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Integrative Psychiatry

Behavior Transformation: Values and Purpose By Keith Kurlander, MA, LPC

By September 1, 2020November 18th, 2020No Comments

The field of axiology is the study of values delving into the realm of ethical values of society as well as categorizing aesthetics understanding what is beautiful and ugly in a person’s individual perspective.

The hierarchy of values dictates what is most important in your life simply put what you do that does not need any motivational factors. Opposite of that are the least things you would want to do wherein you have to get dragged in order to get it done.

This list is so extensive that no one in the world have the exact same hierarchy of values as you do similar to having your own DNA blueprint where there is no other copy but yours.

Feeling low-worth while doing something that is of high value to you is relatively impossible. What is important for us to fulfill, is something that comes from the emptiest place inside of us which in turn gives us the value of self-worth by doing it.

High self-esteem gives us an inflated sense of self making us believe that what we value is more important than the people around us, although in the game of self-esteem we tend to compare ourselves and put others in a high pedestal which now makes us take in their values into ourselves which creates low self-esteem.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

The discussion of values comes from a little-known term called the field of axiology. It’s a little-known term that was way more known, actually in the field of psychiatry about 50 years ago. axiology very simply as the study of values, classical inquiries go very far back to Greek philosophy and that’s more into the realm of ethics, what’s ethical, what’s an ethical value in society? Also, aesthetics, how does an individual categorized as something as beautiful or ugly to them?

At the top is the thing that’s most important in your life. It’s the thing that no one would ever have to twist your arm to do. You would get out of bed in the morning and you’d go do it because it’s the most important thing to you. So that’s the highest value at the bottom is your lowest value, it’s the thing that you would literally have to be dragged to get to do it, and you really don’t want to do it. Now, this list is extensive in your mind, because there’s so many values, there’s so much in your value structure, there’s so many different values that are getting operational in the world at all times. So, because this list is so extensive and probably moving towards an infinite amount of values, if we get into deep detail, minutia no one in this room has the exact blueprint as the person sitting next to you. The person sitting next to you value something, different than you do, no matter what. And your unique blueprint is like your DNA. It’s you, it’s only you, no one will ever share it.

So where do values come from? Where is that most important thing coming from that you would get out of bed for? Well, it comes from the thing that you perceive as most missing inside of you. The thing that’s most important to us to fulfill is the thing that we need to fulfill inside of us the most because it’s the empty is place.

Self-worth is felt when you’re actualizing, your highest value. You cannot be actualizing what’s most important to you, in that moment that you are expressing what’s most important to you, and you’re going after it, you cannot feel low worth in that moment because it’s the thing that you derive the most value out of. High self-esteem isn’t inflated sense of self.  When we get into an inflated sense of self, we believe our values and what’s important to us is better than the people around us. This is all comparison game self-esteem. Now what comes up must go down, because eventually, you’re going to compare yourself to another person’s values that you’re going to put on a pedestal, if you’re in the self-esteem game, and go, “Oh my god, I’m not doing what they’re doing. I wish I was further along”. That’s the, that’s the key thought, I wish I was like them or further along or, you know, in my life, that’s the key thought right there. And now you’re taking in their values into yourself and now you’re going into low self-esteem, and this is just an important concept to hold.

When we are in congruency with our highest values, which means that when we are acting on our highest values, we’re in accordance with them. When all those lower values are linked to them to a high degree. We’re really in a high level of executive functioning. So we’re in a high level of self-regulation, we have a high level of attention, we’re focused, we have a high level of inhibition. So inhibitiatory processes in the brain and a high level most importantly of strategic planning. The key to behavior changes that behavior is most adaptable, disciplined, strategic, flexible, spontaneous, and easiest to modify in pursuit of your purpose. Because it’s the thing you must care about. So, you’d be willing to go after it.

Sara Reed, MS, LMFT

Sara Reed is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and CEO of Mind’s iHealth Solutions, a digital health company that provides evidence based and culturally responsible mental health services for underserved groups. As a mental health futurist and clinical researcher, Sara examines the ways culture informs the way we diagnose and treat mental illness. Sara’s prior research work includes participation as a study therapist in psychedelic therapy research at Yale University and the University of Connecticut’s Health Center. Sara was the first Black therapist to provide MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in a clinical trial and continues to engage in ongoing advocacy work around health equity in psychedelic medicine.

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Jeffrey Guss, MD is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and researcher with specializations in psychoanalytic therapy and the treatment of substance use disorders. He was Co-Principal Investigator and Director of Psychedelic Therapy Training for the NYU School of Medicine’s study on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of cancer-related existential distress, which was published in Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2016. He currently is a study therapist in the NYU study on Psychedelic-Assisted therapy in the treatment of Alcoholism, a collaborator with Yale University’s study on psychedelic-assisted therapy for Major Depressive Disorder and a study therapist with the MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) study on treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy. 

Dr. Guss is interested in the integration of psychedelic therapies with contemporary psychoanalytic theory and has published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality and Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. He has published (with Elizabeth Nielson, PhD) a paper on “the influence of therapists’ first had experience with psychedelics on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy research and therapist training” in The Journal of Psychedelic Studies, August, 2018. He is an Instructor and Mentor with the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Supervisor in NYU’s Fellowship in Addiction Psychiatry. 

Dr. Guss maintains a private practice in New York City.

Will Van Derveer, MD

Will Van Derveer, MD is Co-Founder of Integrative Psychiatry Institute and Integrative Psychiatry Centers. Dr. Van Derveer was co-investigator on a phase 2 MAPS study of Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant PTSD, and co-authored the publication of this study in 2018. He has also provided Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in two MAPS training studies. An active provider of KAP at his clinic in Boulder, CO, he has been teaching others KAP therapy for several years. Dr. Van Derveer contributed a chapter on mescaline in the 2021 "Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens" (edited by Charles Grob and Jim Grigsby). He is co-host of the Higher Practice Podcast.

Dr. Van Derveer regards unresolved emotional trauma as the most significant under-recognized root cause of psychiatric symptoms in integrative psychiatry practice, along with gut issues, hormone imbalances, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and other functional medicine challenges. He is trained in Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Internal Family Systems, and other psychotherapy techniques. His current clinical passion is psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, which he mentors interested doctors in providing. An avid meditator, he has been a meditation instructor since 2004.

For the past several years Dr. Van Derveer has taught psychiatrists and other psychiatric providers integrative psychiatry in a number of settings, including course directing the CU psychiatry residents’ course as well as with Scott Shannon and Janet Settle at the Psychiatry MasterClass.


Scott has been a student of consciousness since his honors thesis on that topic at the University of Arizona in the 1970s under the tutelage of Dr. Andrew Weil. Following medical school, Scott studied Jungian therapy and acupuncture while working as a primary care physician in a rural area for four years. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy became a facet of his practice before this medicine was scheduled in 1985. He then completed a psychiatry residency at Columbia program in New York. Scott studied cross-cultural psychiatry and completed a child/adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the University of New Mexico.

In 2010 he founded Wholeness Center in Fort Collins. This innovative clinic provides cross-disciplinary evaluation and care for all mental health concerns. Scott serves as a site Principal Investigator and therapist for the Phase III trial of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD sponsored by (MAPS). He has also published numerous articles about his research on (CBD) in mental health. Currently, Scott works extensively with psychedelic-assisted-psychotherapy. He lectures all over the world to professional groups interested in a deeper look at mental health issues, safer tools, and a paradigm-shifting perspective about transformative care.

Will Van Derveer, MD is co-founder of Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI), along with friend and colleague Keith Kurlander, MA. He co-created IPI as an expression of what he stands for. First, that anyone can heal, and second that we medical providers must embrace our own healing journeys in order to fully command our potency as healers.

Dr. Van Derveer spent the last 20 years innovating and testing a comprehensive approach to addressing psychiatric challenges which transcends the conventional model he learned in medical school at Vanderbilt University and residency at University of Colorado, while deeply engaging his own healing path.

He founded the Integrative Psychiatric Healing Center in in 2001 in Boulder, CO, where he currently practices. Dr. Van Derveer regards unresolved emotional trauma as the most significant root cause of psychiatric symptoms in integrative psychiatry practice, along with gut issues, hormone imbalances, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and other functional medicine challenges. He is trained in Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Internal Family Systems, and other psychotherapy techniques. His current clinical passion is psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, which he mentors interested doctors in providing. An avid meditator, he has been a meditation instructor since 2004.

For the past several years Dr. Van Derveer has taught psychiatrists and other psychiatric providers integrative psychiatry in a number of settings, including course directing the CU psychiatry residents’ course as well as with Scott Shannon and Janet Settle at the Psychiatry MasterClass. In addition to his clinical work and teaching, he was co-investigator in 2016 a Phase II randomized clinical trial, sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). He continues to support this protocol, now in a Phase III clinical trial under break-through designation by FDA.

Dr. Van Derveer is a diplomate of the American Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine (ABoIHM) since 2013, and he was board certified in the first wave of diplomates of the new American Board of Integrative Medicine (ABIM) in 2016.