144: Psychedelics as a Healing Tool for Sexual Assault Survivors with Melissa Barker

Dr. Melissa Barker is an advocate for psychedelics + the improvement of protocols for complex PTSD. In this episode, you’ll hear our personal experiences with trauma, therapy + how psychedelics helped. 

If you have a loved one experiencing the pain of trauma + sexual assault, perhaps this will provide the words they need to hear.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• The embodied practices that can support a trauma survivor
• How the word “trauma” can become an excuse to remain disempowered
• Pop psychology + the cultural blocks that get in the way of people being able to receive the help they need
• The Phoenix Project - A free community with resources for integration tips, self-healing topics + psychedelic integration
• The difference between PTSD + Complex-PTSD
• How psychedelics have the potential to transform our understanding of trauma processing
• Melissa’s personal experience with MDMA + ketamine for processing trauma
• Healing from narcissistic exes + cultivating internal safety
• Psilocybin is a tool to create a deeper relationship with the self
• Hypervigilance + processing the trauma after a breakup
• Taking responsibility for our healing and not outsourcing it to others
• Trauma survivors processing enmeshment and losing the sense of self
• Pearls of wisdom for trauma survivors to help understand themselves

THE SKINNY ON OUR SEXY GUESTS

“Trauma is not the monster in the room. Trauma is the catalyst to growth and inner transformation.” – Dr. Melissa Barker

Dr. Melissa Barker, EdD is an entrepreneur, activist, and emerging voice in the growing psychedelics movement. Dr. Barker is the founder of The Phoenix Project, a community-led mental health tech platform created by survivors for survivors.

Dr. Barker holds a doctorate in Transformative Leadership. Her doctoral dissertation (Leading Through the Dark: Hope and Healing after Personal and Collective Trauma) focuses on how trauma survivors are finding sustainable healing, especially in the shadow of the pandemic. 

From 2018 to 2019, she served on the Board of Directors for STAND! For Families Free of Violence, a Bay-area nonprofit supporting survivors of domestic abuse.

In 2014, Dr. Barker filed a Title IX Civil Rights case against UC Berkeley for mishandling sexual violence cases on the college campus. In total, 31 brave survivors came forward, and four years later, the Office of Civil Rights found UC Berkeley had violated Title IX.

Dr. Barker’s personal experience of sexual violence and her resulting PTSD diagnosis led her to explore such modalities as somatic therapy, IFS, and mindfulness-based psychotherapy. She eventually discovered the incredible therapeutic power of psychedelics and began implementing them to integrate her trauma.

Her experiences with ketamine, MDMA/MDA, psilocybin, and LSD (alongside her work helping other survivors) spurred her into a deeper understanding of what healing from sexual trauma, abuse and violence means for women, particularly in today’s current climate.

She is now in the process of developing a new iteration of The Phoenix Project that utilizes revolutionary tech to support psychedelic integration for trauma survivors and to connect them with the community and resources they need.

Dr. Barker has been featured in HuffPost, Forbes, Nasdaq, and as one of Thrive Global’s “Social Impact and Nonprofit Leaders to Watch”. She’s been interviewed on Third Wave and Only One in the Room podcasts. She was a featured Mentor on the psychedelics track at SXSW in 2023.

 

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Guide for vetting your psychedelic practitioner: ⁠https://learn.sexloveyoga.com/Vetting%20Your%20Guide

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