Part 2: Female-specific risks in psychedelic retreat settings
In this segment, we explore safety concerns within psychedelic retreat settings that specifically relate to women or pose a different or disproportionate risk to women. We will then discuss evidence-based best practices to ensure women’s safety in these settings.
The importance of single-sex retreats
As discussed in Part 1, a key theme that emerged from our pilot survey (‘Understanding the attitudes, experiences, and needs of women who attend psychedelic retreats’), conducted in collaboration with Beckley Retreats, was the importance of single-sex retreat offerings. Respondents consistently rated having the option of a women-only retreat as more important in the Post-Retreat Survey compared to in the Pre-Retreat Survey. Of all the questions assessing attitudes around the importance of female involvement, this question (the only question assessing attitudes around the importance of single-sex involvement) saw the greatest increase in importance ratings from Pre- to Post-Retreat, with a rise of 36.33%. This suggests that women with no prior retreat experience (all of our respondents were psychedelic-retreat-naive) did not initially consider having a women-only option important, but that the retreat experience highlighted the value of this option. One respondent emphasised, ‘For me, I would ONLY attend an all-women’s retreat. Men being there at all is a dealbreaker for me’.
Pilot survey responses reveal that women need and want retreat offerings that are necessarily exclusive, enabling a safety premised on shared experiences as women (1). Indeed, in an interview with Hystelica, psychedelic retreat facilitator, Mary Bonnet pointed to safety as a primary need of women; specifically within psychedelic spaces: ‘Ultimately, I think women just need to feel safe from physical harm and physical threat’. Focusing on women’s safety within psychedelic retreat settings, we aim here to; define safety (or its lack) from women’s perspectives, discuss whether safety can be realised in mixed-sex environments, and delineate a path to standardised safety practices that safeguard women within the psychedelic retreat industry.
Our Survey, now live on our website and open to women who plan to attend any psychedelic retreats, aims to gather more information of attitudes and experiences from women involved in psychedelic retreat settings. Amongst other objectives, we hope that findings from our survey will guide the development of evidence-based best practices to ensure women’s physical and psychological safety within psychedelic retreat settings.
Abuse and other boundary violations
There are a number of characteristics inherent in psychedelic-assisted (clinical and nonclinical) programs that confer increased risk to client/participant abuse or other boundary violations. Key amongst these characteristics are:
Subjective effects of psychedelic compounds:
Enhanced suggestibility: Psychedelics can increase suggestibility, which can lead to increased vulnerability among clients/participants.
Increased arousal and intimacy: For example, MDMA therapy can induce loving and trusting feelings, making clients/participants ‘more vulnerable to sexual pressure’ (2).
Impacted judgement: Psychedelics can impact judgement, which can lead to increased risk-taking behaviour.
Boundary dissolution: The dissolution of boundaries between the self and the social environment can make clients/participants more open to external influence.
Altered relational dynamics:
Power imbalance: A higher power imbalance exists between client/participant and facilitator/therapist compared to conventional psychotherapy (due to the effects of the psychedelic).
Erotic transference and countertransference: This can involve feelings of love, fantasy, or sexual desire projected by a facilitator/therapist onto a client/participant (countertransference) or vice versa (transference). Psychedelics increase the likelihood of stronger and more complex transference and countertransference (3).
Common features of psychedelic-assisted therapies and retreat programs:
Use of ‘nurturing touch’: Many protocols cite the use of ‘nurturing touch’ as an important catalyst to healing. Used appropriately and according to prior written informed consent, touch can be a useful grounding or reparative technique to help clients/participants navigate their psychedelic experience and the past trauma it may bring to the surface. However, inappropriate and/or non consensual touch may lead to a variety of transgressions that could harm clients/participants, such as sexual abuse, other forms of harmful touch, and re-traumatisation.
Informed consent: Impaired autonomy (i.e., when under the influence of a psychedelic) can make obtaining truly informed consent impossible.
Whilst these characteristics are not unique to the retreat setting (indeed, instances of abuse and other boundary violations have also been reported within the clinical trial setting [4]); it is conceivable that there is more room for bad actors to inflict harm within a retreat versus clinical trial setting due to the relative lack of legal and regulatory oversight (or the total lack of legal and regulatory oversight in cases where retreats are operating in locations in which the psychedelic compound they are using is a controlled substance). Of course people who use their position to do harm can be present in any setting. For example, problems that can arise due to the lack of oversight in unregulated settings include the fact that, ‘Many practitioners are working solo, without another person in the room to bounce around ideas, field questions, or discuss countertransference’ (4).
At their negative extremes, these characteristics can also confer increased risk to therapy abuse. Therapy abuse is, ‘a specific type of abuse that occurs within a therapist-client dynamic, in which the therapist exploits the power differential to harm the client. It can involve emotional, financial, psychological, and sexual types of harms and violations, amongst others (4). Recently, concerns have been raised about the prevalence of therapy abuse in psychedelic spaces (5). Additionally, research reveals the considerable variance in rates of therapy abuse perpetration across different genders (in non-psychedelic spaces), with considerably higher rates of therapy abuse perpetrated by male therapists (6).
Client/participant safety and evidence-based practices to ensure physical and psychological safety within psychedelic spaces should be at the forefront of community and clinical consideration whilst these medicines are re-entering into clinical and non-clinical healing spaces (7). An important study (6) by Brennan et al. investigated the experiences of 23 underground (i.e., extralegal) psychedelic practitioners with navigating multiple relationships, nonsexual touch, and sexual boundary-setting in their work. Based on the experiences of these practitioners, the authors recommended several prescriptive safeguarding practices, including accountability, community support, consultation, supervision, and the support of elders for practitioners. More studies like this one are needed to guide the development of evidence-based safeguarding best practices.
Body ownership
Ensuring women feel a sense of body ownership during their psychedelic experiences is crucial for their safety (8). Most models of psychedelic psychotherapy have largely overlooked the importance of embodied events in therapeutic outcomes (9), despite their prevalence in participants’ accounts of their psychedelic experiences (10, 11). Somatic psychotherapy approaches like Somatic Experiencing (12) and the Trauma Resiliency Model (13), which suggest that traumatic life events leave harmful memory traces in the body that can be ‘discharged’ or ‘released’ through somatic events such as sobbing, involuntary shaking, or trembling (14).
In her interview with Hystelica, Mary Bonnet confirmed the prevalence of somatic phenomena during psychedelic experiences, adding a gendered lens to this point:
“Especially with female survivors of sexual violence and sexual trauma, I would be surprised if they could access that level of healing outside of a women’s only retreat. [...] What I often see from survivors, and have noticed with myself and my body, is that, with plant medicine, the charge of the trauma gets released very physically; there's lots of shaking, lots of bodily movement…”
“Sometimes with the release of this charge, a lot of it can take place in the pelvis and can appear very sexual.”
“And this again is about being in a female body and feeling safe enough to take up space. I don’t know how comfortable most women would feel taking up that physical space or having their body doing something involuntarily in this way, in a mixed[-sex] space.”
Societal hierarchies and inequalities
Amongst the already discussed reasons why women need and want women-only retreats, societal inequalities within the psychedelic retreat community are a significant factor. As a blog article by Psychedelics Today (15) highlights, ‘Gender disparity extends beyond research and permeates psychedelic communities, retreat centres, and therapeutic settings. Women may experience subtle or overt forms of discrimination, objectification, or microaggressions, negatively impacting their sense of safety, trust, and overall well-being’. This speaks to the need for systemic change to dismantle sexism and promote gender equality.
Creating safer spaces
Addressing these challenges requires reimagining safe psychedelic spaces for women. Strategies to create safer spaces (9) include:
Ensuring ethically rigorous care
Implementing trauma-informed care, including embodied approaches
Providing culturally-competent, intersectionality-curious (8) care
In conclusion, female-specific risks in psychedelic retreat settings highlight the need for sex-specific approaches to facilitator/therapist conduct, retreat program delivery, and the need for single-sex retreat offerings. By implementing these approaches, we can create spaces where women can safely and effectively benefit from the therapeutic potential of psychedelics.
As part of our commitment to conducting research to help provide women with safer, more inclusive, and empowering psychedelic experiences, we are signposting retreat programs we know to be comprehensive in their approach and delivery of such programs.
We are happy to share a special offer from one of our trusted partners, Beckley Retreats. Beckley is the world's only psychedelic retreats provider backed by 25 years of scientific research (building on psychedelic pioneer Amanda Feilding's legacy) and an ecosystem of expertise. Their comprehensive 11-week program includes 4 weeks of preparation and 6 weeks of integration (go-at-your-own pace) with fully legal 5-night retreats in Jamaica and the Netherlands. Beckley offers Women's programs and a Sanctuary for Black Women in addition to their mixed gender Signature program. Visit their website here to view their full program details, their comprehensive guide to choosing a psychedelic retreat centre, and their "what type of psychedelic retreat goer are you?" quiz. Use code BRAP500 at checkout for $500 off your first retreat!
References
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Goldhill, O. (2020, March 3). Psychedelic therapy has a sexual abuse problem. Quartz. https://qz.com/1809184/psychedelic-therapy-has-a-sexual-abuse-problem-3
Mastrine, A. (2021, October 13). Participant Safety in Psychedelic Therapy. Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies; MAPS. https://maps.org/2021/10/13/participantsafety-in-psychedelic-therapy/
Clancy, M. E. (2023). Creating greater safety in psychedelic-assisted therapy spaces [Master’s thesis, San Francisco State University]. https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/concern/theses/cf95jj52q
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