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Somatic therapy and psychedelics are proving to be mutually beneficial as the psychedelic revival evolves. Somatic therapy can unlock deeper levels of healing and trauma release inaccessible by psychedelics alone. And at the same time, somatic therapy can set the table for someone who is not quite ready for a psychedelic journey.

Whether they’re new to the psychedelic field or not, most people have a basic understanding of what psychedelics are and what they do. However, many people are unfamiliar with somatic therapy. Thus, even fewer understand the intersection between somatic therapy and psychedelics. Before exploring the interplay further, let’s address the obvious question first.

What is Somatic Therapy?

According to Harvard Health somatic therapy is “… a treatment focusing on the body and how emotions appear within the body. Somatic therapies posit that our body holds and expresses experiences and emotions, and traumatic events or unresolved emotional issues can become ‘trapped’ inside.”

Somatic therapy, or just simply ‘somatics,’ is a topic that covers significant breadth and depth. Somatics is not one thing, but many different training programs teach it, and unique practitioners practice it with distinct approaches.

Two notable therapists, Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk, specialize in trauma and psychedelics under the somatic umbrella. 

Levine developed a type of somatic therapy called “somatic experiencing.” The therapy, he explains, is a body-oriented modality that helps heal trauma and other stress disorders.

“It is the result of the multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, Indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics,” Levine says.  

Dutch psychiatrist, researcher and author Bessel van der Kolk has made significant contributions to the somatic therapy field as well. His book The Body Keeps the Score describes how a group of therapists and scientists struggled to integrate recent advances in brain science, attachment research, and body awareness into treatments that “can free trauma survivors from the tyranny of the past.” Van der Kolk’s work has brought much-needed attention to how trauma gets trapped or “stuck” in the body, and is often referenced in the psychedelic field. 

Besides somatic experiencing, a variety of methods exist to address trapped trauma in the body. Some of them include body awareness, pendulation, titration and resourcing among others. So who might benefit from somatics?

Who Benefits From Somatic Therapy?

People suffering from anxiety, complicated grief, depression, PTSD, self-esteem problems and other challenges can find healing benefits from somatic therapy.

Often these unsettling feelings manifest in the body in crippling ways. These unwelcome feelings, anxiety and stress may lead to lack of concentration, sleep complications, muscle tension, stiffness, etc. Over a long period of time, these physical maladies put tremendous wear and tear on the body, and can lead to the manifestation of chronic pain and illness.

As van der Kolk says, “the body doesn’t lie.” These debilitating physical conditions are symptomatic of the underlying stuck or blocked psychic energy. So anyone with entrenched experiences, feelings or traumas causing corporal pain can benefit from somatic therapy. Somatic therapy works to disempower these emotions. But how do these unwanted emotions become unwelcome guests in the body?

How Animals Have an Advantage Over Humans

Levine made one of the biggest advancements in somatics by studying animals. By observing animals, Levine came to the conclusion that animals have an ability to discard or brush off psychic distress. Think of a dog shaking off water. Animals seem to have an innate ability to neutralize trauma after escaping a predator. Not possessing this ability would compromise their survival instincts and threaten an existential crisis. However, humans don’t appear to have the same set of skills.

Somatic therapy focuses on the nervous system as its foundation. The human nervous system does not respond like the nervous system of animals.

“Animals complete the whole threat cycle. They go through the whole thing. They discharge that energy,” Kara Tremain, ACC explains.

Bonnijane Monson, DPT concurs, and explains further. “You’re looking for saber-toothed tigers around you. You have to be aware of all the saber-toothed tigers in the area, because the saber-toothed tigers can potentially harm you. But if you’re looking for external saber-toothed tigers, you don’t care if you’re hungry. You don’t care if you’re sleepy. You don’t care about the signals happening in your body that are trying to tell you what you need because your biggest concern at that moment is safety. So we lose interoception which is the internal knowing and sensing of what we need and want. So what we teach in somatics is to increase interoception.”

In a way, somatic therapy teaches us to regain our animal instincts and reclaim our bodies again. We have to teach our bodies that we are no longer in threat. However, if a person is stuck in deep trauma, in a flight, fight, or freeze response for example, they may not benefit from other therapy types.

Where Somatic Therapy and Psychedelics Intersect

For some people with deep, embodied trauma, somatic therapy may be the skeleton key that unlocks it.

For example, a person may not be getting results from traditional psychotherapy. In a case like this, the body transforms into a psychic sentinel and does not allow passage to the origin of the pain.

“You can talk about it all day long, but your body is still going through the experience,” Monson says.

The nervous system is the ideal starting point for somatics, Tremain says. 

“… You really can’t do the bigger, deeper work if you’re stuck in a trauma pattern.”

In this case psychedelics may not be the ideal solution – yet.

Undergoing somatic therapy may be a necessary pre-game step, leading up to a psychedelic experience. The need for somatic therapy shows up in psychedelic settings in slightly different ways.

1. Somatic Therapy as a Psychedelic Precursor

Because most people are unfamiliar with somatic therapy, chances are a therapist will recommend it to them for the first time. Perhaps a traditional psychotherapist has encountered a blockage in someone that talk therapy can’t resolve. In this case, a psychedelically informed therapist might also deduce that the timing for a psychedelic journey is not right either. 

“Unless there is a real orientation to the body, you can spend the whole psychedelic session in your mind, just processing things from a mind perspective. An orientation with the body changes things,” Tremain says.

Sometimes severe trauma can reduce the benefits of psychedelic medicine, despite the medicine’s potency. In this case, somatic therapy prior to a psychedelic session may help someone prepare for a journey. Tremain emphasizes that her goal is to get people to do somatic work before they engage in a psychedelic session.

2. Somatic Therapy in Underground Psychedelic Settings

Many people attending underground psychedelic retreats and ceremonies may not know about somatic therapy. However, people with severe, nervous system-based traumas may still seek them out, and may not be aware that their body is keeping the score. Thus underground retreat leaders, practitioners, and  guides, need to prepare for these scenarios and seek expert-level training to help support those who may come to the circle with unresolved somatic trauma. 

Monson points out the risk stating, “With different memories or experiences are going to come sensations from the body. And if somebody is not prepared to experience the intensity of what is happening in their body, it can feel really scary and a lot of fighting and struggle can happen as a result of what’s showing up in a psychedelic experience.” Some may interpret this as a “bad trip” when in reality a tough experience may be an indication that a person needs somatic therapy. It boils down to a matter of comfort. 

“If somebody feels more comfortable being present and can stay there a longer period of time, the amount of struggle is less and the integration afterward is much easier because they already know how to process that through a somatic approach,” Monson explains.

How Somatic Therapy and Psychedelics Complement Each Other

Somatic therapy and psychedelics can be like a training ground to the playing field of the psyche. As an individual undertakes a journey of deep, personal work, layers of the psyche peel back. This reveals more profound levels of psychic projects underneath. However, sometimes a person’s body isn’t quite ready for the psychedelic playing field. 

“Somatics prepares someone to stay in their body and work through, or be with, whatever shows up,” Munson says.

Whether it’s emotional or physical pain, or different memories and experiences, somatics prepares a person to take on these challenging moments. The glamorization of psychedelics can mislead people to believe that challenging experiences are throwaways. In fact, these difficult experiences may provide the richest rewards. 

A quick dip into a psychedelic-adjacent field reveals “the bad” often seeds and nourishes personal development. German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche proposed the idea of “post-traumatic growth.” He was way ahead of his time in 1888. He also aided the progress of psychology with his idea. Through the lens of post-traumatic growth, somatic therapy opens, sets and tends the psychedelic playing field. 

“A big part of this work is learning to be with uncomfortable sensations and to be with discomfort. It’s about learning to be with discomfort so you can process it. The more you can be with it, the easier it is to process. The more you’re not over-responsive to something, the more settled your body is, you can actually see things and process things that come up in a psychedelic space,” Tremain explains.

In this way, somatic therapy gives a person the tools to graduate to the psychedelic big leagues, and artfully manage challenging experiences.

Somatics and Psychedelics: Unlocking the Treasure Within

The psychospiritual healing process often plays out like a locked treasure chest containing more locked treasure chests. Everyone has unique treasure chests, sizes, shapes, and locks requiring distinct keys to open. Somatic therapy provides another key to opening the next chest. Anyone with psychedelic experience knows how journeys can elicit profound visceral reactions. Without a body-centered approach to psychedelic journeys, a person may short-circuit their healing process and shortchange their full healing potential.  

Disclaimer: The content of this article does not constitute medical advice. At the time of this writing, psychedelics remain largely illegal in the United States. We urge parents to consult with doctors and legal experts before considering psychedelic therapy for their children.

*All names and identifying features have been changed to protect the privacy of the youths featured in this article.

Mark* was 16 when he dreamt of ending his life. Jessica* was just 15 when she tried. Ketamine therapy saved them both, their clinicians say. 

Mia* faced an eating disorder at 16. Her mom’s decision to book her a psilocybin retreat in Mexico led Mia to eat normally again that year.

19-year-old Justin* lived with phobias, anxieties, and bouts of depression. An underground mushroom journey and integration coaching enabled him to feel acceptance and autonomy for the first time.

Mia, Justin, Mark, and Jessica’s teen brains hadn’t fully formed when they ingested these psychedelics. And long-term research on adolescent entheogen use is limited. Yet, parents like Mark’s and Jessica’s are pursuing psychedelic healing for their depressed teens.

Sometimes, parents seek psychedelics as a ‘hail Mary pass’ after traditional antidepressants fail. Other times, psychedelics are the preferred first line of defense. Desperate to ease their children’s suffering, parents are pursuing solutions that break this taboo known to Western culture. 

Here, we explore the parent-led phenomena of psychedelic therapy for teens, spanning ketamine clinics, psychedelic retreat centers, and underground circles. 

Traditional Youth Psychedelic Use Around the World

Every psychedelic experience is different. Many are uncomfortable. However, the perception that only adults can effectively harness their healing power is steeped in narrow modern framing. The view does not hold up against centuries of use among Indigenous cultures that give young children plant medicine for spiritual and cultural initiation purposes.

The Fang tribe in Gabon, for instance, administers ibogaine to children between the ages of eight and ten. Brazil’s Santo Daime Church members give ayahuasca microdoses to babies, and the Huichol of Mexico give peyote to children starting at age six. The Huichol also use plant medicines prenatally and while breastfeeding to prevent miscarriage, support fetal growth, and enhance breast milk.

Family-based psychedelic rituals remain a common practice in Mexico, according to Andrew Tansil, co-owner of Mexican psilocybin retreat center Sayulita Wellness.

He recalls the time when Sayulita was a local center serving only Mexican nationals.

“People would bring their children as young as five or six, and they would do bufo, the Sonoran toad medicine, and have whole family experiences.”

Sayulita does not serve young children today. However, the center regularly accepts accompanied minors from all over the world starting at 16.

Why Parents Are Seeking Psychedelic Therapy for Teens

Parent-led inquiries on psychedelics have steadily increased over the past few years at Sayulita, with about one teen traveling there monthly. Sometimes, the center welcomes whole households, including parents and children, who ingest the medicine together. Other times, teens engage in private psychedelic sessions with Sayulita’s registered nurse practitioners. One parent must go with minors to these retreats. 

Most teens who visit Sayulita have mental health concerns like depression or anxiety. However, eating disorders are the most common problem among young girls like Mia. Fortunately, many emerge from the psilocybin experience transformed. 

“Mia was a superstar. She left the retreat eating all kinds of food and continued the trend back at home. Mia really moved forward and did so fearlessly. She got out of her way, and that was the whole intention of the experience,” Tansil said.

Eating disorders are not so common among Certified Psychedelic Coach Ehren Cruz’s young adult clients. However, many suffer from persistent unexplained anxieties, like Justin. Others face existential emergencies. All seek Cruz’s coaching services to prepare for and integrate psychedelic experiences into lasting change. 

“The demographic of people reaching out is getting younger. Eighteen to 24-year-olds want to launch into the world with more purpose than the provisional life their parents built. They want alignment but don’t know how to achieve it, and the disconnect is causing a real crisis.”

Cruz finds that parents of these young adults see psychedelics as an bright pathway through the harrowing transition period.

“Parents have often gone through mental health struggles themselves. They have been in talk therapy and on SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and have navigated the world from that muted sensory capacity. Now, they’re raising collegiate-age children with similar issues and want to handle healing differently.”

Cruz states that many parents seek psychedelics over SSRIs for teens to avoid clinical diagnoses. However, other parents find their way to psychedelics when all else has failed.

And if new research is any indication of the efficacy of psychedelics for teens, parents may no longer have to rely on anecdotes and their instincts to help them decide whether the compounds are the right choice for their child’s treatment.

Brand new research suggests that teens have higher self-esteem, emotional stability, resilience, acceptance, and social connectedness after a psychedelic experience.

The study aimed to investigate the long-term psychological effects and side effects associated with psychedelic use among adolescents between 16 and 24. Results indicted that not only did the teens have a greater sense of well-being after psychedelic use, they were less prone to depression, suicidal ideation, and delusional thinking.

How Ketamine Therapy is Helping Teens

D.C.-area ketamine clinic Avesta Ketamine and Wellness receives many calls from parents seeking psychedelic therapy for treatment-resistant teens. The center treats about one adolescent per quarter, like 15-year-old Jessica, who are severely depressed or nearing the brink of suicide.

Avesta co-founder Dr. Ladan Eshkevari welcomes this population because she believes ketamine saves young lives. She recognizes the potential risks but doesn’t see them as unique to young patients. 

“Ketamine is a generally safe medication, but can be habit-forming in all patients,” said Eshkevari, adding, “the compound is rapid-acting with minimal side effects when done in a controlled setting, with providers trained to use it appropriately. Research shows ketamine induces synaptogenesis-growth of new synapses, impacting neuroplasticity.”

In other words, ketamine is well-tolerated at any age while helping form new connections between brain cells and reversing damage caused by stress and depression. This process typically improves mood and quickly reverses suicidal thoughts.

Ketamine research targeting adolescents affirms its antidepressant powers for issues ranging from suicidality to bipolar disorder. Additionally, young adult studies tout the compound’s benefits over SSRIs.

Fortunately for Jessica and Mark, many ketamine clinics accept teen patients. Some centers treat children as young as six.

Mark’s mom, Dana, recalls her son’s history of depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and panic attacks starting at 14. At 16, he began expressing suicidal intentions.

At 18, Mark had a severe dystonic reaction to his antipsychotic medication, Abilify, involving intense involuntary muscle spasms. He refused to continue the medication afterward, so Dana searched tirelessly for alternatives.

Dana was inspired by ketamine research that praised the medicine’s success rate with suicidal ideation. But she was also concerned about ketamine’s widely reported substance abuse risks.

“I second-guessed myself and worried that Mark would somehow get addicted… but in the end, it was his decision,” said Dana.

After Mark’s physician and psychiatrist agreed, Dana brought her son to Priority You ketamine clinic in Clearwater, Florida.

“By the sixth infusion, Mark felt different and no longer had suicidal ideation. He felt hopeful and creative for the first time in years,” said Dana.

The ‘Rubber Band Effect,’ Close Monitoring, and Expert Support

Mark worked with a therapist for two months after the protocol, developing healthy life skills like nutritious eating, exercising, and engaging with nature. However, four months later, he had a setback after his best friend committed suicide. 

Mark went back to the clinic for an infusion. However, instead of feeling better, the ketamine experience confronted him with deeply repressed guilt.

“He had a breakdown,” said Dana. 

Like Mark, Justin faced mental health deterioration after his psychedelic experience. However, Justin’s distress appeared just weeks later, and for different reasons.  

“We call it the ‘rubber band effect,’” said Cruz. 

The rubber band effect refers to the period after the peak experience when the mood-boosting psychedelic glow wears off. Initially, the person feels empowered and capable of transformative change. However, weeks or months later, old fears, egoic patterns, and anxieties can resurface with a vengeance. 

“As the mind returns to its normal state, it can perceive the psychedelic insights as threats and tries to reassert itself,” said Ehren. 

Justin’s rubber band smacked him into a full-on spiritual emergency. He experienced suicidal thoughts, couldn’t sleep, and started taking stabilizing medications. 

“In [recent] conversations with Justin, he said he wouldn’t trade the psychedelic experience. He found the true grace and the essential self he was looking for. But he’s still coming through it two or three months later. The situation was incredibly disruptive,” said Cruz. 

Justin and Mark’s psychedelic therapy challenges are common amongst people of all ages. However, young people are particularly vulnerable because they lack engrained self-regulation skills. The shaky emotional defenses teens have mean they need attentive, professional support before, during, and long after breakthrough psychedelic sessions to process fears, contend with disruptive insights, and avoid re-traumatization.

“It’s a big responsibility, and you must ensure young people have a support structure, a network, and other channels to hold it down,” said Cruz.

Ehkevari agrees.

“At Avesta, we ensure adolescents have a lot of support from parents, therapists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians.” 

The June 2024 study confirms the caution practitioners are practicing with teens in psychedelic settings. Participants indicated more challenging experiences while under the influence of psychedelics, including ego dissolution, more intense hallucinations, paranoia, and fear. Instances of visual symptoms related to hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder (or HPPD) were higher than what’s typically seen in adults.

“… differences in acute subjective effects, specifically the less positive role of ego-dissolution experiences for long-term changes in adolescents, as well as a higher prevalence of HPPD-related symptoms suggest that special considerations might be required when assessing psychedelic treatment design and risks,” the report cautions.

Therapeutic intervention helped Mark a great deal after his friend’s suicide. Talk therapy and two additional ketamine infusions allowed him to process and heal the repressed emotions that the first session revealed. Mark started college a month later and is pursuing a degree in game design. 

He visits the clinic for booster ketamine doses every six months. 

“I don’t think Mark would still be here now if it weren’t for ketamine,” said Dana. “Mark still experiences anxiety. However, he does not have to take medication for it because he’s learned to cope.”

Coping with life’s ups and downs while staying present for the ride is precisely the promise that psychedelics offer. Parents like Dana value that pledge and are helping their teens feel their way through pain rather than medicating their young minds and managing symptoms.

“Current medications have a 70% failure rate and come with a whole host of side effects, with a long uptake time. I think patients and their families are starting to think about treatments that may get to the brain’s ability to heal versus medications that are mainly for symptom management,” said Eshkeavari.

According to Tansil, starting these alternative treatments earlier in life could be crucial.

“Younger people have less conditioning. And so they have a higher chance of having positive, transformational psychedelic experiences. The young person’s mind is also more open. So, healing happens much quicker and more fluidly.” 

“The number one comment I hear from people over 60 who come to Sayulita is, ‘I wish I would’ve done this so much earlier in life.”

During a crowded mid-pandemic Zoom seminar on microdosing for addiction treatment, a few attendees raised caution over the dangerously simplistic ways in which addiction was being presented. Within moments, a frenzy of animosity resounded.

“Why are you bringing your negativity here?” one participant asked.

“The presenters are doing great—why not recognize that?” another chimed in.

“If you don’t like microdosing, you can git out!” yet another declared.

I would have been surprised if I hadn’t witnessed other psychedelic conversations where “negativity” was not welcome and legitimate criticism was deemed “bad vibes.” What did surprise me was the group’s validation – even the facilitator joined in and scolded the critics. Then again, since such critiques threatened his microdosing livelihood, I suppose his attitude made sense.

I noticed a similar – albeit more concerning trend – arise in February 2021, when a video surfaced of former 5-MeO-DMT facilitator Dr. Martin Ball boastfully recounting the time he vomited on the face of a client incapacitated by the powerful toad venom. For each objection to Ball’s blatantly unethical behavior, a defense kicked back, spitefully ridiculing the judgmental “snowflakes” and their “low vibrations.” 

I’m all for a fair trial. But some actions are not OK, and vomiting on the face of an incapacitated person in your care is one of them. Evidently, many psychonauts disagree.

What is this trend I’m pointing to, this negativity about negativity, this shaming of voices raising valid concerns? This is a trend I’m calling “psychedelic bypassing.”

Psychedelic Bypassing: The many ways the mind can excuse abuse, ignore the darker sides of ourselves, categorize the vast scale of emotions into little boxes of “good” and “bad,” and cast aside anything deemed “lesser than” — all in the pursuit of a more enlightened life.

A Primer on Spiritual Bypassing

To understand psychedelic bypassing, it’s important to first understand spiritual bypassing.

In 1984, meditation teacher and psychotherapist John Welwood coined the term “spiritual bypassing.” As laid out in Robert Augustus Masters’ book Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters, spiritual bypassing is “the use of spiritual practice and beliefs to avoid dealing with our painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs.”

In other words, it is disguising patterns of avoidance with New Age lingo that liberates us from confronting difficult and painful realities. In short, Masters describes spiritual bypassing as “avoidance in holy drag” — a strategy “not only for avoiding pain but also for legitimizing such avoidance.”

But What Does This Have to Do With Psychedelics? 

Don’t psychedelics force us to confront difficult and painful realities, no matter how fervently we resist? A lot of the time, yes. But not all the time.

Amidst abundant scientific research demonstrating that psychedelics catalyze profound healing for an ever-expanding cast of conditions, many advocates appear to have forgotten that psychedelics can also inflict harm. Despite suggestions from mainstream narratives, taking psychedelics is not a guaranteed route to healing. Just as psychedelics can heal our wounds, they can also amplify our capacity to avoid those wounds — and, in the case of the face-vomiting Ball, even inflict them on others.

Plunder the depths of Erowid and you’ll find no shortage of reports of psychedelics catalyzing psychotic breaks. Read through Chacruna‘s website, and you’ll find abundant articles on sexism and racism in psychedelic spaces, sometimes at high levels of influential organizations. Dig deeper, and you’ll find stories of people being physically, psychologically, and sexually abused in “safe” psychedelic environments.

Psychedelics are non-specific amplifiers, meaning they can amplify our darkness as well as our light. Just as psychedelics can open space for curious inquiry and new perspectives, they also provide fertile ground for embedding distorted beliefs and behaviors more deeply. If psychedelics solely induced awakening, why would the CIA spend decades researching their potential to control people in myriad ways? 

Intention and context make all the difference. When self-delusion is the operating principle, psychedelics can amplify the delusion. And we mustn’t underestimate the mind’s capacity to delude itself. In the words of Carl Jung, “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.”

And still a perspective spreads that psychedelics can only transform our world for the better, and anyone who raises concerns about their potential harms is a “threat to the movement.” Victims and their allies are silenced by a chorus of proselytizers who justify themselves, saying, “We’re so close to FDA approval! It’s not worth putting all this progress in jeopardy!”

No one wants another Nixon slamming down the great gavel on substances that can clearly help countless people. But when avoidant patterns proliferate unchecked, they become a culture, and when a culture avoids serious issues and vilifies those who speak about them, that culture deepens traumatic neural pathways that damage ourselves, our loved ones, and our world.

No matter how enraptured in the Godhead its constituents become, a culture that evades its most pervasive issues will never be a culture of widespread healing. 

Why Do People Engage in Psychedelic Bypassing? 

Sometimes, it’s as simple as refusing to hear what we don’t want to hear. For instance, early in 2021, preliminary research from Imperial College London showed that the life-enhancing benefits of microdosing, as reported on countless podcasts and blogs, may be attributable to the placebo effect.

The response of the microdosing community?

A chorus of people instantly ripped on the study, refusing to consider the possibility that the results had validity, because… well, the results didn’t jive with their beliefs (or their business interests).

Such instances of bypassing are easy to recognize. Other times, bypassing is more complex, stemming from sources beyond the reach of awareness.

Psychological vs. Spiritual Bypassing

Robert Augustus Masters argues that bypassing flourishes when the spiritual is separate from and given more significance than the psychological. Countless spiritual practices emphasize “letting go” of pain, securing stability in a palace of positivity whose iron gates seal out all dementors. “Don’t mind the dementors that breach the castle in your nightmares!” the spiritual teacher preaches. “Just focus on the light, and your pain will dissolve away.”

The thing is, that pain often stems from psychological wounds, and spiritual practice that denies it won’t make it disappear. While meditation can be healing, it can also enhance patterns of disassociation and withdrawal that bar people from experiencing intimacy and love. 

Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield speaks to this phenomenon in his book, A Path With Heart. After a decade of vigorous Buddhist training, Kornfield felt he had resolved his issues. However, when he returned to the States and entered a romantic relationship, he found he was “still emotionally immature, acting out the same painful patterns of blame and fear, acceptance and rejection that I had before my Buddhist training.”

Kornfield’s monastic isolation kept him distant from his deepest wounds, which were relational in nature. “I’ve seen how many other students misunderstand spiritual practice, how many have hoped to use it to escape from their lives” and “avoid the pains and difficulties of human existence” writes Kornfield.

Whether we meditate for decades or blast ourselves into cosmic unity with every psychedelic under the sun, we still may be avoiding the most pertinent issues stunting our psychological development. 

The Traps of Transcendence and Oneness

Transcendence is a psychedelic buzzword, often regarded as a healing path of “overcoming” wounds and becoming more whole. It can also justify bypassing, for many transcenders cast negative judgment on that which must be transcended — often their psychological and emotional pain. 

“When transcendence of our personal history takes precedence over intimacy with our personal history, spiritual bypassing is inevitable,” Masters writes. Healthy transcendence embraces that which is transcended, while “unhealthy transcendence avoids it, making a spiritual virtue out of rising above whatever is deemed ‘lower’ or ‘darker’ elements of our nature.”

In the framework of influential transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber, development is not about transcending, but transcending and including what came before. 

Transcendence is similar to another psychedelic buzzword, “oneness.” In the face of conflict and difference, many psychedelic advocates like to remind others that “we are all one.” While this is true at some metaphysical level, it invalidates the reality of difference and the struggles many face because of those differences, such as people who hold marginalized identities and experience overt oppression every day. 

What kind of “oneness” casts out all who don’t bliss out on the same medicine? Nothing more than the oneness of a bubble that resists what threatens to pop it.

The Happy Place Where Egos Die

Masters writes that we are vulnerable to spiritual bypassing when we practice to reach a better place — where suffering is abolished, where love and light reign in the resuscitated Garden of Eden.

When that’s the ideal, we villainize and shame the parts of ourselves we believe block us from that idealized perfection. We may even deny their existence, because according to our high/low, positive/negative ethic, these parts indicate we are far from reaching Happy Fun Land. If we’ve been presenting ourselves as a spiritually-evolved being, then no one can know about these parts of us. So we shove them down with a Buddha smile, forcing ourselves to connect to compassion and eliminate the enemy of our “lower” nature.

This trend is especially evident in the psychedelic concept of “ego death.” Psychedelic folks often villainize the “ego,” which is typically comprised of these “lower” aspects of our nature. When ego death is the aim, anything resembling ego becomes an obstacle. When ego is not recognized as an essential part of our inner world, that essential part of our inner world becomes the villain, creating a war within ourselves.

I imagine this is partly due to psychedelic healing being framed in the same way that yoga, meditation, and numerous “alternative” healing methods are marketed: Do this, and your life will improve dramatically. This idea is even more intoxicating with psychedelics because a) they work faster, and b) a boatload of science backs up their efficacy. But when we fall prey to this “magic pill” mentality, we follow a falsely advertised claim that psychedelics will transport us to Big Rock Candy Mountain, where our egoic problems evaporate.

This thin narrative brings too little focus to the fact that psychedelic healing isn’t sustainable without significant changes in lifestyle and thought patterns. Feeling awesome and gaining perspective on your suffering is rarely sufficient. It is the beginning of a new path, and without commitment to new ways of being, benefits tend to vanish as quickly as they appeared.

Psychedelic folks often speak of “integration” as some finite place, like, “I integrated deep realizations about my anxiety on MDMA, so now it’s gone!” Healing isn’t always linear, nor is it about arrival. It can be cyclical, and when we cling to states of bliss, we bypass whatever threatens those states’ supremacy. Integration isn’t a final arrival, but an ongoing process of active engagement. As Jung wrote, “There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self.” 

Recognizing Dualistic Thinking

Bypassing can also be a symptom of dualistic thinking getting carried into the nondual realms psychedelics can open, where reality does not abide by rational structures. Rather than categorical frameworks like “good/bad” and “self/other” ruling the day, the ground of truth becomes paradox, beyond the reach of reason’s limits. As rationality fights to make sense of such an experience, it often subjects the paradoxical to the categorical, applying dualistic labels like “good” and “bad,” and “me” and “not me” to the experience. 

Picture this: say I have a mystical experience on five grams of mushrooms, and I realize that at my core, I am love embodied. I’m so immersed in the experience that I am certain my demons have been forever cleansed. Three days later, I get cut off on the highway, and a familiar anger takes hold as I curse that reckless SOB. I pause, thinking, “This anger can’t be me, because I now know I am pure love, and I can’t be love and simultaneously feel such hostility.” So I reject my anger, creating a schism in my psyche that spawns a dualistic battle that will rage indefinitely, no matter how vehemently I deny it. 

If, on the other hand, I recognize that I can be love embodied and feel intense anger at the same time, I give myself more space. In that space, I can feel anger without identifying it or fearing it is me at the core.

Passivity and Aversion to Anger

In numerous spiritual communities, anger is the quintessential “low vibe” emotion. Countless frameworks teach to restrict its expression, if not eliminate it completely. Only then can you abide in whatever nirvanic illusion is the goal. 

The problem is, anger is an essential human emotion, and a powerful one. Powerful emotions don’t just go away when we deny them. They get stronger, and even if we stop ourselves from expressing them externally, we end up expressing them toward ourselves.

“There isn’t any such thing as a negative emotion,” Masters writes. “There are negative things we do with our emotions, but our emotions themselves are neither negative nor positive. They simply are.”

When we judge anger, we are often judging harmful expressions of anger, such as hostility and violence. The emotion and the behavior are distinct, and becoming more intimate with the emotion and its sources will open healthier, more conscious avenues of expression.

When we judge our anger as “bad energy,” we judge it as such in others. When a community validates that judgment as virtuous, that community shuns an essential emotion that has a lot to teach us about boundaries, needs, and deep wounds.

In hearing about practitioners abusing clients, it makes sense to be angry. If we shun our anger, we disregard the wisdom of this response and may even justify the practitioner’s behavior, saying, “They’re doing their best. Who am I to judge if that’s right or wrong?” In that response, both our anger and someone’s harmful behavior are bypassed under a distorted ethic of “acceptance” and “forgiveness.” This encourages a passivity akin to numbness, a glorified distancing from a dark reality and the looming prospect of confrontation. It’s more comfortable to just “let it go.”

Maybe this trend is reducible to a reluctance to cast judgment. Moral relativism — the notion that each person’s moral code is justified unto itself — is a seductive ethos, but it promotes a passivity that allows harm to flourish unchecked. Anger about harmful behaviors is not “bad energy”; it is a valid, important response to issues that could implode this whole psychedelic renaissance if they remain unchecked. Transformation can only come by calling problematic issues to conscious light, and anger can sometimes show us where those issues lay. 

What is Guru Syndrome?

The psychedelic space is home to many self-appointed “guru” facilitators, many of whom are far less skilled at facilitation than they are at bypassing. How else could a self-described “healer” inflict sexual abuse on participants — an ongoing problem in psychedelic spaces — and free themselves of responsibility?

According to Masters, this form of bypassing spawns from “delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.” Quite likely, these facilitators have had profound psychedelic experiences, and they mistakenly “confuse the attainment of such states with being at an advanced stage of spiritual practice.”

Here’s where psychedelics create a particularly tricky form of bypassing. Unlike meditation, which can take years to induce a peak experience, psychedelics can rocket anyone into sudden confrontation with the mystical. The confrontation can be so earth-shattering that the individual emerges completely certain they have been reborn, where yesterday’s troubles that occupied their “previous self” have forever melted away. That may be true for a while, but what about when yesterday’s troubles return? Since this experience birthed them anew, those troubles can no longer be them, right? This person fails to recognize this new “egoless” persona is actually the structure of a new ego that bears more similarities to the previous one than they care to admit. And how could it not, with root issues continuing to fester unresolved?

The danger then emerges as justification of harmful behavior. “Even clearly abusive behavior on the part of a spiritual teacher may be excused as an opportunity for students to grow in their practice,” Masters writes. It’s gaslighting to the extreme, fueled by an ego-boasting infallibility under the claim it is egoless and insusceptible to “lower” impulses.

It may be tempting to pass this trend off to a handful of underground practitioners, but recent revelations again show that above-ground clinicians are susceptible as well. Researcher Matthew Johnson describes this trend as “the inclination to believe that the nature of the experiences people have on psychedelics are so sacred or important that the normal rules do not apply, whether they be the rules governing clinical boundaries, the practice of clinical psychology or medicine, sound philosophy of science, or ethics.”

“Psychedelics might magnify the subtle abuses of differential power that can be at play in the routine practice of clinical psychology or medicine,” Johnson continues. “The scientist or clinician might, perhaps without explicit awareness, fall into the trap of playing guru or priest, imparting personal philosophies without a solid empirical basis.”

While psychedelics can amplify the healing of therapy, they can also amplify the transference — a client’s unconscious feelings toward the therapist. If practitioners are adept at bypassing, they are vulnerable to excess countertransference — the therapist’s feelings in response to the client’s transference. That countertransference can manifest in harmful ways, and the practitioner can justify their harmful behaviors as “part of the client’s healing” — exactly how Martin Ball justified vomiting on his client’s face. 

Responsibility in Facilitating Journeys in Non-Ordinary States

What level of psychedelic bypassing has to occur for people who have allegedly perpetrated significant abuses in psychedelic spaces to rise the ranks and become some of the most influential spokespeople of the entire psychedelic ecosystem?

Part of me wants to give those who stay silent during abuse scandals the benefit of the doubt, to bury my responses beneath a higher kind of “understanding” and “forgiveness.”

Maybe everyone deserves a second chance, but giving people a shot at redemption cannot be the same as enabling them to perpetuate harms without consequence. Taking an honest look at our capacity to bypass, with or without psychedelics, strikes me as a good place to start. 

The body seems to mend itself from illness and injuries without conscious effort. Yet when the mind wanders down a deep self-loathing abyss, it can get stuck there for years. Amidst serotonin-boosting drugs and clinical psychotherapy, millions still suffer from persistent depression. But within this reality, a more profound truth might be at play.

According to psychedelic therapists, researchers, and explorers, the mind doesn’t have to accept unyielding despair: all humans, they say, may have an ‘inner healer’ who can guide them to balance.

This article explores the concept of inner healing in psychedelic therapy, examining the theory, the debate, and the latest study testing its merits, led by Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris. 

What is the Inner Healer?

According to leading psychedelic theories, the inner healer is “the innate capacity or wisdom of the self to guide its own healing process.”

The inner healer is the deep knowing that emerges from the subconscious to help people resolve emotional and psychological challenges. It empowers them to navigate back to their intrinsic wholeness.

The notion posits that just as the body naturally mends wounds, the mind can instinctively recover from depression, PTSD, anxiety, and all other imbalances when freed from habitual fears that command ordinary consciousness.

In the context of psychedelics, MDMA, psilocybin, and DMT facilitate access to this profound wisdom. And through therapeutic support, psychedelic explorers can safely self-direct their own transformation.

Psychedelic therapy sessions offer a safe haven for people to work through trauma and conditioning. The experience can create a unique bond between the therapist and client, akin to a healthy parent-child relationship, where the client feels open to exploring challenging topics.

Along the way, clients may reconnect with and soothe exiled parts of themselves, like the wounded inner child who unconsciously drives their habitual patterns. By soothing these traumatized parts, clients might experience greater ease, compassion, integrity, and flexibility in their daily lives.

Modern Emergence of the Inner Healer in Psychedelic Therapy

Psychotherapist Dr. Michael Mithoefer was integral in spreading the inner healer theory throughout the psychedelic movement.

In a pivotal 2013 Bulletin published by The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Studies (MAPS), Mithoefer reflected on the mysterious nature of the mind and challenges in understanding how psychotherapy – be it MDMA-assisted or traditional approaches – really works. Rather than struggling for comprehension, he embraced the tension.

“We [as psychotherapists] strive to do rigorous science without losing sight of the remarkable richness of the process as we observe and participate in it,” Mithoefer said.

Inspired by psychologist Stanislav Grof’s transpersonal theories, Mithoefer asserted that psychotherapy wields effects across emotional, cognitive, physical, energetic, and spiritual levels. And that psychedelics’ pharmacological mechanisms play a role in the process. But he emphasized that the client’s inner healing pathway in relationship to the therapist and the medicine was the key to guiding transformation.

Mithoefer quoted psychedelic therapy patients in the article whose experience embodied the inner healer theory:

“I keep getting the message from the medicine, ‘trust me.’ When I try to think, it doesn’t work out, but when I just let the waves of fear and anxiety come up, it feels like the medicine is going in and getting them, bringing them up, and then they dissipate.”

“Maybe one of the things the drug does is let your mind relax and get out of the way because the mind is so protective about the injury,” he said.

Adopting the Inner Healer Model

Psychedelic therapists have now widely adopted the inner healer model, following the 2013 Bulletin and MAPS’ subsequent MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Treatment Manual.

Co-authored by Dr. Mithoefer and MAPS Founder Rick Doblin P.h.D., the manual emphasizes prioritizing the patient’s wisdom over the therapist’s expertise. It provides instructions for practitioners to take a non-directive approach to psychedelic therapy. It invites clinicians to listen empathetically and encourages the patient to trust their own capacity to heal from trauma and inner child wounds. In underpinning the approach, the manual emphasizes respecting each patient’s ability to process painful memories on their own terms.

MAPS’ MDMA protocol is now with the FDA for a new drug application review. If approved, the inner healing pathway may be seminal to the first nationally regulated psychedelic therapy program.

Following MAPS’ lead, psychedelic therapy researchers, universities, training programs, educators, and practitioners have broadly adopted the inner-directed therapeutic approach. Even ketamine clinics have embraced the practice despite the dissociative compounds’ distinction from classic psychedelics.

Trusting the client’s inner guidance during psychedelic therapy is so ubiquitous the method appears in Colorado’s draft rules for psilocybin facilitators. Under the state’s Natural Medicine Act, practitioners must prepare clients for psychedelic sessions by advising them to trust their inner guidance, inner genius, the self, wise mind, soul, or spirit.  

Unlike Colorado, Oregon doesn’t require psilocybin facilitators to employ inner healer models. However, the state’s service centers promote the approach, including Satya Therapeutics and Omnia Group.

The Industry Debate

Despite widespread consensus, not every psychedelic proponent ascribes to the inner healer theory. A recent article challenged the notion that people possess this inherent capacity.

The critique raised several concerns about the inner healer’s scientific validity, coherence, and mystical undertones. It argued that attributing healing to unexplainable subconscious forces may oversimplify complex psychological processes, leading to pseudoscientific woo-woo practices. It also cautioned against inappropriately introducing spiritual-based therapies into tax-funded programs. Finally, the article pointed to the contradictory nature of a “self-led” process that requires significant intervention from therapists and hallucinogens.

Proponents of the theory, however, emphasize that therapists merely facilitate access to deep healing. But that they are not the source of the healing, per se. These practitioners believe that psychedelics serve as the prime catalysts for unlocking humans’ innate wisdom and that their role is to help people address unresolved wounds in a safe and supportive setting.

At the same time, proponents acknowledge that their perspective is steeped primarily in observation rather than empiricism.

The Inner Healer Study

Famed psychedelic researcher Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris does not see the inner healer as mystical or supernatural. He believes in its credibility, publishing a placebo-controlled study, “Psychedelics and the ‘inner healer’: Myth or mechanism? to “deconstruct, test, and potentially validate” the concept.

The research randomly assigned 59 participants diagnosed with moderate-to-severe depression to two groups: one receiving high-dose psilocybin therapy and the other a placebo alongside the antidepressant, escitalopram. Both groups receive psychological support.

• Psilocybin therapy group: Participants received two high doses (25 mg) of psilocybin three weeks apart. They also received a daily placebo after the first dosing session.
• Escitalopram therapy group: Participants received two placebo doses (1 mg) of psilocybin three weeks apart. They also received daily escitalopram for six weeks. The dosage was 10 mg for the first three weeks and 20 mg for the last three.

After the sessions, participants completed an assessment called the “inner healer item,” where they rated the degree to which they strongly agreed or disagreed with the following statement:

“I felt like my body/mind/brain was healing itself, automatically/naturally/by itself.”

The Results

In the end, the high-dose psilocybin group was far more likely to report inner healer experiences compared to the escitalopram group. Additionally, higher inner healer scores within the psilocybin group marked greater declines in depression symptoms two weeks after the protocol. Additionally, patients who reported higher inner healer scores experienced more significant mental health outcomes, regardless of the self-reported intensity of the psychedelic effects.

Critics argue that the results might be skewed because the study focused solely on patient perspectives during medicine session days. It did not ask the escitalopram group about their inner healing experiences throughout the therapeutic protocol.

Additionally, according to the research team, the study did not empirically prove whether the inner healer feeling is an intrinsic, quantifiable neural mechanism or an event caused by subtle therapeutic guidance.

Still, the outcomes suggest that the inner healer construct, defined as “the belief that psychedelic compounds, plants or concoctions have an intrinsically regenerative action on the mind and brain…” is a substantive phenomenon worth investigating further using detailed scales and qualitative methods.

Enduring mental health may rely on this integrative approach.

Learn more about the inner healer theory and best psychedelic therapy practices in Psychedelics Today’s course, Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Wellness Practitioners.