As of April 20th, 2026

 

I am Mae Ana Sefami. Ana is pronounced 'Ah-na'. I am a writer, psychotherapist, and theorist working at the intersection of psychoanalysis, contemporary traumatic stress studies, the philosophy of science, and relational field dynamics. All my work is grounded in The Conditions for Freedom of Perception, a framework I inferred from first principles in response to pervasive perceptual capture across the paradigms that claim authority over human becoming. This framework articulates how to sustain perception that is genuinely alive and responsive to reality, and thus dynamically ethical. Synthesis across domains and precision in naming patterns are my primary modes of thought—I trace and illuminate the real structures that run across frameworks, and find words that make these structures visible. My bedrock commitments are to ethics, accuracy, (witnessing) protection, and compassion. 

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My mind is complexly dissociated, shaped by deep trauma. It is also coherent, vital, and spacious — and that combination has given me perceptual access to the interior of transformation. As such, my work is irreducibly formed by my proximity to trauma, the light I’ve found in healing, and the love I have for all those braving the dark while holding to truth and goodness.

The stars I am following currently take the shape of three projects: Ethical ISTDP, Healing Fluency School, and My Friend Ibogaine. Ethical ISTDP is an advocacy and accountability project naming the generational transmission of disavowal as the pillar defense across the lineage of ISTDP. Healing Fluency School is an educational project re-associating the field of psychotherapy through its shared underlying grammar. My Friend Ibogaine is more expansive and more personal—a gift of wayfinding and illumination, of sharing my vision so that others may find
their way.