238 - The Deathbed Reckoning: Facing Unhealed Trauma and Family Wounds at the End w/ Kat Courtney

238 - The Deathbed Reckoning: Facing Unhealed Trauma and Family Wounds at the End w/ Kat Courtney

From Adult Child by Andrea Ashley

July 9, 2026 · 1h 14m

About this episode

The episode discusses the insights of a death doula on confronting unhealed trauma and family wounds during a parent's final moments.

A death doula shares what really happens between a toxic parent and their child in the parent's final moments. Kat Courtney is a death doula and plant medicine facilitator who has sat with dozens of people in their final moments. After a childhood spent people-pleasing a father who only wanted the happy version of her, a near-death experience in her early twenties, and years of using ayahuasca to finally face the family wounds she'd normalized her whole life, she learned that the things we run from don't disappear - they wait. This is a conversation about what surfaces at the very end, when the body lets go and the truth we've avoided our entire lives finally has nowhere left to hide. ✨ What this episode explores: ▪️ When Repair Becomes Possible — Why for some people, truly healing a relationship with a parent only happens after they've died, and how to do it. ▪️ The Final Conversation — The apologies and accountability that can come from a dying parent, and why healing is still possible when they don't. ▪️ The Trauma You Avoided Your Entire Life— Why someone who spent their whole life avoiding their pain can suddenly confront it on their deathbed. ▪️ The Power of Ibogaine — Why…

People in this episode

Host: Andrea Ashley

Guest: Kat Courtney

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: ayahuasca, Ibogaine

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