Working at the Edge: How to Stay Grounded When Clients Are in Altered States

nanhebert
Jul 7
3 min read

Attunement, containment, and the courage to not rush the mystery.

“The edge is where transformation lives—not in the comfort zone, not in chaos, but in the trembling space between.”

As therapists, guides, facilitators, and seekers, we all encounter moments when the terrain becomes unfamiliar. A client drops into trance. A memory surfaces without words. The room thickens with sensation. A tremor begins that isn’t just physical. You know you’re at the edge.

The edge is where deep work happens—where contact meets the unknown, and where the psyche begins to reorganize itself.

It’s sacred ground.

It’s also tender.

And it’s our job to stay rooted.

What Is the Edge?

The edge isn’t pathology—it’s potency. In Gestalt terms, it’s the place where contact with something new begins to emerge, but hasn’t fully formed. In somatic terms, it may feel like activation in the nervous system, an upwelling of energy, a shutdown, a collapse—or a breakthrough just on the horizon.

In psychedelic states, trauma work, breathwork, ritual, or spontaneous regression, this edge can be dramatic or barely perceptible. But it always holds an invitation.

And our task is not to fix it, analyze it, or push it forward.

Our task is to stay with it.

Working at the Edge: How to Stay Grounded When Clients Are in Altered States

Staying Grounded: Practices and Principles

Whether you are a clinician holding space, or a seeker navigating your own process, here are a few guideposts I return to when things go deep:

1. Stay in Your Body First

You can’t track someone else’s altered state unless you’re in your own. Before doing anything, I check my breath. My feet. My spine. I orient to the room. I remind my own nervous system: we’re here, now, and there is enough.

2. Attune, Don’t Intervene

The impulse to help can actually pull someone out of process. Often, what’s needed is co-regulation, not redirection. Slowing down. Naming what’s happening without interpretation. “I notice your hands are trembling.” “Something feels very still right now.” Let their system lead.

3. Trust the Body’s Intelligence

The body won’t take someone where they’re not ready to go—but it may ask us to sit in the unknown longer than we’d like. Titration is everything. So is consent. Never override a client’s pacing for the sake of catharsis.

4. Contain Without Contracting

Containment doesn’t mean shutting it down—it means holding it well. You might offer grounding, a boundary, or simply your steady presence. You might say, “You’re doing great. We can slow this down together.” Containment is a form of love.

5. Let Silence Speak

When in doubt, wait. So much unfolds in the stillness. Trust that integration is happening beneath the surface, even if no one’s saying much. Especially then.

For Clinicians: You Don’t Have to Know Everything

One of the most liberating truths I’ve learned—especially in psychedelic integration, somatic depth work, and trauma repair—is that you don’t have to know what’s happening. You just have to be with what’s happening.

Presence is more regulating than any technique.

Respect is more important than interpretation.

And nervous system co-regulation is often more effective than insight.

For Seekers: Your Body Knows the Way

If you’re someone who journeys in altered states—whether through medicine, movement, meditation, or breath—remember that integration begins with relationship to your body. Learn your rhythms. Know your signals. Don’t go it alone. Find a guide who honors pacing, complexity, and your right to choose.

The Edge Is Not a Problem—It’s a Portal

Working at the edge takes humility, skill, and devotion. It asks us to be both fierce and soft, both steady and surrendered. Whether we are guiding others or walking through the fire ourselves, we are in sacred territory.

The work is not to push through, but to listen deeply.

To honor what arises.

And to trust that something new is becoming—cell by cell, breath by breath, moment by moment.

If you’re a therapist, facilitator, or practitioner working in altered states and want mentorship or nervous system support, reach out. If you’re a seeker in the midst of integration, I offer attuned, body-based care for the long unfolding. You don’t have to hold it alone.

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This path is nonlinear, but you don’t have to walk it in isolation. Reach out!