The Pros, the Cons and the Con of Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy. A Video Post

(From a Psychedelically Assisted Psychotherapist)

“Psychedelics are not suppressed because they are dangerous to users; they’re suppressed because they provoke unconventional thought, which threatens any number of elites and institutions that would rather do our thinking for us”

Terence McKenna

This video post recorded April 2025 is a companion piece to substack of January 2024, Tips for Psychonauts and Their Tour Guides (vide infra for link to video).

Mindful of the climate in which some audience in psychiatry view psychedelics as unmitigated harmful drugs of abuse and others literally as a panacea towards a new utopia, the purpose of the talk was to empathise with both perspectives whilst revealing little of my own. That is, it was a rare attempt to not take sides.

Certainly, little was revealed of the authors own experiences as a deep space psychonaut. Partly this is a question of translation. Debating the merits of low to mid dose synthesised psychedelic compounds in clinical set and setting is radically different to very high to ultra high doses in underground subcultures or Peruvian style Ayahuasca ceremony.

Partly it relates to the ineffable nature of the experience itself. In being difficult to place in words what is beyond words, theres always the fear that something is lost in mere description and chasing after an always inadequate metaphor.

Finally, the translational problem partly relates to the individuality of the experience. I reject the notion that what truths I obtained can sit in contradiction to those of others. Still, a spoon for a soup and a fork for a salad. What you experience on psychedelics is for you. From a psychotherapists perspective, the first question is not what I can teach you, But rather what did the ayahuasca (or psilocybin) teach you.

All that said, I will hazard a few points which I think cohere into a take home lesson

1) although it’s possible to explain away psychedelic experiences as entirely materialist goings on in the brain on one hand, or subjective psychological constructions on the other, I’m nonetheless drawn to conclude that these experiences point towards an objective spiritual world beyond the brain and what the individual mind wants to project out onto reality. Were I not already a radical idealist and theist, the psychedelic experience would have, at minimum, left me to pause in a state of awe and doubt.

2) the putative fact of it being a spiritual experience immediately places it beyond the ken of establishment psychiatry. I’ll go a step further, the problem is that psychiatry in its hubris might make psychedelic use as dangerous as if used irresponsibly in the illicit market. Or perhaps more so, for psychiatry concretises psychedelia as a technology within a psychiatric worldview (of ligand and serotonin receptor, of diagnosis and “expert” interpretation of the experience etc). The moment psychiatry frames psychedelia as a spiritual phenomena that same moment psychiatry loses territory, something psychiatry is always reluctant to do. The evidence of its hubris is that establishment psychiatry did not even question itself before assuming ownership of psychedelic territory. Should psychedelia then return to being a legally prohibited substance? Not at all, for I’ve personally witnessed its healing potential. I’m tempted towards the conclusion that best policy is complete decriminalisation. Take it out of psychiatric hands. Level the playing field. A potential psychonaut can then at least have a fighting chance of finding a mature tour guide. My own experiences taught me that ayahuasca itself will tell a would be therapist if they are wise and ready, not a course supervisor or secular accreditation machine. Despite many years of psychiatric (and psychotherapeutic) practice and despite being on the wrong side of 50, ayahuasca taught me that I am only just coming into the distant view on the horizon of licence to self identify as a wise elder of the tribe fit to be a psychedelic healer. And this was only after ultra high psycholytic doses and approaching psychelia with the penitent heart to learn. Now mediocrity (with misery) enjoys its own company. Still, the notion that some young psychologist can dabble with 25mg psilocybin and do a course and claim authority to guide gives me the shivers. Similarly I worry about a future where the voice of the entrepreneur speaks of the good of psychedelics whilst the heart lusts after money. Or the voice of the therapist speaks of the good of psychedelics only to mask their own inadequacy that they cannot connect without a chemical empathogen. Or worse still the therapist looking to combine a clientele with fragile personalities with chemical agents increasing suggestibility. Caveat emptor.

3) for religious people, psycho-nautics qua a spiritual experience invites the question whether the experience belongs in the category of spiritual good or spiritual evil. I would expect that the consenting/ on boarding process of any psychedelic therapist would explore the patients understanding (if applicable) of what is proscribed according to their own religious beliefs. Another question is how they envision interpreting experiences in light of prior beliefs. Was it divine protection or just plain good stochastic luck that my own experiences were entirely consonant with my faith? I take it as an article of faith that the same God who transcends me transcends the psychedelic also, and can speak through it as he speaks through a burning bush. Despite universal condemnation by the churches, I do wonder if 16th and 17th explorers in the new world might have thought (like I), that God might have revealed himself in mysterious ways through the psychedelic flora of the Americas. As St Paul said in the letter to the church in Rome “for since the creation of the world Gods invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”.

https://rumble.com/v6s57ad-dr.-robert-brennan-pros-cons-and-the-cons-of-psychedelic-assisted-psychothe.html