Working With Plant Medicine Requires a Trauma-Informed Approach [Eating Disorders]

Psychedelics can often bring up traumatic memories for people with eating disorders.

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Even with all preparation work prior to the journey, the unexpected can arise.

Sometimes after a psychedelic journey, one’s symptoms can get worse. For example, some people experience increased suicide ideation after a journey, or during the journey one may recall childhood sexual abuse, re-experience a traumatic event, or become aware of their trauma history whilst experiencing the effects of a psychedelic.

This is why working with a plant medicine facilitator who is trauma-informed and who has a clear understanding of what you’ve been through (your trauma history, your current challenges etc); and for you to learn about your own nervous system, stress survival responses and physiology, can be super supportive when trauma memories surface during a journey.

For people in eating disorder or disordered eating recovery, there is often a history of trauma or chronic stress that the eating disorder is trying to manage.

Working with the body that is holding the unmetabolized stress survival energy and indigested defense imprints, as part of the focus for the psychedelic journey, can support the gradual rewiring and the natural maturation out of the eating disorder patterns.

Even though what comes up may be challenging and evocative in journey spaces, improved mental health outcomes, a nervous system rewiring, and aligned and empowered somatic organisations over the long-term can be sustained, especially when there are trusted others who can support the anchoring in of the new insights, breakthroughs, and increased capacity in integration.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash