How much can trauma really be healed by psychedelics?

[fathomlessness]

Quantitatively and qualitatively speaking...

If someone is deeply deeply broken by horrendous experiences, in the best case scenario with full therapy support during trip and integration phase... what are the outcome rates usually in your personal anecdotal experiences.

 

[Tony6Strings]

I have been told by a dmt entity that the strongest medicine in the world couldn't fix what has been broken in me. Whatever. I don't believe that anyhow. I feel like psychedelics can be helpful towards authentic healing of trauma.

 

[Bisy]

the question feels like its missing some specific details.. if so, youre gonna need to provide them, for there is really no way to answer that question. way too vague. the use of deeply broken, and herrendous trauma would put psychidellics pretty high on the risk factor.

 

[dragonrider]

That would depend on many factors.

Most psychiatrists nowadays, say that growing up in a warm, loving and caring environment is crucial for a child, and will determine very much how a person later in life, will be able to cope with stressfull events.

Needless to say, that if the trauma was inflicted in early childhood, in an environment that was not nurturing and friendly, the outcome is much more likely to be very negative in some way.

But some people are incredibly strong.

 

[Tomtegubbe]

Quantitatively and qualitatively speaking...

If someone is deeply deeply broken by horrendous experiences, in the best case scenario with full therapy support during trip and integration phase... what are the outcome rates usually in your personal anecdotal experiences.

DMT (pharmahuasca) has been incredibly helpful for putting my life in order and overcoming cynicism and self-disabling behavior. However, when I started the amount of work I need to do felt overwhelming and my circumstances were quite optimal.

So yes, there is incredible power, but putting your life in shape requires much more than a couple of trips. DMT helps to see what needs to be fixed, but that's where the work starts.

I'm afraid people get this wrong when psilocybin is advertised as a miracle cure for depression. I believe it is a very good medicine but it won't do the work for you, just enables the work.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I look at the use of psychedelics to help heal trauma similar to maintenance and an analogy of rehabilitation, particularly physical, though psychological applies as well.

Psychedelics are a tool, and the individual still needs to be willing to do the work.

I don't encourage others to do this, but often when at the mercy of a depressive wave (which occur often) will engage psychedelics. It becomes an exercise in willpower, feeling, assessing, analyzing and processing the factors that happen to influencing said wave.

Sometimes psychedelic maintenance is a daily occurrence. Hence the beautiful utility of low dose journeys where one isn't so thrown for a loop they can't integrate the facets of trauma.

Like Tomtegubbe stated, there's no miracle cures. Just really helpful and powerful tools.

One love

 

[Cosmic Dust]

Personnally, at times, I felt like my demons and traumas would never leave me alone, that I would always be in suffering .
I was borderline suicidal, I did not really want to do it but I felt so broken like there was no point in living anymore .

Then, I had trips with LSA and Mushrooms and I felt like I could enjoy my missed childhood in that state with low-medium doses and also, it showed me I could feel such a peace and happiness, there was no point in harming myself .
But I'm still struggling with it, it's just the beginning of my journey . Also, I think psychedelics can help but a good and safe therapist / psychiatrist if needed can be very useful .

But I'm don't think psychedelics alone could heal trauma .

I would really love to trip in a therapy setting that seems promising to me for the future of psychiatry .

 

[bismillah]

Childhood trauma builds up deeply ingrained negative thought patterns that resurface again and again... like a bad habit. One trip isn't going to fix everything, but it will give you the disruption you need to potentially move in the right direction. If you fall back into old ways, well, that's just how it is. But you can't just give up—you've got to try again. Otherwise, what's the point of it all?

 

[fathomlessness]

Guys, may I please say that I am really impressed with the quality of responses so far. I will take time to reflect on them in the coming weeks and your help is much appreciated. Feel free to respond to others too.

 

[Bisy]

So are you the person with whom you are curious about your question? I doubt youll find anyone that will judge you here, and although we are not therapists, we are practitioners of the medicine and we manage a pretty healthy level of transparency which kinda in a sense makes an occasional thread kinda like a group therapy but without the therapist.

One other thing i think ive noticed is that dmt doesnt seem to take you to places that you become further traumatized by. There are occasional experiences where other psychidelics further traumatize, but i havent heard of dmt doing much more than scaring the crap outta you for a minute, but leaving u with a reason. Has anyone seen someone traumatized by spice?

 

[Voidmatrix]

So are you the person with whom you are curious about your question? I doubt youll find anyone that will judge you here, and although we are not therapists, we are practitioners of the medicine and we manage a pretty healthy level of transparency which kinda in a sense makes an occasional thread kinda like a group therapy but without the therapist.

One other thing i think ive noticed is that dmt doesnt seem to take you to places that you become further traumatized by. There are occasional experiences where other psychidelics further traumatize, but i havent heard of dmt doing much more than scaring the crap outta you for a minute, but leaving u with a reason. Has anyone seen someone traumatized by spice?

I think it's purposely vague and open ended for the sake of open dialogue as motivation for the OP.

I don't know of anyone personally, but have heard anecdotal reports of people being shred apart so much by an experience that they say they may never do it again.

One love

 

[Tony6Strings]

Yes absolutely dmt experiences can be traumatic.

 

[Th3_tRuTh]

So far, I have gotten more wisdom and understanding, or even guidance, from nn,DMT. I have actually walked away from a recent bufo journey with tangible emotional healing. I believe this is due to the nature of bufo/5Meo, it's like a whole weekend worth of anger work, grief work, and every other physically intense therapy. nn,DMT seems to show me what I need to do to heal or grow. Change, harmala, and DMT trips augmented by harmala in any way, also provide me tangible emotional experiences that provide real time healing. Having said that, I can also say with conviction that I do the work. I don't ever just smoke a thing and let it do its magic and then walk away. There is an exchange every time. There is work done, exchanges of energy, a choice to be made, or whatever the case, it is never just taking medicine and feeling better. I feel like all of these substances can be used for profound healing, but you have to be willing to do the work too.

 

[BobDobbs]

If you feel at all inclined to work on your own healing there are multiple therapeutic paths available. And if there's a specific medicine that appeals to you, you may need to cast a wide net to find a therapist (or therapists) that genuinely wants to assist you that way. But don't expect the mushroom (or whatever medicine) to do all the work, try to let it help you do your own work. Microdosing is a very valid approach to this. A good psychedelic experience can show you things in a new light and even help you think differently about yourself and the world but the real work of healing is yours. Of the other approaches to this, there's an author I'd recommend - Bessel van der Kolk. Safe travels - and don't give up.

 

[Kobranek]

I feel psychedelics are a true gem in the rough when it comes to revealing the contents of our inner psyche to ourselves. I'm currently trying to read and study as much of Dr. Stanislav Grof's life work as possible. The more I'm learning from him the more that is being revealed about the contents of my psyche. His work is truly amazing!! I've read so far Holotropic Breathing and The Cosmic Game. Currently in the middle of Healing our Deepest Wounds. He's the one researcher who's worked with hundreds if not thousands of high dose (>200 mcg) LSD therapy sessions for this purpose. I highly recommend reading his work who is known as The Godfather of LSD, he was a good friend of Dr. Albert Hoffman.
Basically he believes that while there are traumas that do occur in our lives (postnatal) many practitioners don't give much attention to the trauma associated with our birth (perinatal) and potentially the traumas that have been passed down to us from our ancestors (archetype).
While traditional western psychiatry has not acknowledged these traumas, Dr. Grof's work does. He believes that these traumas are easily accessed through experiential work such as psychedelic sessions, holotropic breathwork, or spontaneous psycho spiritual emergencies. He developed the holotropic breathwork to access these realms without psychedelics which is amazing in its own right. Though he says psychedelics are the most reliable means to access the 'holotropic state' which is a term he came up with that is non-stigmatizing unlike non- ordinary or altered states.

 

[Tomtegubbe]

I read the way of the Psychonaut by Dr. Grof. While Grof was a pioneer in research of the altered states of consciousness and their use in therapeutic way, I believe Dr. Grof became too insistent on his theory about the perinatal trauma. There is very little support in his hypothesis and people born through caeserean section don't quite fit his framework. Lots of food for thought for sure though, but I hope someone will soon pick up from where he left.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Grof's perinatal/familial/archetypal trauma approach has been very appealing for me because of my significant birth trauma that I've experienced as well as various 'dark secrets' that have surfaced over the years, where I've seen that the trauma has been handed down for at least four generations that I know of. So, yes it's not just birth trauma - but I feel he addresses this in the archetypal material well enough.

Psychedelics have done a good job in orienting me towards awareness of these matters but meaningful integration when one has returned to the consensus-approved state is essential. And this can be as simple as "chop wood, carry water". Those terms may be a metaphor for physical exercise and meditation, you know.

 

[Tomtegubbe]

Grof's perinatal/familial/archetypal trauma approach has been very appealing for me because of my significant birth trauma that I've experienced as well as various 'dark secrets' that have surfaced over the years, where I've seen that the trauma has been handed down for at least four generations that I know of. So, yes it's not just birth trauma - but I feel he addresses this in the archetypal material well enough.

Could you elaborate this a bit? Grof describes the birth trauma in very literal way and I haven't figured out what is the archetypal meaning of it, if there's one.

Most psychedelic experiences are expressed by mystics of different cultures before but this birth trauma seems like something Dr. Grof came up by himself and that's one reason I have been skeptical of the idea but I'd love to hear if there's more to it.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

In "The Holotropic Mind" he goes into how archetypal trauma comes from a transpersonal realm of consciousness, so that's separate from the birth trauma aspect to a large degree. You should definitely read that book if you haven't already. I just lent my copy to a friend, otherwise I'd dig out some quotes for you.

 

[Tomtegubbe]

Thank you! I'll give it a try!