PT565 – From Individualism to Connection: How Psychedelics and Group Therapy Can Heal Our Collective Crisis, with Geoff Bathje, Ph.D.

In this episode, Kyle interviews Geoff Bathje, Ph.D.: licensed psychologist, researcher, former Full Professor, and co-founder of Sana Healing Collective, a Chicago-based non-profit focusing on ketamine-assisted therapy and psychedelic integration. He talks about what he feels is one of the largest factors in our mental health crisis: the individualistic and neoliberal lens Western culture has placed on mental health and how it neglects the massive systemic and relational factors that are affecting us all. He digs into how we got so alienated and how psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness can not only help us think critically and solve problems, but also move us out of this individualistic framework of healing and more into a collective one. How do we use psychedelics to fix our relationships and find our community? He discusses: The challenge of knowing when to work for relationships and when to just end them, especially in the afterglow of a big experience Group ketamine experience vs. individual, how groups can help facilitators find patterns, and how ketamine works with somatic therapy His paper, “Psychedelic integration: An analysis of the concept and its practice” and his visual model of integration showing the different domains of our personal experience What he thinks will happen next in drug development: Will therapy be left out after Lykos’ failure with MDMA? The importance of moving beyond aggressive criticism and moving into world building and more!  For links, head to the show notes page.