Understanding Growth in Psychedelic Experience (and Life in General)
A pragmatic framework for understanding and supporting meaningful transformation
Back in early 2021 I got a job at Field Trip writing guided practices for psychedelic use. I was really excited, so I wrote an earlier and much shorter version of this essay to put forth a framework that I could build practices around, supporting the process. Field Trip liked the article and published it, and I figured it’s a good time for an updated version.
This paradigm is not unique to psychedelics; it’s mostly depth psychology and some Buddhist/non-dual thought. I draw heavily on the work of depth psychologists Carl Jung, James Hollis, James Hillman, and Bill Plotkin - as well as Harvard Psychologist Robert Kegan.
This essay aims to present a relatively simple, inclusive, and pragmatic paradigm for understanding how growth and change can occur through the use of psychedelics. This is important for two main reasons:
Psychedelics are on their way to being integrated into the western medical model. But they are almost exclusively talked about as being used for healing, which is often simply regarded as a reduction of negative symptoms.
This provides an extremely limited model that doesn’t account for much of the actual experience and transformative potential. The more limited the model of understanding the experience, the more limited we are in our ability to support a variety of experiences and challenges.
There are many dimensions to the integration of psychedelic experiences, and one very important aspect is helping people understand their experience and the changes that occur as a result.
Many people are left confused and disoriented after transformative psychedelic experiences. Having a framework to understand can be reassuring and offer guidance to further support the individuals process
Arrested Development
Psychedelics are not, in themselves, a cure. They can soften us, create openings, awaken dormant energies, reveal deeply held truths, help us process long held pains, connect us to the natural world, ourselves, and the endless mosaic of forces in the cosmos.
Psychedelics are undoubtedly powerful, but they don’t work at curing illness or trauma in the western sense of how we normally think of medicine working.
In our culture our psyches have become tightly bound. When we feel unsafe, both our body and mind contract. In the body this takes the form of chronic tension and a restless or dysregulated nervous system (aka a sympathetic nervous system vs a relaxed or parasympathetic nervous system). In the mind this takes the form of neurotic, repetitive, invasive or unhelpful thoughts.
This contracted and activated state restricts our body’s ability to rest and repair, therefore inhibiting our natural healing process.
It also restricts our ability to feel and process the full spectrum of emotion; to be with pain, discomfort, and uncertainty. Avoided or unprocessed feelings only further stress our system, leading to even more contraction, and we never build the resilience to face life fully.
The capacity to feel and be with discomfort needs to be developed. This idea is central to Buddhism and stated in The Four Noble Truths; essentially that suffering and challenging experiences are unavoidable, and we overcome these hardships not from recoiling away from them, but from meeting them head on.
In Buddhism, the attitude or skill we are cultivating is called equanimity, which is our ability to be present with and open to whatever experience is happening, without judgment.
We are a culture that prioritizes comfort and neurotically avoids the inevitable pains of life. We’ve become sheltered from the hard truths of the world and we are not encouraged to explore our most deeply held values. We have therefore become divorced from our nature.
Many past cultures had ingrained in them initiatory experiences. Intentional and ritual customs that put us face to face with the realities of being human and ask us to contemplate who we really are. We would face pain head on. We would wander alone in nature, observing the natural forces and cycles of life and death, inevitably realizing our nature and place in the world.
Our culture’s emphasis on superficial, individualistic values have kept us from exploring our true nature, leaving us in a stunted adolescence. We live very narrow lives, never realizing our individual and collective potentials and reciprocal relationship to the larger whole.
Enter Psychedelics
If I’ve seen any trend in the use of psychedelics by westerners, it’s not that they are going in sick and getting healed; it’s that they are re-evaluating their lives and their place in the world.
The shift is inevitably a shift in values. A move from the more superficial values we’ve internalized through our culture - like personal wealth and success - to a value system that recognizes our interconnection and contributes to our collective wellbeing.
A real gift of psychedelics is how they allow us to glimpse our potential. And while this may feel liberating at times, it may also be disconcerting to see how misaligned we truly are.
Self-Realization & Self-Transcendence
We will explore the psychedelic experience as a catalyst for a flourishing Authentic Self (Self-Actualization, Self-Realization) and experiences of Self Transcendence (experiences of unity, universal consciousness, no-self, transpersonal experiences, experiences beyond self-identification).
In some psychological and spiritual traditions, there is a dialectic between the transcendent and earth or soul realms, which can be described using terms such as heaven and earth, spirit and soul, or higher and lower realms.
The higher or transcendent realm is one of unity and universality - it’s the recognition of our shared experience as conscious beings. This signifies the objective of most religions; to transcend our individuality and recognize our universal and undifferentiated nature.
The lower or soul realm is one of individuality, what makes us our unique selves. This is emphasized in many indigenous traditions, Paganism, and in depth psychology. Any emphasis on earth energies or archetypes is working in the soul realm.
Taoism and many indigenous traditions emphasize a balance between these energies or realms. These forces are complimentary, and it can be said that our soul is our unique expression of spirit or universal consciousness.
It is sometimes said that we live in the space where heaven (the sky) meets earth, and it’s our job to unite these two forces or energies within us.
Self-Realization and the Development of a Social Identity
We begin our life in our family system, which sets the original imprint for our experience and relationships to others and the world. In adolescence we begin to form a social identity outside of our family identity. We find peer groups and internalize the associated culture and values, taking it on as a personal identity. Our interests and role in social groups become our identity (music, sports, academics, fashion, art, etc).
Developing a healthy social identity in adolescence and early adulthood is very important. It gives us a sense of belonging and security in a chaotic world.
This is an integral part of development, and functions as a scaffolding for our growth, understanding, and exploration of the world. It gives us a framework from which we relate to and feel safe, connected to, and validated by others.
Emergence of Our Authentic Self
While this social identity is essential for healthy development, there comes a time where it restricts our growth. We can think of it as a suit of armor, helping us find belonging and keeping us protected from the chaos of the world in adolescence, but as we grow it becomes restrictive and limiting in adulthood.
Our social identity comes from internalizing culture and values from the world around us. It is about finding commonality with others and a place to belong. Later in adulthood we have the opportunity to explore our uniqueness and discover our own deepest values and the expression of our unique gifts and interests.
This authentic self is not something fixed. It is not something we create. It is something we cultivate and discover through exploration and creative expression. Our job is to create the open space and non-judgmental attitude for the exploration and flourishing of this self, and to overcome the fears and rigidity that stifle exploration and expression that lead to our growth.
We can facilitate the growth and embodiment of our true nature through the exploration and integration of more authentic values, balanced with the exploration and expression of creativity.
We naturally shift from being identified with our relationships (how we feel about people and things) to being able to observe them in a non-identified way. This is a shift from “I am” to “I have” (ex. from “I am a dancer” to “I have an interest in dancing” or “I express myself through dancing”). This is not always reflected in the language used, but when pressed there is a very real fundamental shift in how we view ourselves. Our identity becomes less fixed from any role, activity, or social group.
Letting go of the “I am”, a fixed sense of identification, can be scary as we rely on our identity for security. But the experience of our self and world from outside that rigid concept is liberating and allows for self flourishing (see The Evolving Self by Harvard Psychologist Robert Kegan for a detailed clinical exploration of stages of identity development).
We go from being identified with our view of the world to being a person with a view of the world. We start to see our experience and perspective not as our ultimate truth, but as one of many possible experiences and perspectives. Overall, we become less fixed and more fluid.
We also become less identified with our feelings, but being able to see we are a person who is experiencing these feelings, and that these feelings are not permanent fixtures, they are not really us, they are simply phenomena that arise and pass. Our feelings are passing experiences, but they are not who or what we are (for example we may feel inadequate at times, but we don’t believe we are inadequate). We shift from being identified with our feeling experience, to being identified with the witness of such experience (this non-identification is central to Buddhist practice).
We shift here from “I am angry” or “I am happy” to “I am experiencing anger” or “I am experiencing happiness”. The “I” is separate from the experience and we become more and more able to observe our experiences without judgment, resistance, or personal bias.
Letting go of an old sense of identity that has supported us in the past can be a very scary process and is often experienced as an existential crisis; a time in life where one’s old worldview, identity, and values no longer feel sufficient or supportive.
If ego dissolution happens too quickly on psychedelics it can be extremely alarming and disorienting. It can cause panic and also feel like dying, and even be traumatic, resulting in PTSD symptoms.
A framework for understanding that this is a natural and healthy process can be essential to make it through. Without understanding, people often try to reify their ego in an attempt to regain a sense of stability. It should also be noted that this process should not be rushed and if experiencing distress it can be helpful to move between grounding and containment practices and letting go into the disorientation (this is commonly known as pendulation, moving between grounding experiences and more distressing or chaotic ones).
It’s also common to want to ground in a new identity before letting go of the old one, but it doesn’t work this way. We must go through a process of grieving our old sense of self and truly let it go, while not knowing what will emerge.
The process of realizing the Authentic Self is often explained using the metaphor of an acorn and an oak tree. If we did not know what an oak tree was and examined an acorn, we would have no way of knowing its potential. Instead, we must simply nurture the acorn and be patient and see what it grows into.
It is common in psychedelic experiences for people to see through old aspects of identity, realizing that’s no longer who they are. Old values can fall away, new ones can emerge, and there can even be glimpses or a felt sense of a more Authentic Self.
Yet the Authentic Self is not created, molded, or even envisioned. Instead it is simply grown through giving it time and space to emerge, letting go of any fixed identity that is hindering its growth, and intuiting what we need for our development on a moment by moment basis.
Transmuting Emotional Blocks
A major barrier to growth is our resistance to being open to our experience and feeling what arises in the moment.
Trauma can be thought of as our body’s way of avoiding or dissociating from an experience because it feels overwhelming or unsafe. We contract around discomfort and any experience that feels like a threat, often resulting in feeling contracted and chronic tension in the body.
Being contracted or rigid inhibits our growth, so learning to heal trauma is essential for our development.
Key to healing trauma is finding a sense of safety so we can feel, process, experience, and express repressed feelings that previously felt overwhelming.
We also feel safer to feel our experiences more fully as we become less identified with them. The less we are identified with our experience, the less overwhelming it is. But being non-identified does not mean we reject or distance ourselves from our experience; we remain intimately close with our emotions, feeling them fully, while knowing they are not who or what we are.
Many of the themes and guidance throughout growth practices are oriented towards finding supportive resources and a sense of safety in presence so we can open to feeling without being overwhelmed.
The practice of accepting, welcoming, and meeting discomfort with non-judgmental acceptance and compassion allows us to feel our experience more, but at the same time we become less reactive and avoidant towards discomfort. We feel more fully and yet the pain and discomfort subsides. This is how we build resilience.
It’s important to note that psychedelics often greatly enhance our ability to process difficult emotional experience. Yet even so, the experience can sometimes be overwhelming and even re-traumatizing. For people with PTSD/C-PTSD symptoms or sensitive nervous systems, it’s important to practice titration (going slowly so as not to overwhelm).
Cultivating the willingness to meet our experience helps us to process it and move through it effectively. Ceremony and ritual, as well as being with a trusted group/facilitators, help us to cultivate this willingness and meet experiences that previously felt too overwhelming or scary.
Values and Authentic Identity
The values realized through Self Actualization reflect a more expansive and interconnected worldview and honor our place in the collective. This leads to a sense of groundedness, connection, personal responsibility, integrity, dignity, purpose, and meaning. The embodiment of these new values result in a new sense of identity in relationship to the collective, and in this there is security. It resolves much of the confusion and existential fear that many people suffer from.
Sometimes an image or name comes along with this new set of values and identity. It is often said that this new identity has a mythopoetic nature; it is not something fixed that can be communicated with normal language, but can be pointed to through myth/story and poetic or symbolic language or imagery.
Unfortunately many cultures are predominantly materialistic and individualistic and emerging values and identity are often in stark contrast to the expectations of the environment people find themselves in. This presents a fundamental conflict. On one had we are most healthy when we experience a sense of social integration (feeling belonging in a culture and social group), but conforming to social expectations prevents our process of self-realization.
This can make the process so much more difficult, as we can feel ourselves feeling less and less integrated into our culture, leading to distress, despair, and isolation. It is extremely helpful to connect with supportive and understanding peers and communities during this process (if possible).
Creative Self Expression
The new sense of values and identity offers a safe container for authentic expression. One of the major barriers to expression is fear of judgment by self or others. A more expansive and less self-centered identity, along with examination of values, allows us to withhold narrow judgment and express ourselves more freely.
We very much need supportive and non-judgmental peers and community that welcome a more free flowing sense of self-exploration and self-expression through a variety of means. Common forms of creative self-expression include but are not limited to: movement, dance, singing, music, poetry, writing, performance, visual art, storytelling, experiential guide, and any sort of creative vocation.
Self Transcendence
While Self-Transcendence may seem in opposition to any sort of identity or separate sense of self, the two are in actuality deeply complimentary. Transcendent experiences offer freedom from our rigid social identity, allowing us the space to see their limitations and fallacies and explore and integrate a more authentic self that is reflective of a deeper and more inclusive set of personal values.
The process of awakening/realization/growth in psychedelic experiences happens through the coming apart of a limited paradigm of self and world and opening to a more expansive and alive relationship to self and world. This openness is fertile ground for the exploration and expression of an authentic self.
The challenge is often staying connected to a more expansive and creative way of being, as there is vulnerability in this openness. Vulnerability means there is a chance we may be hurt, and so we must be willing to be hurt at times and feel and grow through the pains of failure and rejection.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, people are challenged with an experience that is too expansive and results in disorientation, overwhelm, and/or confusion. In these cases we need to learn how to ground and put ourselves back together by finding ways to make sense of our experience and by engaging in grounding and embodying activities and practices. It is also extremely helpful to have a paradigm in which we can understand non-ordinary experiences and make sense of what is happening to avoid ending up in fear, confusion, or resistance.
For Those Who Struggle to Stay Open
In the case of those who settle back into a rigid identity and value system too quickly, the practice is to guide them into the felt sense of openness and connect to that deeper wisdom, often by recollecting and inviting the transcendence experienced and engaging in activities that connect us with the numinous or more authentic sense of self.
We can also help bring more awareness to the barriers obstructing openness, which are often rooted in fears. We can liberate ourselves from these fears through seeing them clearly and without judgment. We must also practice patience in being with these fears and the protective habits that have developed through them. Accepting them fully with compassion allows them to slowly dissolve.
Pushing to overcome these barriers often results in a boomerang type effect, where we further solidify our resistance to being with our vulnerable selves. Instead we employ a technique of slowly melting these resistances through patient understanding, a validating presence, and acknowledgment of our fears and sensitivity (IFS is a great modality for working through fears and resistances).
By dropping into a more open and vulnerable state through guided visualization and expressive practices we acclimate to this way of being and develop more comfort and security in it.
In Conclusion
Overall it is most important to understand that growth is often a process of coming apart to make room for more authentic parts of ourselves to emerge. So long as we are attached to a fixed image of who we are, we will struggle to realize a more authentic and connected form of being and expression.
The main hurdle in this process is our fear of the unknown and our tendency to retreat back to ways of being that have historically been comforting to us. Proceeding slowly and with a sense of patience and self-compassion are important to making our growth process safe and sustainable.
Each individual’s growth and development is unique, and as such one of the most helpful skills we can learn is to attune to our intuitive sense of what we need in each moment. While guidance and support are indispensable, we are the ultimate authority on our own process and the more we can learn to trust ourselves and our sense of what we need in each moment, the better equipped we will be to face the challenges that arise.
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Jude, thank you for this beautiful article. Within all the shallow conversation of psychedelics in the mainstream right now, I feel absolutely refreshed by your depth of your orientation to these medicines.
"Psychedelics are not, in themselves, a cure. They can soften us, create openings, awaken dormant energies, reveal deeply held truths, help us process long held pains, connect us to the natural world, ourselves, and the endless mosaic of forces in the cosmos."