28 - Stepping Into the Light of Psychedelic Healing with Brett

Truth Fairy and Dr. T welcome Brett to the podcast to talk about his journey in “coming out from under the rocks”, which is to say emerging from the underground. Brett has studied, refined, and used a broad range of substances and practices and he helps people find a framework for holding their experience in both the mind and body. Dr. T, Truth Fairy, and Brett have a very open discussion about the path of a psychedelic therapist.

Brett shares how he approaches working with a client and what medicines he recommends to open their journey with a calm headspace and a clear mind. He encourages time in nature during the treatment and describes walking close to a beautiful river. He has spent almost twenty years, ten of which have been with his wife and partner, developing a framework for working with various medicines that is uniquely suited to each client's needs. This methodical yet flexible approach allows for slowing thoughts down and opening consciousness to true understanding.

The conversation includes breaking down the different consciousness states, child consciousness, adult consciousness, and somatic consciousness, how to translate experiences had on medicine into daily non-medicated life, and how to stabilize clients. Brett approaches his psychedelic therapy practices from a Buddhist-influenced perspective with a focus on sourcing his own medicines. Truth Fairy, Dr. T and Brett connect in very real ways over shared theories and beliefs about healing.

“I have actually asked [my trusted peers] if this gets off the rails, if I look like I'm not being authentic and acting with integrity, I expect you to tell me. I think there's a chance if you don't have that structure, that safety net, then it can get weird. We can create ideas that are just not helpful for ourselves and our clients. I think that there's a real opportunity when we're self-taught and self-directed to cultivate our own personal strengths and really to find that approach, that unique gift that we bring to the table.” - Brett

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Punk Therapy: website |email

Truth Fairy and Dr. T welcome Cami Barton, author and practitioner dedicated to social change through embodied practices, to the show. Truth Fairy reads a poem on pain by Kahlil Gibran that emphasizes the intertwining of pain and joy, suggesting that embracing pain can lead to a deeper understanding of life, which highlights many of the themes of Cami’s work.

Cami discusses their work in psychedelic therapy, grief, pleasure, and drug policy, rooted in black feminism and harm reduction. They share personal experiences, including an abortion in 2017 that sparked the project for their upcoming book, "Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community". The book explores grief and healing rituals, drawing from Cami's journey and broader societal patterns.

The conversation delves into Cami's work in designing a master's program, teaching psychedelic therapy, and collaborating with MAPS to ensure accessibility to MDMA psychotherapy for marginalized communities. Truth Fairy and Dr. T discuss various aspects of Cami's expertise and personal journey, including childhood trauma and the surfacing of dissociated memories during their healing process. It is a meditation on grief and healing that holds deep insight to benefit all listeners.

“And so the Dagara people are indigenous to what we now call Burkina Faso in West Africa. And they have a very specific relationship to communal grief tending, where everyone in the community is expected to tend their grief in the communal ritual once a month because there's an understanding in their cosmology that unattended grief will actually become harm in the society. So rather than being taboo as it is in the West to grieve publicly and be with that, it's actually taboo to avoid your grief in the Dagara context.” - Cami 

Resources discussed in this episode:

• On Pain by Kahlil Gibran
• “Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community” by Camille Sapara Barton
• Website: CamilleSaparaBarton.com

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Punk Therapy: website |email

Dr. T and Truth Fairy welcome guest Sapha to the show to talk about healing through ayahuasca. When Sapha reached out via email, Truth Fairy realized she has friends in common with him, and, being touched by his email and story, invited him to be on the show. The details of his advocacy and journey are inspiring to hear.   

Sapha shares his father's story of emigrating to Canada from Tehran, Iran, during the Islamic Revolution. Pain, abandonment, and confusion that went with Sapha’s story led to a need for escapism through substance abuse. The addiction lasted through Sapha’s career in the oil and gas industry until age 29 when he realized he needed help. But after being denied assistance from the BC government, Sapha’s salvation came from an aunt who connected him with the Leipzig Serenity Retreat, a holistic recovery centre in Saskatchewan.

Dr. T and Truth Fairy talk with Sapha about how he found ayahuasca and his early psychedelic experiences, the need to really heal the underlying causes of addiction and not simply the addiction itself, and the benefits of small group work that Sapha embarked upon. Sapha also addresses how he now does a lot of work with men who have suffered at the hands of the patriarchal system and through the expectations placed on men. This episode reveals a lot about the benefits of working with ayahuasca and the healing possibilities of being on a psychedelic-assisted recovery journey.

“And that's a big part of the teaching here with what we do and the way that we work with men, it's like ayahuasca is a tool. You know, psychedelics are tools. They're not a cure for addiction. They're an opportunity to get a really close look from a different lens. How to uncover and unravel this bundle of emotions and these layers of pain that as men or as people we've been born with,” - Sapha

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Information on Ayahuasca
• Leipzig Serenity Retreat
• SacredRebelsRecovery on Instagram

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Punk Therapy: website |email

In this very special episode, Dr. T and Truth Fairy meet in real life for the first time. Truth Fairy travels to Australia and the two hosts are united in person at last! Their conversation happens organically from the moment of meeting as they discuss what they’ve been doing and what plans they have. 

Dr. T fills Truth Fairy in on the clinical trial he has finally received permission to engage in. A trial with mushrooms for treatment-resistant depression. Truth Fairy reveals that Dr. T will be taking part in her five-day training while she is in Australia which both are extremely excited about. They reflect on the strangeness of finally being together in person and yet the familiar sense of recognizing each other as a kind of family.

Dr. T and Truth Fairy dive into the three-day medicine session Truth Fairy just before their meeting. Truth Fairy recounts what made her say yes to that session and how it went. They talk about prayers of gratitude offered before sessions, being drawn to work with people in trauma, the mentors they have found in the field, and finally reflect again on how wonderful it is to meet each other in real life and make the connection beyond Zoom.  

“It's like when I first saw you, a part of me recognized you and a part of me didn't recognize you because you were no longer the person just behind the screen. You were a real fully in-flesh person. And as I'm sitting here watching you, it's like the connections are being made and the recognition is coming and I'm sinking back into like, Oh, okay, I know this person.” -  Dr. T

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Gabor Maté
• Sharon Stanley
• smudge

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Punk Therapy: website |email

Dr. T hosts this episode solo and has a wonderful conversation with guest Shirley Dvir, founder and lead teacher of Relational Somatic Healing. Dr. T and Shirley both started in social work but are now pursuing careers in healing and they share their views on human to human healing touch and the psychedelic field. 

Shirley talks about how she sees the nature of healing as really being about deep listening and receiving the other person. She notes how people rarely get really truly listened to and when we do listen and simply meet people as humans where they are, when we can receive people as they are, it opens up an experience for deep healing.  

Dr. T and Shirley address how part of experiencing healing is the human to human contact we crave and how we have lost the healing art of touch in our modern modalities. They acknowledge how touch is so taboo and often tied to so much trauma but that the healing touch is something we need to foster again. They discuss the need for learning on consent to touch, of knowing when to offer touch and when not to, and how the psychedelic experience can heighten either need for refusal of touch. 

“There's a lot of abuse of touch in general in the world of physical touch and sexual touch and touch can be so dangerous too. And that can be so harmful, and at the same time so medicinal when it's being done right…. The boundaries are so important and the training of the therapist is so important.” -  Shirley Dvir

Resources discussed in this episode:

• “Integral Psychedelic Therapy: The Non-Ordinary Art of Psychospiritual Healing” - Shirley Dvir’s chapter is entitled “Relational Touch in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy”

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Punk Therapy: website |email

Shirley Dvir: linkedin | website

CW: talk of rape and sexual dysregulation

Dr. T and the Truth Fairy welcome guests Gam, a sociologist, activist, and soon-to-be craniosacral therapist from Scandinavia, and Rachael, a somatic sex educator, intimacy guide, and body worker in Canada, to the show to talk about solo psychedelic medicine journeys. Both Gam and Rachael have worked in cohorts with Truth Fairy and come from experiences in guiding themselves on solo journeys, and they share what the solo journey is like.

Gam embarked on solo journeys out of necessity, due to a lack of support and community in psychedelic therapy in Scandinavia. He admitted he also wasn’t particularly comfortable in groups so decided to start a long exploration into solo work and appreciates the deep understand he got from both good and bad experiences on his own. Rachael began in group work but explored solo work through the pandemic. Through that she found a certain strength in having external support she could reach out to if solo work became rough.

Dr. T., Truth Fairy, Gam, and Rachael discuss the benefits of ceremony and community, the necessity of inner work and preparation to precede solo journeys, relationship with the erotic self in solo work, and how our systems respond to psychedelics according to need. The conversation sheds light on how bodily integration and internal work are part of psychedelic medicine and the nature of support even within solo journeys.

“Psychedelics are an opportunity to open up our trust in our erotic bodies, to trust that we can hold that incredible life force and not inflict pain or desire in unwelcome spaces, not open ourselves to violation, and just be in the pleasure of our erotic body in community.” -  Rachael

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Sharon Stanley
• Antonio Damasio

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Punk Therapy:  website |email

CW: sexual content, trauma

Dr. T and the Truth Fairy welcome Temptress (she/her they/them), sex worker and advocate for psychedelics, to the show to discuss sex positivity and queerness in the psychedelic ecosystem. Temptress shares psychedelic healing and sexual experiences from their own past and addresses the need to define safe and sensitive psychedelic care for trans and queer individuals.

Temptress explains the gender trauma that defined much of her formative years and how psychedelics started her on the path towards healing. She did a lot of solo work, exploring on her own, until she was able to connect with a partner with whom she connected and could share psychedelic exploration. The experiences allowed them to reunify aspects of themselves that had been disconnected due to trauma.

Temptress, Dr. T and Truth Fairy talk about sex positivity within psychedelic healing, psychedelics in rave culture, queer connection and expression, and the need for language in psychedelic healing to shift to better support trans and queer folks as well as gender trauma. Temptress has a lot of personal insight and advocacy knowledge that opens valuable conversations that the psychedelic community needs to have. 

“You know, cisgender folks tend to be able to access health care with much more ease than transgender folks do and queer folks do. Cisgender folks and straight folks alike are able to access employment opportunities, as well as just the sexual economy, a lot easier. And so as practitioners, being educated on these differences can I think really help with establishing a sense of safety for other trans folks and queer folks who are entering those spaces.” -  Temptress

Resources discussed in this episode:

• NARM Training Institute
• Chacruna conferences - Queering Psychedelics
• “Queering Psychedelics: From Oppression to Liberation in Psychedelic Medicine” by Alex Belser PhD, Clancy Cavnar PsyD, and Beatrix Caiuby Labate PhD
• Sensei Kevon Simpson
• Lilla Watson
• José Esteban Muñoz

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Punk Therapy: website |email

CW: End of life care and distress

Dr. T and the Truth Fairy welcome Michelle Gagnon, a registered nurse with a background in medical assistance in dying. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of British Columbia where her research focuses on ethics, therapeutic psychedelics, and health care practices, specifically where they intersect. Michelle shares a wealth of health care experience and knowledge with Dr. T and Truth Fairy. 

Michelle’s masters’ research examined moral distress among intensive care nurses losing patients. She explains what moral distress encompasses and how she is researching the potential for psychedelics to help treat folks struggling with it. Dr. T shares a related personal experience that lends perspective to what Michelle is exploring.

In conversation with Michelle Gagnon, Dr. T and Truth Fairy learn about Michelle’s work with non-profit association TheraPsil, her hopes for the legalization of psychedelics like psilocybin for medical use, the limits of the current health care structure, and how ethics must factor into every aspect of research and practice. There is a lot of insightful information imparted about Canadian research into psychedelics and the individuality of approach necessitated by each person’s reaction to medicines in this episode. 

“I think sometimes with psychedelics as it's framed now, there's a lot of excitement about it and sometimes we can get lost in the hype that this could change things drastically. And it could, but it's not an easy cure, like you said, it's not necessarily even a cure or an assist for everybody. It's not right for everyone. It's just the way I kind of see it is it's another potential tool under our umbrella of other tools. And it's so unique in so many ways. And I think it is, like you mentioned, disrupting potentially a lot of the way we do things, which is exciting.” -  Michelle Gagnon

About Michelle Gagnon, RN:

Michelle Gagnon is a registered nurse with a background in emergency critical care and medical assistance in dying. As a by-product of her master's research, which focused on moral distress in pediatric critical care nurses related to the death and dying of child patients, Michelle became interested in the use of psychedelic medicine for distress. She is currently a PhD student at the University of British Columbia with a research focus on the intersection of ethics, therapeutic psychedelics and health care practices. 

Michelle worked for nonprofit TheraPsil to support Canadians seeking access for medical psilocybin through Health Canada. She also spends time volunteering with the Psychedelic Association of Canada's Ethics Working Group to draft and disseminate articles related to pressing ethical topics in the psychedelic field. 

In her free time, Michelle is an avid baker and enjoys reading mystery and fantasy. Through mud and snow she enjoys mountain biking the trails where she lives in the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut'ina, the Stoney Nakoda nations and the Metis Nation, and all who make their homes in the treaty seven region of Southern Alberta.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Michelle Gagnon on Medium
• TheraPsil
• Psychedelic Association of Canada

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Punk Therapy: website |email

CW: Physical assault, trauma, and suicide

Dr. T and the Truth Fairy welcome Dr. Sharon Stanley - renowned psychotherapist, author, and developer of the psychotherapeutic model of somatic transformation - to the show. They have a searching and revealing conversation with Dr. Stanley about her career and the decades of work she has done with humans and trauma. 

Sharon Stanley describes her work as “relational to the core” and explains how her somatic work uses relationship to at times discern a particular technique. She shares the personal story of how she first became interested in trauma and how her study moved into the idea of somatic transformation from there. Dr. Stanley also names many foundational figures whom she has drawn insight from along the way.

The discussion Dr. T and the Truth Fairy have with Sharon Stanley involve how Sharon keeps boundaries in the relationship formed through trauma bonding, what the intersubjective field is, and the six steps of somatic transformation. Sharon describes what ‘meaning making’ encompasses and she invites Dr. T and Truth Fairy into a brief thematic reflection. This episode sheds light on how much Truth Fairy has learned from Dr. Stanley and why she has been mentioned so frequently on PUNK Therapy. It gives insight into her intentions and careful trauma healing methods.

“When we do have an experience of going through something together, we can have an experience called trauma bonding. And the trauma bonding is a kind of an enmeshment where I feel what you feel, you feel what I feel. And we don't have clear boundaries. And that kind of leads me a little bit further into your question that working professionally with trauma, it's relational, but the boundaries are very clear. And how to make sure [in] those boundaries that there's a time, there's a place, there's a way we will, it's almost like a ritual that we will follow.” -  Dr. Sharon Stanley

About Sharon Stanley, PhD:

Over the past 17 years Sharon Stanley has developed and taught an emerging curriculum for healing trauma to thousands of  mental health practitioners. The educational experience of ST actively engages psychotherapists in exploring emerging research and practices in their own professional and personal lives. Sharon then applies their findings to the ongoing development of Somatic Transformation.

As an instructor for Somatic Transformation, Sharon has had the privilege of teaching psychotherapists from Canada, United States, Middle East and Europe. Her doctoral studies at the University of Victoria involved research into the development of empathy in caregivers working with traumatized children and identifies the transformative effects of ST as an amplification of empathic connection. Sharon has been engaged in a small study group with Dr. Allan Schore, a well-known neuroscientist, for 18 years. She lives and practices psychotherapy on Bainbridge Island, just outside of Seattle.  Her book, Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma: Lifting the Burdens of the Past was published by Routledge in 2016 and is used by psychotherapists interested in a humanistic, developmental, body-centered, relational approach to healing trauma.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• “Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma” by Sharon Stanley, PhD
• Judith Herman
• Edith Stein
• John O’Donohue
• Matryoshka dolls
• Max van Manen
• Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World

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Punk Therapy: website |email

Dr. Sharon Stanley: somatic transformation website | email

Truth Fairy flies solo again for a deep conversation with Daan Keiman, co-founder of Guild of Guides Netherlands, to explain what a Psychedelic Chaplain is. Daan himself is a Psychedelic Chaplain and guides listeners through what that means, as well as discussing education and training in the realm of psychedelics.

Daan shares details of how he views the work of a Psychedelic Chaplain and what informs his practice. He is trained as an interfaith spiritual caregiver and has a Master’s of Arts in both theology and religious studies. He was trained as a Buddhist chaplain so approaches his role with more of an existential questioning stance. He has psychedelic experiences to share, ones that helped shape his journey. 

Truth Fairy and Daan Keiman explore their experiences as instructors, in education capacities, and what it means to be trained in psychedelic healing. They address psychedelic apprenticeship, legalization, the bottleneck problem, and what Daan will be talking about in his upcoming conference. Their conversation explores crucial ideas at the heart of psychedelic medicine and approaches questions from a healing and helping perspective, informed by their combined experiences.   

“The profession of spiritual care, of offering spiritual care to people while they prepare for or move through or seek to integrate psychedelic experiences, can really provide a lot of pointers, practices and approaches on how to do that ethically, how to do that well. And a term that we could use is existential integrity, which might be understood as, I'm a client, I have a sort of right to be supported in understanding a psychedelic experience, in an existential language and through existential practices that I either consent to and/or that are deeply familiar to me.” - Daan Keiman

About Daan Keiman:

Daan holds an MA in Spiritual Care and is the co-founder of Guild of Guides Netherlands: an organization that seeks to professionalize psychedelic sitting services. His experience with guiding and caring for people in altered states of consciousness spans over a decade; ranging from psychedelic harm reduction work on festivals to his private practice as a Psychedelic Chaplain.

Daan draws from his personal Buddhist practices, psychedelic research and his professional experiences to create compassionate and powerful containers for personal and relational transformation. As an avid explorer of consciousness, he is highly capable of supporting others who are traversing the landscapes of the mind.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• “Thresholds” by John O’Donohue
• Vajrayana Buddhism
• Erowid.org
• De Hollandse Psychonaut
• Communitas
• “Towards psychedelic apprenticeship: Developing a gentle touch for the mediation and validation of psychedelic-induced insights and revelations” by Christopher Timmermann, Rosalind Watts, and David Dupuis

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Punk Therapy: website |email

Dr. T: email  |  Truth Fairy: email