Today we’d like to introduce you to Shira Myrow.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve spent the better part of two decades helping couples navigate the tender, often tangled terrain of intimacy, conflict, and repair. As a psychotherapist in private practice in Santa Monica, my work has always centered on what it means to stay connected, to ourselves and to each other, especially in the face of the immense complexity of the world we live in .
Through my practice, Shira Myrow Therapy, I’ve drawn deeply from attachment theory, trauma-informed care, and relational frameworks like EFT and Terry Real’s RLT to help people release old patterns and rediscover the safety and vulnerability that make intimacy possible.
But over time, I began to sense the limits of talk therapy alone. Many couples could articulate their issues beautifully, yet could not fully dismantle their defenses or protective wiring of their nervous systems, It kept them from breaking through. That’s what led me to explore the emerging field of psychedelic-assisted therapy as a powerful adjunct to traditional modalities.
What I didn’t anticipate was how profoundly my own healing experiences with psychedelic-assisted therapy would change me, both personally and professionally. After years of conventional therapy and deep inner work, I couldn’t have imagined that I would one day be in this space, let alone become an advocate for its extraordinary healing potential.
These experiences illuminated my embedded defenses and helped me process old traumas that I could never fully access. Psychedelic therapy reconnected me to a felt sense of love, safety, and wholeness that transformed the way I show up, in my own relationships and in my clinical work.
In 2022, I co-founded Integrative Psychedelic Therapy with my colleague Dr. Alexa Altman, a trauma informed, somatic psychologist and MAPS-trained facilitator as well. Together, we’ve built a space for education, consultation, and integration, bridging the worlds of neuroscience, spirituality, and relational healing. Our mission is to help individuals and couples prepare for, and integrate, transformative experiences with expanded states of consciousness in ways that are ethical, trauma-informed, and grounded in real-world relationships.
While we currently offer psychedelic integration and legal ketamine therapy, we’re laying the groundwork for the day when either the FDA or California legalizes regulated psychedelic-assisted couples therapy. This work has extraordinary potential to help couples move beyond defensiveness and fear into profound empathy and connection, to experience what I call “a corrective attachment experience.” It’s not about escape or euphoria, but about softening the protective systems that block love, and help us remember our innate capacity for connection.
Dr. Altman and I are now expanding our offerings: clinical education for therapists, integration circles, and womens’ retreats, Our vision is to pioneer an integrative model that merges the best of relational science with the wisdom that psychedelic experiences can unlock.At its heart, this is the same calling that’s guided my work from the beginning, to help people learn how to love and be loved and to be fully awake to their lives.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not at all. It’s actually been a really challenging road. Many of us in this field thought the FDA would approve MDMA-assisted therapy this year, especially after such strong results from the Phase 3 clinical trials led by MAPS. The outcomes were remarkable. Participants with treatment-resistant PTSD showed an 88% reduction in symptoms, and about two-thirds no longer met the criteria for PTSD after the study (MAPS, 2021).
So when the FDA delayed approval, it was a big disappointment for many of us who see how profoundly healing this work can be. It looks like psychedelic-assisted therapy will roll out more slowly, probably more like cannabis did, state by state, rather than all at once on the federal level. Oregon and Colorado have been the trail blazer states thus far.
That means this next chapter requires a lot of patience, perseverance, and responsibility. I feel strongly that this field needs clear regulation and ethical guidelines for practitioners. Psychedelics have tremendous therapeutic potential, but I don’t think they should be for recreational use. The work is sacred. It deserves thoughtful, trauma-informed care and professional oversight to ensure that people are supported safely in these expanded states of consciousness.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a psychotherapist who helps people navigate the complex terrain of love and connection. My work sits at the intersection of attachment, trauma, and relational repair, helping couples and individuals move beyond protective patterns into deeper emotional intimacy and presence.
I’m deeply interested in how we renegotiate love in the modern world, how to balance the competing mandates of self-empowerment and service, individual autonomy and the desire for connection. Relationships require collaboration, yet that’s exponentially harder in a digital culture that fragments our attention and erodes our capacity to be fully present, with ourselves and with each other.
What sets my work apart is how I view relationships as living narrative ecosystems, not problems to fix, but systems that are always seeking to evolve. I help people surface and transform the unconscious stories that keep them stuck and learn how to hold the tensions that can’t be resolved with maturity, mutuality and compassion. Psychedelic states can amplify this process, opening windows of neuro-plasticity and deep emotional access that we simply can’t reach through cognition and conventional therapy alone.
After my own profound healing experiences with psychedelic-assisted therapy, I co-founded Integrative Psychedelic Therapy with Dr. Alexa Altman. Together, we’re exploring how these expanded states can facilitate what corrective attachment experiences when partners feel safe enough to open, soften, and truly see each other with compassion and vulnerability.
What I’m most proud of is being able to hold space for people to work through some of the most profound questions and traumas within themselves and with each other and come out on the other side with such a sense of clarity and sovereignty. I believe that most of us have the intrinsic capacity to heal, to love and be loved.
What’s next?
We have a podcast in development and have retreats and community events coming up for next year. There’s a lot! You can check out the website for updates.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.shiramyrowtherapy.com & https://www.i-psychedelic.com
- Instagram: @shiramyrow_mft & @i.psychedelic.ipt
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shira-myrow-pscyhotherapist-ma-lmft-5663522a/
Image Credits
Ken Dolin for the Head Shot
Please see my website i-psychedelic.com or shiramyrowtherapy.com for additional images to use?
