In this episode I speak with psychedelic researcher and community organizer Amy Bartlett. Amy draws on her doctoral research at the University of Ottawa where she explores how psychedelics are used as part of people's healing journey, including for the healing of PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, and other experiences and states. One thing Amy brings to light is the fact that most clinical trials (USA/CAN-based) have not included participants from different identity groups, meaning that 2SLGBTQIA+ folks are notably absent from the clinical trial. If you're familiar with human-cenetered design principles, you know that this means that the needs and unique experiences of queer folks never get designed into the clinical trial process. This is a sad loss for queer folks for many reasons that Amy and I get into. But Amy makes another great point: queer folks are effectively experts when it comes to the ability to embrace multiplicities...which is a sort of fundamental part of the integration process following a psychedelic journey. It's truly a loss that we do not have queer voices shaping the clinical trial experiences.
This isn't just about "queer trauma" it's about queer wisdom.
While Amy and I talk about psychedelic healing and the potential this has for queer folks in particular, we also explore some of ramifications of religion in all this. As we've heard in other episodes, queer people are unfortunately at a higher likelihood to experience religious trauma f, due to the ways that some people weaponize religion against queer people. But thankfully the relationship between religion, queerness, and psychedelic healing isn't all shadows and dark--there's also some "light" there, and Amy and I explore this in our chat together.
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The instrumental of the song “Bones” by OKNaledi is used with permission. Check out the full version here.
Psychedelic therapies, religion, and LGBTQ+ wisdom