Ariadne Patsiopoulos, MA, RCC, CCC

Ariadne Patsiopoulos, MA, RCC, CCC

Registered Clinical Counsellor

She/Her/Hers...

Over the years, I have come to understand how common and potentially transformative emergent experiences or “non-ordinary” states of consciousness can be (however sometimes disorienting and challenging) as part of our human developmental process. In fact, research is suggesting that increasing numbers of diverse people – who self-identify as spiritual, religious, agnostic or atheist – are having such experiences spontaneously or through practices such as mindfulness/meditation and yoga.

I first discovered the concept of spiritual emergency in my mid-20s via a recommended book edited by Christina and Stan Grof, which proved to be a godsend at the time. It provided me with a much-needed interpretative framework to begin to understand a spontaneous life-changing process I had had as a 19-year-old university student away from home for the first time. I experienced a shift out of a space of existential angst and into a material world that pulsed with aliveness, synchronicity and symbolic meaning. I felt I had tapped into a loving, awe-inspiring and mysterious universe. An emergence framework was instrumental in validating my knowing that my inward journey had been profoundly meaningful. It gave me permission to begin to explore the spiritual dimensions of my life. It also resourced and empowered me during a second pivotal unexpected experience – an intense energy-like somatic process triggered during another transitional period in my early 40s.

Now, over 30 years after my teen breakdown/breakthrough, my training with Dr. Emma Bragdon has brought me full circle. In alignment with IMHU’s mission, I acknowledge the myriad contributions of science and the biomedical model in enhancing our lives. At the same time, I believe that an honouring and inclusion of our varied spiritual and cultural interpretative frameworks is core to optimal whole-person care and enduring healing and growth.

Most importantly, I have learned that we are not designed to “go it alone,” thanks to the fellow travellers who have served as teachers and the therapeutic communities I have discovered along the way. I am delighted to co-facilitate integration circles as one way of co-creating supportive spaces for people to safely share and explore their experiences. Drawing both from my professional background in counselling psychology and post-secondary instruction – and, most importantly, my personal experience – one of my life purposes is to contribute to raising awareness about emergence phenomena to the general public and practitioners alike via group work, research and writing.  As of 2024, I am also a co-director of the Spiritual Emergence Service in Canada.