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Working with Erotic Feelings in Psychedelic-assisted Therapy: A Psychodynamic Framework
Pat Song (PhD Psychologist & Educator)
Thursday 20 March, 2025 7PM CET (6PM GMT, 2PM EST, 11AM PST)
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.
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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.