Psychedelics and Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Expanded States by Tim Read & Maria Papaspyrou

Author:Tim Read & Maria Papaspyrou [Read, Tim & Papaspyrou, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Alternative Therapies, Health & Fitness, Psychology, Entheogens & Visionary Substances, BODY; MIND & SPIRIT, Entheogens/Psychology, Psychopathology, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
ISBN: 9781644113332
Google: VZgfEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2021-09-07T23:35:49.779442+00:00

PSYCHEDELIC CANNABIS FOR TRAUMA RESOLUTION

Cannabis sativa is a safe and sacred medicinal tool that supports clients in turning inward, resolving tensions stored deep within the body, tracking inner sensations, and releasing traumas from the nervous system and fascia (McQueen 2021). When used in a particular therapeutic context with a professionally trained psychedelic therapist, this modality deepens the therapeutic process and makes somatic trauma resolution more effective than regular psychotherapy.

While there are strong similarities between cannabis and other psychedelics, there are also important characteristics that make psychedelic cannabis experiences different from other psychedelic medicines, especially when the medicine is smoked or vaped at the appropriate dose. The psychedelic cannabis experience appears to be more accessible and less overwhelming for a client’s ego. Clients are better able to engage and navigate through the experience due to an ongoing sense of agency than with other intense psychedelic experiences, and this increases the potential for postsession integration. Therefore, a primary difference between psychedelic cannabis experiences and other psychedelic experiences is one of agency and continued consent. Clients regularly report a greater capacity to engage their inner experience with skill and intention. Regaining and exploring this sense of agency, contrasted to experiencing the loss of control, is often a key factor in trauma resolution and significant healing in this practice.

Unlike other psychedelics, cannabis gently invites clients into deeper and deeper spaces and generally permits them to go at their own personally chosen pace and chosen direction. It is the primary purpose of the therapist to support this process of gentle, natural unfolding. At any time, a client can even pause the experience—for example by shifting positions, removing an eye covering, or taking a break to go to the bathroom—if it becomes overwhelming. Paradoxically, however, psychedelic cannabis journeyers generally choose not to titrate or pause because it feels so safe and within their capacity to navigate. When clients sit up during a DMT experience, they are clearly still fully in it. With cannabis, the same clients, experiencing a journey that is as intense as DMT, could sit up and nearly immediately return their orientation to consensus reality. When they are ready to return to their inner experience, they can do so in just a few minutes at the same level of intensity as before the pause.

These experiences challenge the notion that the typical loss of control associated with psychedelics is a necessary part of the healing process. For someone seeking help in healing a severe trauma, loss of control can at times be detrimental to the process and potentially lead to retraumatization. This is because a lack of agency and consent is often a primary cause of the trauma to begin with. Having a choice in how the healing unfolds is often a corrective experience for our clients when resolving traumatic experiences.

We refer to cannabis as the somatic psychedelic because body awareness is uniquely amplified, as well as a specific form of somatic healing. Cannabis addresses physical traumas in the fascia, tendons, muscles, and bones, not just trauma held in the nervous system, memories, emotions, and personality structures.

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