Psychedelics for Grief and Loss with Heather A. Lee, LCSW | Psychedelic Medicine Podcast

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In this episode, Heather A. Lee, LCSW joins to discuss the topic of psychedelic healing for grief and loss. Heather is a licensed psychotherapist, educator, speaker, and consultant. With over 30 years of practice in mental health, her focus is on supporting midlife and beyond women as they navigate life transitions.

In this conversation, Heather explores the ways psychedelic healing may have transformative contributions to peoples’ journeys navigating grief and loss. She explains that we live in a culture that doesn’t have a good understanding of grief, how to navigate it, or how to support others who are grieving, so it can be a difficult issue to address. Heather discusses the neuroplasticity-promoting effects of psychedelics and elucidates the ways this can be helpful for processing grief, especially by allowing the person grieving the opportunity to hold their grief in new, productive ways alongside other healthy emotions. In closing, Heather emphasizes how psychedelics can also provide healing for existential distress brought on by the many planetary crises humanity is now facing through providing a broader, life-affirming viewpoint on these issues.

In this episode you'll hear:

Heather’s journey from working in hospice settings to working with psychedelic therapy

Navigating the grief of losing others and the grief of realizing the imminent end of one’s own life

Why Heather thinks psychedelics are particularly useful for grief and loss

How grief can manifest both mentally and physically

Client stories from Heather’s practice where patients are able to process grief to achieve a better quality of life

Neuroplasticity, psychological flexibility, and processing grief

Psychedelics for end-of-life grief and anxiety

Physiological impacts of spending quality time in nature

Quotes:

“Psychedelics are a really important and powerful option that are coming into the conversation about how people can take some control of how they navigate that psycho-spiritual-emotional component of coming to end of life.” [3:19]

“There is no right or wrong way to grieve and there is no normal and abnormal. I think it’s just about having markers so that we can know when and how to provide support to people.” [9:27]

“On the [psychedelic] medicine, you experience that grief, that loss—whatever that is—you’re experiencing it while you’re in that [neuroplastic] state so that you have the opportunity to get a fresh perspective. And it’s in that fresh perspective that you create the new patterns of thought around [your grief].” [20:12]
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