4 Books To Read If You're Curious About Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy
Summaries of my personal picks.
Whenever I talk to somebody about my experience with psychedelic-assisted therapy (so far), they always ask some version of this question: what made you decide to try it?
What they really want to know is: a) How can you be sure it's safe? and b) Are you crazy?!
Yeah, I might be crazy, but it’s also easy for me to forget (close to a year and a half into my healing journey) that using psychedelics in conjunction with therapy feels normal to me now because of my exposure to it.
But it wasn’t always this way…
I did my own research and immersed myself in conversations taking place within the psychedelic community long before my first session with MDMA, so it's easy to forget that the potential psychedelics have to treat depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other disorders is new information for most people.
In the 70s and 80s, the narrative around psychedelics (and drugs in general, according to neuroscientist and neuropsychopharmacologist Carl Hart) was terrifying.
It was also grossly inaccurate. So, it's only natural that we would have a hard time understanding why anyone (me, in this case) would turn to such a controversial alternative treatment for complex trauma.
Like many people with C-PTSD, I tend to be overly cautious, so it took me a long time to consider psychedelics as an option for treatment. It took me even longer to go have my first psychedelic experience.
Part of my process leading up to that experience was to peruse the studies they were doing at places like NYU, John Hopkins University, and MAPS, but what truly changed my mind about psychedelics were some of the books I read. Other people's stories were even more convincing to me than the science.
So, here (in no particular order) are the books that ultimately helped me decide to work with psychedelics - and specifically MDMA. I think these resources are a great place to start if you're interested in learning more about the healing potential of psychedelics.
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan: This is probably the most well-known of all the books I've read on how psychedelics have successfully treated people struggling with addiction and mental illness.
I think part of the reason this book is generally well-received is that (before writing on the subject) Michael Pollan was an outsider to the psychedelic community. I'm sure his reputation as a journalist didn't hurt either.
While I get that the science and history included in this book bring a level of credibility to the topic of psychedelics, the individual stories are much more interesting, in my opinion (especially Pollan's personal experiences with LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline.)
Not up for such a long read? You can catch the (condensed) four-part docuseries on Netflix instead.
Trust Surrender Receive: How MDMA Can Release Us From Trauma and PTSD, by Anne Other: This book offers the unique perspective of a therapist who provided underground MDMA-assisted therapy to clients for 20+ years (hence the pseudonym.)
Trust Surrender Receive strikes a decent balance between explaining the medical, legal, and social history of MDMA and what takes place in an actual therapy session with the medicine.
If you love reading first-hand accounts like I do, this book includes a lot of them. The downside is that most of them are either direct quotes of her clients' stories or were written by the clients in their own words, so the writing isn't great. If you can get past that, it's interesting stuff.
Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal, by Tom Shroder: I'm usually more of a fan of memoirs and creative non-fiction, but I love the structure of this book. It reads like an NPR story that seamlessly flows between journalism and personal interest piece.
The book covers the history of LSD and MDMA and the controversy surrounding them. It introduces research that explains why these (and other psychedelics) are still illegal despite their effectiveness in treating PTSD and other disorders.
What I found most compelling in Acid Test is Shroder's portrait of Rick Doblin's (the founder of MAPS) almost 40-year quest to seek FDA approval for the therapeutic use of MDMA (spoiler alert: it still hasn't been approved in the US but is expected to be by the end of this year.)*
Psychedelic Psychotherapy: A User-Friendly Guide To Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy, by R. Coleman: This is a literal how-to manual for therapists and trauma survivors who haven't had results with mainstream therapy and other treatments.
The author covers everything in this book, from explaining how psychedelics help facilitate healing to choosing the right compound and dose to how to integrate the experiences and the potential problems you might face during and after a trip.
Reading this book helped alleviate my fears about what happens during a psychedelic journey, what to expect after, and how to use my therapy sessions to flesh out what came up.
Psychedelics aren’t the only tools for healing trauma. They’re a tool. For me, they’ve been life-changing - which is why (as scary as it is to out myself) I think it’s important to talk about it.
~Christy
* Australia is the first country to approve MDMA and psilocybin for therapeutic use
Hey there! I'm am Aussie and I didn’t know it was approved for use here! I have C-PTSD and am super interested in therapeutic psychedelics. I will grab these books, but is there anywhere else you fouls recommend for me to get more info? About the practicalities of doing it? Thanks for taking about this btw.