Coping or Contact?

The Distinction That Matters Most in Today’s Healing Field

A message for seekers, clinicians, and a field in flux

By Rachel Leah Ismaili

Depth Healer · Occupational Therapist · Private Practice, NJ

Let’s name what’s rarely said aloud:

Some clients come to therapy for tools, perspective, and coping.

Others come for something far deeper:

Contact. Soul presence.

To be met in the place where their stories have never been witnessed clearly.

And the harm happens when the lines between these two spaces are blurred—especially now, in a field changed by the rise of psychedelics and a flood of new modalities.

What Some Clients Want—And Deserve

There is no shame in wanting steadiness.

Many of my clients come seeking:

Emotional regulation

Life rebalancing

Compassionate presence

A safe place to be heard and supported

This is real work. It helps. It heals.

And I offer it gladly.

But there are others—maybe you—who come with more:

Symbolic grief

Longing that can’t be easily named

Spiritual dislocation

Erotic or archetypal transference

Wounds from therapy that promised depth but delivered collapse

For those clients, coping isn’t enough.

They are not asking only for tools.

They are asking:

“If I bring the most tender, complex, sacred parts of me—will you stay?”

When Contact Is Promised, But Not Held

Here is the breach I see too often in my practice:

Clients come to me after a psychedelic experience, a somatic process, or a “spiritual” therapy that opened them—and then abandoned them.

The space seemed soulful on the surface.

But when intensity arose, the facilitator or therapist:

Ghosted

Collapsed

Pathologized

Or reframed the client’s experience as inappropriate, unstable, or “not mine to hold”

This isn’t a clinical misstep.

It’s a relational and ethical rupture.

And the damage often runs deeper than the original wound.

My Practice: Holding Both

I work at the intersection of containment and contact.

Some clients come to me for stabilizing support. Others come for Depth Healing, Soulwork, or Embodied Integration—especially after a betrayal in a prior therapeutic or psychedelic space.

No matter the doorway, what I offer is attunement.

I don’t force depth where it isn’t wanted.

And I don’t flinch when it shows up.

Whether you need a steady presence or a place to process symbolic fire—this practice is built to hold both.

A Word to the Field

Therapists, coaches, facilitators—especially those engaging with altered states or somatic modalities:

You must know what kind of space you are truly offering.

If you offer containment, own that. It’s powerful.

If you offer contact, build the vessel. It’s demanding.

If you’re offering both, make the distinctions clear—to your clients and to yourself.

Because when a client brings their soul, and you meet them with a coping script and a closed nervous system, the rupture is not just disappointing.

It’s retraumatizing.

The field must evolve—not just in methods, but in self-honesty.

The Sovereign Flame™️

As an outgrowth of this work, I created The Sovereign Flame™️—a transformational seminar for those ready to build soul integrity in the way they live, lead, and hold others.

But at the center of it all is my private work:

Real people. Real stories. Real presence.

If you’re ready—whether for steady support or deep integration—you are welcome here.

➤ To inquire about private sessions or schedule an initial consultation, text 516-375-9349

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