The Transformational Potential of Psychedelic Psychotherapy

Are you living the life you’re meant to be living, or fulfilling somebody else’s ideas of who you should be? Would you like to learn what’s true for you beneath the programming, while healing old wounds that keep you living in cycles of trauma, depression, and anxiety?

These questions drive most people who come to psychedelic psychotherapy.

Although many of my clients talk about not wanting to feel anxious or depressed, their underlying motivation for engaging in this type of therapy is wanting to feel fully alive, to feel more engaged in their own life, and to be the person their heart knows them to be.

The psychedelic experience is not all pretty lights, fanciful geometric shapes, elves in the machinery, and blissed-out experiences of the universe (but all those things may happen!) At the deepest level, psychedelic psychotherapy exposes our core wounds and uncovers the most authentic version of ourselves through the healing process.

The work is hard, grueling even, at times. But it is also beautiful and full of splendor, awe, and, ultimately, love. In the end, an individual might even discover they love who they are—and what a relief and joy that is. Like any arduous journey into the depths of a wild forest, there are mysteries and miracles, meetings with allies and adversaries, lanterns to guide us, and dense fog that obscures the path and causes us to lose our way; fear and courage arise simultaneously.

All in the service of healing and growth.

How Does Psychedelic Therapy Work?

Psychedelic medicines work by giving us a felt sense of belonging and interconnectedness with the greater universe and by dissolving the defending ego, which allows us to feel and explore the parts of ourselves that we’ve hidden away in shame and fear. The accompanying therapy helps us make sense of the experiences and insights gained while we are on the medicine. Traditional talk therapy cannot offer these direct experiences of ourselves and the world in which we live.

It is important to mention here that not everyone is suited to use psychedelics or engage in psychedelic psychotherapy. Great care must be taken during the initial intake process to ensure that the client and these medicines, and this type of therapy, work together well. There are both medical and psychological risks with all medicines, including psychedelics. Because each psychedelic medicine works on different receptors of the brain and within our physiology, it is important to understand the contraindications and risks of each before choosing to use a medicine in therapy.

Psychedelic medicine and the accompanying psychotherapy are changing the mental health field. This therapy promotes greater overall well-being by increasing our sense of belonging and connection to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us. We experience firsthand the unconditional love for ourselves we’ve been waiting for and were always hoping to receive from other people.

So many of our core wounds and traumas create beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world that become programmed into our personality as fixed and seemingly permanent features. Even though these negative self-beliefs do not serve us, and usually cause us great harm, we continue to reinforce these detrimental limiting beliefs, which creates fatal misalignments in our life. These misalignments ultimately are the cause of depression, anxiety, and existential dread, and they underlie many other chronic mental and physical health disorders. Indeed, these are the issues that my clients are seeking relief from.

How Is This Therapy Different?

Traditional talk therapies, and especially the cognitively focused ones, tend to inadvertently minimize why we suffer and, more importantly, miss so much of what it means to be fully human. These types of therapies not only miss the mark but just do not work the way we need them to. Psychedelic psychotherapy is a dynamic, collaborative, ever-changing, engaging, expansive, and integrative experience that uncovers what it truly means to be human.

Its aim is fourfold:

1. Target and heal hidden core wounds that cause chronic psychospiritual suffering in the form of depression, anxiety, and trauma responses that make life difficult.
2. Help us discover, speak, and live our deepest truths, thus aligning us with our heart’s values and helping us live authentically.
3. Teach us to love and accept ourselves unconditionally.
4. Connect us to the greater universe, increasing our sense of belonging.

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These four outcomes can significantly decrease symptoms of depression, anxiety, and trauma and increase our sense of well-being in a variety of ways.

What Is Addressed in This Therapy?

Although not an exhaustive list, these are some conditions that may arise in session and call for therapeutic attention.

• Our relationship with our body
• Untended grief
• Core wounds
• Limiting beliefs
• Traumatic events, memories and experiences
• Struggles and pains of the inner child
• Ancestral traumas and conditioning
• Disconnection from the heart, and what it means to be human
• Disenchanted imagination
• Dominating personality styles

A short list of some of what we might gain during a session:

• A sense of deep peace
• Connection to ourselves and the world around us
• Awe, wonder, and amazement for what is within us
• A deeper understanding of our own behaviors and beliefs, and the context that created them
• Touching our innate lost innocence
• An opportunity to practice self-compassion and feel unconditional love
• Relief for expressing ourselves without holding back

How We Change

As we learn to witness ourselves while in psychedelic psychotherapy, our personality and relationship styles, habits, and conditions become so readily observable, it is almost impossible to deny how we create our own reality. This is where I see clients becoming accountable for their actions and the ways of being that affect them negatively. This is also where I see the personality changes so necessary to moving toward a healthy and positive way of being take effect.

When our behaviors, habits of mind, and relationship styles come into clear focus, we can change them ourselves. As we become more grounded in our truth, we feel confident and empowered and see that there is no reason to please or fight with others. It is then that we can choose healthier behaviors, perceptions, thoughts, and communication styles that benefit us and others.

In my next post, I will describe in detail the phases of psychedelic psychotherapy: intake and screening process; preparation; therapeutic sessions; navigating difficult experiences; exploring psyche and cosmos, integration, and finally, embodiment.