an Internal Family Systems parts dialogue and a somatic trauma release process to examine a client's feelings, having read about both but received no training in either. The processes open material the facilitator cannot skillfully hold.
Guided questions: What scope boundary was crossed? Why does the framework used have to be one the facilitator is trained in? What should the facilitator have done instead?
Vignette E
A facilitator helps a client feel a wave of grief during integration, but treats the goal as discharging the emotion, encouraging the client to release it and move on, without examining what the grief was about or how it shapes the client's behavior. The feeling passes and nothing is learned.
Guided questions: What does it mean to work with a feeling as information? What was lost by treating the emotion as something to discharge? How should the grief have been examined?
Role Play and Practice Scripts
Practice in pairs, then switch roles. Ask open questions, offer possible connections tentatively, and listen to the partner's understanding of their feelings and behavior.
Opening with gentle inquiry
The partner describes something they noticed during the experience. Ask, “Can you tell me more about what was happening then? What were you feeling, and how did you respond?” Follow the details they provide before proposing an explanation.
Exploring a possible connection with daily life
“You described working hard to stay in control. Is that a familiar feeling anywhere else in your life?” Allow the partner to identify a connection or to say that the experience felt different. Practice accepting either response.
Working with a feeling as information
When a strong feeling emerges, ask, “What was happening when you first noticed the anger? What did you feel like doing?” Give the partner time to describe the emotion and its context. Check whether they want to continue before exploring it further.
Holding insight with compassion
The partner recognizes a difficult pattern and becomes ashamed. Practice acknowledging both the behavior and their response to discussing it: “This seems painful to sit with. We can slow down. What would help you stay with the conversation?” Continue only at a pace they can manage.
When attention to the body becomes uncomfortable
During an exploration of anxiety, the client says that focusing on the breath makes things worse. Practice stopping that instruction, checking for an unresolved physical concern, and offering a way to continue the conversation with their agreement.
Self Assessment and Reflection
Knowledge check
Distinguish examining inner patterns (this criterion) from exploring a problem's outward ramifications (Criterion 28).
Name the three targets and describe how they form a self perpetuating cycle.
Explain how to offer a possible connection between an experience and daily life, including how to respond when the client does not recognize it.
Explain why deep examination is timed to after the experience, citing Criterion 26.
Explain how to work with an attitude as a filter and a feeling as information.
Explain why the framework used must be one the facilitator is trained in.
Describe how compassion and attention to readiness affect an exploration of difficult patterns.
Reflection
How do you move through your own difficult experiences, and how might that shape what you notice in clients?
Are you more inclined to confront a pattern directly or to inquire gently? How will you stay on the side of inquiry after an experience?
Where might your examination of a client tip into cataloging what is wrong? How will you keep growth in view?
Summary
Behavior, attitudes, and feelings influence one another. Examining a specific sequence helps the client understand how a pattern develops and where they may be able to respond differently. A memory from the psychedelic experience can contribute to that examination when the client recognizes a useful connection with daily life. The connection remains a question to consider, with room for other explanations.
Most detailed reflection takes place during integration, after the client has returned to ordinary awareness. The facilitator uses open questions and methods within the framework selected in Criterion 27, while monitoring the client's ability to continue. Family and group work follow the requirements in Criterion 28. Throughout the conversation, the client should be able to examine their behavior, acknowledge its effects, and consider change without being pressed beyond what they can manage.
References
Sources
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Kaelen, M., Whalley, M. G., Bolstridge, M., Feilding, A., & Nutt, D. J. (2015). LSD enhances suggestibility in healthy volunteers. Psychopharmacology, 232, 785–794. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-014-3714-z
Gukasyan, N., Davis, A. K., Barrett, F. S., Cosimano, M. P., Sepeda, N. D., Johnson, M. W., & Griffiths, R. R. (2022). Efficacy and safety of psilocybin-assisted treatment for major depressive disorder: Prospective 12-month follow-up. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 36(2), 151–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811211073759
Related workbook material
Selecting a framework: Criterion 27.
Exploring problems and their consequences: Criterion 28.
Support during ceremony and timing of interpretation: Criterion 26.
Consent, confidentiality, and family or group participation: Criterion 28.
Integration planning: Criteria 19 through 22.
Evidence and application
The proposed connections between ceremony and daily life are questions for exploration. A response during an altered state can have several explanations, including conditions in the session. The client may accept, revise, or reject a proposed connection.