Psychedelic Therapy and Me

I had a blog back in 2009 when blogging was very popular. I used it at the time to process a big transition, and it ended up helping some people along the way. My husband keeps encouraging me to start again to talk about psychedelic therapy, so here I am. And here you are, too, so welcome. I want to take this first blog as an opportunity to share my introduction into the realm of psychedelic therapy. I have been a practicing therapist for nine years now. I love this work so much and I count myself as one of the lucky ones who get to do what they love for a living. I have extensive experience working with trauma, anxiety, depression, and relationship stress. I love working experientially with clients—lots of emotion and body work. I heard about psychedelic therapy when I discovered my husband reading How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollen. The man is not an avid reader, but a friend had told him about their own life-changing experience with psychedelics. My husband was nervous to talk to me about it because of my hard stance on drugs at the time. I was Valedictorian of the D.A.R.E. program, lost my father to addiction, and refused to even take Tylenol. I had four children natural to avoid drugs. So his nerves made sense. But I read the book. And my first reaction was anger at my grad school program for never once mentioning psychedelic therapy. So many of the founding fathers of therapeutic models had tried it. Scientists discovered serotonin during psychedelic therapy trials. Do you know how many people are on SSRIs in this country? It was wild to me. So I committed myself to learn more about it. I love learning, so I started racking up hours of trainings on the subject. I was fascinated by the neuroscience AND the results I was seeing in research. I remember feeling gob smacked by videos of clients both talking about their experiences and clients during the actual sessions. I kept thinking how the use of psychedelics was allowing therapists to move clients out of pain at a substantially faster pace. Some things that could take years to access in traditional therapy were happening for clients in a few sessions. I want that for my clients. I want my clients to feel symptom relief as quickly as possible. I want my clients to be able to access blocked parts more quickly. I want my clients to have access to their inner healers right out of the gate.