Psychedelics - A magic pill?
By Dana McDowell, MA, LPC, CEDS
In a world that loves instant gratification, short-cuts and the hacking of everything, it's easy to look at the emergence of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and wonder—is this yet another way to bypass the in-depth emotional work that often needs to be done to reconnect to our authentic Self—to make our Self whole again?
Similar to "spiritual bypassing" (first coined during the early 1980s by transpersonal psychotherapist John Welwood in his book Toward a Psychology of Awakening) which describes a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks", psychedelics have an alluring promise of making things better or "going deeper" without more effort than popping a pill, chewing some mushrooms, smoking some DMT or taking a ketamine lozenge. Who wouldn't find it appealing to step out of their current state of depression, anxiety, eating disorder, etc....to step away from that relentless inner critic and find a moment of peace in an alternate reality of Alice chasing rabbits?
The reality isn't quite like that. I remember my MDMA therapist imparting this wisdom—and warning—to me:
"We cannot bypass the MUCK—it is the doorway, the way through."
Unlike the red pill or the blue pill that was offered in the film The Matrix, we don't simply step into an altered state and then get transported back into our lives with some newfound or newly downloaded skills or insights that we never had previously. As much as we love the character Neo, I haven't experienced coming back from a journey or a trip with a completely new, fully functioning skill set like his astounding martial arts prowess.
Instead, what I've discovered personally, and now see in my work with clients is that we come back with wisps of information— little snippets and hints of the underlying story that no longer is functioning. We contract a subtle shift in perception that may make all the difference in the way we look at issues that have been a struggle for decades. Often there is a slight softening of the rigidity with which we have held our deeply entrenched—and often inaccurate—narratives and beliefs about ourselves or the world around us. It can feel like someone switched out the grey lenses we had been seeing the world through and replaced them with slightly brighter colored ones.
I talk at great length with clients about how Ketamine is NOT a magic pill. It is a tool that may facilitate the ability to see different perspectives or enable more cognitive flexibility, but they (my clients) still need to put in the therapeutic work!
One of my clients, after her third ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) session, said to me, "You know, I didn't realize I had this expectation, but somehow I really thought it was going to be like ‘take a pill, be happy’”. We got a good chuckle about that and then turned our attention towards unpacking the mucky messages she had received in her journeys.
The point is, that no matter the journey, psychedelics are still a doorway THROUGH the muck. I had a spiritual teacher who used to say “you can't go over around or under…you have to go through the difficult experiences”. And the same holds true with psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT). It's the INTEGRATION of all of those things that we see, feel and experience in our journey that differentiates PAT from simply tripping on acid at a rave.
There is a Zen saying "Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water". Utilizing psychedelics along with therapy offers the opportunity to open our minds, access long-forgotten or never known parts of ourselves, and heal deep wounds. But it isn’t a cure. And, in my humble opinion, using psychedelics in conjunction with a trained therapist can more effectively help us to understand what we actually experienced. Identifying the insights we've had can be more impactful with the support of someone who can help us understand HOW to meaningfully integrate new awareness into our day-to-day lives in order to fully access the transformation or change that inspired the use of psychedelics in the first place.
So, no, I do not believe that psychedelics is a way of bypassing the emotional and psychological work that many of us need to do. As a Journey Clinical colleague of mine wrote in an email, "Psychedelics... are amplifiers and they show us areas in our lives we need to work on in therapy. Feeling better requires showing up to do the work of preparation and integration."
Psychedelics just shine the light—we still must show up to do the work.