Ep3 Erica Siegal - Building Safe Spaces: A Social Worker's Guide to Ethical Psychedelic Practice

Erica Siegal, LCSW  0:00  
Nobody has all the right answers, right? We all have to do it together. And if there's anything that any psychedelic practice has taught me is like, you can't do it alone. We're social creatures. We're meant to show up in community. Welcome

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  0:13  
to psychedelic source where wisdom meets practice in the evolving landscape of psychedelic medicine. I'm your host, Dr Sandra Dreisbach, and I'm here to help you navigate the complex intersection of ethics, business and personal growth in a psychedelic space, whether you're a practitioner, therapist, entrepreneur, or simply curious about this transformative field, you found your source for authentic dialog, practical resources and community connection in each episode, we'll dive deep into the stories, strategies and ethical considerations that matter most to our growing ecosystem. Let's tap in to our inner source of wisdom and explore what it means to build a sustainable and ethical psychedelic future together.

VO  1:06  
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Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:36  
Well. In this episode, we have Erica Siegel. She is a psychedelic, assisted psychotherapist, community organizer and harm reduction advocate. She has spent the last 20 years exploring diverse ways to create impactful, connective experiences while increasing community safety and wellness. And she's also a friend of mine, and I cannot say more wonderful things about her work and advocacy and as a business woman, as well running both two organizations and in 2019 she founded nest harm reduction and consulting California based mental health practice that provides psychotherapy, outreach, Education and integration services. And recently, she founded shine collective, a non profit dedicated to supporting those who have experienced harm from abuse, assault, neglect, coercion and manipulation within psychedelic practice and psychedelic communities so incredibly relevant for being well resourced in this space, both whether you're talking about her work with Nest or with her work in shine, and she herself has had experiences. She worked on an MDMA assisted psychotherapy clinical trial, trials from 2014 to 2019 and spent over a decade providing harm reduction in crisis response services at events festivals worldwide. It's with great pleasure that I get to introduce her to you today and and in this conversation, you'll you'll obviously get to see again my my friendship and relationship with Erica. We're also accountability partners in relationship, because we both do work around ethical practice, harm reduction, risk reduction in the space and and you'll see, you know, a lot of her insights and perspectives, both from her lived experience with her own journeys and her own wisdom in terms of how to, in some sense, live psychedelically, but also The challenges about how do we do this work around harm and risk reduction while still keeping the joy, keeping that sense of of presence, of creativity, of personal expression. And you also hear about her relationship with from her Jewish ancestry and community and her life, and how she brings part of that literally to the table in relationship and and while this isn't focused on, you know, a lot of the risks and harms that happen you you get a sense of how she has A sort of balance, more integrated life experience and relationship with psychedelic practice and where she lives and in community, including food. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. It was a real joy and delight to bring her in relationship to all of you, it's a beautiful journey. Well, welcome, Erica, I am. Could not be more tickled pink to have you here. You know, we've been friends for a while. I know you, of course, from you know, nest, but actually for us, it was based on having a be on the same ethics advisory board. Word. But I'll let you say a little bit about yourself. I've done a little bit of an introduction. Could you say a little bit about you and your work and what inspires you in the psychedelic space? Oh,

Erica Siegal, LCSW  5:12  
hi. It's so good to be here. I am also tickled pink. I like that. We're kind of we're in our winter. Pinks are like today. Sure, I'm Erica Siegel. I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I'm based in Southern California, and I have spent the past 15 ish years of my career working in various aspects of psychedelic research, psychedelic culture and drug education and harm reduction. And so we have been friends for a couple of years because we've done some ethics work together. You came and spoke at the conference that nest harm reduction hosted in 2022 in Palm Springs, amazing,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  5:59  
groundbreaking conference. I mean, it's okay, let's say a little bit about that. About that. You know, I think a lot of people be curious, because I think that the recordings are still available,

Erica Siegal, LCSW  6:06  
right? Yeah, the recordings are available. They're available on our website, on nest harm reduction.com, we hosted a conference that was about ethics and care in altered states, and we brought in not just psychedelic practitioners, but other practitioners and facilitators who work in altered states, whether that's shamanic drumming or whether that's in sex work, or whether That's in breath work. And really learned about how adjacent altered states practitioners create safe spaces and deal with ethical issues. I'm a big advocate of not reinventing the wheel, and so the more we can learn from each other, the safer we'll be able to create our communities. And then out of that conference, I started a nonprofit called shine collective. We are about to go into our second year of operation, and so very grassroots, see very startup, and we specifically work with people who have been harmed or had severe adverse reactions while working with psychedelic medicines. And this is a whole range of harms that are getting reported, not just in physical harm or sexual harm, but a lot of severe spiritual trauma, a lot of emotional dysregulation and moral injury when people are harmed in these spaces. And so it's been a pleasure working with you and epic and some of our other ethical friends in psychedelia to figure out how we're going to make it safer and how we're going to make it better. And so not only does shine work with helping to find resources and provide education to people who have been harmed, but hopefully in 2025 we will be doing more work with facilitators who want to improve their ethical practices, facilitators who might be experiencing burnout and causing unintentional harm, which we're seeing a lot of in this space as well. The oops, I didn't, you know, the perfect storm of, I didn't realize that this is going to happen. Or what I like to say is opening up a portal that you don't know how to close, which happens surprisingly frequently in in really minor adverse reactions. But we, we also maybe, will you

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  9:05  
take a moment to jump into that for just a little bit? I kind of want to talk about all the lovely sourcing that you've given our community here. But what can you tell us a little bit more about what it means to open a door that you can't close, like for someone who's never heard that expression, or how you can explain to someone you know, maybe someone who's who's never journeyed before or gone into altered states, what would that mean?

Erica Siegal, LCSW  9:29  
Yeah, so it's a great question from I am not a neuroscientist, right? I'm a community based social worker, and so I try to use as much like layman's term understanding for the general public when I talk about these things. If you want to dive into the like neuroscience, biochemical things that are happening with psychedelics, that could be another podcast, probably not this, not

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  9:57  
this podcast. So we'll help people have. Scientists here where but, but I'm deeply appreciating the kind of resources you're providing,

Erica Siegal, LCSW  10:06  
sure. So let's talk about right there's a variety of psychedelic experiences that are available and accessible and that will continue to expand, whether that expands in a medical setting or whether that expands through decriminalization, I am an advocate for for all avenues that lead to the heart, but when we take ketamine or psilocybin or MDMA or something like this, we're really starting to deeply access feelings, emotions, past memories. And what I like to say is, like, when you take a psychedelic you don't get to choose your journey. You don't get to be like, All right, I'm gonna, like, work on my intimacy issues, and then the psychedelic experience is going to give you something that is not that right, because you can't always get what you want. And so sometimes we think that we're going in to a psychedelic journey or a facilitated session with the intention of working on some past trauma that needs to be resolved, and all of the sudden you're having a a God like encounter and a spiritual awakening that was completely unexpected, not only for you as the as the person who is going through the experience, but also for the facilitator, and that is an example where we get things that are right, like positive, but there are also really dark, really hard, really disturbing, re traumatizing, or initially traumatizing, psychedelic experiences that we can have? Yeah,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  12:04  
no, I love that as a way of talking about, you know what? What is the door you're opening in a psychedelic or altered state, since we want to be broad in our approach, right? But when you, when you knock on that door, you know, you may think what door you're opening is like, Oh, I think I'm gonna open up like you were saying on the intimacy door, right? And you open the door, and turns out what was behind there was this trauma and unexpected or like, you know, like you were mentioning a divine experience, but, but you what you were preparing for, what your mindset was about, right? Was like, Well, no, I was, I was trying to build intimacy. That was the door I was planning on opening and the door I was planning on closing. But what came out was God or the divine, or what came out was my childhood trauma, right? And if that's the idea of, you know, opening a door we're not prepared to close. Uh, what? What could, what could someone do to know whether or not they're they're opening, you know, how can they they prepare themselves in a way that they know that they're going to be prepared to close it?

Erica Siegal, LCSW  13:16  
Well, um, I think making sure that you not only have supportive, understanding, community to come home to after your experience, but you also know the relationship scope of practice and like ability to do long term integration with your psychedelic facilitator. And so what we're finding is people are like, I'm gonna go work with this mushroom facilitator who is like, a weekend experience, right, right, back to work on Monday, right? And, oh, I actually can't. I mean, I had a a friend of mine, this was a really long time ago. I haven't thought about this story in a while, who was a ICU nurse and went down to Mexico and had a five Meo DMT experience, and tried to go back to being a nurse, like two days later, and could not deal with the physical blood, guts, trauma, noise, high stimulation, environment, and ended up having to call In the sick to work for like a week because they couldn't compartmentalize the things that they needed to compartmentalize to do their job. And so, you know, we're seeing this, this. Like, minimization of how unique and special these experiences are, because it's like, oh, let's go, like, out to you we have, we have media influences where we have, you know, Gwyneth Paltrow being like, oh, yeah, I went to Joshua Tree and say to mushrooms and just like, solve my marriage problems. Like it's it is pervasive everywhere. Every talk show, every like it is becoming me. It's being talked about in the mainstream in a way that it never has before, right, in a way that is light hearted and comical. Um, when we know that it has, it has the potential for some really severe transformation on on both ends of that spectrum. It can really shift your life into a positive, positive mindset, and it can also really shift into um, into some darker, harder timelines.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  16:09  
I really love that, that you kind of put it that way, like it's like, you know, it's going to, you know, it has the possibility. I'll even say it's not a guarantee, even right, that's going to create these, these really big shifts in your life. And a lot of times that's what attracts people, right, but, but you cannot predict what kind of shift or how that's going to manifest, even if it's still a good idea to set an intention right and to have you know some sense of what you are planning on doing, with the the hubris, with the respect, with the understanding that that may not be where you're going, right, and planning and preparing and and I don't, and I don't want to just personally, just, at least from my perspective, don't want to just personally blame, like, whatever's happening in the media, right? But I think it's also what, how we've approached it as a culture, right? You know, in purple the West, you know, like, like, we're, you know that the recreational setting and what's kind of evolved, or even, you know, some of how the underground approach has and has not been, but which is really diverse, right? There's a lot of really high, prepared people in all levels, right? And all handling of it. But I want to come back now to what you were sharing about your work with with Nest and with shine, and even the the conference, because I think all three demonstrate how you've been showing up in community, to be, to be, not just yourself, well resourced in, in building a community around you, but and having those conversations and having that support for yourself and those you're connected to, but also in terms of what it really looks like to create that in our world. Tell me a little bit about how did you come into this work, in working with altered states and psychedelic practice or, or if you'd rather, you can, you can tell us a little bit about you know, you as a person, you know, getting to know Erica. Yeah,

Erica Siegal, LCSW  18:10  
yeah. Well, thank you for for reflecting back to me the ways that I show up in community. Oftentimes, this is really challenging and sometimes lonely work. I'm a, you know, telehealth therapist, or like, work from home, and so the ways in which we build community, I think, is really important. And I think that this is why psychedelics, psychedelics and social work are so important is because we're watching everybody, kind of like practice in their own silos, or practice in their own lineage, or practice in practice out outside of community, in these little like pockets, and really using social work as a as a societal like macro lens of looking at Community Design is like nobody has all the right answers, right? We all have to do it together. And if there's anything that any psychedelic practice has has taught me is like you like, you can't do it alone. We can't like we're social creatures. We're meant to show up in community and um, and COVID really like, like, separated us and siloed us. And so I like to say that I like, I like to conspire with people, right when we look at the root conspiracies

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  19:51  
of removing people from silos, connecting people, rooting them, grounding them,

Erica Siegal, LCSW  19:57  
rooting them, grounding them, but also breathing with. Them, right? If you look at the Latin root etymology of of conspire, it's to breathe with. And so at some point, when I decided to host the conference two years ago, I was like, these are the people that I actually want to like, sit in a room with and smell and like, right? And like, you know, rub up against each other's elbows like we did. You

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  20:23  
know, I think I have a picture of me on your lap. I mean, it's all, I'm all PC everyone. It was at dinner,

Erica Siegal, LCSW  20:28  
yeah, we had, like, lovely meals together, and I just wanted to have an experience where we could all get together. And I loved that I chose Palm Springs as the location, because we were all kind of like, like, like, nuzzled up in this little hotel in Palm Springs where we ate all our meals together and got to, like, sit in the hot tub afterwards and chat and have brunch and and then also learn from each other. And I think Adriana Kurtzer, who was there, who is also joining the border shine, she said it was the issues is the most well fed conference that,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:13  
yeah, not to, not to, like, you're like, I still remember the churros. One

Erica Siegal, LCSW  21:17  
of these things is like, well, we also can't learn if we're hungry. And so I when you say, like, get to know me, right? I was raised in a really vibrant Jewish community in Cleveland, Ohio. I have a lot of a lot of the work that I do, the way that I operate, is from the lens of a Jewish woman. I'm on the board of shefa, which is the Jewish psychedelic support network. I also co facilitate ketamine group, ketamine experiences for Jewish individuals. And so I find that having a strong root in my own indigenous spiritual practice gives me a beautiful lens to be able to do this work. And also, I'm not for everyone, like, not everybody wants to work with, like, I

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  22:19  
still plan to make that shirt. I'm not for everyone, right? But I love that you shared that like, you know, it really comes from being in relationship with your own community, yeah, that that you come back to, and that you are literally sourced from, and, and that you kind of, you know, like, I mean, communing over food, breathing together as you were sharing, right? That is, you know, that real felt sense of being with in relationship, in support of one another, and reaching the Croft thresholds,

Erica Siegal, LCSW  22:51  
and I really think that, and this is we can get into psychedelic integration and like sourcing and tools. But as we move forward and technology integrates more into our daily lives, however, that is going to look

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  23:11  
a lot of people talking about how as guy is going to be integrated as a tool in the space. So I appreciate you bringing this up.

Erica Siegal, LCSW  23:16  
Yeah, and it's going to be right, like trains up the station, like we're gonna, we're gonna try a whole bunch of things, and we're not going to be good at them, and we're gonna find glitches in them, and we're going to right, and we're gonna have to retool, and we're going to have to be like, Oops. We need to make a new ethical boundary around this. We didn't realize that that, like, we're learning with it. We are, and I think this is one of the challenges, is like there's no mastery right now, like nobody knows how to do this properly, and so we, on a community level, are learning together, right? But so I think that getting together in physical spaces multiple times a year, maybe it's like, like, for me, it's like, oh, like Passover and Rosh Hashanah and like, there's like, Jewish holidays, like baked in to times that we are supposed to gather and eat together, and there are times that we are supposed to gather and fast and mourn and grieve together. And I think that taking that lens that has been like instilled in me through generations and through practice in the way that I was raised is like hosting, I host camp outs, I host art workshops. I'm hosting a, like, a creativity pop up this weekend, on Sunday at my house, where she's like, come together and like parallel play. Arts and crafts with me, and so, like, somebody's bringing their crocheting project, and so we're just gonna, like, make food and hang out together, because that's the act like, that's the juiciness of, like, living a psychedelically integrated life, is knowing that, like being with like minded community, doing something artistic, like working collaboratively on something and then getting, like, immediate positive reinforcement. This is why, why I love tie dye, is because you get to, like, fold it up, and you don't know what it's gonna look like, and it's like, it's almost that, like, journey. And then you have to wait, and you get all of the like, what if it doesn't turn out, what if it's not good? You get to, like, unwrap it, and you get micro positive reinforcement of other people around you going, ooh, you created something beautiful, and you're like, oh, look, I created something beautiful, and you can see people light up from it. And so in the same ways that you can see people light up from from a really beautiful, psychedelic journey. And so it's like one of these things, where the more we can recreate this cycle of us being together in creative process like the healthier will be able to weather the storms of whatever is coming.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  26:31  
And I love this. I love the this analogy or metaphor of the psychedelic journey or altered state experiences as being a creative journey, an expression journey, right? That that you don't necessarily know what you're going to get and and at least with, you know, tie dye, right? You can, you have an external representation, right? Our internal processes and our internal journeys, it's hard to, it doesn't, it's at least not as ready at hand as it were, to be able to show and demonstrate to the world. Look, I have completed my journey. I've done my root Shadow Work and ta da. I have my my butterfly self. Now. Do you see me now? But, but, but still, like having that sense of community, of coming together in real life, having similar processes where you're embodying that role you're playing together with people in relationship, and it's and it has more that light hearted energy, that that soulful, that spirited, communal Joy, I want to even say that, that you get and and I love that the aspect, despite the fact that maybe some people think that people do work with survivors, who work in harm and risk reduction, are just bantering The thing about, you know, watch out everyone. Here are the red flags, you know, right? You know, not that I you know, psychedelic safety flags, important document, but, but, but that said, like, you know, and what are the what are the green flags? What are the good things we should be doing? What are the positive things? What's it mean to live, like, live psychedelically as you were, you know? Like, how do we the journey of our lifetimes, right? So I love this example. I love what you're bringing to the table and and creating

Erica Siegal, LCSW  28:19  
here Here I will like, I'll loop it back in, for,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  28:23  
loop us, loop us, right?

Erica Siegal, LCSW  28:27  
This is also true when it comes to power dynamics and psychedelic work, right? This is why I, I see the value of all of the work that the psychedelic industry is doing, with drug development, with clinical trials, with with medical validity, and all of those different things. And also, I don't think that one on one or therapist, client individual psychedelic experiences is the optimal setting for a lot of people to have to complete their healing journey. It might be a place to start, but the as somebody who worked on clinical trials, as somebody who was a subject in MDMA clinical trial right laying on a couch, taking MDMA with two sober facilitators sitting there, like, is, it's awkward, right? It's not, and it's such a an MDMA can be such a socially healing drug that it is like small groups with friends part like intimate partner work and and being able to create safe containers for exploration, where you're minimizing the power dynamic risk.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  29:50  
And I love that you bring this up because we were talking about community. We're talking about relationship, and some of the models that are being presented through research. Research, right, are not necessarily as supportive as we may want them to be, but, but then maybe, you know, and just to counterpoint it a little bit, right, there are people who already have therapeutic relationships, right, that then want to bring that therapeutic relationship, one of trust and one that does have the intimacy and especially dealing with trauma. Maybe they've already been working on and seeking this support and experience so but that's not what the clinical trials are often able to support right, in terms of what the design allows Right,

Erica Siegal, LCSW  30:36  
right? And that's also right, and that's also not the design of the way that we're seeing legalization, decriminalization roll out, which is more of the come to this service center and pay us lots of money to do this, like weekend thing or this one, and like those facilitators are not going to have these long existing therapeutic relationships with people, and so I love shout out to journey clinical. You know, I people have have differing opinions, but what an amazing way to be able to give already existing therapists who have already existing practices and already existing relationships with their clients, access and tools to be able to start looking at psychedelic work. And now some people are, you know, some people are pro ketamine. Some people are not broken, like we can get into the politics of all of it. But also, you know, again, this is another capillary, like or artery, that is slowly moving into wholeness with how the way psychedelics are going to be rolled out in and find their way in society

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  31:59  
well and to that, you know, a couple things came up for me when you were sharing there, one of which was about relationship with people who are the original holders of many of these plant medicines and practices, and how that is or is not showing up right now and and what wisdom or or learnings or education or relationship and community we do not have yet, um, or at least in my humble opinion, yeah, but also, you know, in the sense of envisioning forward, you know, taking from your own origins, your own personal sourcing and community and relationship and heritage and bringing that forward. You know, as we can see, from your own stories about bringing community together. Now, where would you like to see your own business practices going in relationship? Because you have, you know, you have a couple businesses, right? You have you have the nest, you have nest, and you have shine, right? How do you see that operating going forward? What do you see your role? People wouldn't necessarily identify those as community based organizations, necessarily right now, and not that they don't have help support community, right? How do you see the role of business interacting with these visions of community, creativity, heritage and traditional medicine, ways. And I realized a big question, but goodness,

Erica Siegal, LCSW  33:30  
that's a huge question. And also I have been scrappy, trying to figure out how to do all of the things. And so I feel like I'm at the point where, when people are starting to be like, oh, I want to integrate this into my practice. Or how do I get like, like, what am I supposed to do? I see a lot of people doing it wrong, like, when it comes to business, like, I am in California, I run a Corporation and a nonprofit in California, and the amount of time I need to spend on doing like accounting and taxes and like compliance and blah, blah again, like it, then I become a business operator, and I'm doing less client work and less community building, and The two entities interact with each other in nest being the my psychotherapy practice we have, I have eight other therapists that work for me, that see clients through nest. We do harm reduction, work drug education, we do community outreach. We are a Narcan and fentanyl testing strip distributor

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  34:41  
for everyone getting Narcan. Everyone, get Narcan. Everyone test pen. Go

Erica Siegal, LCSW  34:45  
to nestar production.com, go to Resources, click, get Narcan, and we will ship you Narcan because it is important for me as somebody who is again integrating a psychedelic life in. Is like all drug use should be safer, like people should not be accidentally overdosing, or overdosing or or dealing with the or examination or contamination or drug contamination. And these are real life, life and death issues that are happening because of the drug war. And so I am not a psychedelic exceptionalist. I think we should have all access to all public health information and safety, and it should be free. That's not the greatest business model, obviously. But the like, the reality is, is, is nest, you know, works one on one with clients and families and couples, um, who have been impacted by positively and negatively impacted by their relationship with substances. Yeah. Then we also go out and do community outreach. We, you know, teach people how to hold space for their clients. We teach people how to we go into communities and help communities become safer and more educated. And so I love doing the work that I do at Nest, but also a lot the reason that shine is separate, and the reason that shine exists is because it is a 501, c3, nonprofit. We do. We are, you know, applying for grants, looking for foundational funding, taking donation so we can hopefully take all of this, like take be able to get public funding and privatized funding, to be able to subsidize the cost of services for people who have been harmed by psychedelics. And so we offer, we offer, like, case management, case consultation. When somebody reaches out to us, we do our best to do their intake and find them resources in their home environment. We are building out. It's launching. Hopefully, by the time this podcast comes out, maybe we will be launching a national resource database that can sign up for saying, Hey, I'm in Santa Cruz, or I'm in Portland, Oregon. And I want to get educated about how to work with psychedelic survivors. I want to add like ethical practice to my skill set. Can I be a resource? So when somebody reaches out to me in Nashville, Tennessee, or Waco, Texas, or someplace like that, I can't see them. I'm based in California. I am also only one person, and so not that many hours in a day that I can do this work. And so I am limited by all of my hands and like my hands in all of these different pockets. And so really trying to find people who are mission aligned, who want to partner, who want to acknowledge that, that we can improve safety, not we want to shut down the industry. We want to stop research. We don't want to do any of that. We want people to have optimal psychedelic experiences, and when they don't, we also need to address that. And so that's really where, where, where shine is, is aimed at, and looking at kind of these, you know, different funding models in psychedelics for us to be able to subsidize cost of services for those who have been harmed

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  38:46  
and and this gets us to the sort of energy exchange reciprocity of this, right? I already love how many sources and resourcing and and sourcing of yourself that you've already shared. But how can we support you and being better resourced. You mentioned being able to contribute to shine. You mentioned, you know, looking for more people who can do this work. Is there something else that, in exchange, that you would hope for?

Erica Siegal, LCSW  39:17  
That's a great question. I mean, I would love to, like, we're about to launch this resource database that we've been building in HubSpot. And like, like, Please everybody sign up. Like, you know, even if you can, you know, give like, 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month. Like, ask your practice, ask your doctor friends, ask go to the ketamine clinic that you have been working with to say, Hey, I found this nonprofit. I don't know if you guys do any charitable giving or charitable programs like you know, can you reach out to them? Can you partner with them and then also reach out to us so you can access our information? And access our resources, access things like psychedelic safety flags. Having been doing this work and working with this population, I this spring, I'll be attending, like, multiple academic conferences where these are the topics at hand, and the reality is, like, I need to be in the room for to like, to have impact,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  40:26  
no. And this kind of speaks to some of the challenges that that come to doing this work, other than, obviously, you know, I think we've, you've already, kind of spoken to, to an extent, about the personal challenges. I mean, maybe we could, we could dig deeper on that. But because it is very personal, none of us who do this work come out unscathed, as it were, but, I mean, we're transformed as well. And I don't have to take us there. I'll try and keep us at a level of three out of 10, but, but I just want to least admit personally, that you know, you, you are a resource for me. And, oh

Erica Siegal, LCSW  41:06  
yes, you can talk about that. And, and, I

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  41:08  
mean, I think, I don't think there's anyone who I'm going to be bringing on this podcast who isn't a community resource, but I also want to acknowledge and and also disclose that, you know, we're, we're in a very conscious accountability relationship with one another, and and, and building that that relationship so that you know when, when, and if you know something arises that either is a misstep, let's just put it that way, or something comes up, or we need help right where we're asking you know that, that we can lean into each other on an as needed basis, And, and trying to build that kind of accountability in relationship, but also support, right? That that what it really looks like to do this work isn't just about like, watch out. It's like, okay, let's, let's proactively build these, these partnerships, these relationships, these supports. So maybe you can speak a little bit about that.

Erica Siegal, LCSW  41:59  
Yes, okay, I love that we're in this, like, intentional accountability cycle together. I think that it is beautiful, and it's a beautiful practice, and it gets us to, like, there have been times where for both of us, people have people in community have reached out saying, I'm concerned about this person. Here are the reasons why, and we have been able to be like, great. I'm ready to accept some constructive feedback and ideally make some changes. Is actually there, you know, shine. If anybody has ever started a business or done some grassroots things, oftentimes it's like the first couple of years are like throwing darts at a dart board and also getting community feedback to be like, how do we make this better? And one of the transitions that we're doing at shine this year is what we have found, having run peer support for a little over a year with several cohorts of people, is that the virtual peer support model is actually not enough support for people who are going through this type of harm. Right?

Unknown Speaker  43:16  
Totally.

Erica Siegal, LCSW  43:20  
Right, right? Like drop dropping in once a week or every other week with a group of strangers, like it's not enough for them to actually build the trust in the community that needs to come out of it. And so I shifted, and we're switching our attention to building out a national resource list so we can actually attach People to People, where they can build these longer term relationships. This also comes up in if you know, Steve Hassan, who wrote combating coercive mind control. He is expert. Number called expert. And you know, he said, You know, when people are coming out of cults, the the identity shift, right? It's almost like you have to kill offs not the right word on a live is not the right word either, but because we're podcasting and whatever the algorithm filters are going to but like, you actually have to, like, grieve a part of yourself absolutely grieve. Like, right? Your belief system is being changed. It's being shifted. What you thought was safe is no longer safe, and there is a period of time where you have to deconstruct your identity and rebuild it into a new world. Now, as somebody who is divorced,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  44:57  
right, don't know what you're talking about. That's.

Erica Siegal, LCSW  45:00  
I'm hearing that, and I actually you like great the like I had to when, when you get divorced, when you separate, when you go through a big grief, when you lose a parent, when you go through a challenge and take it like experience, when you are harmed by somebody in authority, where you thought you could trust them, you have to go through a process of deconstructing and rebuilding parts of your identity, and you need somebody to be able to do that work with, who can do that work ongoing and intensively for as long as you need. And we are too small to be able to do that work. We are too startup to be able to do that work. And so there are organizations like reclamation collective, which works with people who have religious and spiritual harm, and they have a lovely database of individual providers. They also offer virtual support groups, and we've partnered with them because they have a lot of people reaching out who have been harmed by psychedelics, and they're like, Hey, we can't actually take this influx. We're going to stay religious focused, even though there's a lot of overlap between religion and spirituality and psychedelic harm. And so just building community, finding those resources, of being like, Oh, if somebody reaches out to me and and they fit the description of being able to be in this group. Like, let's send them there, right? We're not reading the wheel so

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  46:29  
essential. Like, I like, this is why I love you, know, having you here and being here in conversation and kind of not just showing some of the complexities and the intersections that show up, right? People like to kind of even silo off psychedelic practice and and then and and say, like, oh, that has nothing to do with religious trauma, or that has nothing to do with, you know, you know, harms around abuse. But even though we recognize that abuse and harm happens or narcissistic, or, you know, like the whatever sort of or addiction like people recognize that people use it and work with it to recover, right? But they may not see, see the intersectionality of all these pieces or about bipoc and communities, or women, or the Jewish community and and all all these things, like they all kind of come together in this unique, transformative way, because we're I mean, at least for me, maybe I'm making a commentary here that's a little bit me focused. But, you know, I've at least noticed that we tend to be picking up the pieces that have been dropped by our society, our culture, our worlds and the harms and the traumas and the sort of you know, you know, not just people falling through the cracks, but being, you know, directly shot there, right? And and

Erica Siegal, LCSW  47:55  
more, social workers need to get into the psychedelic right, like we're like, be afraid,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  48:00  
yeah, people and, and maybe this, this could be a nice, you know, culmination thing as we, as we kind of wrap up this episode is, you know, what? What could you tell someone who, who, um, who may be curious about psychedelic practice or, or business and, and maybe feeling like that, you've scared me now. I like, I like the talk about the creativity and hanging out and chilling and eating, but, but the other stuff, I'm like, I'm feeling the realness now and and how should I go into this space? What? What? What would you tell someone who's who's totally new, either as someone who's in an adjacent field or as a person who's who's been affected by the war on drugs. What would your takeaway be for them?

Erica Siegal, LCSW  48:50  
I mean, like the human experience is about being curious, right? And so if it's peak to your curiosity, and you're right, it's like an itch you can't scratch. A lot of people say, especially the plant medicine community, it's like, no, no. The medicine will find you like it will call it will talk to you in your dreams, it will keep showing up for you, um, until you eat right, and it gets sometimes, those those signs and those calls and those signals, like, get loud, and you're like, Oh, right. This is, this is why people go to therapy. People are like, there's something in my life that is intolerable, and I want to take a look at it. And psychedelics give us access to those portals. But like, once you open the door, you can't close it. And so don't like, right? So if you're not without support, right? You know, right, don't go into it without support. And if you need support, like, you can work to build. That before you go into it, and you can work to build what you figure out what you need afterwards too, because you don't always know what you need when you go in.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  50:12  
I love that. I love that that's a that's a great takeaway, Erica, and I am so grateful to you, and I'm so grateful for this conversation.

Erica Siegal, LCSW  50:20  
More of this. Let's

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  50:21  
do more of these. Yeah, no, no. So continuing again, and we do have a hope to maybe be able to share like, you know, survivor stories. And I know that's something else you're working on, but I can't get into right now, but, but thank you so much for joining us, and I look forward to seeing the community resourcing that comes out of this. I can't wait.

Erica Siegal, LCSW  50:41  
Thank you so much. Thank you for all that you do. I'm so glad that we are in community together and that we've been talking about doing this recording. We've had to reschedule this multiple times. I'm so glad that I was able to not have to evacuate my home today and and be

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  50:59  
grateful for this well. And much love to those who are, who are facing that right now, as as a as a survivor of a fire myself, you know, I appreciate that you know what you have to go through. You know, to be evacuated and to come back and and experience and, and I think that just speaks, you know, like we can't always plan when the doors are open for us and and we need this in our lives and in our worlds, and we're all on a psychedelic journey. So

Erica Siegal, LCSW  51:26  
right, whether we choose to or not.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  51:28  
Yeah, they were being my psychedelic

Erica Siegal, LCSW  51:30  
life. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. This was so lovely.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  51:36  
As I reflect on this conversation, one of the things I love is the fact that what it means to be well resourced and to be in relationship is to be in relationship with one another, to be in community. And I hope that that's a theme that that will show up again and again here already in the earlier episodes. Um, also that relationship with one's own community, and how that shows up, both in terms of how that that sense of community, evolves over time. It's not static, it's dynamic. It's changing, and also how one can consciously engage and consciously nurture that. And I think Erica really exemplifies this, that that she consciously engages in building community, whether it's through that, the nest conference that gets mentioned in this podcast, or whether it's through her, her new organization of shine and and even just demonstrated through her and I's relationships with one another, that this is something that we've cultivated over time in relationship and in community. And as you look to try and see where are your strengths and where are your edges, what doors are you willing to open, not knowing what's behind them? What what doors do you need to hold more responsibly, and how can you build the support and community and relationship to create the support that you don't just need in a journey, but you need in your life. I hope you take away that little piece of sourcing in relationship. Much love. Thank you for joining me on psychedelic source. If you found value in today's episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share with others in our community. And if you're a psychedelic practitioner, therapist or coach, looking to identify blind spots in your practice or determine next steps for moving it forward, take the first step by visiting psychedelic Source podcast.com Until next time, remember, start low, go slow and stay connected to your source. You.