The Art of Loving Well
October 30, 2019
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Dr. Lisa Gold is a relationship, sex, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist who works with the whole person — mind, body, heart, spirit, and relationships. She integrates attachment-based, trauma-informed therapy with non-ordinary states of consciousness to support nervous system regulation and authentic emotional connection. Her work is grounded in decades of clinical training and guided by a deep belief that love and connection are biological needs, not luxuries.
An AASECT-certified sex therapist, she specializes in relational psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (KAP and PAP), collaborating with medical practitioners to deliver bespoke integrative therapy, consultation, intensives, and retreats. Her work creates corrective emotional experiences that reshape attachment patterns at their root. Licensed in Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, and Utah, she integrates Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), EMDR, somatic practices, breathwork, and psychedelic medicine to help individuals and couples move from survival into secure, embodied connection.
Her integrative model, Soul Surfing®, is a unique relational approach to KAP designed to create experiences more similar in depth and transformation to the classic psychedelics. While she specializes in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP), she completed the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) MDMA-assisted therapy training and is certified in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy through the California Institute of Integral Studies. She provides preparation, integration, and therapeutic support across the full range of psychedelic medicines and offers retreats for these medicines in locations where they are legally available for treatment.
Trained directly by Sue Johnson, Dr. Gold became the first Certified EFT Therapist and first EFT Supervisor in Arizona. She played a foundational role in bringing EFT to the state — supporting the first Externship and Core Skills trainings, mentoring the first generation of AZEFT therapists, co-founding the Arizona EFT Community, and serving on the AZEFT board from its inception until 2016.
In 2013, she established the Arizona Relationship Institute (AZRI) as an EFT- and EMDR-based integrative therapy agency. In 2020, she sold AZRI to its current owner, Patricia Martineau, to expand Soul Surfing internationally. She continues as AZRI’s Director of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy Training and Intensives, and AZRI remains the U.S. home for Soul Surfing PAP trainings.
Her passion is training and consulting with KAP therapists and curating bespoke destination PAP retreats and intensives for clients. She integrates time in nature and visits to historical and sacred sites into these healing experiences in beautiful locations around the world.
Clinica Synaptica in Barcelona, Spain, serves as the international base for Soul Surfing. She has trained the Clinica Synaptica therapists in her approach and collaborates with them in providing Soul Surfing Relational PAP therapist trainings and PAP retreats for clients.
She presents internationally at conferences including ASKP3, AASECT, ICEEFT, and Mindvalley University. She teaches her Soul Surfing Relational KAP approach as part of Philip Wolfson (author of The Ketamine Papers) KAP Therapist Training with Clinica Synaptica.
Soul Surfing emphasizes preparation as the foundation of lasting transformation: learning to consciously calm the nervous system, softening defensive protection, and intentionally directing energy toward healing and fulfillment.
Her guiding philosophy is simple and highly effective:
Calm your body. Soften your heart. Open your mind. Free your spirit.
She has developed an asynchronous online PAP preparation program, Soul Surfing Psychedelics: Resiliently Riding the Waves of Life, which clients and therapists can complete together or independently as part of their preparation. The program provides guided scaffolding for meaningful assessment and intentional preparation, focusing on the most relevant information necessary to optimize desired change.
Her forthcoming book, co-authored with Danna Skoy, Ketamine Curious: How This Legal Psychedelic Medicine Can Transform Trauma and Insecure Attachment into Healing and Growth, will be released in Summer 2026.
Dr. Gold’s work on relationships and sexual intimacy, and her work on training relationship therapists in these areas of specialization, have been published in professional journals, and presented at national and international professional conferences, She has trained personally with Dr. Sue Johnson, author of Hold Me Tight® and Lovesense and founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy.
In 2014, Dr. Gold founded The Arizona Relationship Institute (AZRI) : An integrated treatment outpatient facility providing EFT and EMDR integrated treatment to individuals, couples, families and groups. She served as the executive director for AZRI until 2021, training and supervising the therapists. She continues to serve as Director of Training, providing ongoing training and consulting to the AZRI therapists on EFST, EFT Integrated Treatment and Psychedelic Integrated Treatment.
Dr. Gold provides trainings for therapists on using EFT and integrating EFT with other therapy models and modalities, in treating emotional and sexual intimacy. She teaches therapists to assist individuals and couples in healing from various forms of trauma and conditioning that impair their ability to create a secure, passionate, intimate connection. She was Arizona’s first EFT certified therapist and first Arizona EFT supervisor, and was instrumental in bringing the first EFT trainings to Arizona. She is also a founding member of The Arizona EFT Community, serving on the board for many years, and assisted with the AZEFT Externship and Core Skills trainings. Dr. Gold has taught at several universities and colleges, including teaching and providing supervision in the Marriage and Family Therapy program at Virginia Tech. She has also served as an expert consultant for the Phoenix and Mesa Veterans’ Centers.
