More Than A Micro dose

In Search Of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

A lot of us are curious about the therapeutic potential of psychedelic medicines. And while there seems to be dozens of ebooks and guides about how to microdose mushrooms, there’s hardly any information about how to navigate the evolving entheogenic landscape as an average citizen.

For me, a Gen X Black woman tangentially aware of psychedelics due to a Berkeley upbringing and career in cannabis, the sacred roots and Indigenous practices with these medicines resonate far more than the micro dosing life hacks of tech workers. Like many people of color, I was exposed to plant medicine and healing herbs as a child. But Nancy Reagan’s insistence that drugs would fry my brain like an egg—an image etched into the psyches of Gen Xers and elder Millennials thanks to “Just Say No”— has me fearful to this day that ingesting the wrong thing could result in me losing my mind, not changing it, as author Michael Pollan suggests in his New York Times best-seller, How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics.

With all due respect to Michael Pollan, I didn’t really vibe with his book, even though it is largely credited with igniting the spark of the “psychedelic renaissance.” While many find inspiration in Tim Leary and Aldous Huxley’s trippy adventures circa 1970, I long for deeper insight into the philosophy and practices of Maria Sabina. She is the Mazatec shaman and poet who guided banker R. Gordon Wasson through a sacred mushroom ceremony, or velada, which resulted in a nonconsensual Life Magazine article that exposed Mazatec mushroom traditions to the Western world, causing her tremendous strife until she died.  I hate what happened to her, yet I find inspiration through her healing and connection to the ancestral realm. 

But all of this—the resurgence of psychedelics, Indigenous practices, and the promise of healing with entheogens—made me want to learn everything I possibly could about this burgeoning world. 

I had a lot of homework to do. And it all began in 2020.

Tickets available at International Psychedelic Conference Tickets

The End Is The Beginning

Like so many others, I wear that year like a tattoo. The weight of the pandemic, combined with the racial uprisings ignited by the killings of George Floyd and countless other Black people at the hands of police, wore me down. A lifetime of trauma rose to the surface, and I found myself spinning in a haze of rage, sadness, and suicidal thoughts (my first ever). I needed help. 

In 2021 I started Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a type of therapy in which the patient uses bilateral stimulation – such as eye movements or tapping – to process unresolved trauma. I initially thought the EMDR sessions would help me save my crumbling marriage, but as I progressed, something else happened: I started connecting my deepest, oldest traumas to their white supremacist and patriarchal roots. I began reevaluating monogamy, gender dynamics, and how oppressive structures, daily micro aggressions, and racist gaslighting had twisted my sense of self and impacted my relationships–and even manifested in my interracial marriage. The veil was lifted. In less than a year, I had moved out and filed for divorce.

About two years into EMDR, while doing family-of-origin work, my therapist brought up psychedelic-assisted therapy. I wanted to deepen my healing, which included 12-step recovery, and the spiritual foundation I’d established through daily meditation, but I didn’t really know much about this particular modality or how to get started. Upon reaching out to her referral via email, I quickly discovered that the process was more involved than simply finding a therapist and making an appointment. The real journey had commenced.

Set, Setting, & Intentionally Gray Areas

But first things first: what exactly is psychedelic-assisted therapy? For clarity, I turned to Courtney Watson, LMFT, Founder of Doorway Therapeutic Services, and the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Access to Doorways. 

“Psychedelic assisted therapy is working with a licensed professional usually offering ketamine, unless you're in a research setting where they have access to MDMA or psilocybin,” she explained. “There are also folks that are not licensed practitioners, but have been studying and offering psychedelic treatment for decades, and that work happens in what is called ‘the underground’ because it's not legal. So there’s the above-ground and the underground.”

While Berkeley, Oakland, and Santa Cruz were among the few California cities that decriminalized some entheogens, that isn’t the case in the Bay Area town where I currently live. And because these substances are still federally illegal, the FDA has not approved their use, established guidelines for how they should be administered, or determined who qualifies as a patient. Ketamine, which the FDA approved in the 1970s as an anesthetic, is interesting to me because it can be legally prescribed, and it is the center of its own cottage industry. Still, the FDA has yet to approve it for therapeutic use.

Coming from the world of weed, the absence of federal bonafides has never been a deal-breaker, but finding the right therapist was crucial. For me, that extends beyond basic qualifications and should also include cultural understanding: I wanted a Black therapist.

Part of my awakening meant acknowledging the countless ways I’d shrunk myself down, often to the point of invisibility, to prioritize white people’s comfort. The mere thought of having to explain the lifelong impact of racial trauma to someone who could not possibly understand–no matter how progressive, educated, or well-meaning they may be–at this stage of my life, is not something I am willing to put myself through. Besides, my (self-identified) multicultural EMDR therapist was the closest I’ve ever gotten to working with a Black or brown person.

Watson broke down why this is. “Not a lot of Black therapists in the above ground are doing this work,” she said. “There are systemic issues. How many folks are able, while facing the various barriers that exist in academia, to graduate bachelor’s programs that lead into different fields, whether that's nursing, medicine, or psychotherapy? Completing those degrees and then completing the hours to get licensed or board-certified, passing the tests that are historically problematic. Then being able to pay for additional training to have the psychedelic certificates, and then having the money to set up shop according to DEA standards and offer this to the world. It's not that we don't exist, there's this long chain of reasons why there's only a few of us doing this work.”

Fortunately for me, opportunity knocked at the 2023 Oakland Psychedelic Conference when I resonated with a clinician on a panel speaking about harm reduction. After chatting about the above-ground services he offered, I grabbed his card, and we’ve since had multiple conversations that have contributed greatly to my research.

Photo Courtesy of Oakland Psychedelic Conference

 Our first chat was informational, an opportunity to share my story and why I was considering this particular kind of therapy, and in turn, he broke down some important considerations for me.

He explained that MDMA was great for trauma healing, while psilocybin was more for ancestral, intergenerational spiritual work. He said that ketamine, too, was for ancestral work, but also for deep trauma healing, and had effects that were head-centered and then moved throughout the body.

He said we’d do three prep sessions and one medicine session, followed by multiple integrations–for which he would accompany me the entire way, should I wish–I understood (and was relieved) that this was not a one-and-done situation, and that we’d work together to hone in on my specific protocol. 

He expressed a preference for working with people spiritually and encouraged incorporating personal objects—like an altar and music—into the process. “He expresses [people put] too much focus on the medicine,” I wrote in my notes, which I translated to mean that instead of placing so much emphasis on the medicine, it was more important to focus on the preparation, having intentions, then being able to let them go. He told me the role of the sitter is to support and be in experience with the patient but that ultimately, the patient should create the experience. Lastly, he let me know that the full cost of the medicine sessions would come in at just over $5,000. 

“Yes, that is typical, and it is really cost-prohibitive,” Watson said of the estimate. “It's expensive when you think about all of the education and time and money that the providers have put in to be trained and getting adequately compensated for that. Also, Bay Area prices are a lot different.” 

With her nonprofit, Watson seeks to subsidize the cost of treatment so more people of color can get access to psychedelic-assisted therapy. She has also started the ball rolling with third-party payers in the hopes they will eventually cover treatment, but that’s a long process. “It is expensive to do this work, so it's not really accessible; this is part of why the underground exists,” she added.

My second conversation with my prospective therapist was a one-hour deep dive over Zoom to check compatibility. I answered questions about my family of origin and upbringing for the majority of the time. In his initial assessment, he suggested ketamine might be a good fit for me, but to be careful not to research the medicine too deeply, as it could impact my experience. Before parting ways, he proposed homework: Create a version of my family tree to look at recurring themes across multiple generations, and see what patterns and examples of dissonance showed up. I'll share that tree with him in our final call to assess whether we’re a good therapeutic match.

I came away from both conversations feeling inspired and that things were starting to click. 

And best of all, I’m just getting started.

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If any of this content has resonated with you please join us in Santa Cruz this weekend for the: A Table of Our Own Screening on 5/3 and 5/4. A Table of Our Own is a stellar documentary about Black professionals in Psychedelics. Some of the people mentioned in the previous article are also in the documentary as well if you’re interested in learning more! Tickets are available here:

Also Oakland Hyphae and Hyphae Labs will be speaking and tabling at the Santa Cruz at the Santa Cruz Mushroom Festival the accuracy of claims of supposed magic mushrooms products that are on the market for sale right now. We tested them, the results are in come fuck around and find out! We recently did an interview with the Tricycle Day Newsletter where we discussed the subject matter, check it out here! This event will probably be one of the most significant mycological/psychedelic gatherings in California this year ( Because we won’t have one this year of course). Tickets are available here:

Use the promo code: VENDFEST for 15% off!

Can’t wait to see yall there!!!