Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality

After several decades of clinical research into their therapeutic potential, psychedelic medicines in clinical contexts stand to shift the paradigm of how we have approached the treatment of depression, anxiety, trauma, and other mental health issues. However research into the impact of psychedelics on sexuality is just beginning. In this interactive presentation, clinician and author Dee Dee Goldpaugh will outline the emerging research on psychedelics and sexuality, but go far beyond that to ask questions about how prohibiting pleasure has molded our current drug laws, why pleasure is omitted from the narrative about psychedelic healing, and how psychedelics can help us to embrace our erotic power for optimal sexual experiences and sexual self-actualization. 

Based on their new book, Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality, Dee Dee will provide practical education on psychedelic preparation and integration in sex therapy practice, explore how different psychedelic medicines impact sexual satisfaction and pleasure, and offer a new framework for working with sexual trauma. Grounded in research, this presentation will also strive to critique the neo-liberal and capitalist structures that exist in our society and in psychedelic science that prevent us from embracing pleasure, creating community, and engaging in meaningful erotic connection while centering on the uplifting message that pleasure (and psychedelics medicines) have the power to heal us. 

About the Presenter:

Dee Dee Goldpaugh, LCSW is a psychotherapist, consultant, educator, and author. They are the Clinical Director of Chrysalis Integrative Psychotherapy, the Women, Gender Diversity, and Sexual Minorities Advisor for The Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, and they are part of the Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy team at the Woodstock Therapy Center. Dee Dee has authored the first paper to appear in an academic journal describing Psychedelic Integration Psychotherapy techniques that incorporate spirituality for sexual trauma survivors. They also served as a Clinical Supervisor for the EMBARK approach to Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy in addition to having facilitated numerous Ketamine-Assisted Transformational retreats. Dee Dee has been a frequent presenter at international conferences including the Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research, Psychedelic Culture, Psychedelic Science. They have over seventeen years of professional clinical experience and training in diverse modalities including EMDR, Internal Family System, Sex Therapy, psychodynamic, and transpersonal therapy models and are the author of the book Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality.