group 3 - the theraputic turn - psychadelic therapy

.group no 3
The proposal:

Our project would be dedicated to studying the psychedelic therapy experience of a women (“Naomi”) that shares her traumatic experience and how she has begun to understand and overcome it with the psychedelic assisted therapy. We highlighted three main lines of the primary source we want to observe - the collective memory and how it can affect the person, the therapeutic turn and the process of going from holding and declining emotions to expressing them.

Starting from the collective memory, we need to admit that we still get into the context to make the personal experience of one woman attached to the collective experience. For now, we know that she talks of the religious part of her life which stopped her from the deep analysis of her traumatic experience and working with it. But she says that she has found out that and has started to pay attention to it unlike her family. So, here we can already claim that she disentangled her individual emotional experience from the collective one and that she changed the behavior pattern in this case. The person whose experience we can observe from time to time addresses the reader to the childhood experience and her memories of being a teenager. That is a moment we see how her episodic memory works - she remembers her personal experience and emotions connected to it. At the point of her following thoughts we can suppose on how her semantic memory works and how her episodic memory including the childhood memories has influenced her perception of the life now and her pattern of behavior. To see and analyze how individual experience can be influenced by the collective one (in this case, we can observe it through the religion’s impact), we think it would be useful to apply the work of Maurice Halbwachs, “On Collective Memory”, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992).

the therapeutic turn:
To analyze a narrative composed by a female patient undergoing psychedelic-assisted therapy, we opted for a critical approach to the 'therapeutic turn' and 'psychologisation' of the Western culture, as developed in Psychologisation in Times of Globalisation (2012) and The therapeutic turn: How psychology altered Western culture (2014). These concepts derive from Foucault's ideas of the reflective subject: an individual concerned about their commensurability with society, capable of self-governance according to fluctuating societal norms (Foucault 1991, 2012). Madsen (2014) defines the therapeutic turn as the proliferation of psychological expertise and research into various areas of popular culture and, consequently, influencing significantly individuals' understanding of life, happiness, and well-being. The author underscores the amalgamation of the growing influence of professional psychological expertise with the individualist capitalist ethos; therefore, such purposes as independence, individual prosperity, self-love, and personal happiness are deemed universal, ahistorical, and desired by everyone (Madsen 2014). The cultural omnipotence of this narrative might be oppressive and unnerving for individuals who fail to achieve these goals or do not identify with them. Under 'psychologisation', De Vos (2012) means the gradually emerging 20th-century cultural phenomenon in which Freudian psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and humanistic psychology concept of self-actualization merged with neo-liberal optimization techniques of learning and fostering human resources.' As a result, almost all human beings in the imagined West 'learned to think, act, and feel in ways informed by psychology' (De Vos 2012, 14).
In our analysis, we are not aiming to impugn the therapeutic efficacy of treatment in healing trauma in general or a particular individual case. Instead, we strive to interpret this case as a case study indicative of some paramount narratives present in the therapeutic culture and perceived goals of treatment patients are expected to internalize to achieve a full recovery within 5 years (as DSM-V defines it).
The narrator's recurrent narrative articulates the necessity of self-love and acceptance and 'finding a true self' she was deprived of in a religious community with a rigid authoritarian structure: 'I'd been working a lot on becoming my own person, living with my own values. This journey I'd been on for so long, continuing always to let go.' While the problems of structural and institutional inequality are recognized, their disentanglement in a healing process is disregarded chiefly, and the narrator is supposed to redeem herself as a white, hetero, middle-class woman.

Breaking the chain: from controlling to expressing emotions

“My parents- I truly took on the thought of them being limited, incapable, plagued by their own Unhealed traumas. From their parents and grandparents. I felt the presence of all my grandparents with me. Saba Shmuel, saba Yehuda, the men in the family sacrificing themselves to support their families - the burdens of patriarchy.”

We can look at the therapeutic process of Naomi as the point in time when her family's collective memory or trauma is turning into healing. A few conditions in our society were needed for this shift in to happen. The Therapeutic turn is one exemple for such condition, another one is the shift from emotional control to emotional expression in psychotherapy, which began in the 1950s and 1960s (Cook, 2014). This shift was influenced by several factors, including the rise of feminist and humanistic psychology, as well as the cultural changes of the 1960s. The shift started when psychotherapists began to emphasize the importance of emotional expression and exploration, encouraging patients to connect with and express their emotions in therapy. This approach challenged societal norms and perceptions regarding emotional expression, particularly for women, who were often encouraged to suppress their emotions. this suppression is vivid especially in the phrase “This thought made me collapse in giggles “imagine Savta Ora doing mdma.” She couldn’t have- wouldn’t have. None of them could.”

Moreover, psychedelic therapy challenges the traditional psychotherapeutic approach, which has historically emphasized emotional control and conformity to societal norms. Instead, psychedelic therapy values the importance of emotional expression and self-exploration in healing, which can lead to personal growth and self-discovery. The importance of emotional expression in psychedelic therapy is supported by research, which has shown that psychedelic therapy can be an effective treatment for conditions such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional expression and processing can lead to a greater sense of emotional well-being and an improved ability to cope with difficult emotions. Emotional expression and processing in a psychedelic experience even got a scale of its own - “The Emotional breakthrough” which correlate with one's post experience wellbeing( Gründer & Jungaberle, 2021; Roseman et al, 2019)


bibliography

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5). American Psychiatric Pub.
De Vos, Jan. 2012. Psychologisation in Times of Globalisation. Routledge.
Foucault, Michel. 1991. Politics and the Study of Discourse." The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Ed. Graham Burchell, et Al. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, Michel. 2012. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage.
Gründer, G., & Jungaberle, H. (2021). The Potential Role of Psychedelic Drugs in Mental Health Care of the Future. Pharmacopsychiatry.‏
Hera Cook, “From Controlling Emotion to Expressing Feelings in Mid-Twentieth Century England,” Journal of Social History 47, no. 3 (2014), pp. 627-646.
Madsen, Ole Jacob. 2014. The Therapeutic Turn: How Psychology Altered Western Culture. Routledge.
Maurice Halbwachs, “On Collective Memory”, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992).
Roseman, L., Haijen, E., Idialu-Ikato, K., Kaelen, M., Watts, R., & Carhart-Harris, R. (2019). Emotional breakthrough and psychedelics: validation of the emotional breakthrough inventory. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 33(9), 1076-1087.‏











the trip reports:

third session - MDMA
A few days ago I went to D’s apartment for trip number 3. So much had changed internally from trips 1 and 2, in my behaviors, attitudes, and actions. I could see it working. I could see that the replay of the abuse memories was happening less frequently and that my entire attitude towards what happened to me, and my life now, was changing.
I felt that the powerful trips I’d experienced, allowed me to share my story more openly, with less shame, and ‘letting out the secret.’ Since the last time, I’d opened up the dialogue with the entire extended family, and reduced my shame to a speck. It was still there though. The shame of how I went to him. That there was a part of me that caused the abuse to happen, or allowed it for so long. But when I talked to them, cousins, aunts, my grandmothers too- they all supported me. They believed me. They even shared with me difficult but very validating information, about ways in which he had been inappropriate with them in the past. And when he was an adult too. This lit a fierce fire in me, as my responsibility to protect his sons, and the other children he may have access to. To talk about it even more. To say he must be stopped and it would be a compounded tragedy if we knew as a family, and didn’t say anything to his wife or to the proper authorities to ensure the safety of those children. It was one thing when his offenses occurred during childhood, his, mine, and our other brother… quite another to hear from cousins that his attempts at grooming and sexual contact continued into his adulthood.
This consumed me and I consulted with many many experts and counselors, hotlines and friends. I got the courage to do the thing that needed to be done. To speak with the other parent of those kids, responsible for their safety- his wife.
When I spoke with my sister in law, she threw me completely for a loop by telling me she is aware and has been aware of his behaviors for quite some time- since he told her. And the air came streaming out of me like a balloon. Apparently, she supports and defends him. She says he is not continuing to harm children, that the kids are ok. That in fact, he is very much not ok. He is sick, depressed, dejected, imobile, sick with guilt and pain of being abandoned and shamed by the entire family. She shared her disappointment in my parents for not helping him, getting him treatment- at least one thing we agree on. She told me of the many thousands of dollars they are spending on his therapy and how my parents aren’t helping. That’s when I lost it, couldn’t contain it any longer. How about my years of pain and isolation? How about my thousands of hours of therapy and lost thoughts? How about my children who have had a shell of a mother while I’ve fought for my life. We ended the conversation amicably because I did not share any of those thoughts with her. I was just relieved to know he is in therapy, she is aware and those kids are safe, as far as we can know. I felt a great burden lift from my shoulders. The less secrets, the better.
A few weeks later my aunts and cousins came for a ‘healing women’s circle’ at my house. It meant a lot to me that they’d come over and want to support me. It was also very triggering and invalidating at times- them discussing all sorts of esoteric topics of our souls choosing our journey, and my cynicism was high. I didn’t connect with all this spiritual bypassing. I thought I’d find an actual conversation that would open a circle of healing for real, not just a camaraderie of related women. At the start of the circle, she said ‘we won’t talk of anyone who isn’t here. This is for us. What happens here stays here.” which I took to mean actually as a silencing. We actually aren’t here to talk openly and get the secrets unearthed, but another attempt at hiding. Ugh, I was nauseous.
But after about an hour of getting blessed and encouraged, positivity all around, I spoke up and then broke down, relating the pain of seeing that family photo my mother had recently shared from a childhood trip with the cousins. I, only 5 years old, smiling sweetly, though the memories of that time are consumed only of his abuse. When I cried and keened out with pain, the energy of the circle changed. Electrified with everyone’s tears and pain about this whole saga. My aunts in over their heads with not knowing how to help me. One aunt rushed over to hug me and I cried ‘please don’t touch me,’ with my arms protectively over my head.
It was an anticlimactic and difficult meeting, but also a powerful show of their support. They can’t understand it all, but they are here, and some are “taking sides.”
—
So I came into this third trip with a new hope and understanding. Only I can help myself. Even the whole world knowing, won’t change the depth of my pain and trauma. Validation is a fickle friend.

Hating him, defaming him, suing him, reporting him…none of that was or might be actually healing for me.

And my relationship with my parents. I wanted very much to be at peace with my decision and not feel so very guilty about how I’d handled the entire saga, from when I first told them 5 years ago, through the beginning of our estrangement and till now- anticipating their arrival to Israel.

I’d been working a lot on becoming my own person, living with my own values. This journey I’d been on for so long, continuing always to let go of the beis yaakov influence, the guilt and shame, and to find instead self love.
I listened to Lizzo, and Gorgeous, a self love anthem. I danced, I joined a musical theater group and auditioned in front of men, imagining my teachers in the front row. To spite them.

I bought several short sleeve shirts, and wore them outside! Meekly at first, but slowly finding the pleasure of the sun’s rays on my arms. Any ‘all or nothing’ thought was met with a gentle squeeze. “We don’t do that anymore, dear.” And one of those shirts, an olive green top with an illustration of a paper juice box adorned with the words “self love juice” and a heart-shaped straw. I wore this shirt on the morning of my trip with the express intention of focusing on ME during this trip. Not him. Not the family. Not my sister. Not even God. My relationship with me. Within me. The only one I carry at all times. I want to talk to myself with more compassion. I want to treat my body and my mind lovingly. I want to forgive myself, and I want to give myself the gift of peace. I’m the only one who can.

M picked me up from the station after a short walk in the scorching heat of Tel Aviv, and we slipped into easy conversation. The relationship so trusting, so based on intense mutual respect and appreciation.

When I got to his apartment, I felt comfortable and ready to start. My body calm and relaxed.
I take the little supplements and the clear capsule with tiny crystals too, put on an eye mask and started to meditate together.

My mind is clear, and I easily slip into the familiar rhythm- body scanning and breathing comfortably, deeper and deeper breaths. After a bit, I do have this sense that air is getting stuck at the belly, although I’m breathing deeply and slowly, my entire abdomen is hard and unmoving. I gently shift positions but don’t find that this helps. I notice my agitation rise, why can’t I fully relax? But I observe it, and soon share it with M. He suggests I straighten out my legs too and allow whatever is happening to occur. He reminds me that I’m safe and all is well. I believe him. His words ground me, his presence an anchor.

Yet, my stomach tightens and grips, and I feel contractions and cramps like period cramps. And remember - re-experience - the shame and isolation of getting my first period and having no one to tell. Being afraid and embarrassed of anything having to do with my body. Secrets, but open secrets? Everyone knows but me. So much confusion. I cry into my eye mask and sob in sadness.
This trip, like the others, starts taking me through the threads of my trauma, things I’ve been discussing for 5 years now. The religious trauma, the sexual abuse, the isolation, and the common piece connecting them all- my own betrayal of my thoughts and beliefs. Feeling disconnected from myself.
We hit on every note, every node of memory connecting me to my core. So many memories came up of me repressing and putting myself down. I reminded myself that I was here for self love, to find myself again. To move forward in a life I’M building, that I want. Allowing desire to blossom. The kind of mom I want to be. My delight and appreciation inside my marriage- WITH, not despite, discovering my own complex sexuality. I forgave myself again and again for being so hard on myself. For finding my agency through a lifelong burden of influence.
At the point of Euphoria, I felt my whole body sink into the bed, and looked up at a whole universe of a night sky, like in a planetarium. Marveling at the stars, our own tiny scale, but a part of it all.
I felt, a deep knowing, that I am part of this massive, neverending universe, and yet I’m so important and significant. Maybe a boy, thousands of lightyears away is looking at his sky and sees me, just a speck. I communed with this other planet boy, and saw his world, he saw mine. I realized I was traveling through the clouds, stars, galaxies, yet suddenly felt it was my own neurons, floating along my axons. That my own mind is capable of never-ending connection, travel, and presence. I belong, and I am belonging. I am contained within this, and I contain it all.
There were so many parts of this trip that made me feel that all the work I’d done up till that point made me prepared and ready to release. To blow out and release. I blew out long and strong breaths, with my lips pursed, blowing hard at the thoughts that plagued me. I thought of the trauma memories, the flashbacks, The sensations and when they came up this time, I blew at them- firmly blowing them from me. Like dandelion seeds, they dispersed and twirled in the wind I was creating, away from me. Not a part of me. Irrelevant to me any longer.
I verbalized and had thoughts and memories slip out of me, incoherent at times, but clearly ready to feel more and more of the empathy for myself. And empathy for everyone in my life, and their journey.
Yes, even my brother. Even he was a child, a lost child. A seeking and broken-spirited young boy who didn’t know the impact of his actions at the time. Wishing to connect, and feel loved and accepted. Yes, he did terrible things. Yes, he took advantage of the connections he fostered, coerced and stole, controlled and created a severe break in trust and secrecy. He did get a lot of a punishment after all. He has to live with the guilt. And the family breakdown created as a result.
My parents- I truly took on the thought of them being limited, incapable, plagued by their own Unhealed traumas. From their parents and grandparents. I felt the presence of all my grandparents with me. Saba Shmuel, saba Yehuda, the men in the family sacrificing themselves to support their families - the burdens of patriarchy.
How my father had “made it” out of poverty by getting status and stature as a community leader. Religious observance and leadership were his saving grace, just as they have been my suffocating burden. I blew out and out, knowing that even the harm he caused me was never about me. The pain of reaching out, wishing and yearning he was different could dissolve in that reckoning. Looking at how intensely hard it is to change myself how could I ever expect anyone else to.
This thought made me collapse in giggles “imagine Savta Ora doing mdma.” She couldn’t have- wouldn’t have. None of them could. They picked up and kept going as best as they could. Their Traumas passed on and on and on through their insistence that life prevails.

I remembered too her telling the story of each person collecting their own problems. “Every yiddle’s got his peckle.” כל יהודי והחבילה שלו
If all the people put their problems in a bag in a room and you could go in the room to pick whichever bag you want, you would end up taking your own back. In the past I snickered at this kind of perspective but now, in this state of empathy and compassion, I could see that my problems, my pain are part of a web of interconnected human experience. Across time and space. Across the globe. Across generations and over years.
When I brought up my PTSD which used to grip me with heavy related flashbacks of my most horrendous memories, I reflected that those memories still existed and they would come up, get triggered. But that now I had the mental ability to change the channel. To see it as one part of many. Not the only or most significant things I’m made of, not even close.
I returned again and again to the themes of all my healing work, to accepting myself and the changes I’ve made. My sexuality. My rejection of religious rules. My big “F you” to the world which was such a crucial part of my journey to finding myself. To detangling myself from the enmeshment of my family. But now, a new perspective. Being so tired of the rage and so ready for calm. Sarcasm and cynicism kept me going and kept me from slipping into the deepest depression. Like a life raft in ranging waves. But a peaceful perspective calms the waters themselves.

The ying Yang. The good in the bad and bad in the good. Entangled but in peace.
I reflected and took accountability for the darkness I had been carrying and insisting everyone see with me. Throwing the dirt in everyone’s face “throwing up” like my sister said. Yes I was sick. I needed to purge all that darkeness. Accepting that was my state and need at that time.
And my parents who could only respond with blinding light, whose only possible response was to survive, see the good, hope for forgiveness and reconciliation.
I saw each of us, everyone, with compassion. With understanding. With patience.
Stunned by own “maturity” and how this too could be a state I had access to. That it was a choice I could make. If I’m brave enough. Or if my desire for peace is bigger than my desire for indignation.
The hatred, despite being justified, is a jagged, unpredictable, sharp-edged entity, it has no way but to cut deeply into myself too.
The more I find love for myself, the soft roundness of that oozes out all around me. I spoke too of my close love for Yona and what a supportive love we share. That the love for my children is what deserves my attention and efforts. Not the past. Not relationships that hurt.
I’m ambivalent now, a week later, about my relationship to my parents, my sister. I’m open to seeing what will happen and what might change. But I don’t have to control it or decide right now what I will or won’t accept.
This new presence feels hard won and patient. It doesn’t demand something from me. It is kind and containing. I can meet myself where I am. In each new moment. Each new day.
——






4'th session - psilocybin
Excited to try a different substance, to see if this trip would bring up some new and interesting insights. After three incredibly successful and transformational trips with MDMA, I was seeking something to help me with new tools for the present. For the future.
For dealing with my parents. With my own kids. With my life’s direction now. I spent so much time looking back, processing the traumas, and making sense of what happened to me and what it all means for my identity as a “healing person.” And now I just wanted to figure out how to live now, how to be myself, the newfound self.
In the morning I boarded the 8:07 train and was eager, with butterflies in my stomach like before a big and important day. It reminded me of my wedding, I think. A big and important step to take. The fact of it being a different substance, mushrooms this time, and more of a trust that whatever would happen would be beneficial.
I described my excitement to my therapist Dr. J last week and I said it was very meaningful for me to take a full day and devote it just to myself, to my healing, to getting to know myself. To have Yona take over every other responsibility and just do whatever I think will be beneficial, healing, and positive for me.
On the train, I wrote on the back of a receipt;
—----
“My intentions for the trip: to feel connected to myself, my body, my memory, the truths I’ve always known and have simply forgotten. The joy of pure existence. Love, peace, calm.”

Then I tuned in to my bodily sensations. The intense jaw pain and tightness since the dinner with my parents in early November. I went to the dentist and had x-rays pointing to an impacted wisdom tooth that they recommend get removed. I also went to get a full-body shiatsu treatment and felt the tension so tightly wound in all the muscles of my shoulders and upper back and neck. Trying so hard to breathe, to release. But also recognizing and allowing the fact of the holding. The bracing I’d done, and the shield that went up while I was around my parents.
I wrote:

“My jaw hurts.
An impacted tooth,
A prolapsed uterus,
A broken heart.
Which hurts more?

I looked around and saw the people in the train car with me, middle-aged men- some of them balding, women with stylish hair, teenagers in loose knit sweaters. And suddenly I saw a glimpse of my brother. The way I often see him.

The people you imagine. The ghosts of enemies, lovers, and friends you glimpse on the other side of the train platform, just before your intellect kicks in to remind you.
Can’t be them…they’re dead.
Can’t be her, she disappeared years ago.
Can it?
Can’t be that kid there because many years have long passed and the imagined child would be in their 30’s now.
You reprimand your brain. Why did you bring these memories to the fore? Why now?
But the grief persists. The confusion.

Greif = Confusion, you realize.
The griever’s oft-asked question: “How could this have happened?” We all ask with outstretched hands toward the heavens. If only we could read the stars, figure it all out. Who is behind this act of intense suffering? And why others are spared? We keen, weeping acid rain burning trails down our cheeks.

The train was delayed, and the general anxiety of the riders grew as I kept myself steady, and grateful for the opportunity of more reflection before a big step. I texted M to let him know I’d be late and settled in, with soft music streaming into my ears and the clear sky spreading endlessly out the window.

—----
The psychedelic experience began before I even ingested the mushrooms, or that the threads from previous trips are constantly being woven together…
I felt that there were big, deep thoughts arising and attended to already. The questions I was asking myself on the train, time to analyze the recent uptick in body pain after a period of relative absence. The impact of the muddled new semi-estrangment with my parents…
M picked me up from the train station and I arrived to his apartment and felt so comfortable, at ease, and anxious to begin. His wife was on the couch, pregnant and just back from an appointment. We talked a bit and I drank some water, got myself ready in the room and got under the covers.
I held the two mushroom-infused blocks of chocolate and felt the rolling giggle rise in my chest. Excitement, tinged with worry. I chewed and was surprised by the dry chewy texture, drinking water to get this down, while maintaining an intentional awareness that I ingest this purposfully, with respect.
I settled, eyes covered, soft music playing. Breathing. M nearby.
I felt a deep heaviness in my legs, sinking, sinking, down and down into the forest floor. Soft dirt beneath me and around me. Tall trees towering above me.
I suddenly had an awareness of being very very cold, with snow covering the earth, and coming down on me. M brought me more blankets because I felt imobile and so so deeply cold. There was a moment of choice where I experienced the inevitable right before it happened. A question winkink at me: do you want to be buried, to be one with this forest floor, the roots, the mycelium… or will you rise and live out here- even thought it’s cold.
In my mind’s eye, I looked up and saw a large buck, majestic and still. Several feet away, looking beyond. An invitation to come out, to stand up. To brave the elements, in the light.
So I rose. I rose and I left the earth to continue it’s stable safety, knowing I’d return to it anytime. The dive into depths of pain and fear and anxiety, the traumas- they’ll always be down there, we’ve explored them plenty, they call sometimes, but in that moment I saw the glimpse of the choice; to dive or to rise. A time and place for everything, for every experience. No rush, no obligation. It’ll be here if and when you wish to return. You can dig in the mud, and you have for so long. That’s valuable and important, especially when you unearth land mines, and replace them with seeds that will sprout and blossom. You’ve done so much already here in the earth. Deep in these caves and Burroughs.
Now is a good, safe, available opportunity to explore something else. Explore


- forest
- Sad music- turned it off
- Mice in a maze
- Apple





Diving into the experience of the fear, and becoming the fear, fearing the fear.

There was a point in the journey where the music was beginning to swell in frightening swirls all around me like the music was chasing me but I couldn’t run or even move.
And I asked him if the music was actually moving or if it was my perception.
The circular movement was like I was in a tornado of long ending notes and I was being wrapped by them. He then moved the music source to actually be over and around me and I got completely crushed by the sensation of the music coming over me.
Pleading for it to stop. For the music to end.
I was able to voice what was scary and alarming and advocate for myself. That was another turning point where I found myself again, my agency. Even lost in that swirling storm of fear, I was also the observer of it. That moment of coming out of it was very powerful, and the silence that followed was very peaceful. A reprieve. Relief.

At one point while holding the therapist hand, as I did throughout parts of the trip, to ground back into reality and know that I’m not alone. Like a tether to reality. A trust that everything I’m experiencing, as powerful and confusing as it is, is safe and constructive.

But at this one moment, suddenly my entire field of awareness began to drip with the presence of my brother. It’s like he was everywhere. His smell, his touch, his looming in every shadow.

I felt disgusted, my eyebrows and nose scrunching, my mouth pursed.
Why is he here?
Get away.
Why are you still here???

I was angry that he had “showed up,” that he always appears. Just as I live life, just as I find safety and purpose and presence, there he is again.

We discussed what they meant to me. Why was he here?
Why did it make me rage full if he was here?

And the closing-in feeling was back. The way panic attacks begin. A narrowing, a darkening.
And we are mice. Little white mice, scrambling in a wooden maze.
My brother is a mouse. With whiskers scurrying, smelling the walls, trying to find a way out or through. And his agitation is my agitation. And I realize I’m also a mouse. We are both trapped and desperate to find the way through this maze and we keep bumping into each other. And in that classic psychedelic experience, I AM a mouse, and I’m also looking down onto the complex wooden maze that two little white mice are trying so desperately to navigate. And I can see that they are trapped in a shallow 2-d reality. That the creators of the maze, -the scientist? Or sadists? - who put us here are the real target of my anger.

My parents? Wasn’t it them who created this dynamic?

The fear turned to anger and back again on a circle, as my body keeps moving and swirling, front to back and back around again.

The therapist carried on an inquiry with me of why the presence and fear of my brother was here. Why fighting it’s presence was the source of the fear, not merely it’s presence but the resistance to it.

The wish to get it away and as far from it, rather than accepting it’s appearance .

—-

What I realized after through our integration sessions is that I’ve been rejecting and and abandoning Lilttle me, the girl who needed me to stay with her. Not save her, or take her to jupiter, although that was correct at the time. It was what I needed to do to help my psyche move along.
But in another way, she needed me to stay with her, to comfort her, to smooth down her curls and tell her that the people around me will not always be this way. They will be lovely, trustworthy, wholesome people who love you for you, who aren’t trying to take advantage of you or need something from you. These people will be your husband, your kids, your amazing friends. Noah, Rachel Lassry, Rachel Weinstein, these are your people.

Friends you’ll make over years of honestly uncovering who you are.
Dasi, Rena, true friends in your adolescence, and who walk through life with you.

And you’ll have a difficult strained relationship with these people who birthed you, your parents. Who suffered to give you so much, who toiled to make a better life for you, who supported you though all your studies and early motherhood. Who couldn’t or wouldn’t face the truth. But they are there. They are your parents who have so much love for you, and even though you don’t like them very much, you appreciate and admire them. But from afar. From a healthy distance which means you have given them the space they need to figure out their missteps, and your own.
I am committed to myself. To my own healing. To this path of reconnecting to myself. Diving into all the parts of me that co-exist within me. In this plain that stretches out to infinity. To love. Connects to the love all around us.
The more I do that, the more I tap into that network I know I’m not alone. And we are all in here together. Me and the trees, and the deer, and the apple, and the sky, and the sea.

I love who I am. I love who I’m becoming. And I”m excited to see who I’ll be next. Every day a new beginning.

I know who is here. And i love who i am.
Fear is a useful tool. It wants to keep us safe. I’ll pull it out when it’s appropriate. When it’s needed.
I’m not in trouble. No one can

Thanks, that's super interesting and you already did a lot of work on the subject. I think you need to introduce your central source in more detail - is it a published text? A documentary? An oral history interview? All these genres have their own limitations. And I would also try to pay more attention to the specificities of the Israeli context (if I understood it correctly).

Also of possible interest: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/10/1057146/psychedelics-scentific-research-women/

Dear group 3, I found your proposal to be impressive, and well elaborated for this stage. I suggest to be more critical ppsychedelic therapy (not only to religion and "claassical" therapy) and to explain are all this approaches are just differenet system of treating emotions and self, or theis significant difference in understanding of emotions

Indeed very interesting idea and very challenging as you implicitly combine studies of memory, psychology and critical approach to psychological treatment. Here of course the challenge is hidden. I echo Anna and Pavel and will suggest you to bring in more a sociological perspective - both for the interactive setting that produces this text as well as its discursive level (the language it uses). Who is the subject? In what setting this story is told and to whom? How it is different to therapy or other formats of therapeutic interactions or other texts of memory recollection? Give us more antho-socio thick description of this cultural event as well as of the psychedelic therapy as a social encounter or interaction or cultural form, using your knowledge of different formats and talks and narratives that are relevant to understanding of this new one.