Joe Moore interviews Dee Dee Goldpaugh, LCSW about their new book Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality. The discussion covers the book's reception, critiques of over-medicalization, personal healing experiences, definitions of erotic energy and pleasure, historical repression of substances, and contemporary ethical concerns.

Key topics

Conversion therapy: historical use of psychedelics in conversion practices, risks today, and need for professional consensus to ban psychedelic-assisted conversion therapy.

Motivation: reaction to dominance of the clinical/medical model in psychedelics.

Author background: clinical social worker, ketamine-assisted therapy provider, sexual abuse survivor, early psychedelic integration work.

Personal healing: ayahuasca and San Pedro (Wachuma) experiences leading to embodied healing and pleasure.

Concepts defined: erotic energy as life force; distinction between healing pleasure and leisure.

Political framing: pleasure as anti-capitalist resistance; sustaining community and activism.

Links

https://www.deedeegoldpaugh.com

Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality