OPEN Foundation

Working with Erotic Feelings in Psychedelic-assisted Therapy: A Psychodynamic Framework

đź—Ł Pat Song  (PhD Psychologist & Educator)

⏰ Thursday 20 March, 2025 7PM CET (6PM GMT, 2PM EST, 11AM PST)

đź“Ť Online via Zoom

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Sexual boundary violations by therapists and sitters are a recurring and serious problem in psychedelic-assisted therapy. Psychedelics induce a profoundly vulnerable state in participants. The psychedelic setting can also amplify the feelings and experiences of practitioners sitting with these participants; some sitters report surprising, disorienting erotic feelings and energy. At the same time, participants’ erotic feelings contain valuable clinical information about nonsexual needs, emotions, and experiences of the patient. Learning to manage erotic transference and countertransference is thus an essential task for every psychedelic practitioner.
 
This interactive two-hour presentation will begin to prepare practitioners for these experiences by providing a psychodynamic understanding of these and other feeling states in order to use this information safely and therapeutically. Dr. Song will present a framework for identifying and working with erotic transference/countertransference as well as other intense feeling states (e.g., love and hate) in psychedelic-assisted therapy. Participants will learn to develop clinical formulations that are developmental, intrapsychic, and relational. Red flag behaviours and attitudes in self and others will be described as well as strategies for reducing the risk of committing boundary violations. Case material from ongoing interviews with psychedelic therapists and participants will be presented.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERs

Pat Song, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts-Boston and an M.Ed. in counseling psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has over 25 years of professional experience in a range of settings including a Harvard cocaine addiction treatment research project, clinical training at a Harvard Medical School public health teaching hospital, and HIV/AIDS prevention. Dr. Song is an active member of the Asian Psychedelic Collective and a graduate of the Center for Psychedelic Therapy and Research certificate training program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and the PRATI and Fluence KAP certificate programs. She has a private psychotherapy practice in Montpelier, Vermont, and provides education about psychedelic-assisted therapy and working with erotic transference and countertransference across the US. She is currently conducting research interviews with practitioners and participants about their experiences of erotic feelings in psychedelic settings.

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