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Psychedelics and Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Expanded States - Softcover

 
9781644113325: Psychedelics and Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Expanded States
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1644113325 ISBN 13: 9781644113325
Verlag: Park Street Press, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

An exploration of the latest developments from the flourishing field of modern psychedelic psychotherapy

• Examines the therapeutic potential of expanded states, underground psychedelic psychotherapy, harm reduction, new approaches for healing individual and collective trauma, and training considerations

• Addresses challenging psychedelic experiences, spiritual emergencies, and the central importance of the therapeutic relationship

• Details the use of cannabis as a psychedelic tool, spiritual exploration with LSD, micro-dosing with Iboga, and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD

Exploring the latest developments in the flourishing field of modern psychedelic psycho-therapy, this book shares practical experiences and insights from both elders and newer research voices in the psychedelic research and clinical communities.

The contributors examine new findings on safe and skillful work with psychedelic and expanded states for therapeutic, personal, and spiritual growth. They explain the dual process of opening and healing. They explore new approaches for individual inner work as well as for the healing of ancestral and collective trauma. They examine the power of expanded states for reparative attachment work and offer insights on the integration process through the lens of Holotropic Breathwork. The contributors also examine the use of cannabis as a psychedelic tool, spiritual exploration with LSD, microdosing with Iboga, treating depression with psilocybin, and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD.

Revealing diverse ways of working with psychedelics in terms of set, setting, and type of substance, the book concludes with discussions of ethics and professional development for those working in the field as well as explores considerations for training the next generation of psychedelic therapists.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Tim Read, M.D., is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, with degrees in neuroscience and medicine. After heading the services for psychiatric emergencies and crisis intervention at the Royal London Hospital for 20 years, he is now involved in clinical research at King’s College and Imperial College, London University, on the therapeutic use of psychedelics. He has completed trainings in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and transpersonal psychology with Stanislav Grof and is a certified facilitator of Holotropic Breathwork. The author of Walking Shadows and coauthor of Breaking Open, he lives in London.

Maria Papaspyrou, MSc, is an integrative psychotherapist, supervisor, and family constellations facilitator. She has given talks and published articles on the sacramental and healing properties of entheogens, supporting their re-introduction in psychotherapy. She is co-director of the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy in the UK. She lives in Brighton, England.

A celebrated speaker and bestselling author, DR. GABOR MATÉ is highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics, such as addiction, stress, and childhood development. Dr. Maté has written several bestselling books, including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction; When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress; and Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder. He is also the co-author of Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. His works have been published internationally in more than thirty languages.

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From Chapter 2. Ayahuasca and Psychotherapy
by Rachel Harris, Ph.D.

Years ago, in a land far away, I was talking with a Jungian analyst about his female client whose mother had died when she was a child. It seemed clear to me, a young therapist at the time, that this woman should have a female therapist. I blithely made my point with the kind of confidence only an inexperienced therapist is naive enough to express. The older therapist, steeped in the wisdom that Jungians attain after listening to thousands of dreams, patiently responded, “Yes, it will be the woman in me who heals her.”

After decades in private practice, I often reflect back upon this snippet of conversation that turned out to be formative. The analyst exemplified how it’s the relationship that heals as opposed to the specific therapeutic technique (Wampold 2015), and it’s what we bring from our personal depths to that relationship that makes all the difference.

At some level, this is the essence of psychedelic psychotherapy. As therapists, we have to be able to meet our clients in those mysterious realms that both open from within and also blast into outer space. We have to know how to access these mystical territories within ourselves in order to connect with our psychedelic clients who are exploring these otherworldly worlds. We have to know in our bones what they’re talking about. It’s the mystical traveler in ourselves that we must bring to the therapeutic relationship.

Does this mean the therapist has to have personally attended an ayahuasca ceremony? Does the therapist have to be in her own healing process with this psychedelic medicine, attending regular ceremonies? Yes and no. Is this absolutely a requirement? No. A therapist can gain access to these states of consciousness in a variety of ways. Does it make a difference if the therapist has her own personal relationship with the spirit of ayahuasca? Yes.

We have now officially left the realm of evidenced-based treatments.

The spirit of ayahuasca may be referred to in different ways depending upon context--as a generic unseen other, as Grandmother Ayahuasca, or as a cosmic serpent. When I asked in a study of ayahuasca use in North America, “Do you have an ongoing relationship with the spirit of ayahuasca?” 74 percent of people reported yes (Harris and Gurel 2012). If both the therapist and the client have such a relationship with this mysterious plant spirit, the whole nature of the therapeutic alliance is qualitatively transformed.

Ayahuasca differs from many of the other psychedelics in that the plant spirit remains in the body long after the psychedelic effect fades or even the biochemical markers disappear. The sensation is that an intentional other has entered your body to scan your energy field, to balance, align, and repair your vibrational patterns. This is the shamanic healing process, and it continues, albeit with less intensity, for weeks or even months following a ceremony. Gorman (2010) captured this sensation with the title of his book Ayahuasca in My Blood. The medicine is not literally in the blood, but this phrase describes the lived experience of the presence of ayahuasca at a cellular level, at the level of DNA (Tafur 2017), which becomes a permanent aspect of the felt somatic sense.

The presence of ayahuasca in the therapist’s body and energy field changes the process of therapy. The therapist’s inner world is expanded into shamanic realms, imaginal landscapes, and the further reaches of the unconscious. The therapist is a knowledgeable traveler through these realms, experienced in maintaining equilibrium in the face of extraordinary emotions and psychedelic experiences. This enhanced inner capacity, with its access to the numinous, allows for a deeper and broader connection between the unconscious of the therapist and that of the client. Jung (1969, para. 544) described this elusive dynamic in the therapeutic relationship as “soul must work on soul.”

Recent work on intersubjectivity in neuropsychoanalysis describes this implicit connection (Schore 2011) as the therapist attunes nonverbally to the client on a moment-to-moment basis (Spezanno 2005). The therapeutic healing process is alive and present in both their bodies and energy fields. The process of therapy unfolds via implicit communication, nonverbal resonance, and somatic responsiveness between two human beings, beyond their roles as therapist and client. This implicit, embodied, and unconscious realm is ayahuasca’s prime territory, and the presence of the medicine creates a deeper connection between therapist and client, replete with mystery and meaning. The two share an appreciation for other realities and sources of insight and wisdom. At this level, cognitive behavioral techniques or analytical interpretations are irrelevant at best and harmful at worst. With ayahuasca present in both therapist and client, our understanding of the therapeutic alliance must be transformed.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

I must admit I’ve been hesitant to state unequivocally that it’s better to see a therapist who has her own relationship with the spirit of ayahuasca. This is hardly a requirement in graduate school or for professional licensing. But I have experienced both sides of this equation and think it’s a critical aspect of the therapeutic relationship.

During research interviews for my ayahuasca study (Harris 2017), which admittedly bordered on brief psychotherapy, I could feel in the person-to-person connection when the spirit of Grandmother Ayahuasca arose in each of us and connected us at another level. I often asked the other person if they could sense her arrival, and they usually could. This otherworldly bond deepened our conversation and trust in each other as we talked about experiences that are difficult to capture in words or are outright ineffable.

I emailed a request to interview one of my research subjects five years after he had completed the questionnaire from that same study (Harris 2017, 289-98). He agreed, and we talked on the phone. I wanted to follow up with him because he had had a complex relationship with Grandmother Ayahuasca, feeling guilty that he hadn’t lived up to her recommendations. He had not attended an ayahuasca ceremony during that five-year period, and he continued to feel guilty. Fairly soon into our exploration of his relationship with this plant spirit, I asked him if he felt her presence in the moment, as we were speaking. He said yes, almost immediately. I agreed and could feel our connection deepen into our shared mystery.

It’s as though there’s a third-party present, a cotherapist for me and a supportive presence for the interviewee. Acknowledging my sense of the presence of ayahuasca between us is healing for the person I’m interviewing because it affirms their relationship with this plant spirit. Such recognition is important in our Western culture since the experience of the presence of a plant spirit is outside our consensus reality. Yet, it’s a significant aspect of the ayahuasca healing process that continues well after the ceremony ends.

On the other side of this equation, I’ve been seeing a Jungian therapist who has studied Hawaiian shamanism and even has an intimate connection with Hawaiian goddesses. I can sense that she’s connected to those particular spirit realms; however, as I’m not, I don’t join her in that other world. She understands these unseen realms, but that’s not the same as a shared energetic connection. We still have a good working relationship in therapy, and I have clearly benefited; at the same time, I know she cannot enter into my experiences with Grandmother Ayahuasca.

From an indigenous point...

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Verlag
Park Street Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1644113325
ISBN 13 
9781644113325
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
424
Herausgeber
Read Tim, Papaspyrou Maria
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union
info@simonandschuster.nl

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