“Skin contains land and birds”: Understanding inner healing intelligence through critical vitalism and Indigenous thought

Inner healing intelligence (IHI) is a foundational concept in psychedelic-assisted therapy, describing an innate tendency toward healing. This paper expands IHI by drawing on vitalism and Indigenous philosophy from the Americas, conceptualizing it as an individual's capacity to engage with a vital life force specific to place and the more-than-human relationships that constitute the extended self. The authors invite the psychedelic therapy community to take IHI seriously and explore its implications, rather than offering a prescriptive framework. They foreground ontological and ethical consequences, suggesting this perspective can enrich therapeutic practice and support collective aspirations of the psychedelic renaissance, while proposing recommendations for a more emplaced, embodied, and relational enactment of IHI.

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Abstract

Inner healing intelligence (IHI) is a foundational orienting concept in the psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) field that refers to the innate tendency of living beings to move towards healing. In this paper, we introduce an expanded articulation of IHI, drawing largely on vitalism and Indigenous philosophy from the Americas. We conceptualize IHI as the innate capacity of an individual to move towards healing by engaging with the vital life force of existence specific to place and intrinsic to the myriad more-than-human relationships that constitute the extended self. Rather than presenting a prescriptive framework, our aim is to invite the PAT community to take IHI seriously and to imaginatively explore the implications of this expanded view. We offer this articulation not to define or delimit the concept, but to contribute to a broader, ongoing conversation about the relational and ecological dimensions of healing. By foregrounding the ontological and ethical consequences of IHI, we suggest that this perspective can enrich therapeutic practice and support the collective aspirations of the psychedelic renaissance. To this end, we propose several recommendations for how a more emplaced, embodied, and relational enactment of IHI might unfold in practice, while pointing to future directions for inquiry that resists closure.