In this episode, Laura Dawn features her conversation with both Dr. Jim Fadiman, author of an all-time classic The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide alongside Jordan Gruber, who both co-authored a new book called Your Symphony of Selves: Discover More Of Who You Are.

When you think about your Self, do you consider yourself to be one “Unified Self? Or is it possible that you have multiple selves? And if you did consider yourself to have more than one Self, would that be a sign of pathology or health? 

Adopting this notion that we have more than one Self is what Jim Fadima and Jordan Gruber call “healthy multiplicity”. This concept directly sits at odds with the prevailing notion that we only have one unified self, in the fields of health care and psychology. Jordan and Jim argue that embracing our multiplicity of Selves is actually a sign of health and wellbeing, not a sign of pathology. 

In this episode, we dive into what they call the “healthy selves model”  and explore questions like: how many Selves do we really have? Are all of our Selves an expression of ego? Can one of our Selves be “our higher self? What if we don’t like one of our Selves that seems to wreak havoc on our lives, should we give that self a back seat amongst our entourage of selves? Can one of our selves be a different age or even a different gender? How does this concept of multiple selves fit with shadow work or childhood trauma? Or working with psychedelics?

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