112: Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy feat. Josh West

Abby and Patrick are joined by Dr. Josh West to talk about some remarkable developments in psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in Australia. Josh explains to Abby and Patrick how the clinical trials he describes are better understood as an experiment in sustained psychotherapy rather than just testing a new drug, and how that experiment has profound psychoanalytic and psychodynamic salience. From the process of patient preparation to the details of “dose day” to the work of subsequent sessions of “integration,” Josh walks Abby and Patrick through how he and other clinicians do their work, and how they tackle the unique demands of maintaining a holding environment, navigating transference, precipitating psychic change, and providing help to patients who are working through end of life crises, longstanding pathologies, and other kinds of profound distress. Along the way, he provides vital context about the history of lab-based psychedelic research and the (mis)appropriation of indigenous traditions while assessing the practical, ethical, and legal challenges that arise when psychedelics become objects of psychopharmacological study, routinized treatment, and corporate investment. 

Josh’s suggestions for further reading include: 

Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind 

Marc B. Aixalà, Psychedelic Integration  

Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life 

Roberto Lovato, The Gentrification of Consciousness 

Other sources cited include:

Robert Gordon Wasson, “Seeking the Magic Mushroom,” Life 

Andrei Znamenski, The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the Western Imagination

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