Ep 175: Psychedelics, Sexual Trauma and Pleasure as a Healing Modality with Dee Dee Goldpaugh
How might we challenge and expand upon the established medical definitions of trauma? Can our understanding of healing evolve to encompass not just the alleviation of symptoms but also the reclamation of joy and pleasure? What are the recent shifts in utilizing psychedelics as tools for trauma treatment?
In this episode, Effy sits down with Dee Dee Goldpaugh, a psychotherapist, educator, author, activist, and the Clinical Director of Chrysalis Integrative Psychotherapy. Together, they embark on an in-depth exploration of the transformative potential of psychedelics in trauma therapy. Shedding light on prevailing medical models and their constraints, Effy and Dee Dee advocate for a more holistic approach, one that not only prioritizes the individual's wellbeing, reconnection to pleasure, joy and eroticism but also remains acutely aware of the broader social, cultural, and environmental implications of psychedelic use.
To find out more about Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Dee Dee (they/them/theirs) is a psychotherapist, educator, clinical supervisor, author, and activist. They are the Clinical Director of Chrysalis Integrative Psychotherapy. Dee Dee has taught and published widely on the topics of psychedelics, sexuality, trauma, gender, and spirituality. They have been a leading voice in the development of Psychedelic Integration Psychotherapy techniques, specifically with survivors of trauma and have published the first article to appear in an academic journal, Sexual and Relationship Therapy, exploring the intersection of sexuality, spirituality, and psychedelic healing.
Dee Dee is a clinical supervisor for EMBARK psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy approach. They offer Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy as part of the team at the Woodstock Therapy Center and facilitate ketamine-assisted psychotherapy retreats. They have also completed the MAPS training in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Dee Dee is the author of the forthcoming book Feeling Good: How Psychedelics Can Help Us Reconnect To Our Sexuality, Reclaim Pleasure, and Rediscover Ourselves due to be published in 2024 by Inner Traditions.
Dee Dee has been a presenter in the Sex Therapy Collaborative and a faculty instructor in the Trauma Therapy program at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. They have presented at The Alt Sex Conference Speaker’s Series, The Center for Optimal Living, Ante Up! and are contributing author in the book Queering Psychedelics. They have been featured in articles by Vice Magazine, Chacruna, The Albany Times Union, Medium, Brides, Psymposia, Refinery 29, and Psychology Today. Dee Dee runs therapist consultation groups in Psychedelic Integration Therapy.
Instagram: @deedeegoldpaugh
Website: deedeegoldpaugh.com
Chrysalis Integrative Therapy: chrysalisintegrativetherapy.com
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TRANSCRIPT:
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
You go to a rave, right? That can be a very sacred and healing experience, but it's what you bring to it.
Effy
Welcome to the Curious Fox podcast. For those challenging the status quo in love, sex, and relationships. My name is Effy blue. Today, we're carrying on with part two of our four part series on challenging the status quo in the way we think, talk about and treat trauma. In this episode, I continue to follow my curiosity towards healing modalities outside the traditional medical model. Joining me today is one of the most lucid voices when it comes to psychedelic medicine and psychedelic integration psychotherapy as treatment for trauma.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
I'm Dee Dee Goldpaugh, I'm a psychotherapist and author. I specialize in psychedelic assisted therapy and psychedelic integration therapy, specifically with sexual trauma survivors.
Effy
Beautiful, you do that so much better than mine. I've been doing this for so long, I still stumble. Welcome back to the show, didi.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Thank you for having me back.
Effy
I have known DD socially for many years for my shared community. And since I've been doing this podcast Titi and I have been having ongoing conversations about their work, which continues to fascinate me. Our conversation was comprehensive and broad. So I want to dive right in these career evolution has informed the way they define trauma. So this felt like a good place to start.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
So you know, I started my career as a psychotherapist in sex therapy, I was working with people who had sexual dysfunction. And of course, sexual trauma came up all the time. And I found that, you know, there's things I love about the discipline of sex therapy. And I realized I really needed additional training and trauma to be able to adequately help people. So I began to go down the path in the last 10 years of training in different kinds of somatic trauma modalities. And that means therapy that mostly focuses on the body rather than processing things cognitively. And even within this more sort of progressive paradigm for psychotherapy, what I began to see is that the medical model defines trauma fairly narrowly, right? That it has to be sort of a catastrophic event that impacts your ability to function. Or we also have a definition that came around in the 1990s, of complex post traumatic stress disorder, which is pervasive trauma that's existed over long periods of time, and how that affects the personality structure and the functioning of a person. And within the psychotherapy world, what I found is, you know, clinicians were defining clinical success, as does this person have symptoms or not? Right? Are they still depressed? Are they having flashbacks? And I realized really quickly, particularly with my work around sexuality, that that is not a life worth living, just a life that's free from depression and flashbacks. So I really began to embrace this idea of what does it mean to think of trauma, as I should say, the healing of trauma has the restoration of pleasure and joy in your life. So an expanded definition of trauma might really be any experience we have in our lives, large or small, that impact our ability to be present with pleasure, in an enduring way. And I think that last caveat, in an enduring way is really important, because if we're arguing for this expanded definition of trauma, then we also have to recognize that there's a subset of people that will overuse that term, and even perhaps, weaponize that term, you know, the communities that I circulated, they're very much queer poly very progressive minded communities. And trauma is a huge buzzword. And so it's important to kind of define trauma as opposed to stress, right, because we can experience difficult things all the time. So for example, a countering an opinion that you disagree with that can be highly stressful. It's not necessarily traumatic, even though the experience might be very upsetting. It's about the enduring effects. So I'm looking at things that are as big as sexual assault but are as subtle as growing up in a sex negative culture or growing up with the impact of you know, religious oppression, and what impacts those have on our personality because they really can be lifelong, and they can deprive us of erotically Healthy Life and identity.
Effy
That is so interesting to me that is a different way of looking at trauma, right? What I'm hearing you say is what we think of trauma are the symptoms, which is the depression, the anxiety, the isolation, the disassociation. And once we sort of solve for those symptoms, now, there's no more trauma. But what you're saying that's actually, that's not the whole of it, because trauma also gets in the way of pleasure and joy, and sort of fully experiencing life. But the way that we thinking about it is like, we get people from trauma to essentially surviving, but we kind of drop them there. And we don't give them the tools and the further healing required to go into a thriving mode, where you're also experiencing pleasure and joy and sort of life fully, is what you're saying. And it makes so much sense.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you think about it, particularly in research, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of psychotherapists that are independently operating in ways that are really consistent with what I'm saying. But if we think about how trauma is measured clinically, it's like, do you meet this diagnostic criteria? Or don't you and it all has to do with the reduction of symptoms. But when we help a client get to a place where all of a sudden, they're not in that dissociative state or hyper activated state, or whatever their trauma manifests as there's a vacuum there, right? You've been dealing with that for so long on an acute or subtle level, that there's almost like a relearning to open up to the world. And so I am interested in working with people around sexuality, but I'm also interested in working with people around sensuality, the sensuality of being in a human body of being a nature of connecting with community. That's a that's an erotic act, too, because it's deeply deeply sensual.
Effy
Yes, that makes so much sense. It reminds me of when people go on antidepressant and they say things like, I don't feel sad anymore, but I don't feel anything. Yeah. You know, I don't feel anxious. And I don't feel anything. Like I just don't feel anything. And that's kind of what comes up for me when when you talk about it in that way. Sure. I don't feel the effects of trauma anymore. But I'm also not feeling much else.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Well, you know, that's a wonderful segue, if you because yeah, so SSRIs, which are the most common, you know, medication that's used to treat depression, and by extension, trauma, they work by dampening all emotions, right. And the one thing that they do that is the primary reason people don't stay on them, is that they deprive people of their erotic energy, right, their libido goes away their sexual functioning decreases. So you know, particularly because of our focus here, it's really worth mentioning that we need other ways of addressing trauma. Because if you're really you're just saying, I'm going to turn down the volume on the negative things you're feeling, but you will also lose all of the things that give you pleasure. Now, that's not to say people who benefit from SSRIs shouldn't take them. I mean, absolutely. I've worked with clients taking SSRIs all the time, not against using medications when they're needed. But I'm trying to envision something that's beyond the paradigm that we have.
Effy
Sure. And then I think brings you brings us to the conversation around psychedelics, because that's what you're doing that work with. So the, the healing without the healing medicine, if you will, that you're focusing on is a psychedelic medicine and plant medicine. Is that right?
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Yes, absolutely. So, you know, what I'm working on right now is based on my clinical work, but I've been working within the psychedelic medical world for about 15 years. And my career really launched at a time when this was still fringe, right there was psychedelic research was happening in universities, there wasn't training programs popping up everywhere for therapists to take short courses online and then want to deliver ketamine treatments. You know, I mean, there's things about that, that are really amazing that it is becoming more accessible. These are effective treatments, and I want to see people reach them. But you know, the the tip in the psychedelic medical world in the past, I don't know, really five years, we have like a couple of key things that happened like Michael Pollan's book comes out how to change your mind, right. And this turns a whole different cohort of people on to psychedelics. But that book really promoted a Western medical view of psychedelics, and it's extremely well written and well researched. I'm not doubting that, but it's an incomplete story about psychedelics, and then the rise of the sort of medical industrial complex and how psychedelics have been folded into that. What I began to see is that the respectability politics of the current psychedelic ecosystem distanced itself violently for what I believe is actually the most healing aspect of the psychedelic experience. And that's pleasure. The majority of people are attracted to using these medicines, because it's fun, right? Like there are definitely people who are who are seeking treatment for specific disorders and my A view of where psychedelics can grow, it's not opposed to the medical model, it should be standing beside the medical model. So I do think there's ethical ways of integrating psychedelics into the medical system, but not without looking at the flaws in our current medical system, right? Like, these medicines are kind of hurtling towards the future, because they're billion dollar enterprises, and patenting them and patenting how the treatments are going to be delivered. I mean, it's almost gotten to a point where it's too big to fail. But I and I don't mind saying this on record, I think when we see the translation, from research studies into, you know, clinical use, we're not going to see these spectacular numbers that we get in these tightly controlled environments. I think psychedelics will be effective for a lot of people within the medical model. But again, you know, you have to think about drug prohibition really is a response to the free love movement. Like there's a much more storied history throughout the 19th and 20th century, and I can like touch on that briefly about, like, you know, I have this sort of idea that the war on drugs is also a war on pleasure. But we'll focus for a moment on the Controlled Substances Act, right, which is really what takes psychedelics from the era that we imagine the hippie era free love, and how psychedelics are really wrapped up in this idea of sexual liberation and also opposition to war, right, we have this Controlled Substances Act. And then we have decades of propaganda, that psychedelics are dangerous, that they will make you crazy that they are not things that fit into a well ordered society. And I think because in this new, like, quote, unquote, psychedelic Renaissance, we're trying to promote this idea that there are respectable medical treatments, we've had this violent backlash against everything that you know, kicked off the first era of prohibition. So I'm trying to be joyful and gentle voice that brings back this idea that, you know, recreation is not a dirty word that these substances for many people with the right kind of education can be used safely. And indeed, there are models that are outside the recreational model, like community based healing models that I think hold tremendous promise to help people heal together to help people heal their sexuality. And I'm so particularly interested in looking at that junction of psychedelics and sexuality. Because, you know, sexuality is another thing that we just don't you know, that it still exists in a place where we have inadequate education, we have an inadequate, no space to express ourselves and to talk freely and to explore our own bodies, for sure,
Effy
yeah, yeah, in everything that you're saying. It's so exciting. And I have so like, my brain is shooting up in so many directions, one path I want to follow. And then I want to come back to sort of this idea of sexuality as a healing modality, and how psychedelics can really aid that that process. So I'm going to put like a bookmark there. And I want to kind of take a sidestep into what you're saying about psychedelics. So my understanding is, at least in my head, psychedelics are kind of falling into two groups, the chemical cohort, and that is the LSD, the ketamine that lot, and then the medicine side. So this is the psilocybin ayahuasca and kind of in that log, and I think within within that there are different approaches, right? Because the medicine cohort, if you will, are also about indigenous folks. It's also about sort of sacred approach to healing. It's about being one with nature and kind of a much more of a holistic approach. And I think it's interesting to me that those medicine are getting lumped in with the chemical medicine and they're getting removed from the origins, their sources.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
It's a really complicated question you're asking and I think it has sort of multiple different, you know, tendrils, if you will, of the pads you could follow for answers. So the first thing I'll say is that there are certain medicines that are derived from nature, as you mentioned, like psilocybin mushrooms, Ayahuasca, you know, mescaline containing cacti like peyote being a very important one that have Indigenous histories that extend back in some cases for 1000s of years. We have 1000s of years of evidence that within community context in the practice of you know, traditional medicine ritual. Many cultures around the world have held medicines, sacredly and use them within community. Now, I want to just briefly call out peyote because it kind of stands in a really interesting place in the plant medicine world because peyote was, you know, utilized as a sacrament in the Native American church. It continues to be utilized as a sacrament in the Native American church in the Native American church developed out of a response to harsh and violent oppression and the The forcible consolidation to Native Americans on reservations. Now, the habitat the peyote grows in is also extremely endangered. So in the case of the Native American church, they have asked non native people to just stay away from her medicine, you know, and so I mentioned that as sort of an outlier because we have this tremendous psychedelic tourism industry also where people go to South America to seek out Ayahuasca ceremonies or other types of ceremonies where they can be held in the legal context. So there's a tremendous amount of care that's needed when we're guests in someone else's healing tradition. On the flip side, you mentioned the chemicals, if you will, right, Medic, science created chemicals, most of which are sort of 20th century inventions, right. So here we have like ketamine, LSD, MDMA, all of which are being explored for clinical use to now I would argue that all medicines are sacred medicines, depending on the context in which we experience them. I very much believed for a long time that the plant medicines were the sacred ones. And these other ones were either clinical or recreational. But what I've learned throughout my own healing journey, is that actually, all medicines have the capacity to connect with us in deeply sacred ways to help us connect to our spirituality and a quality of sacredness, and it has to do with how we hold them. Now, what's really important about that, I'm white, and you know, predominantly people who use psychedelics in America are white, that is certainly not true around the world, because the lineage holders of these medicines are people from the global majority. But I believe that, you know, white people also have the wound of colonization, because our earth based spiritual practices have been stripped from us so long ago, we feel a hole in us because we, we want to connect with something. And so what ends up happening is harmful appropriation people are trying to dip into other people's cultures, because they just don't know where to look. And I think sometimes that can be quite malignant. But I think a lot of times, it's a trauma, that we just don't have any kind of cultural framework for knowing how to heal. So the reason it's so important to name these sort of synthetic medicines as ones that can also be sacred, because it means then that we can start to develop non appropriative community ritual forms that can bring that quality of sacredness without appropriating somebody else's culture. So I am very interested in this idea of how can we use ketamine ceremonially? How can we use MDMA in ways that foster community together that can have all the same elements music ritual, and I don't think that's any less sacred, we were called to a moment where I mean, our earth is dying, right, we were called to action, that we have to create something that helps us to connect to the earth to ourselves, to our communities in meaningful ways. And I think there are ways to do that with the medicines we have, without having to, you know, take something from a culture that doesn't belong to us.
Effy
I love that reframing of looking at this synthetic medicine is, is something that we can build culture around that isn't that could be our own without taking away from from somebody else. And also, I have to say, there is an underground culture around those medicine already. I mean, I my youth was spent in the rave culture, you know, and I know it's kind of sounds frivolous and recreational, as you were saying earlier, but even we're young and silly, and just wanted to dance our heads off, there was still some ritual and honoring of what we were doing, and self care about what we were doing and community and music and connection around that culture. And, and looking back. It was healing. I don't think we realize it was healing, but it really was healing. It was it was kind of healing our wounds at the time of being young and dumb, and making a bunch of mistakes and kind of allowing us to get together and healing groups and sort of keep going. And still obviously, of course, we you know, everybody that I was doing that with at the time have grown into, you know, responsible adults and holding down jobs and, and while and when we do look back, we it was healing for us. It wasn't just like silly party time, but it was healing for us. So I can see how we can like I've seen it happen. And I've seen it happen in that way. And I can see an evolution of that. And that's coming sort of overground not necessarily so underground rape culture, but like overground and with music and with community and with the sort of clean, responsible dosed medicine for it to be healing medicine again for everyone.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Oh, absolutely. And you know, there's an interesting dichotomy that was suddenly sort of in what you're saying Fe that, you know, this is what we did as kids And now people are responsible adults, and they don't do it anymore. They do it very randomly. I would I would say, why is that something that should only be the purview of young people? Right? It's like maybe you want to do it in a different way. But maybe that's part of what we lost, right is that there's this idea that you're young, and you can do these quote unquote, frivolous things. But in fact, by bringing this quality of intention, right, so I think the difference is that there's, you know, you go to a rave, right? That can be a very sacred and healing experience, but it's what you bring to it. And what I would love to see is intergenerational experience that includes music that includes fun and joy. I think that's what really heals people. You know, I was having coffee this morning. And there's a New York Times editorial about loneliness and the epidemic of loneliness, and how loneliness is more lethal than smoking 15 cigarettes a day or drinking six drinks a day?
Effy
Wow, that's eye opening. Yeah,
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
yeah. I mean, so you think about that, and then we think, Oh, well, why are people lonely, right? Because it's like, Well, now's the time that you get to go out with your friends and do fun things that's over, you better be responsible now and contribute to capitalism. But in fact, like, why not? Right? It might look different. It might we might have different aims at different life developmental levels. But I would love to bring back this idea of that joy and pleasure are healing in their own right.
Effy
Yeah. I mean, what you're saying is absolutely resonates with me. And as I reflect on what you're saying, I think the two reasons why it isn't that way, that comes up for me one, just the legalities around it, right. I think as young people, we have less less to lose. And we're higher risk takers. And we kind of just go go with the flow in that way. And I think as people grow up, they have more responsibilities, higher stakes, maybe families to worry about. And then the last thing that you want to do is get in some sort of entanglement with with the police with the law. Right. I think that's one thing. And the other is honesty, recovery time. Recovery time, I mean, there's, we are recovering from that when recovering, recovering from sort of a medicine session, let's call it or a rave, is so much, I think easier when you're younger than when you're older. Those are the two things that come up for me. But I think what you're saying is, as we as we take responsibility around these medicine, and we legalize it, and we educate people, and we give them purpose, and we teach people about how to use them well, and they become legal, then this is the path to this, this sort of multi generational intergenerational community healing opportunities.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Absolutely. And I think community is actually the antidote to a lot of what you're saying, Fe, right. Because the the first point about legality, I mean, I have spent my career despite the fact that I'm out here, sort of kind of proposing these ideas about psychedelics that are definitely opposed to the dominant medical argument that's out there, I have been an incredibly conservative and careful person, right. Like when I've done my own healing work, I have been the person that's traveled outside of the country to do that, because I'm a licensed professional, I've conducted my life in a very careful way. That being said, the decriminalization movement is sort of blossom long all around the country. And what has to colorize with it is education. And not that this is necessarily a place that we want to spend a lot of time on in for this particular topic. But you know, the decriminalization movement is mostly centered on decriminalizing naturally occurring psychedelics. So we're talking about plant psychedelics, right. And if we're saving Sacred plants, and we're not equally vigorous about saving the Earth, we have sacred plants and no earth, no home on which to experience them. So I think, you know, it's important that we broaden our activism and all fronts, right, whether it's medical meaning, like, we need now to reform the medical care system. So it can be equitable, and not racist and not transphobic. And the same thing with decriminalization that needs to arise with environmental activism. So the second point about the recovery period, you know, I think this speaks to how things may need to be different in different developmental levels. I am in my mid 40s, and I don't necessarily want to stay out at a rave all night, even if that was on offer. Maybe it won't look that way, right? Maybe like what appeals to me in terms of what's joyful is going to look different. But if we legitimately had community care, that would mean you could take a few days off and someone would be there to accommodate helping to take care of your home or your family or whatever you needed. Right. That's how community care models might actually work.
Effy
Sure, yeah. That makes it that makes a lot of it makes a lot of sense. And it also brings up this like very idealistic vision of what it could be the big Should that you're drawing around this is very appealing to me the idea that we could do it conveniently and it's healing and there's support that's built in. And we're sort of reforming a failing medical system and the way that we think about, you know, drugs and all that kind of stuff. So it's very, very appealing to me.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
What I'd say about that is, you know, I don't have any grand plan about how we reform a totally broken healthcare system. What I can say is, I think a lot of sort of utopian thought falls apart, because we're thinking about doing it on a large scale, what have you thought about doing it on a 10 person scale? You know, I think that's the thing when we talk about mass revolution, and that's very much consistent with the first psychedelic golden age, right of the 1960s, we're all going to turn on and tune in and drop out and all of this stuff, collective movement, I mean, I think we've seen in most progressive movements, that they often falter, because we're resistant, I'm working on what is truly a community level, which may be families, it may be small groups of friends. And so when I say community, I don't necessarily mean that. I mean, it would be fantastic if we had this large scale utopian revolution. I'm not holding my breath for that. But I do think that in a decriminalized landscape, where people could be sure that they're working with medicines that are safe, and that they're not legally at risk. There are ways that small groups of people can support harm reduction and support this kind of healing.
Effy
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so I want to segue and then come back to this idea of sexual healing and healing sexuality and sexual trauma, I want to do that by getting try to see if they get a better understanding of how these two sort of paths deal with trauma, one being more of this symptom reduction, SSRIs, let's make sure people aren't having panic attacks, and depressed. And then once we're done, we're done mood, like path, right. And then the other is, what we're talking about here through the through the aid of psychedelics is to let's get people connected to pleasure and joy, again, and that in itself will heal the wound of trauma. It's kind of my understanding, does that Does that sound about right to you? Well, it's
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
a little bit nuanced, because it's going to depend on the person and my own trauma healing journey. You know, the first medicine that I really worked with very extensively in my own trauma healing was Ayahuasca. And that certainly wasn't experienced as pleasurable or joyful at the time it was happening, right, it was a lot about releasing big feelings about re experiencing prior trauma that had been really devastating for me. And you know, some people do have to go through that I'm not saying that there's no place for the type of therapy or the type of psychedelic work that addresses trauma directly. Because many times we have a tremendous amount of energy pent up in our nervous system, and that it is never going to move in any other way than being addressed directly. So some people do need that. But my opposition is to seeing that as the culmination of healing, right? So for me, you know, I don't think that this place that I'm in right now, where I'm really trying to talk about and advocate for pleasure based healing wouldn't be possible had I not had that more sort of acute healing that dealt with the really difficult stuff. But you know, what I found in my own healing journey is that once I moved past that, and that was from somatic psychotherapy, and also from psychedelic work, that, you know, many people kind of stopped there. And certainly the medical model tells us okay, your symptoms, we've checked the boxes, you're done right? But persevering with the work opens up this place where we now have openness within ourselves, we have space, to experience eroticism, to experience, joy, and in fact, are sexual trauma survivors, to rebuild a healthy sexuality to learn for the first time, like what it is to have, you know, a relationship to sex into one's own body that is a healthy, healed relationship. And, you know, that I mean, I think is, is the culmination. So it's like, I see these things sort of occurring, occurring in tandem. Yeah,
Effy
I understand that. Can you speak to more about how does psychedelics in just medicine psychedelic medicine supports that, that journey, the sort of the sexual sexual healing, and then bringing pleasure and joy, pleasure, joy and eroticism to form like medicine in its own right, like two healers, like how does how does that work? Yeah. How does that work?
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Yeah. Well, that is so big a question I'm writing a book about. There's so many ways to answer that question. So I'm trying to do it in the most succinct way. And we'll look at it sort of in phases. So this is also dependent on the medicine you're using right? All psychedelics are not the same. They have different kinds of subjective experiences. They have different kinds of outcomes associated with them. So I'll try to paint the The broadest possible strokes when we're dealing with the acute phase of healing trauma, psychedelics, especially psychedelics like MDMA, using MDMA as a model, since it's the one that's been studied clinically, the most specifically for trauma healing induces a subjective experience that enables somebody to be able to tolerate what was once intolerable. So I think when we're talking about in this acute level of healing, that's what's really happening. psychedelics are helping us to be able to feel through feelings to completion, to have big unexpressed emotions, to also have some distance. So we'll switch gears and talk about something like ayahuasca for example, an experience that happens very frequently on Ayahuasca is that people are able to re access memories of trauma, and almost reenter the scene or re narrate that trauma in some specific way that's healing for them. So, you know, I think it would be way beyond the scope of the time, we have to talk about all the different medicines and how they heal. But two examples are making the tolerable intolerable, and being able to re witness re narrate or feel through terrible experiences to completion. So then we have this sort of what we would think of as maybe like a middle phase of healing. And that's the after effect of the psychedelic. So there, what we see in this is drawn from clinical research, that people have an increased capacity for mindfulness, for example. So the way mindfulness might apply to sexual healing and sexual enhancement is that where our brains are actually able to stay present with what's happening, right, we're able to be in one place, we're able to be with the sensations in our body. Another durable outcome of psychedelic research is that psychedelics broadly increase the personality domain of openness. So all of a sudden, what was a very rigid sexual script or rigid narrative around sex, there's the capacity to expand that and to see ourselves in new ways to change the negative self referencing beliefs we have about ourselves in our body. And, you know, it's interesting, because clinical research is in its very infancy, really looking at section relationships and psychedelics. But I think I can argue from the decade of integration work that I've done with people, these are reliable outcomes from these medical medicine experiences. So then we move on to what's the third phase, which is like embody joy, right? And I think this is where we're really looking at. What does it mean, to actually say that the psychedelic experience is valid in its own right, that it does not necessarily have to be in the service of healing, some kind of specific trauma, but in fact, the experience itself opens us up to the phenomenal world, right? So we think about, you know, the medical model where somebody is inwardly focused, and they have eyeshades on and they're being guided by therapists through their own dark night of the soul. But you know, what, that neglects is creativity, it neglects connection with nature. And I think naturalistic psychedelic use, or ceremonial psychedelic use can incorporate this connection that is to the earth to each other, and to our eroticism. So yeah, I mean, if I'm not going on too much, I think I can I can integrate an important point. And so, you know, working in this area, sex and psychedelics be the number one question I always get asked is about sex on psychedelics, right. Like, should I do it? Is that going to heal me all of this stuff? And I think the answer is, it's possible. And I think there's harm reduction strategies that are really crucial around the idea of combining sex and psychedelics, and that starts with recognizing that sexism, medicine to right sex is a very powerful energy. So whenever we're combining two medicines, we want to be very, very sure we know how both of them work in our system before we combine them, which means partner choice is very important being in it with a safe person, recognizing that our bodies may work differently when we're on a medicine. So that means we may be more focused on pleasure and sensual connection rather than orgasm focused sex acts. And another feature of that is also you know, just being very aware that trauma can come up, right, in sort of unrestrained ways sometimes, so are we with a person who can really hold space for that, should it come up? Now I bring that point up because again, even in this little kind of sliver of focus of sex and psychedelics, that seems to be the dominant conversation. What I want to also say that I think is equally important and last in the conversation that for me as a sexual trauma survivor, I spent you know, the early years of my life, seeking relationships, seeking affirmation, wanting love Have from people. But when I actually had the opportunity to connect with someone intimately, I was often dissociated, I would often misuse alcohol to be able to tolerate feelings or control what would come up in an experience. So for me, combining a substance with sex has never been for me, it lands closer to my trauma experience. So sex and psychedelics in the way that's unfolded in my life is that I've done sexual healing with psychedelics, so that I can have sober sex in this way that's very psychedelic. And what I mean by that is mind expanding, connected, loving. So you know, the combination for me, it was not having these crazy experiences that are combining all of these different substances and sexual experiences. It's more about coming home to myself coming home to my partner, to be able to be fully present erotically, and how psychedelics have opened up the space in my life to be able to do that.
Effy
So what I'm hearing you say is that sort of doing the sexual healing with psychedelics as a separate experience, and not necessarily actually having sex doing it, but sort of looking at healing around sexuality, how it feels, how it sits, like our sensuality, our connection to our body, healing, the disconnection between the body and the mind and the pleasure and doing that work separately, so that you're arriving at a super sexual experience, having connected with your body and feeling, you know, joyful and is a wholesome experience. Is that Is that what you're saying? That's how
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
it was for me. Yeah, exactly. And I only mentioned that because again, I think when people sort of tackle this topic, they're often talking about what substances they like to combine with sexual experiences or how that's enhancing. And it can be enhancing, like, if that's something that's enhancing for someone, I think, if you're doing it with caution, and proper harm reduction strategies, great, right. I'm not here to tell anyone the right way that their healing should unfold. But I also want to add that there's a, there's a dimension of how our sexuality can shift by coming back to the States, of embodied joy of mindfulness of increased awareness and connection with our somatic experience. And sometimes that occurs in a psychedelic experiences. And then we walk that healing into our life and into our sexual relationships.
Effy
Yeah. And then it also makes me think, especially with sexual trauma, the medicine that is sex in neuroticism is kind of corrupted, and it's become toxic, right. So if you're able to heal that through psychedelics, you now unlocked the sexual healing, like the the mode, if you will, within yourself, which was previously potentially toxic. Now, when you're actually having having sex and enjoying sexuality, then it's healing again. Right? Because I think what sometimes happens is, even though sexual healing is a thing, if it was corrupted because of a traumatic experience, it continues to cropped as we as we explore sexuality, and once it's healed, then it can become a healing modality in itself. Right.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And, you know, I think an important thing to remind ourselves is sexual trauma survivors often engage in kinds of reenactments that are an attempt at trauma, mastery, right? So what you might see in a sexual trauma survivor early in their healing, it could look like dissociation, and it could look like sort of aversion to sex, but it can also be really compulsive sexual behaviors. Now, I want to frame this very gently. Because, you know, again, even in the field of sex therapy, there's certain approaches, right, that talk about sex addiction, or are looking at sort of sexual behaviors, pathologically or compulsively. But with trauma, we really want to situate that in a framework of what is the inner attempt at healing that's happening here. Right. So I think that, you know, the culmination of sexual healing is about restoring ourselves to some kind of balance, and also about dismantling the sex negative narratives that we have accumulated over our lives. Because on one hand, we have again, these kinds of acute sexual trauma, childhood sexual abuse, or, you know, sexual assaults that of course, are terrible. But I work with clients all the time, who are unraveling their own sexual trauma, but what it looks like is being raised in a family with compulsive dieting, or being raised without any kind of sex education whatsoever, except abstinence only and they come into their lives without having any idea how to actually feel pleasure, and so much shame. Right. So it's really about dismantling the narratives about healing shame. And I think that brings us back to a place of openness and choice. I mean, so many of particularly of the women that I work with this kind of psychedelic sexual healing, it doesn't lead them to be more sexual. It really is leading them to a place where they can actually identify the kind of sex that they Want versus the sex that they don't want?
Effy
Sure, yes. Yeah. It's not about more, but it's about the quality of the sexual experiences that you that you're having and how you feel around them, I guess.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Absolutely. It's about having sex that's worth wanting. Sure.
Effy
I love that. I love that. Okay, so let me ask you this, then it's becoming more available and accessible psychedelic treatments like of psychedelic medicine? How like, how can people where do you even start? So I know people who are listening. We know our community. There's a lot of there a lot of people who are you know, in their healing journeys, sexual exploration journeys, reconnecting with their body, reconnecting with our partners, expanding those relationships. Where do they start? How can they explore psychedelic treatments psychedelic medicine for themselves?
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Oh, it's a great question. And it's a it's a challenging one, right? Because, you know, if you'd asked me that question, even seven years ago, right, I would have maybe recommended trying to get into a research study. And at this point, I've learned, you know, research is giving us a lot of vital things. But research is clean is constructed around achieving really specific clinical outcomes, right. So if you really want to heal, you are in a predicament. So I think that there's some tremendous work happening around ketamine. You know, a lot of people sort of discredit ketamine, right, it kind of gets the short end of the stick, a lesser psychedelic, but having not worked with it in my practice, and for a number of years, I've I've been able to develop some beautiful ways of working with people around trauma with ketamine. So, you know, that is a place where I feel like there's a lot of clinical flexibility to find therapists working in really novel ways, with the psychedelic experience. And again, I think, you know, to just briefly say this, about ketamine many people, because it was so touted as this miracle depression cure. And then it was for some people, and it was disappointing for other people, right? It still is very effective at treating depression for many people, but it's not the miracle cure, that it might have been promoted as, so what do we have? Then we have, what do we do with the experience? What can we do with a non ordinary state of consciousness to integrate that into our experience for healing, and I don't think ketamine disappoints in that regard, right, when we're in this guided kind of context. So you know, you also have the, there's a proliferation of retreat centers out of the country, right, and where psychedelics are legal, I would say to listeners to be incredibly careful and really vet where you're going and who you're doing it with, there are reports of sexual abuse occurring in those spaces, there are certainly people that are working in that space that are not operating ethically and are harming indigenous land are overcharging people for treatment. So I'm not again, I'm not against the retreat model, I've really benefited from it myself, but be very careful, right, and especially if you're a person with a history of sexual trauma, really being sure that that's a safe space for you is crucial. And, you know, I mean, I don't think that we can ignore talking about the fact that the majority of people who use psychedelics do it in recreational context. And the most important thing about that is to just make sure your substances safe that you are with safe people, a tremendous amount of the risk of psychedelics can be mitigated by just informing yourself, right, there are some people that should not take psychedelics at all. But in the reality in my clinical practice, I've seen very few cases of people having massive psychiatric contraindications to psychedelics, what I see much more frequently, are people who are unprepared even for recreational experiences, and then have huge emotionally traumatic experiences, because things are coming up for them, and there's no container to hold them. So again, if you're if your user I'm not endorsing any kind of illegal activity, but you know, acknowledging that that can and does occur, I would be, you know, very specific about who you're with about creating a set and setting that's going to be safe and uplifting for you.
Effy
Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to explore. Because I think it's still kind of hard to be in a clinical setting, even though we know it's an ideal, but still, where we can access, we can be sure about the quality of the medicine that you're taking, that you're safe and around people that know what they're doing that is still not easily accessible, but the recreational world it has is and has been for a long time. So if we if that is available, like what are some of the specific things that we can do and what I'm hearing you say is, pick the people that you're with, well, make sure that it's a container that feels safe to you know, where your medicine is coming from as much as as much as you can. And also, I think what I'm also hearing from you is find professionals who can do this integrated therapy that you do. Oh, absolutely.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
I mean, I think the emotional preparation In peace, even for recreational work is huge. So let's say you're having a self guided journey, right? You're just gonna do psychedelics with your friends, dill, I think the idea whether you do that with a licensed therapist, or whether you develop models for doing it yourself, right, being really intentional about what do you want from that experience? What in your sober mind feels like safe boundaries, kind of like negotiating intimacy while on psychedelics is a bad idea. So all of these things, right, just really being emotionally prepared for what could come up. And again, we've woven the idea of sexual trauma into this conversation, if you are a trauma survivor, really being aware of what you need to feel safe, because it can come up in unpredictable ways, even in recreational and joyful contexts.
Effy
Okay, and then what if it does, right? So we've done our best we've done some emotional work, we made sure that we're among people that we feel safe, and it's in a, in a safe space. And we were, you know, doing our safe medicine, we got out we got our hands on safe medicine, and things come up. Because that's, you know, because that's the nature of the of the experience. What, what then what can be done?
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Yeah, well, I mean, look, it really kind of, I think you've got two choices, right? This is where finding a qualified psychotherapist with training and trauma becomes really important, because I help people who have had exactly that experience all the time, it can be really destabilizing to have a surprise experience of trauma emerging, particularly when you think you're going to Burning Man, or you're going to have an experience with your friends. And all of a sudden, you're thrust into this. So professional psychotherapy, having someone that's actually knowledgeable about the medicines, and can help you integrate that can be crucial. I also think that pre identifying systems of support can be really helpful. So I don't think Western psychotherapy is the answer to everything, because therapists are crucial for our healing in a lot of ways. But we also need people, right. So just remembering that talking about it, that asking for the help you need asking for the support you need. Sometimes just being able to speak about it with somebody who was there to witness what was happening can be deeply helpful for your nervous system, to process some of it. But overall, I have to say that if you are a person that's had a sort of surprising and intense re experiencing of trauma, you might need some kind of professional assistance to be able to really navigate that.
Effy
Sure. No, that makes sense. I know that from your professional place, that you you don't administer a new administer any of these psychedelics other than ketamine in the clinical setting, or, you know, prescribe. And that's kind of not the idea. But I'm curious whether someone like you, who is trained in trauma and understands the sort of the scope of the medicine out there, would someone like you be a good place to go in and ask, so to find out what medicine? What those what setting? What would be the best approach? Like, is that something that is within your scope?
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Well, it's a great question, right? Because scope of practice for licensed professionals is I mean, we're all trying to figure out what are the scope of practice, and what are the best practices. So I can tell you what I've done, I follow certain rules in my practice, where I don't recommend anyone do psychedelics, I never tell someone you should go out and do this experience. And I also don't tell people where right and that can be really frustrating, because people really are just trying to access safe medicines and safe guides. But I've always felt that I'm in some way accountable if I make a direct recommendation. So I don't do that. And I've found over the years that people do find their way to what they need. And once they've initiated that themselves, then I can engage in harm reduction psychotherapy, which is absolutely a clinically defensible practice. So with my clients, I am talking to them about how to get information on safe dosing, how to get what they need to make sure that the medicine they have a safe, and particularly how to vet underground providers, right, like a lot of these a lot of this work is happening with guides, who are often unlicensed, and some of them are wonderful. I'm not saying that they aren't, but it's also because it exists in this kind of in the shadows, there is so much less recourse for you if something goes wrong. So there's some attempts in the field right now to create reputation management. So even in the underground world, we have ways of knowing if somebody has perpetrated sexual harm, how we can keep ourselves safer, and the community itself is trying to organize around that. But still, if you're, if you're not in the psychedelic community, if you're just naive to this world, you could really be in a place where you're willing to take the first thing that's on offer. And that can be really, really destructive. So That's why it's so important that as we have this medical revolution, we equally have decriminalization, so that we can have community accountability and transparency.
Effy
Of course, no, that I mean that that makes a lot of sense. And that goes for, you know, all these things, right, that goes for cannabis and it goes for sex work, I guess there's like, so many so many things out there that the decriminalization is essential for safety of everyone. So I definitely get that. What about choosing the right medicine? Right, so something like ecstasy is very different than something like psilocybin, which is very different than something like peyote? Right? Those are very, very different experiences, I imagine they also work in different ways and heal different, different aspects. Is that would that be right?
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's a lot of different considerations there. And so the first thing I would say, is to be very wary of anybody have any guide or anybody out there that's promoting this idea that, that you have to do these heroic doses of any medicine in order for it to be healing, right. So first harm reduction strategy I give to hit to choosing a medicine is that to start low and slow, as they say, with any medicine that you choose, so you really get to learn how it works in your body. And then there's, you know, a host of interesting considerations, but a great place to start is just what are you drawn to, right, if you're a person, that's an intuitively kind of drawn towards plants, and nature, you know, starting with something like psilocybin, which has an incredibly good safety profile in terms of physical risk. Now, there's additional psychiatric risk, right, that happens with intense nonlinear non ordinary states of consciousness. But you know, psilocybin is a very big entry point for a lot of people because of its accessibility, and because of its safety. But the caveat I'd give there is like psilocybin experiences can be extremely intense, they can be strange and difficult to integrate. So again, like starting in really safe and reliable places and contexts with safe medicine is a good place to start. Many people gravitate to MDMA for the same reason, right, because it has this reputation as being user friendly. And I don't think that's a false reputation. But again, I'd give the caveat that MDMA can also have this quality of loosening the psyche. So unpredictable, things can come up, people can think that they're in for this really sensuous, good feeling experience. And it can be that but it can be a lot of other things, too. So, you know, when I'm talking about this with clients, I'm really looking at a matrix of different things. It's like, what is the person drawn to? What is going to be most safe based on their psychiatric history, their physical health? And where do they have access to a safe environment? Right, like, I mean, I'll be honest with you, I do think ketamine is wonderful and healing, and I love working with it. But a lot of the proliferation of ketamine work and retreats are because of its legality. Right? So if you've got a client that really needs a safe legal context, maybe ketamine is not their first choice to work with, but it might be the right choice for them. So all of these things, I think, go into in a in a prohibitionist environment, go into our decision making
Effy
sure, yes, yes. No, I think it's important. Also, knowing yourself, I think is important as well, like knowing, it's interesting what you're saying, like what you're drawn to. And I think sometimes I can imagine people who are dealing with trauma of trying to heal are disconnected with what calls them and disconnected with, you know, that in the inner knowing, and that's kind of what they're trying to restore. And I think just being able to have a conversation with somebody about what their options are, and to almost remind them, like, how do you navigate internally to find what you're called to? And if that is not available, maybe to make a logical decision, or something like MDMA, for example, has a lot of annual puts a lot of strain on the heart. So, you know, maybe some physical considerations or like knowing understanding the drugs profile and going okay, well, that's kind of that's the type of experience I feel like maybe I can start with. It's kind of what's coming up for me as well.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think, again, you know, it go back, if we go back to this utopian vision that we both talked about at the beginning of our discussion today, that opens up, I answered that question in an entirely different way. If we were in a world where we didn't have to worry about legal risk, and we could make sure that these medicines were safe before we use them, say, as safe as possible. For us. There's a risk to anything, there's a risk to taking Tylenol. I mean, I think that's what we have to acknowledge. And this prohibition is narrative. It's like yeah, there are risks to psychedelics, but there's far more risk to drinking alcohol. There's, there's more lethality associated with Tylenol. It's so I'm not saying that we don't need to be careful with psychedelics. We absolutely But we do. And you know, I think a lot of the problems will begin to work themselves out or we'll be able to have better kinds of recourse and accountability for for example, sexual harm that occurs and psychedelic spaces when they are decriminalized.
Effy
No it makes a lot of sense. Do you think thank you so much for your time and sharing your wisdom and thank you for coming back on the show.
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Thank you so much for having me fe.
Effy
To learn more about Dee Dee and hear from her jump on Instagram @deedeegoldpaugh . Also, check out her website www.deedeegoldpaugh.com and chrysalisintegrativetherapy.com The easiest way to find more curious Fox episodes on challenging the status quo in sexual trauma and healing treatment options and pleasure is to check out the new episode drop emails from curious Fox in your inbox, where you will find shownotes links mentioned on the show, along with episodes suggestions that we think you would love. If you're not getting those emails you are missing out. So jump on our website we are curious foxes.com and sign up to the newsletter. And of course while you're there, check out all the blog posts and resources and reading lists, recommendations and more. You can weigh in on this topic or connect with other foxy listeners by heading to Facebook and joining the Facebook group at we're curious foxes. Please share our podcasts with a friend who you think would benefit from hearing it quickly rate to show leave a comment and subscribe on Apple podcasts or follow us on Spotify, or connect with the show however, make sense in your favorite podcast app. This will take a few seconds of your time and will have a big impact on us to support the show. Join us on Patreon where you can find a mini episodes, podcast extras and over 50 videos from educated led workshops. Go to patreon.com forward slash we are curious boxes. And let us know that you're listening by sharing a comment story or a question by emailing us or sending us a voice memo to listening at weird curious fox.com This episode is produced by Effie Blue with help from Yağmur Erkişi. Our editor is Nina Pollack, who brings a sense of pleasure to sometimes arduous work. Our intro music is composed by Dev Sahar, we are so grateful for that work, and we're grateful to you for listening. As always, stay curious friends. Curious Fox podcast is not and will never be the final word on any topic was solely aimed to encourage curiosity and provide a space for exploration through connection and story. We encourage you to listen with an open and curious mind and we'll look forward to your feedback. Stay curious friends.
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