Webinar May 25th 2023. Jeffrey Guss: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Psychedelic Therapy

What do psychedelics have to offer for dealing with existential crises? What are the correspondences between psychotherapy and shamanic healing? How can psychoanalytic perspectives enrich our understanding of psychedelics, and vice versa? We’ll be spending time with these questions on Thursday, May 25th at 6PM UTC+3 in a Zoom presentation by psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher and teacher Jeffrey Guss, whose experience includes working with psilocybin in a study for patients suffering from existential anxiety related to life-threatening illness.

The presentation will begin with a description of psychedelic experiences that are not in the context of psychotherapy and describe correspondences between psychotherapy and shamanic healing. Guss will then discuss the core processes that may occur as part of psychedelic psychotherapy, describing psychedelic phenomeonlogy in psychoanalytic and neuropsychoanalytic terms. In the last part of his talk, he will offer a case presentation of a participant he worked with in the aforementioned study. Following the case presentation, he will integrate elements of this individual’s psilocybin journey with the core processes described at the beginning of the talk.

Tickets are available from our web store. For members of the association who’ve paid their membership fee for 2023, the event is free of charge. If you want to pay your membership fee for this year or become a member, you’ll find our membership products on the main page of our web store. An email with a link for free registration to the event has been sent to members of the association. If you’re not sure if you’ve paid for your membership this year, feel free to ask us.

Jeffrey Guss, MD is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher, and teacher with specializations in psychoanalytic therapy and psychedelic therapy. He was Co-Principal Investigator and Director of Psychedelic Therapy Training for the NYU School of Medicine’s study on psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of cancer related existential distress. He is currently a Lead Trainer with Fluence, with a focus on the integration of psychedelic therapy with psychoanalysis. He is a study therapist in the NYU study on Psilocybin-Assisted treatment of Major Depressive Disorder. He has published on the integration of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with psychedelic assisted therapy for MDD in Journal of Contextual and Behavioral Science and the influence of therapists’ first-hand experience with psychedelics on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy research. He is an Instructor and Mentor with the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Center for Psychedelic Therapies and maintains a private practice in New York City.