Psychedelics and Psychoanalysis | Online

This reading and study group will meet weekly for 12 weeks, and maintain the same membership for the 12 week period. The group will have a syllabus with papers or chapters that participants are expected to read. The format will include a short review of a selected paper by the group leader, followed by discussion of the content and related matters. This group will not be a forum for case presentations or extended sharing, either personal or clinical. The group is open to all, but will assume that members are interested in studying the academic literature on psychedelics from the psychoanalytic perspective. We are asking Reading Group members to commit to the full 12-week series upon registration.

This 12-week course uses contemporary and historical sources to teach the numerous ways psychoanalysis and psychedelics have been, and are, involved with one another.  We hope, also, to sketch out a roamap deepening this important affiliation. This course is for more advanced students who possess basic clinical and theoretical knowledge of psychoanalysis, as well as having basic information regarding psychedelic therapy.

We will begin with a close reading of an analyst’s overview of psychedelic therapy, including relevant neuropsychoanalytic writing.  Throughout, we will offer historic (1950s-70s) papers about psychoanalytic treatment, both research and clinical work utilizing LSD and other medicines.  Long dismissed for outdated, inadequate research methods, these fascinating papers are steeped in the American psychoanalysis of their time, and quite visionary, as well.

Areas we will cover during the course include: 1) ego dissolution, ego death and egolytic processes; 2)primary consciousness, minimal self, numinous states and experiences of unity3) reductions in “defensiveness” and the shift toward connection and unity; 4)Narrative self, minimal self; 5) Psychedelic work from a Jungian perspective;  6) judicious forays into neuroscience to describe physiological embodiment, “hyper associative” states and the unconstrained mind; 7) psychoanalysis, itself, as an alternative state of consciousness; 8) aNative American peyote ceremony described from a social constructivist perspective and a psychoanalytic one; 9) race and psychedelic consciousness 10) a look forward to the 21st theories of psychedelic action.

The class will have psychoanalysis as its central discourse; it will address, as well, phenomenology of self, narrative, identity, unity and a bit of relevant science of neuroplasticity.  We will learn from our analytic ancestors, highlighting Betty Eisner, PhD; diverse contemporary theorists and clinicians are represented

There will be 3 categories of reading:  Assigned, Supplemental and Curiosity.  Each week will have no more than 35-40 pages of Assigned Material.   As mentioned, neither the basics of psychedelics nor psychoanalysis will be taught in this class, they are a prerequisite for it.  However, it is not necessary to be a psychoanalyst to take this course. Anyone interested is welcome.

It is our hope the classes will invite imagination as well as educate, creating a 21st Century vision of what psychedelics and psychoanalysis have do with each other, and how. An intention for the class is to create community, stimulate discussion and evoke curiosity about the world outside our familiar narratives.