Kylea Taylor, M.S., LMFT, found two gaps in ethics education in the early 1990s while simultaneously studying to be a Marriage and Family Therapist and working as a senior trainer at the Grof Transpersonal Training where she assisted Stanislav Grof in training practitioners of Holotropic Breathwork®. Kylea observed that working with clients in non-ordinary states of consciousness requires different ethical awarenesses. She drew upon the tenets of several of the great religions to create InnerEthics™, a model for ethical self-reflection. The model clarifies the unique ethical territory of understanding and working skillfully with people who are experiencing profound and extra-ordinary states of consciousness and also provides a scaffolding for recognizing our semi-conscious, inner motivations as practitioners, teachers, and caregivers in order to avoid client and student harm and increase client and student benefit. Her book, The Ethics of Caring: Finding Right Relationship With Clients for Profound, Transformative Work in Our Professional Healing Relationships, illuminates transference, countertransference, power dynamics, dual relationship, and other topics important to relational ethics. The book won the 2017 Nautilus Book Award in the category, “Relationships & Communication.”

Kylea teaches, writes, and consults about ethics. She is also currently President and co-founder of SoulCollage Inc., which since 2003 has been training facilitators worldwide to share an expressive arts method that promotes deep self-discovery, individually and in community. Kylea’s focus as a therapist has been on assisting clients in integrating the meaning and extra-ordinary gifts of spiritual emergence, awakening or transpersonal experiences, and what she calls “personal paradigm shift” phenomena.

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Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Summary and transcript of this interview

Interview recorded May 18, 2019.

YouTube Video Chapters:

00:00:00 - Introduction to Kylea Taylor and InnerEthics

00:03:14 - The Importance of Inner Motivations in Ethics

00:07:14 - Changing the Culture: A Mission for Ethical Behavior

00:10:29 - Development and Impediments in Different Ways

00:13:36 - Right Relationship and Learning from Mistakes

00:16:56 - The Interconnectedness of All Beings

00:20:24 - An Ethical Crisis in the Spiritual Community

00:24:14 - The Importance of Discernment in Spiritual Teachers

00:27:26 - Peer Supervision and the Johari Window

00:31:22 - The Importance of Self-Reflection for Teachers

00:34:39 - Power dynamics in spiritual communities

00:38:27 - Ethical Fading and the Detriment to Clients

00:42:01 - The Rajneesh community and the ethics of the student

00:45:13 - The Importance of Protection, Permission, and Connection

00:49:28 - Healing from Spiritual Wounding and Trauma

00:53:27 - Non-traditional therapy for PTSD

00:57:47 - Trusting the Inner Healer in Psychedelic Therapy

01:01:29 - Holotropic Breathwork and Psychedelics Comparison

01:05:33 - The Mechanics of Holotropic Breathwork and Prana Awakening

01:09:12 - A Powerful Kundalini Opening

01:13:07 - Caution in Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness

01:16:25 - Moving towards positive change with #MeToo movement

01:20:01 - Types of Individuals Who Might Benefit from Self-Reflection

01:23:51 - Learning from Mistakes and Apologizing

01:27:08 - Redemption and Transformation

01:31:10 - The InnerEthics Model and Self-Reflection

01:35:15 - Switching Hats: Finding Balance in Therapy

01:38:46 - The Importance of Ethics in Spiritual Development

01:42:21 - Different Experiences in Spiritual Emergence

01:46:06 - Surrendering Control

01:49:45 - Justification through illusion