By Rosalind Watts, Sam Gandy, Alex Evans — 2019
Psychedelics offer a sense of expansive connectedness, just like astronauts have felt looking back to Earth from space.
Read on aeon.co
CLEAR ALL
Like most people of color in the United States, psychotherapist and researcher Monnica Williams has experienced myriad forms of racism. Early in her career, understanding its effects on her mind and body motivated her to help clients address their own racial trauma in therapy.
We’re seeing an explosion of medical research into psychedelics. Psilocybin, or shrooms, to treat major depressive disorder. Ayahuasca, a psychotropic plant medicine from the Amazon, and ibogaine, a potent hallucinogen from Africa, to treat addiction. LSD for anxiety.
Through this treatment plan, the patient was able to “reconceptualize her trauma” and “was able to move through difficult memories and emotions rather than letting them consume her,” explained U of O associate professor, Monnica Williams.
1
A recent study found that even a single positive psychedelic experience may ease mental health symptoms associated with racial trauma experienced by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).
“For your husband, your illness may have made him acutely aware of not just your mortality, but also his own.”
We innately long for feelings of safety, trust, and comfort in our connections with others and quickly pick up cues that tell us when we may not be safe.
The psychiatry professor on the polyvagal theory he developed to understand our reactions to trauma.
Williams is the co-lead author of a recent retrospective study that found those who tried doses of psilocybin (more commonly known as magic mushrooms), LSD, or MDMA (the pure substance found in Ecstasy or Molly) reported a decrease in trauma symptoms, depression and anxiety after 30 days.
Trauma is about broken connections. Connection is broken with the body/self, family, friends, community, nature, and spirit.