This talk explores:

• What Complex PTSD actually is
• When psychedelics may support healing
• When they can destabilize
• Attachment dynamics in altered states
• Screening, red flags, and integration principles
• Common myths in psychedelic culture

Grounded. Trauma-informed. Not hype. Not fear-based.

Transcription:

And we'll get going.

Yeah, so you know, the question I would like to start out with asking everyone, and it's just something to think about,

00:18

is, how many of you know someone who went into a psychedelic experience,

00:26

looking for healing and came out more destabilized than before,

00:31

so maybe put a one in the chat if you know someone, or maybe it's happened to you.

00:43

Hmm, yeah. So, yeah, a few people and you know, so today we're going to take a look

00:51

at what happens and what actually supports healing at that intersection. And so this is in the hype talk, and it's not anti psychedelic, it's it's a pretty nuanced talk, so there's a lot to look at here, and let's begin.

01:11

So you know, for me and share in like doing this talk, why does this talk matter now? Well, so in 2023

01:21

roughly 8% of Americans reported using a psychedelic, a classic psychedelic, and so that's doubled a lot, and we see here in this chart psychedelic uses. It's going up and up and up. So it's not a fringe movement, and there's a mainstream shift happening without adequate psychological infrastructure to support it, as it's getting bigger and bigger, so more people are entering altered states, and more people are Recognizing developmental trauma

02:00

as more and more research and studies go on, as well as anecdotal stories too.

02:10

So you know, there is a gap in understanding trauma and psychedelics and how they play a role together out there.

02:25

So just a quick disclaimer before we start. You know this is educational. None of what I say tonight constitutes medical, legal, psychological advice. If anything lands in a personal way.

02:43

You know, please take it to someone who's qualified to work with you. And this talk is really meant to increase your discernment, not direct you to choices as well.

02:59

So a little about me, if you're not familiar with who I am. So I'm Josh Jupiter. I founded Brooklyn balance in 2022

03:10

today, I work as a full time psychedelic integration coach and facilitator. So I have training through maps, Tam integration and direct client work as well as receiving my own work as well.

03:24

But honestly, the reason I noticed material as well as I do isn't really only professional, it's personal, and I'll get into that more too.

03:38

So

03:39

my background is a little unconventional for the psychedelic field. I spent about 15 years working in film production. I was a producer in 2008 when I graduated from college. I also had debilitating panic attacks, and I went on SSRIs, and I was on them for like, eight or 10 years,

04:04

I began to wean off of them. I did it with the guidance for proper having proper medical support.

04:12

And a couple years after, I started to explore psychedelic healing, and I did it carefully with a therapist and trusted community.

04:24

You know, in covid, in 2020 I got really burned out from film production, and I made a choice to pursue working as a psychedelic integration coach full time. So I mentioned all this because my path to this field wasn't through academia, it was through my own nervous system.

04:50

So since then, I've been working full time as a psychedelic integration coach. I'm a facilitator, trip sitter. I.

05:00

I'm supporting people here in New York City and the surrounding area.

05:05

And you know, I also I'm very passionate about education as well.

05:11

So I do teach at NYU every semester as a guest lecturer in their alternative psychology class. And, you know, today I want to offer

05:26

a synthesis of all my experience, my client, the client work and my own lived experience to this topic.

05:36

So who's this for?

05:39

Right? So this talk is for therapists and clinicians working with complex trauma or want a clear understanding of how altered states may help or destabilize their clients.

05:54

It's for psychedelic facilitators who want to better recognize attachment dynamics.

06:01

Disassociation and trauma patterns inside ceremony and integration spaces.

06:09

It's for survivors of complex PTSD who are curious about psychedelics and want sober, informed perspective, not hype and not fear.

06:22

You know, and it's just for anyone who's interested, members of the conscious community who want to deepen psychological literacy and around trauma and medicine work. So whatever brings you here, professional curiosity, personal experience or both.

06:40

I'm glad you're in your room. Let's get into it.

06:45

So what is complex PTSD?

06:51

So you know,

06:55

complex PTSD, it emerges from repeated relational

07:02

injury,

07:05

right? It's not one significant instance.

07:11

Might be a lot of Lowercase Capital T's.

07:16

It shapes identity, nervous system regulation and attachment patterns over time. So think of the child who grew up never knowing which version of their parent they'd come home to,

07:34

who learned to walk into a room and scan everything vigilantly, searching for safety

07:43

and who felt responsible for managing other people's emotions

07:50

so that developmental environment, chronic, relational, inescapable energy

07:58

is what produces Complex PTSD.

08:03

It's not a single event, it's a pattern that becomes a nervous system.

08:08

So one more thing worth noting is at the bottom of the slide, I've mentioned that

08:16

complex PTSD is not recognized in the DSM five, but it is recognized in the ICD 11, the International diagnostic framework.

08:31

So it's sort of like the world sees this, but the USA doesn't quite see this just yet, or the DSM five, which many therapists in this country rely heavily on psychiatrists,

08:45

so this creates a gap,

08:47

and many clinicians work in the US aren't formally trained in it, even when they're working with it every day.

08:57

So you know, if you're interested in learning more, you might also want to check out key figures like Judith Herman, who originally coined the term Pete Walker, whose writing is the most practically useful for survivors, and, of course, Bessel van de cult, whose work on the body and The role and storing trauma in it the Body Keeps the Score.

09:26

So core domains, so

09:28

when it comes to complex PTSD, these are adaptive responses,

09:36

and these five domains are what the ICD 11 recognizes as distinguishing features of it, and what separates it from standard

09:48

PTSD.

09:51

And so I want to be clear about something

09:55

you know before we move on, is every single item on this.

10:00

List is an adaptation that we've adapted to it.

10:06

We have evolved based off of our environment, and so it's not pathology, it's not weakness,

10:15

it's a nervous system that learned to survive conditions that were not survivable in any other way.

10:23

So we treat these as character defects when they are survival strategies, and that framing matters for everything that follows.

10:37

So what it actually looks like? You know, the clinical terms on the previous slide are accurate,

10:45

but this is what they can look like in a body, in a relationship, in everyday life, right? So apologizing for existing,

10:55

not as a social nicety, but as a reflex.

11:02

You know. I guess I'm curious,

11:06

if you know that, can you know somebody who's always apologizing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

11:13

Maybe put a one in the chat.

11:21

Yeah, you know, so it's as if your presence requires constant justification.

11:30

You know, maybe going blank in conflict, not choosing silence, but losing access to yourself entirely.

11:40

So words disappear. Your thoughts disappear. You can come back later and wonder, where did you go?

11:50

Attaching fast, disappearing faster. The person who falls in quickly feels everything intensely, then panics and vanishes.

12:02

So this isn't fickleness. It's an attachment system that learned intimacy is dangerous,

12:10

safe on paper, terrified inside the high functioning person who has the job, the relationship, the apartment and can still and still cannot shake the feelings that something is about to go wrong, right? Everything's fine, and yet I'm worried something's going to go wrong,

12:36

maybe managing emotions,

12:41

but your own, the caretaker who learned early that their job was to regulate the room,

12:49

who had no idea what they feel special, why they feel special, because they spent their whole life focused on everyone else, right? So caretaking. What can I do for you? Focused on everyone else, not thinking about oneself,

13:08

and maybe never quite believing the good thing will last, because it never did, right? So maybe going into relationship, this feels really good and you

13:25

it just doesn't feel safe.

13:33

So this is why Complex PTSD gets missed so often. It doesn't always look like distress, sometimes it looks like competence. The cost is paid in private.

13:49

So, you know, in this window, you know, in this slide, we talk about, I'm going to talk about the window of tolerance.

13:59

And this is, this is actually something I really, am really into.

14:07

So, you know, there are these different windows of tolerance. There's hyper arousal,

14:14

the regular window of tolerance, and hypo arousal.

14:22

And so, you know, there's the zone. The window of tolerance is the zone where processing and healing are possible, actually possible.

14:32

The prefrontal cortex is online. A person can think and feel at the same time

14:39

in complex trauma. This window is often narrow, and people live most of their lives above it in hyper arousal.

14:50

So maybe they're anxious, triggered, activated, hyper vigilant.

14:56

Or if they're below it, they're in.

15:00

Hypo, arousal, numb, collapsed, disassociated.

15:06

So what's critical to understand

15:10

is psychedelics do not know your personal window of tolerance where you are,

15:23

they can blast you into hyper arousal, flooding, terror, overwhelm, or they can push you into deeper, disassociated collapse. Maybe that looks peaceful on the outside,

15:39

and it's actually a trauma response

15:43

the medicine amplifies. So whether that amplification happens inside your window or outside of it depends a lot, perhaps entirely, on preparation, set, setting and integration support you so

16:07

you know, for someone who has lived in shame or fragmentation, psychedelic states can feel Like homecoming,

16:18

and that experience can feel really good and deserves respect,

16:25

but intensity is not integration.

16:32

So with the window of tolerance from the chart we just looked at for someone with complex PTSD, that window where they can do the healing is often narrower and it can be hard to find. So the appeal of psychedelics is that they can temporarily widen it, or at least, or at least make someone feel like they're inside of it,

17:00

the felt sense of safety, connection and self compassion can be profound and real,

17:06

and we shouldn't dismiss that.

17:09

So

17:12

you know,

17:15

like a big thing really is intensity does not equal integration, because often

17:23

we might hear stories anecdotal or on social media, whoa, I had this real big experience. I was blown away.

17:33

And yet afterwards, maybe something happens, maybe nothing happens, or maybe

17:40

the person isn't really recovering so well, a lot of challenging experiences are not necessarily, aren't talked about often, and can get overlooked.

17:53

So

17:56

to add on to that, on more of a science level, psychedelics loosen cognitive and emotional defenses and trauma.

18:05

And defenses

18:07

in trauma, those defenses formed for survival, removing them without safety, can destabilize

18:16

so suggestibility is worth sitting with it. It means the facilitators, words, the music, the energy in the room, the relationship, dynamic, all that carries more weight inside of a session than it does in ordinary consciousness.

18:33

So in a well prepared, supported boundary space, this is this can be therapeutic, and in an uncontained space with someone who has complex trauma and an activated attachment system, it can be a serious risk.

18:55

So,

18:57

you know, we'll look into some of the research and clinical experience that suggests that suggests genuine promise with honesty about where things actually stand, right? So with MDMA research,

19:14

you know, we have learned that it reduces amygdala amygdala reactivity and increases oxytocin. So in practice, this means a survivor can revisit what happens without being flooded by it. That window is clinically significant.

19:37

A note on where MDMA stands,

19:41

because if you know, if you follow the news, there was a lot of talk about having it.

And suggestibility is still worth sitting with, meaning that you know, the facilitators, words, the music, the energy in the room, all the relational dynamics. So you know, stressing the importance of preparation a well boundary space, ensuring for a therapeutic experience,

00:24

and, you know, acknowledging the risks that can come in a an un like a poorly held space.

00:40

So you know where psychedelics may help.

00:44

So let's look where the research and clinical experience suggests genuine promise with honesty about where things actually stand,

00:54

right? So you know, I already went over this MDMA research psilocybin. There's a lot of promise with that right reduction in the amygdala,

01:07

increased oxytocin,

01:10

and, you know, allowing for some change to happen with this and understanding that,

01:19

you know, we were hoping for MDMA assisted therapy to be a real thing, and it's looking like that will be

01:29

a

01:30

longer process,

01:33

but it's still very much happening in the underground.

01:40

So, you know? And then there's memory recon consolidation potential, right? And so it's if a memory comes up, if there's something in the body that comes up, where the body thinks, feels, it's in a place from the past,

02:00

but it's actually in the now. So giving an opportunity for healing, giving an opportunity for repatterning,

02:10

giving an opportunity for

02:14

putting something new into the nervous system and releasing

02:20

so for someone whose core wound is something is fundamentally wrong with me,

02:26

like even a brief loosening of that can really allow for more repair to occur,

02:35

give a better sense of orientation toward integration. Mm, generation,

02:43

you know, and relational safety enhancement, so the medicine can lower the defensive armor that makes it hard for a trauma survivor to receive care

02:54

for complex PTSD, a relational injury healing

03:00

has to happen in relationship, so the substance opens the door and a trustworthy person still has to be standing on the other side.

03:12

You know, we have learned that with ketamine and s ketamine, or spravato,

03:20

which is FDA approved, and a psychedelic adjacent compound that it allows for relief, for treatment resistant depression. It's widely used off label for anxiety and trauma, and it's legal, so it's accessible, and it makes it more of a thing for people to use as an access point to psychedelics, right? It's not a tryptamine,

03:49

and it has psychedelic effects to it,

03:55

you know? And so more and more people are doing ketamine assisted therapy. People are receiving ketamine treatment. So it's something worth knowing, and it's disassociative quality can be useful for some trauma profiles, and it can be counterproductive for others, particularly those with existing disassociative patterns

04:22

and unlike psilocybin, it carries a real dependency risk when used repeatedly for emotional regulation,

04:31

right? So ketamine can be addictive.

04:36

So the through line across all of these

04:41

the context determines outcome, right? None of these mechanisms work in isolation. The container itself matters as much as the compound.

04:55

So, you know, here is a brief.

05:00

Snapshot of where things some things actually stand, because the field moves fast, right? There's tons of research happening all the time, and the public narrative can really just speed off and go super quick.

05:17

And so that lags, that often lags behind the science.

05:22

NDMA particularly has the most compelling mechanism for trauma work through to research, reduced amygdala reactivity, increased oxytocin. It's a window where traumatic memory becomes approachable.

05:41

So research continues with psilocybin, and it has some really strong momentum. Right with John Hopkins, NYU, compass, etc, they've all produced really significant data, particularly also for depression and anxiety.

06:02

Actually on my I'll mention now on my website, there's a there's a video about psilocybin, where I talk a lot about that, and just like an hour long, all about psilocybin, and goes into a lot of the research.

06:17

So, you know, there's a lot of looking at what's going on, and there's excitement too, for further, for analogs as well synthetics of psilocybin,

06:31

we talked about ketamine just before, and then with Ayahuasca, LSD, there's early stage research. Some of it's promising, and a lot of it's limited, like can't really control because

06:49

it's, I can't really imagine someone

06:53

connected to a bunch of monitors while on Ayahuasca. And one of the things with LSD is that it's such a long experience. The researchers joke, well, if we worked with site, with we worked with LSD, we'd never go home.

07:11

So a lot of the data with those two things really isn't there yet.

07:18

You know, in the end, like things are going quick or evolving. There is a lot of momentum. The promise is real, but the certainty isn't right. The field is not settled.

07:34

So you know, on the other side, right?

07:40

And with this, this is not like a list of like rare edges. These are common dynamics that happen regularly in under prepared under contained settings, right? So starting with flooding, without titration, right? So the medicine removes the defenses faster than the nervous system can handle,

08:06

and what comes up isn't processed. It's just overwhelming.

08:12

Someone getting very overwhelmed. Things are just too much, and so that's not healing. It can be re traumatizing. And you know, if it's too much of something, it can be re traumatizing with visuals,

08:29

right? Disassociation misinterpreted as ego death,

08:35

right? So this is this. There's an important distinction with this in the sense is that ego death is a temporary dissolution of the boundary between the self and the other, and this association is a trauma response leaving your body because the body isn't safe. They can look identical from the outside, and you know, they are neurologically and therapeutically, completely different.

09:06

If a facilitator doesn't know how to tell them apart, they cannot hold space adequately

09:15

when it comes to attachment transference,

09:19

there'll be more mention of it on the other slide, but briefly here, the altered state opens the attachment system so whatever unfinished relational business is present gets activated and projected onto the people in the room.

09:37

Spiritual bypassing, using this peak experience to leap over the psychological wound rather than, you know, going through it.

09:49

You know, someone might say, I forgiven everyone. Okay, you know. Or someone might come out and say, oh, like I am Jesus, and we'll joke. Well.

10:00

Then act like Jesus,

10:03

you know. So sometimes there's true truth to the things that people say, and often a disassociative defense is wearing a costume, a spiritual costume.

10:17

And you know, lastly, there can be identity diffusion. So when the self dissolves without adequate containment, some people don't fully reconstitute.

10:32

They spend the weeks or months after a session not knowing who they are,

10:38

what they believe in, what they want. And someone with with someone with complex PTSD, whose sense of self was already fragile, this can be genuinely destabilizing.

10:54

So

10:56

you know, when it comes to attachment fields in altered states, other things can come up,

11:03

right? So psychedelics can open the inner child. They can also orphan.

11:12

They can sorry, they can also open the inner orphan, right? Someone feeling really lost, feeling really abandoned,

11:20

they're not the same thing, and the difference matters enormously in a healing context, right?

11:29

It can be a really challenging thing. Someone being in their inner orphan, feeling really lost and in a very sensitive, fragile state.

11:42

And what to do and how to hold them and how to give them support, and what they might need to do for themselves after as well.

11:51

So when ordinary boundaries of the self soften, early attachment patterns

11:59

don't always disappear, but they can get activated. So the nervous system reaches for what it's learned to reach for safety contact someone who knows what to do. Is

12:12

there an adult in the room right? There can be transference,

12:19

the unconscious projection of attachment history onto the person in the room

12:25

and in an altered state, it can happen very quickly, and it can happen deeper and with more intensity than in ordinary reality.

12:38

Someone might experience regression the

12:42

person isn't just transferring. They may genuinely be operating from an earlier developmental state,

12:50

thinking, feeling and needing the way that a much younger version of themselves did. Right? So a skilled facilitator recognizes this,

13:03

and a less experienced or unskilled one might not,

13:09

and they might respond to that person

13:13

as an adult,

13:15

rather than meeting them where they are as a child,

13:20

like actually thinking that they are a child,

13:25

right? So the facilitator becomes the parent.

13:30

They go into that archetype.

13:35

So

13:39

it's not really a mystical thing. It's a neurobiological reaction.

13:46

There can be rescuer dynamics,

13:50

and that can be followed naturally, right? The participant who has never been adequately held will often unconsciously invite rescue, the facilitator who hasn't done their own shadow work will unconsciously accept the role.

14:08

Both feel like healing, but neither is one

14:14

that's gets pretty risky is eroticized safety,

14:19

and it's a it's an important concept, and talking about eroticism and psychedelics, or,

14:27

you know, those sorts of things that can that are true and do happen, can often get swept under the rug publicly.

14:37

It's probably the least discussed.

14:41

And so when safety and intimacy become fused in early development, because the only moment of beings held also involved boundary violations, the felt sense of safety in an altered state can activate that same fusion.

14:59

So the body.

15:00

Doesn't distinguish this, and it's one of the primary pathways to

15:06

sexual boundary violations in psychedelic spaces, right?

15:12

And it moves in both directions, participants toward the facilitator, a facilitator towards a participant. And just naming it plainly is the first layer of projection,

15:29

you know, and then there is authority inflation. So the facilitator who holds someone through a profound experience is at risk of beginning to believe their own mythology. The participants gratitude, dependency and reverence can become intoxicating, right? It can be ego inflating, and in this can be an occupational hazard in this field. So having supervision, right, peer accountability and ongoing personal work are not optional extras. They are structural, and that helps create containment and keeps people from harm. So it's like one of the questions you know someone seeking to work with a facilitator is, who are your mentors?

16:20

What does peer support look like for you?

16:23

What do you do for accountability?

16:29

You know, and no matter what

16:34

mistakes, mistakes are always happening, and perfection is impossible,

16:41

but with more awareness,

16:45

less risk.

16:54

So you know, screening and red flags, right? These things are not permanent disqualifiers,

17:04

these are clinical signals that the timing, the container or the approach need to be different,

17:12

right? So starting with active dissociation, if someone is regularly leaving their body under ordinary stress, adding a compound that intensifies dissociation is contraindicated until there are more somatic there's more somatic stability.

17:32

If someone is has a psychosis vulnerability, psychedelics can precipitate psychotic breaks in people with personal or family history of psychosis. It's one of the clearest risks factors in the literature.

17:51

There is severe attachment instability. So when someone cannot maintain a stable sense of self or relationship outside of altered states. Those altered states will amplify, will get amplified with instability, rather than dissolve it.

18:14

Peter is your hand up. Do you have a question?

18:17

It is and did you say questions at the end. At the beginning, we can have, I can happily take a question. Now, for sure, I just got a question, a quick one. When we talk about active dissociation,

18:31

I mean, you could argue people are doing active dissociation with like work and social media, right? So I'm curious, what is that threshold of active dissociation you're looking for as a practitioner,

18:48

presence, that's, that's the key. That's like, the key word for me, it's like, right? So, like, you could be disassociating on your phone. You could be daydreaming, looking at the clouds. And if

19:05

you know, how quick Are you coming out of it when I'm like, Peter, hear me? Yeah, do I hear you right away? Or do two or three, maybe after the third one, Peter's not home.

19:20

Gotcha? You know,

19:23

or someone that's talking and like things are really just not good,

19:31

but they're saying everything is fine,

19:35

like they're visibly distressed,

19:39

and yet they're saying everything is fine,

19:42

right? Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Thank Great question, thank you. And yeah, we'll totally do a Q A at the end, but if something's burning, feel free to raise your hand and we can try to get to it.

19:57

But yeah, some questions might get answered.

20:00

As we as we go along.

20:04

So you know,

20:07

you know, another red flag is lack of integration support. A session without integration is just an experience. It's

20:16

just an experience. And without support afterwards, a therapist, with a therapist, a coach or trusted community member, the material that services it, it can go nowhere,

20:31

you know, then there's unstable self harm patterns,

20:37

right? So it's a signal that the nervous system is already overwhelmed that this is stabilization phase. It's not a psychedelic work phase.

20:49

So you know if for any facilitators in the room, you know your intake process is your ethics and action. And you know for survivors, if you recognize yourself, if you recognize something on this list and it and if it doesn't mean NEVER it just it might not. It might mean not just yet or not like this. Just might mean things just might need to be different for you based off of where you are and where you're at.

21:25

You know, in context matters, right? So there's so many, there's so many different ways to