The Rebel Therapist Who Chose a Guitar Over a License

Based on a podcast with Jon Otorhongo and host Philipp Kobald

Some people chase titles like they’re Pokémon cards. Therapist. Specialist. Certified Something-Or-Other. Then there’s Jon Otorhongo — who stared down the rulebook, politely handed it back, and decided healing shouldn’t come with a state border stamped on it. If you’re wondering whether that makes him reckless or visionary, you’re in the right place.

“This is the path of the warrior for the people who are ready to really break through some really challenging things,” Jon told host Philipp Kobald during their conversation on Spiritual Conversation, the HolisticCircle podcast. A warrior, yes. But one with a guitar slung across his back.

From Couch to Counterculture

Jon started out as a psychotherapist, even venturing into the rapidly expanding field of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. These sessions weren’t about trendy Silicon Valley microdosing — they were ceremonial, led by indigenous elders, designed to crack open the walls of the psyche where talk therapy hit a dead end.

But paperwork, licensing restrictions, and the clinical straightjacket of the profession left him restless. “There’s laws that control and restrict where, who I can work with, you know, when I can work,” he explained. And so he left. Not because therapy wasn’t powerful, but because the bureaucracy had the audacity to tell him who he could and could not help.

As Philipp quipped mid-interview, “Well, all you have to become is a robot and you can therapy anyone in the world.” The irony wasn’t lost.

Branding as a Spiritual Rebellion

Personal branding, in most contexts, smells of hashtags and hustle culture. But for Jon, building his own name isn’t about self-promotion; it’s about self-expression. “I become the brand, not in the egoic way, but at the heart of it,” he said.

For him, creating a brand is both a business decision and a sacred act of rebellion against systems that prize compliance over calling. It’s the warrior path reframed for a generation allergic to cubicles. And when Philipp pressed him on whether brand-building could ever co-exist with genuine community, Jon didn’t hesitate: the brand isn’t the end point — it’s the magnet that gathers people into something bigger than himself.

Imposter Syndrome: The Graveyard of Dreams

Enter his current work: helping people who ache to do something meaningful but are paralyzed by the inner critic. Jon quoted motivational speaker Les Brown: the richest place on earth is the graveyard, where unwritten books and unsung songs are buried alongside their dreamers.

Imposter syndrome, he argues, is rarely about skill — it’s about wounds. Childhood criticism, rigid societal scripts, and emotional neglect conspire to make even the most qualified people feel fraudulent. His mission? To help people cross that psychological minefield so they can finally bring their work into the world.

It’s not just one-on-one coaching. Jon is building a course, an online community, and eventually retreats designed to create the kind of supportive ecosystems that keep dreamers alive when their families, friends, and bosses tell them they’re mad.

Sleeping Through the Apocalypse

Jon doesn’t mince words about the state of humanity: “I believe that the majority of people are in a deep sleep in a hypnotic state and they don’t know who they are.”

It’s not just poetic angst. Generational trauma, disconnection from nature, and relentless societal conditioning all weave a spell that keeps people docile. We’re educated into conformity, medicated into numbness, and distracted into oblivion. Waking up isn’t comfortable. It rarely comes without a jolt — a plant medicine ceremony, a life crisis, a moment of terrifying clarity. But Jon insists that the discomfort is the doorway. Awakening means walking back to the roots, kneeling in the dirt, and realizing the divine never left.

Harmonizing With the Universe

For Jon, music isn’t a hobby — it’s a portal. He grew up with a guitar, lost it during rougher years, and found it again in ceremonies where sound and spirit intertwined. Now it’s one of his most powerful tools for healing. Music, he argues, teaches community in a way therapy manuals never could. To jam is to listen. To harmonize is to set aside ego. To sing in chorus is to remember what it feels like to belong.

Philipp pushed the idea further, half-provocative, half-playful: maybe music is the reason Jon is even capable of leading community. After all, dictators rarely jam. Jon laughed but didn’t disagree. “Everyone just plays their note, you play your song in harmony, and it creates this collective symphony of magic,” he said.

From chanting that activates the vagus nerve to full-bodied dance that shakes trauma loose, Jon frames music as humanity’s oldest medicine — one we keep rediscovering because it never stops working.

The Warrior’s Community

The romanticism ends where reality begins. Families tell you to “get a real job.” Friends roll their eyes. The bills arrive. “If you want to go after something more spiritual in nature and try to make a living off of it, you’re gonna be challenged to your core,” Jon admitted. That’s why community isn’t optional — it’s survival.

It’s also why his retreats matter. They aren’t just weekends away; they’re training grounds where people remember that rebellion doesn’t have to be lonely. The warrior becomes a chorus.

The Spark That Refuses to Die

What makes Jon compelling isn’t just his story of leaving psychotherapy for music and mentorship. It’s that he embodies a contradiction: fiercely individual yet radically communal, deeply spiritual yet utterly irreverent about the systems that try to contain it. He is the therapist who walked away, the musician who walked back, the warrior who insists that strength looks like humility.

And maybe that’s why the conversation with Philipp lingers. It’s not polished inspiration. It’s messy, alive, and inconvenient — exactly what waking up tends to feel like.

Watch the full episode on the @HolisticCircle YouTube channel.

Guest Bio: Jon Otorhongo is a San Diego–based former psychotherapist who left the field’s restrictions to create a personal brand blending mentorship, spirituality, entrepreneurship, and music.

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By Philipp Kobald in cooperation with AI
www.HolisticCircle.org
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