PUNK Therapy | Psychedelic Underground Neural Kindness

Content Warning: Sensitive topics

Dr. T and The Truth Fairy welcome special guests “Sid” and “Nancy”, two life partners who work as a co-therapy team in the underground psychedelic assisted therapy space. Dr. T and The Truth Fairy delve into what qualities Sid and Nancy possess that help them attune to the work and what advantages and disadvantages come from being life partners in psychedelics.

Sid and Nancy found each other through a dating app and together continued their individual experiences by working with plant medicines on a deep dive. The co-therapy work came to them rather naturally and was not necessarily something they pursued. The pair sat with a growing number of friends, guiding them through medicinal experiences, and they truly enjoyed the work. The feedback regarding their intuitive energy and supportive abilities was encouraging and positive.

The Truth Fairy and Dr. T learn how advantageous Sid and Nancy find their life partnership during ceremonies. They speak to each other’s calm connected strengths and how they rely on each other’s empathetic sense of what is needed for clients. They do not assign roles but work off intuition in each ceremony. Sid and Nancy report very few disadvantages to being life partners in the work and they offer some real life examples of how they pushed through difficult situations and had rewarding sessions partnering with therapists for client breakthroughs.

“And it was something that I just felt, it was just really natural, like attuning to what was helpful and what wasn't helpful, and how to let someone have an experience and be in some really dark places and just see that they are absolutely okay, that they could trust psychedelic medicine. And not telling them that but just being near them, and helping them feel safe and helping them feel just really okay. And so that kind of lit this fire in me of holding space for people in this way.” - Nancy

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Content Warning: Sensitive topics and trauma memories

Dr. T and The Truth Fairy welcome their very first guest to the show. Lara is studying to become a systemic integration practitioner and a psychedelic therapist and was The Truth Fairy’s first medicine therapy client. Lara not only shares the story of that first medicine therapy session with The Truth Fairy but takes Dr. T and The Truth Fairy on a journey into what Family Constellations are and the benefits that can arise from such sessions.

Lara explains how Family Constellations derives from the work of Bert Hellinger in Germany, which she calls systemic integration, and lays out the connective tissue of the process for Dr. T and The Truth Fairy. They discuss how all the information comes through the client, through what the group will feel and unravel for the client with assistance from the therapist. Lara shares that she has wondered about the potential for combining psychedelics with constellation work and the benefits that could bring to a client.

The Truth Fairy and Lara both tell versions of the story of how their first medicine therapy session came to be. Lara opens a quite deep glimpse into some of the revelations from that session and what it taught her. They share how the experience sealed their friendship, revealed some profound truths about Lara’s mother and motherhood, and how it set each of them on a specific journey. The three address how medicine therapy is a journey and how revelations must be revisited and worked through after the medicine fades. Much valuable insight and knowledge is shared in this episode.

“And I think it's so important for our listeners to understand that, you know, some of us are coming with high expectations for what the medicine can do, and it may just be opening the window, right?” The Truth Fairy

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Centre for Systemic Constellations
• Family Constellations
• AWE Foundation
• “Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture, and Wisdom” by Darcia Narvaez
• Dr. Gabor Maté
• Sharon Stanley

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Content Warning: Trauma, fear, physical pain memories

Dr. T and The Truth Fairy discuss a book by Tim Read and Maria Papaspyrou called “Psychedelics and Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Expanded States”, and really dig into two chapters in particular. One of these chapters involves the topic of therapists and substance use in underground psychedelic work: should the therapist take medicine with the client, and if so how much and when?

They address chapter four of the book which involves the excluded and repressed unconscious and how integration, through therapy and medicine, can assist when the unconscious is carrying an immensity of experiences. The Truth Fairy shares insightful stories from her practice and Dr. T refers to what Jung called ‘the transcendent function’. This is a thoughtful and informative episode exploring a very wonderful book.

“I think that it really, as therapists doing psychedelic assisted therapy, I know that there, I'm sure there's some clinical situations where it's an absolute no-no for therapists to do the medicine, a booster dose. And I do think it has its rightful place. But if you're in a period that you're very sensitized, and there's a lot coming up for you, or you've done a lot of your own medicine work recently, and you are quite open and raw, and you're still integrating yourself, I think those are the times to be wise and perhaps hold off and not do any.” - The Truth Fairy

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• “Psychedelics and Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Expanded States” by Tim Read and Maria Papaspyrou
• MDMA
• 5MEO-DMT
• 4-AcO-DMT
• 3-MMC
• Ketamine
• Jung: the ‘transcendent function’

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Content Warning: Trauma and abuse memories

Dr. T interviews The Truth Fairy as part of his research and together they explore the value of somatic therapy as well as how a therapist must be prepared for the journey when combining somatic with psychedelics.

Dr. T presents The Truth Fairy with some questions he has developed as part of his research, questions she’s not heard ahead of time. What results is a conversation on what somatic means and its importance to the therapeutic process. The Truth Fairy explains the differences between right and left brain tendencies and how somatic healing seeks to tap into the more creative and connective abilities of the right brain.

Dr. T addresses the idea of the relational in therapy and the concept of “relationship over outcome” which leads to questions about including medicine in the work. The Truth Fairy relates experiential stories on how somatic therapy looks very different when working with psychedelics and lays out things the therapist must prepare for themselves and their client before embarking on that journey. 

“The body is an extraordinary, complex organism with so many systems, organ systems, all working in synchrony and collaboration on the best of days and working out of synchrony and out of collaboration on more difficult days. We have history inside us.” The Truth Fairy

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Somatic therapy explanations and techniques

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Content Warning: Sensitive stories that include uninformed consent / sexual abuse

Spoiler Alert for ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’

Dr. T and The Truth Fairy discuss accuracies and controversies within the portrayal of microdosing on Hulu’s ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ show.

With a nod to the fact that spoilers regarding the plot of ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ are revealed in this episode, the character of the therapist Masha (Nicole Kidman) and the choices she makes regarding nondisclosure and microdosing with her clients at Tranquillum are under scrutiny and criticism from the psychedelic therapy community. While some things portrayed are not inaccurate, Dr T and The Truth Fairy discuss how Masha’s sense of urgency to rush the dosing and her decision not to inform her clients about the medicines she’s given them go against the best ideals of their practice.

The concept of informed consent is not abstract, rather it is the foundation from which therapy must proceed. The Truth Fairy reveals the potential dangers contained in urgency on the part of the therapist and in continuous dose increase. She and Dr T agree that careful preparation of clients is essential care, which Masha does not do. However, not everything rings untrue. They break down the facts and follies contained in the portrayal and share their own experienced-based best practices regarding psychedelic therapy.

“To bring serious trauma out of dissociation we have to be very very prepared on how we work with someone, how prepared they are to meet information, and we have to be so careful about how they meet their trauma.” - The Truth Fairy

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’
• Global High Intensity Activation

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Content Warning: Sensitive stories and themes that include abuse.

In Part Two of ‘Touch’ in psychedelic therapy, Dr. T and The Truth Fairy explore touch from the perspective of the theory of ‘temporary celibacy’ and the idea of sublimating sexual energy into creative or sublime energies for therapeutic purposes. 

Touch and connection are key elements in human thriving: as The Truth Fairy notes, one of the worst traumas we can suffer, especially at an early age, is touch starvation and emotional starvation. We are all seeking intimacy, relationship, and connection. It is how to use touch in a consensual and therapeutic way that Dr. T and The Truth Fairy explore in depth. How to, as therapists, adopt a notion of ‘temporary celibacy’ when approaching clients.

They discuss the Wheel of Consent and share experiences and stories from their own learning and practices where open lines of communication and observation regarding consent and comfort are established between therapist and client. Dr. T notes that the therapist must role model healthy boundaries within the relationship. And The Truth Fairy details how she addresses what Dr. T terms the ‘shame hangover’ when a client feels they’ve been too vulnerable in emotional disclosure upon a session’s conclusion.

“Temporary celibacy. A vow that we as therapists and practitioners and guides need to take every single time we embark on a medical journey or ceremony. … To vow never to cross lines, never to touch without deep intention, never to touch without consent, never to touch without profound neutral intention.” - The Truth Fairy

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Wheel of Consent
• Logan’s Run

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Content Warning: references to sexual abuse

Dr. T and The Truth Fairy explore the revelatory benefits that can emerge from the use of therapeutic touch in psychedelic healing practices, while always keeping caution and care in the forefront.

The Truth Fairy’s career and life journey have been grounded in touch therapy, starting with Shiatsu Therapy and incorporating such practices as craniosacral, visceral manipulation and somatic relational trauma-informed practices. Touch is healing in her path but she and Dr. T acknowledge that touch is very divorced from psychotherapy. Together, they explore why.

They analyze how touch is currently controversial in psychedelic therapy in light of abuses in psychedelic culture. They discuss the importance of using touch with neutrality and uncoupling it from fear. The Truth Fairy explains the concept of self touch in a larger way than the taboo sense we grow up with, and details how being in tune with your physical self can contribute to healing. They break down the concepts of safety, containment, processing, and the use of touch for focusing, and discuss ways in which careful, judicious touch therapy can help externalize psychological pain.

“We really have coupled touch and sexuality and we really need to uncouple that…. We have to find a respectful way to uncouple sexuality and touch and create possibilities for neutral touch.” - The Truth Fairy

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Kathy L. Kain, PhD
• Poem by Rumi
• The Feldenkrais Method

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Content Warning: discussion of ayahuasca ceremony/reactions

The hosts explain polyvagal theory and explore how it relates to psychedelic ceremony and experience; how it leads to deeper understanding of neural states when working with different medicines.

The understanding of fight or flight, sympathetic and parasympathetic responses built into humans comes into sharp examination as Dr. T and The Truth Fairy dissect the polyvagal theory and how they deem it necessary, from an ethical standpoint, for doing medicine work. The neural states and innate responses we live with are key to understanding trauma responses and the sort of high arousal fear that can emerge in a medicine session.

The Truth Fairy relates how she properly prepared for an ayahuasca ceremony by first orienting and grounding all participants, building community and sensation awareness within individuals and between each participant. She touches on how the grounding of these traditional medicines in community and relationship is what will help bridge back into Indigenous roots and practice, removing it from a strictly colonizing therapeutic model.

“We need social engagement to come out of dorsal vagal. This is where we can, I think make the mistake of, in medicine, is to leave someone stuck there. Because it’s through social engagement that people come out and it’s what they haven’t gotten.” - The Truth Fairy 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Dr. Stephen Porges - Polyvagal Theory
• Dr. Sharon Stanley, PhD
• Myelination information

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Content Warning: Eating disorders, sexual assault, & psychedelic-induced trauma memory.

Hosts Dr. T and The Truth Fairy are here to explore the important world of psychedelic therapy from both clinical and underground knowledge based perspectives.

Having met at the suggestion of Dr. Rosalind Watts, Dr. T and The Truth Fairy (their chosen pseudonyms) explain how they come from different backgrounds to the same desire for a deeper understanding of the potential in psychedelic therapy. While Dr. T comes from a more clinical background, The Truth Fairy has extensive lived experience in the rather underground world of psychedelic therapy and thus functions as a type of supervisor or mentor to Dr. T. PUNK Therapy, soon to also be a book, derives its name from Psychedelic Underground Neural Kindness, the model they both aspire to.

In this first episode they explain their connection, the possibilities inherent in the psychedelic therapy model not just for clients but also for the therapists and practitioners, and The Truth Fairy shares a client story of a journey on MDMA that opened up trauma history and allowed for a revelatory emergence from the pain into being present in hope with the therapists.

“People who are in the really clinical spaces, the people who are doing the formal trainings that are going to legalize and legitimize psychedelics, tend to actually know a little bit less or quite a bit less than the people who are in the underground scene who have been doing this work for the past 20, 30 years.” - Dr. T

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Synthesis Institute
• Mind Medicine Australia
• Dr. Rosalind Watts
• Dr. Sharon Stanley, PhD

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Punk Therapy: website

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This podcast is dedicated to the exploration and communication of somatic relational trauma-informed practices woven with psychedelic and earth-based medicines. We welcome from the underground the experience of practitioners dedicated to the ethical, creative and embodied use of medicines in therapeutic and ceremonial settings. Our kindness seeks to bridge the lived experience of the underground, the indigenous ways, the institutional studies, and the direct knowledge of those humans seeking to expand their consciousness and heal on all levels.

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https://www.punktherapy.com

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