Opinion: The Moral Compass of Psychedelic Journeys Pt. 1

By Sarah O'Brien LCSW

Sep 25, 2024

Disclaimer: Integrate Trauma Informed Network champions the ethical use of psychedelics for trauma healing. Our platform is dedicated to supporting their exploration within indigenous and clinical environments, ensuring that their use is respectful and responsible. We are committed to opposing any unethical practitioners or retreats that exploit vulnerable populations through psychedelic journeys.

A Beginner's Guide to Psychedelics in Therapy

Have you heard of the latest in trauma treatment? What do you know about psychedelic-assisted treatment? My guess is that you do know something, or at least have heard something. However, did you fact check? Did you look at the research? Doubtful, because, really, who is going to do that unless it applies to them? And even then, we know people fail to do their due diligence often when it comes to seeking out assistance for a personal issue, or treatment for a medical issue. And that’s really scary…and can be really dangerous. Especially when it comes to using psychedelic substances to achieve some sort of healing goal.

As a trauma informed professional, and a licensed psychotherapist, I have been aware of the conversation around psychedelic use for treating mental health disorders and past trauma for decades now. Yea, decades is how long they’ve been under-going research to determine efficacy and safety for use in treatment settings. And only in recent years (like the last 5-7) has it been approved by FDA for treatment of certain disorders and under certain guidance and there is definitely a specified amount to use and a legal and ethical way for treatment providers to access it. A colleague of mine (also licensed psychotherapist) underwent extra training to obtain skills and certification to provide psychedelic assisted therapy in collaboration with a psychiatric nurse practitioner. She has offered training for others to become educated about the ethical ways this can be used in mental health and/or substance abuse and/or trauma treatment. I can assure you, a lot of what we’re seeing out there with psychedelic use is wrong, false, bad, and dangerous.

The History of Using Psychadelics to Treat Mental Health-Related Issues

Psychedelic substances have been used for thousands of years by Indigenous communities in healing and religious ceremonies. In the mid-20th century, the U.S. federal government became interested in using psychedelics to treat a variety of mental illnesses, funding more than 100 clinical trials between the 1950s and the 1970s. At that time, the medical community, including the American Psychiatric Association (APA), was enthusiastic about the potential of compounds such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to treat mental illness. Psychedelics were studied as treatment for patients with a range of psychiatric conditions, including alcohol use disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, and autism spectrum disorder, and for patients with cancer experiencing end-of-life anxiety. It’s important to note here, clinical trials were conducted for two decades, but didn’t go to market back then. They stopped researching it and then banned it, essentially. Read on.

In the late 1960s, opposition to psychedelics—and to the countercultural movement that had embraced psychedelic use—took hold. (Side note: this same thing happened with cannabis about 30-40 years earlier. Check out my blogs on this here). The U.S. federal government came to view LSD as a danger to social cohesion, and research promoted claims of its teratogenic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic potential. Although these safety risks were later discredited, the Nixon Administration placed psilocybin and LSD on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, deeming that they had no legitimate medical use (but they do!). In 1985, the compound 3, 4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), whose popularity was surging at the time, was also declared a Schedule I substance. Because this political environment, research on psychedelics was largely abandoned between the 1970s and the 1990s.

Wanna go deeper into Psychadelic Ethics Education? We suggest exploring Jules Evans Substack

The Psychadelics Comeback

Psychedelics started making a comeback in certain research circles by the 1990s. The era of modern psychedelic research has focused primarily on psilocybin, a classic psychedelic found in the Psilocybe genus of mushrooms, and MDMA, a synthetic amphetamine derivative in the subgroup of psychedelics called empathogens. In the past decade, several trials have investigated psilocybin’s role in treating major depressive disorder, alcohol and nicotine addiction, and anxiety disorders. Research on MDMA has primarily focused on its role in treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 2019, a variant of ketamine was approved by the FDA for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 2022, an official at the US Department of Health and Human Services anticipated that the FDA would approve MDMA by 2024. As of early 2023, studies are under way or being planned to investigate the use of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, bipolar depression, suicidality, depression related to early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, OCD, and substance use disorders. There are also more studies on the use of MDMA for PTSD.

So, we have come a long way since the 1950’s, and really far since the ban by Nixon in the ‘70’s. There is legitimate research and legitimate evidence that psychedelics can be, and have been, used to treat a myriad of mental health-related disorders, and have been effective. There is even empirical evidence that psychedelics are helpful in treating many disorders, especially other-treatment-resistant cases. Those approved to provide this kind of treatment is limited, and extremely regulated.

The Emerging Ethical Issues

However, many ‘healers’ are finding ways to illegally access psychedelics to use with clients under false pretenses about efficacy and safety. In other words, whacked out folks are getting their hands on these drugs and taking people on ‘journeys’ or ‘trips’ to ‘heal trauma’ or ‘awaken sexuality’ and they are 1) Not qualified to do this type of work 2) Not ethical in doing this type of work 3) Not safe in doing this kind of work, and in fact, are using the guise of ‘healing journey’ of some kind to exploit, manipulate, and in many cases, enact coercive control over people…which is abuse, as if I needed to say it. There are many cases where high-control groups are using psychedelics to brainwash folks into assisting them with sex and human trafficking. It is appalling. It is disturbing. It is REAL. And it is happening TODAY.

Something else happening today is the BOOM of the wellness industry. Post-pandemic has left many, if not all, with some trauma…and many people aim to capitalize on that, rather than to really help or affect positive change on that. There are titles upon titles of ‘healers’ out there: life coach, appropriated shaman, spiritual coach, somatic specialist…(we just call them “bad actors). Do you know which titles are regulated by some board to ensure they aren’t causing harm to the public for which they work? Not coaches. Not wellness gurus. Not dream interpreters. Not spiritual guides. Nope.

Then who?

Who can Administer Psychadelics?

Licensed psychotherapists, that’s who! And licensed psychiatrists, licensed psychiatric nurse practitioners, licensed psychologists. If we’re talking about mental health, substance use/addiction and trauma we are talking about Mental & Behavioral Health clinicians, treatment providers. We’re talking about healthcare; and healthcare providers have to be licensed to practice. And although much work and personal transformation can be done with a life coach…shaman…spiritual guide, ultimately, they are NOT medical treatment providers, and therefore, not licensed or regulated to provide any psychedelic substances to anyone for any reason. If you are accessing psychedelics via a coach, then you are buying drugs from a drug dealer…except the drug dealer here has even more nefarious intentions than your typical drug dealer. Typically, they sell you drugs, and everyone walks away. However, if a coach, shaman, or ‘guide’ provides psychedelics to you, they aren’t interested in walking away; they are interested in what happens to you under the influence of the drug so they can mess with your memories, brainwash you, and coercively control you into doing things you wouldn’t normally do…like recruiting women for sex trafficking—through your coaching services. Maybe even through trauma informed coaching services. I know this sounds harsh, but the truth isn’t always neat and tidy. The truth is if you are using psychedelics of any kind in the presence of another person you hired for a job or service, then you better check their credentials…and they should have a lot!

Jules Evans says this, “Healers can harm. The healing relationship is one of great power and should come with great responsibility – this is why healers for millennia took the Hippocratic Oath, supposedly invented by Hippocrates in Athens in the fifth century BC. It goes:

Jules Evans post on Bad Actors using Psychadelics to harm vulnerable populations

This post from Jules Evans work goes deeper into an analysis of how bad actors use psychadelics to harm vulnerable populations

I swear by Apollo, Asclepius, Hygieia, Panacea, and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath…I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them.

Healers can do harm unintentionally (emphasis added), even when they have the best intentions in the world. All humans are prone to error and mind-healers perhaps especially so. If we accept this and work from this starting point, perhaps we can limit the harm we unintentionally inflict on others.”

Because healers today require education, degrees, licenses, continuing education, you know, regulations and guidelines, there is an inherent check and balance. And, yes, modern day healers are also bound by ethical guidelines to ‘do no harm.’ Healers can’t heal in today’s day and age without oversight. Why? Because they could cause harm! Because sometimes they do cause harm! And the citizens seeking out their treatment are to be protected from a healer not using ethical practices to heal, or not engaging in healing at all, and/or causing harm, whether intentionally or accidentally. That’s why you can make a board complaint for a doctor, nurse, surgeon, therapist if you have endured harm in the course of their providing treatment, or care, to you. Boards exist to protect the public, the people seeking out providers for a need, treatment, service.

Come back for Part 2 on Friday.

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