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Integration

After a fortnight in the jungle, your relationships might never be the same

Soheila Sokhanvari, The Gift, from the exhibition Rebel Rebel at The Barbican, London till 22 Feb 2023

“I’ve a feeling we’re inadvertently harming a lot of family members. If your partner goes for a two week ayahuasca retreat in the jungle, your life is going to change.”

Thus warned Dr Adele Lafrance in her lecture to Vital students about how feedback from the frontlines is informing psychedelic therapy.

And the emotion-focussed therapy expert told the Vital cohort that things can get even more cluster-fucked than that, once psychedelic rhetoric sets in. 

“The concept of blame in psychedelic work is very delicate and potentially dangerous,” she says in her quietly subversive style, “there’s that fundamental belief that ‘we are all one’ and ‘inner conflict is related to outer conflict’.” 

Transcendent resolutions usually only happen in retreat brochures. “Healing can be disruptive,” points out the self-declared ‘steward for reality’ – “We don’t want to throw anyone under the bus.”

If handled correctly, “Holding the healing for the patient’s chosen, natural environment can encourage positive effects, lessen negatives, and evolve relationships,” says Dr Lafrance, improving key connections for the benefit of all concerned. 

“Neuroscience supports the healing power of supportive caregiver-loved one reactions,” she continues, encouraging “Working at letting go of blame narratives and fantasy as a tool, in particular those involving our primary caregivers… as for some reason, at this stage of evolution, humans are strongly affected by the context of attachment relationships.”

Psychedelic culture, its rhetoric at least, is infamous for butting up against reality: from free love to not doing any washing up in the hippy commune and the ‘all conflict is bad, mmm-kay?’ notion referred to by Dr Lafrance above.

“It’s a skill to hold space for absent family members”

And patient-voyagers often come crashing back down to Earth when they head back to the all-too-real environment of the office, family dinner table, or marriage bed.

“As a field we need to think how we’re managing systemic stress,” says the working doctor, “If we foster asymmetry of growth by only treating one person, it can have worse outcomes for the client – breakdown of a marriage, for example. There is a high chance of getting divorced, when if we treated both the relationship could have thrived.”

MDMA-assisted couples’ therapy is still a few years off. What can psychedelic therapists do to keep ‘systems’ like couples and families in union till then?

“It’s a skill to hold space for absent family members. And it can be an especially complex skill to deeply validate the client’s experience while still honouring the family member,” advises Dr Lafrance.

“We don’t want to throw anyone under the bus”

She’s a specialist in Emotion Focussed Therapy (EFT) which has its own branch for next of kin, Emotion Focussed Family Therapy (EFFT).

During Zoom lectures, “I normally have my hibiscus behind me,” says the congenial clinical psychologist, with no further explanation of her favourite flora’s current whereabouts, “I normally point at it while I say this; a client’s lineage makes up the whole plant. So, an example of what I might say [about their family] is, ‘Yes, they were not able – not didn’t care, or didn’t try. Let’s cultivate these experiences, so you can be the first flower in your family lineage to bloom.”

Cod spirituality around ‘respecting the ancestors’ is best kept in mind, rather than hectored at the client. "We don’t have to tell the patient, but it’s important for us to remember the cultural, religious and social influences that changed the directory of their lives.”

Here in the UK, family members have a legal right to a ‘needs assessment’ that can provide additional support, and a study on Multiple disassociation disorder (MDD) Dr Lafrance is consulting for here in Europe involves the family. “This could be a formal process during screening [in the USA] as things get legal, especially if they are under-resourced or unaware,” she says.

Those of us who are wary of social services padding about our home, or feel their help may be superfluous, might also find ourselves cast in a role of responsibility, where certain emotions are unwelcome.

And personally, I’ve seen more women presenting at services usually associated with men, like anger management (see the Kardashian sisters for a celeb example). It’s connected to a sense of overwhelment, usually from satisfying others’ needs before one’s own.

“We don’t want people to taint our experience when it’s so fresh, raw and vulnerable. So we tell the family that they can’t expect to hear all about it”

Says Dr Lafrance, “There are gender differences, unfortunately, that are still true you know, in terms of how we have been culturally conditioned to connect with emotions. Men still struggle more with sadness, fear and shame. Women, because of cultural conditioning, and socio-political movements meant to suppress female assertion, still struggle with healthy anger. So that's why I use this dichotomy: ‘Which one is true for you?’ Because it's not always gender specific, especially as we continue to evolve as a culture around questions related to gender roles.” 

The respected clinical psychologist also recommends discretion around any potent visions and insights voyagers may’ve enjoyed. “At the end of the session we’ll ask the client what they feel comfortable sharing that doesn’t compromise them, their needs, or their integrity, but is still informed by what a couple might need. We don’t want other people to taint an experience when it’s so fresh, raw and vulnerable. So we tell the family that they can’t expect to hear all about it.” Bear in mind that sharing you spoke to an omnipotent mushroom counts for that.

What if, like myself, you sometimes get carried away with the notion that everyone in your family would benefit from a little medicine work? 

“When I was in the jungle what came up over and over again was – you have to be in touch with reality”

In the post-lecture question and answer session, I asked Dr Lafrance how not to share too much with friends and family: “Yeah, in fact, that would be another point of direct intervention, actually. So thank you for bringing that up,” she replied, “If someone in the context of the ceremony, you know, or session says, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I wish my parents would do this, I wish my brother would do that, I wish my sister…’ then I will ask them to look more deeply into that.”

Doing so might enable the patient to “Release themselves, and release that person from, you know, having to be at the same stage of healing,” says Dr Lafrance, “Release self first, release other second. And if that comes up in integration sessions, I would do it the same way – like, ‘Yeah, check in with the part of you that is longing for that. Let's see what it needs. Let's see what it says’.”

Dr Lafrance can certainly tell you what the Grandmother Spirit had to say about her own familial ins-and-outs, during a lengthy ayauasca retreat.

“When I was in the jungle, that was one of the things that came up over and over again – like, you have to be in touch with reality.” 

Which is probably a better tip than ‘You must respect the ancestors.’ But like anything genuinely helpful, it’s not easy to take on board. 

“They are limited in their capacities,” she explains, “And it's not because they don't love you. It's not because they desperately want you to be different, that you're not going to be able to get what you're looking for. And so where else you're gonna get it? Inside. And I cried many tears over that, you know, sprawled out on the earth outside of the maloca. Like, not wanting that to be true.”

Ceremony in Jamaica with Sacred Transitions Retreats and New Psychonaut

Treasure Beach ‘The Cornwall of Jamaica’ is where I’d send anyone close to me pondering a first experience.

Take a look.

Drugs are the Love

Space

MDMA for couples' therapy: 4/4 octopuses can’t be wrong

Ithell Colquhoun, ‘Song of Songs’ via Unit London

Can the inner healer mend a broken relationship?

Next up for MAPS therapy program designers Dr Michael Meithofer and his wife Annie AKA ‘Annie and Michael’ in spacespeak, is MDMA for couples’ counselling.

“We knew that MDMA was useful for communication… and some of the other anecdotal things about it,” Annie told none other than Professor David Nutt on the Drug Science podcast (where you can hear Dr Nutt, the David Attenborough of drugs, a UK national treasure say ‘Back to the show!’)

Annie collaborated on the initial research for a new era in MDMA couples’ therapy with Toronto’s Dr Anne Wagner. The Remedy clinic director has come up during further investigations into juicy subjects two weeks in a row (sync). Last week it was in a call for further research into psychedelic treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Yet Dr Wagner is not the only intrepid sailor of the soul cooking up excellent experiments using ecstasy. John Hopkins’ university neuroscience department, not to be outdone, gave E to octopuses. They’d noticed ‘that octopuses and humans had nearly identical genomic codes for the transporter that binds the neurotransmitter serotonin to the neuron's membrane.’

The California double-spot octopus is a solitary creature, barely interacting with others of its kind besides once a year, briefly, for mating. Even then the male uses a sex arm and it looks like mid-air refuelling. 

Would you believe though, that when researchers put the octopuses ‘in a beaker containing a liquified version of the drug’ according to National Geographic, they exhibited significantly more social behaviour?

‘Particularly telling, said scientist Gul Dolen, was that after being returned to their tanks at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, the octopuses went on to reproduce.’ 

During the Q&A after Annie and Michael’s lecture the pair were asked about giving MDMA to animals. After all, dogs are given anti-depressants. When I got my own chance to talk to them, I celebrated group ceremonial use of the ecstasy sacrament in the form of our rave culture then made a bad taste joke about giving MDMA to our pets hadn’t gone nearly as well. Now we know to shove them in a beaker of it.

’At no point did the octopuses ink, which would be a sign of stress,’ Dr Dolan told Nat Geo in response to all of our ethical concerns. 

Peak sexual experience

Integration

DMT is possibly responsible for the female full body orgasm

Eternal Phoenix by Carolyn Mary Kleefeld

There’s a new emphasis on returning to the womb.

An intrepid Vital student asked Dr Strassman a very pertinent question, going forward: “I’m a sex therapist. Should I ever mix psychedelics with that?”

Dr Strassman does have something of the ‘unlikely sex symbol’ about him. A volcano festers within, and I can imagine bookish, imaginative girls becoming rather intrigued by the quietly uncompromising genius. 

This image is compounded by The Strass’ involvement in the science of women’s cervical ‘full body’ orgasms.

“I posted an interview about this on my Facebook page,” he coyly replies to my fellow psychedelic student, “and it got a ton of likes compared to everything else,” (He probably means the Old Testament stuff). 

The splendid Double Blind magazine were first on it. The psychedelic lifestyle leader matched the sterling work of Olivia Bryant’s Self:Cervix project to spread awareness of earth-moving sex, with sex therapists who link that cervix to the vagus nerve. If the ‘full body’ orgasm activates the vagus nerve, the part of our nervous system responsible for the ‘rest and digest’ state, swinging from the chandeliers would bring significant health benefits.

“You do hear reports of experiences with a sexual character during DMT states”

The article quotes one of Bryant’s students: “Time both expanded and stood still. I understood everything and nothing. I was both God and unborn. The micro and the macro. The purest form of ecstasy and surrender I could ever hope to experience.”

Writer Nicolle Hodges pointed out that in The Spirit Molecule Dr Strassman writes of DMT, “There is a powerful dynamic or tension between the two roles it may play—one spiritual and the other sexual.” Asked if the brain releases DMT during orgasm The Strass wouldn’t take the bait: “That’s not known,” he replies in the interview. ‘Is sexually-activated DMT production perhaps one of the major motivating factors in reproductive behaviour?’ comes the follow-up question. “It’s educated speculation,” he says. “We don’t know for sure one way or the other.”

Undaunted, Hodges hit up Imperial’s Dr Chris Timmerman. “You do hear about reports of people having sensual experiences, which have a sexual character to them during DMT states,” he conceded, “Maybe [orgasms] have not been reported as much because sex has a taboo connotation to it, and the same can happen when sex is associated with DMT and psychedelics in general.” 

Britain’s cannabis journal Leafie ran with the ball. Neuroscience graduate Bethan Finnegan pointed out that women with major spinal injury can still have cervical orgasms and the clitoral orgasm deactivates the pre-frontal cortex leading to miniature ‘ego death’, with French lingo for orgasm being le petit mort, ‘little death’.

Back in the Vital Q&A, Dr Strassman falls back to scientist mode. “You’d have to be methodical and incremental with your research! Study the DMT like properties of orgasm with psychedelic questionnaires, to make a cogent comparison. I think you’d find a relationship, strong correlation. Then you can look into how it occurs.”

He has some trade secrets for anyone carrying out cutting-edge research in mainstream science…

“Don’t worry about risk. Find some good mentors, keep your head on your shoulders, and do your research step by step in a Trojan Horse manner. That’s how I did mine.”

Dr Timmerman in Double Blind adds some London-based understatement: “You would need to collect blood samples when people are having these experiences to detect DMT levels in their bodies when this is occurring. This might be tricky to do in a lab environment for obvious reasons. But not impossible.”