Introducing Our Specialists
The Center for Transformational Psychotherapy provides effective assisted psychotherapy, thanks to its ketamine-licensed psychotherapists. Our team helps patients, including couples and families, achieve healthy minds and bodies in a gentle and safe environment. Additionally, we are leaders in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP). We recommend the use of the medication as an assisted psychotherapy.
On top of our qualified ketamine psychotherapists, we recommend low-dose, oral ketamine lozenges over IV-injected drugs. By choosing sub-lingual tablets, we get patients acquainted with the ketamine experience. On top of that, we provide lozenges to assess the patients’ sensitivity and responsiveness to the medication.
Our specialists welcome you to our comfortable and convenient office in San Anselmo, California.
Get to Know Our Specialists
Philip Wolfson, MD
Phil Wolfson MD is Principal Investigator for the MAPS sponsored Phase 2, FDA approved 18-person study of MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy for individuals with significant anxiety due to life threatening illnesses. His clinical practice with ketamine has informed his leadership role in the development of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy. Phil’s book The Ketamine Papers has been published by MAPS and is the seminal work in the burgeoning ketamine arena. Phil is a sixties activist, psychiatrist/psychotherapist, writer, practicing Buddhist and psychonaut who has lived in the Bay Area for 38 years. He is the author of Noe – A Father/Son Song of Love, Life, Illness and Death (2011, North Atlantic Books). In the 1980s, he participated in clinical research with MDMA (Ecstasy). He has been awarded five patents for unique herbal medicines. He is a journalist and author of numerous articles on politics, transformation, psychedelics, consciousness and spirit, and was a founding member of the Heffter Research Institute. Phil has taught in the graduate psychology programs at JFK University, CIIS and the UCSF School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry.
Julane Andries, LMFT
Julane Andries is a practicing psychotherapist in Marin County, Ca. She worked in acute care medicine before becoming a marriage family therapist. She is an investigator in the MAPS Phase 3 study using MDMA assisted psychotherapy for severe PTSD in San Francisco. She was the principle co-therapist for the MAPS sponsored, Phase 2 MDMA assisted psychotherapy study for individuals suffering from anxiety with life-threatening illness. She has been a pioneer in the development of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy
Her work is unique and is creative to the psychotherapy process using this medicine. She, along with others on their team, treats patients with treatment resistant depression, first line depression, anxiety and PTSD, as well as those seeking transformation.
She and Dr. Wolfson have founded a non-profit, Ketamine Research Foundation, whose mission is to provide training for practitioners, collect data to track outcomes with Ketamine therapy, starting a new protocol for using KAP for those diagnosed with a life threatening illness, and those in palliative and hospice care, research in lactating women and ketamine for post-partum depression, ketamine for PMS and other projects. Julane is also co-founder of the Ketamine Training Center and helps lead trainings across the country teaching practitioners in the skills used in KAP.
The first journal article for outcomes in KAP using data from our practice and 2 other associated practices has just been accepted for publication: Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP): Patient Demographics, Clinical Data
and Outcomes in Three Large Practices Administering Ketamine with
Psychotherapy
Julane has a passionate interest in understanding trauma, its impact on the mind and body, and in stimulating the healing process.
Co-Founder and Co-Therapist of KAP
Leader in the Ketamine Training Center
Ketamine Research Foundation – Board officer
Research in outcomes for KAP
Phase 2 and Phase 3 –Invesstigator/Co-therapist FDA trial for MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy for Severe PTSD and Life –Threatening Illness
Daniel Ahlers, MD
Daniel Ahlers, M.D. is a psychiatrist based in Sacramento, CA. He completed medical school near his hometown at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and his psychiatric residency training at the UC Davis Medical Center. He went on to pursue his passions with further training through the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and the Certification for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Dr. Ahlers honors the unique individuality of his patients, drawing from a variety of theoretical frameworks to support the individual’s innate healing process. He views his role as similar to that of a wilderness guide; he uses his experience with the process of exploring to be of assistance in discovering the mystery of his patients’ subjective experience, facing what is found on the path with curiosity and compassion, so that his patients’ self-healing ability may flourish.
Anahita Kashefi, LMFT
Anahita Kashefi is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Couples and Sex Therapist, and Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapist licensed in California, Utah, and Colorado.
She specializes in ketamine and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, depression, anxiety, relationship issues and issues unique to the creative field. Her approach is relational, attachment-based and in-depth, characterized by warmth, compassion and collaboration.
She’s had the privilege of completing Advanced Ketamine- Assisted Psychotherapy trainings with Dr. Phil Wolfson, a leader in pioneering the protocol for ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and author of “The Ketamine Papers,” whom she now works with at his ketamine clinic in the Bay Area.
Ms. Kashefi completed her education at a nationally accredited Marriage and Family Therapy program (CSUN) and her clinical training at the NESS Counseling Center, which gave her an opportunity to work with diverse clients from all walks of life. Here, she helped children and families healing from trauma, abuse, addiction, and mood disorders.
She has completed a post-Masters fellowship at UCLA in couples and sex therapy through The American Association of Couples and Sex Therapists (AACAST). Here, she had the privilege of learning from leading experts in the field of couples and sex therapy, where her training integrated the latest neuroscience and psychobiology research into the clinical approach of treating relational, couple and sexual issues.
Ms. Kashefi has been seeing patients in private practice the last 5 years at Beverly Hills Therapy Group, where she specializes in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, therapy for creatives and executives, and relationship counseling.
In addition to her work as a psychotherapist, Ms. Kashefi also studied music and is a seasoned musician and performer. Through these experiences, she understands the vulnerability, courage, and sacrifice it takes to pursue a creative career. She understands the ups and downs that can cause internal and external instability and how fear and damaging ideas can keep one from reaching their full potential. She helps creatives recognize, nurture, and heal their inner artist to integrate soul, spirit, and identity back into the whole person.
Julian Amaro
Julian Amaro is a Mind-Body Somatic coach, administrative assistant, training coordinator and assistant facilitator, and video producer.
He has been fortunate to combine many aspects of his life to bring different experiences and education into his work and magnify his impact with dynamic perspectives. As an artist, he spent time observing people, their behavior, and interactions. This, coupled with his father’s teachings of psychology as a child, served as a foundation for his passion and drive to assist individuals in the world of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and somatic healing.
Julian is trained in Assistant Facilitation of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, Hakomi Essential Skills, and is currently studying to become a certified Psychedelic Facilitator of Ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin with the SoundMind Institute.