INSIGHT Forum (EN):Psychedelic Settings and Ethics of Care

This ninth INSIGHT Forum concludes the first half of the year and focuses on ethical questions and the topic of extended care in the context of psychedelic experiences and therapy.

In the current power wrangles about psychedelics in medicine one frontier is about the role of the substances. Some, including neuroscientists and drug industry representatives, argue that the drugs’ neuroplasticity-enhancing effects cause desired changes and that setting and surrounding care, or psychological integration, are not very important or may sometimes even be harmful. On the contrary, the collective knowledge base of practising psychologists over the past 7 decades illustrates in practice and studies that in clinical uses the quality of the psychological aftercare strongly affects the treatment outcome.

Therefore, in the Rationale part, our guest Prof. Dr. Christine Hauskeller will compare clinical with indigenous, religious, party, and diverse sub-cultural use situations to ask which ethical responsibilities they raise and how the power of psychedelic experiences and changes of a Westerner’s perception and outlook on life may be connected in diverse ways. Stan Grof called psychedelics ‘unspecific amplifiers’. The interpersonal care and body work in his breathwork method provides some clues to the settings in which Westerners may learn how to safely benefit from psychedelic experiences.

The Transrationale part of this INSIGHT Forum will be facilitated by Mitu, a healing artist and coach based in Berlin, and who has years of experience working with BIPOC and working with Men. But his work is for all genders and all ethnicities. In his line of work he offers Breathwork, Bodywork and Coachings. To the INSIGHT Forum Mitu brings his own technique, which he named Higherself Breathwork. With an abbreviated exercise in this line, participants will experience a re-balancing of their body, mind and spirit to reconnect with their bodies. The session includes a guided, dynamic breathing meditation with moving music and integration.