In this episode of the Psychedelic Medicine Podcast, Steve Rio joins to discuss 5-MeO-DMT for Trauma and PTSD. Steve is a psychedelic facilitator and Co-Founder of Enfold, which offers a groundbreaking psychospiritual model that combines psychedelic intensives, coaching, and community to help individuals heal trauma and reach their full potential.

In this conversation, Steve shares his journey of how he got into facilitating 5-MeO-DMT experiences and insights on working safely and effectively with this medicine over the course of his practice. He discusses the screening procedure he uses before clearing clients for facilitated 5-MeO-DMT experiences to ensure safety as much as possible when working with this powerful psychedelic. Steve also talks about how he tailors his work with clients based on the state of their nervous system and their unique personality. In closing, Steve emphasizes the somatic quality of 5-MeO-DMT experiences, sharing different types of experiences people typically have on the medicine and how these can best be integrated.

In this episode you'll hear:

Preparation for safe and effective 5-MeO-DMT experiences
Stories of transformation following 5-MeO-DMT healing for PTSD and focused integration practices
How common 5-MeO-DMT reactivations are, and when they typically happen
Issues of spiritual bypassing in underground psychedelic facilitation
How to navigate informed consent in the context of facilitating psychedelic experiences

Quotes:

“At the peak of the 5-MeO experience, there is no mind… When people talk about the death and the rebirth experience with 5-MeO, what we’re really talking about is relaxing and essentially dissolving the ego entirely so there is no experience of ‘you’ in the experience—you become one with the experience. But… what’s possible there is that we then access the nervous system and we see these very dramatic energetic releases and people often are physically reliving traumatic experiences and physically releasing the fight, flight, freeze response that may have happened or not happened.” [6:52]

“Trauma is complex and for some people it’s not that simple. For some people, they go through a six- to twelve-month process after 5-MeO-DMT that is really challenging.” [22:37]

“So [we’re] helping people… build sensitivity in their nervous system—reconnect with sensitivity and slowing things down and building more awareness and learning how to notice their emotions as sensations in the body before they become thought patterns.” [32:00]

“I think one of the challenges in all of this is that people will lie to you to get to your experience because they’re desperate for the healing. And you have to be really careful about the conversations you have and asking open-ended questions and really listening to your intuition—and really being grounded in that.” [40:28]

“What we’re doing here I would say there’s obviously a psychological component to it, but often that happens in the weeks and months afterwards. What’s happening here is a much more somatic experience and it can be very confusing and challenging for the mind of a person… you’ve paid all this money, you’ve prepared for weeks and months, you’ve been thinking about it, you come have this experience… Right after the ceremony for some people, the thought is ‘what just happened?’ and ‘did anything happen?’ and ‘did it work?’ because there’s very rarely like an immediate insight on ‘here’s how you’re going to make your life better’—that’s not what comes out of this experience. What comes out of this experience is a dramatic shift in how your body feels and often people will report feeling emotionally lighter or that they lost ten pounds. It’s hard to explain, but the way peoples’ eyes light up the day after the ceremony is so different—like they often just look different coming in and leaving.” [42:56]

Links:

Enfold Website

Enfold on Instagram

Enfold on YouTube

Still In It: 5-MeO-DMT Stories

Previous episode: Psychedelic Therapy: Slow Down to Heal Faster with Sunny Strasburg, LMFT

Previous episode: Psychedelic Adjunct Series: Somatic Therapy with Jenna Valentine, DACM, LAc

Previous episode: Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy for Accelerated Growth with Nick Brüss, EdD, LMFT

Previous episode: When *Not* to Proceed with a Planned Psychedelic Journey with Rick Barnett, PsyD

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