In Psychedelic Therapy, Don’t Forget the ‘Therapy’
A wide gulf lies between what we ‘see’ on psychedelics and what we do with what we saw
Twenty minutes late, Matt (whose name was changed for privacy) stumbles into my therapy office, dives onto my green couch, stretches out like a Freudian pro, and buries his face in his hands. Matt, a renowned New York wellness entrepreneur, had found me through the intersection of Burning Man and the plant medicine communities — where most of my clients come from. This niche has found me organically and inevitably; I’ve had a private practice as a marriage and family therapist for 13 years, and for 10 of those, I’ve been on my own parallel personal journey of exploration both as a burner and a psychonaut (sailor of the mind).
“Stupid. Stupid. Just stupid!” Matt groans.
“What?” I ask.
“I came to you to talk about psychedelics, but now you know my dirty secret. I can’t believe I came in today. I haven’t even slept. Fucking cocaine.”
Matt had come to me to talk about his experience on ibogaine, a natural psychoactive medicine derived from the West African shrub iboga and increasingly used by patients trying to kick drug addictions. It clearly hadn’t worked for him, and it occurs to me that he might still be high on…
