Ep8 Suz Vera Burroughs - The Ethics of Touch: Navigating Consent in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

Suz Vera Burroughs  0:00  
I think being in community with other practitioners is really, really important, getting those different perspectives and being collaborative. Find some mentorship, and, you know, buy in like 80%.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  0:13  
Welcome 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  1:37  
In this episode of psychedelic source, I talk with Suz Vera, she has a Master of Science in Education. She is a board certified and massage therapy body work practitioner, and she's also managing owner of unwind Oakland and unwind learning, doing above ground ketamine assisted massage therapy. Maybe you haven't heard of this before, but it actually is a possibility. And there's a lot of controversy around touch and substance in combination, and you can even argue any sort of touch in an altered state. And in this conversation, we hold space for listening to what Suze has to say about her work, what motivates her, why this particular practice and the controversies around it? And I hope you'll have an open mind and consider the possibilities of how conversations around touch and practice can actually support reduction of abuse. Hope you enjoyed the episode. Well, welcome Suz. It's so great to have you in relationship here on the psychedelic Source podcast. I know that we've had many conversations about a whole bunch of different subjects, and I know I've given a little bit of an intro to our people here. But can you tell just a little bit of your background, your training and your work that you want to share from your perspective?

Suz Vera Burroughs  3:08  
Yeah, well, we're talking about touch today, so I think it's really important to know that I am a board certified massage therapist and approved continuing education provider. I've been practicing for about a little over a decade, and for the past two and a half years or so, I've been focused on the psychedelic space, both integration body work as well as trying to create an above ground model for ketamine assisted therapeutic massage. I'm an author working on some case reports based on some of my my clients, patients. And yeah, I had an opportunity to collaborate with you on some documents that I hope that we can talk about. Yeah,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  3:54  
no, I definitely want to make sure we talk about it, but, and thank you for that. The introduction, I think it really helps to kind of ground ourselves and ground you, but, but also tell me about you as a person, like, where are you from, you know? How did you come into relationship with with psychotics and plant medicines, you know, or ketamine, right? How did, how did that come up for you?

Suz Vera Burroughs  4:13  
Yeah, so I am from the Bay Area, Northern California, and have a background in art history, Masters of Science and Education. I was an emancipated minor, and I left high school, started my own business and started taking community college classes when I was like 17. So it's been a really interesting winding road. You and I have a connection in terms of neuro diversity, and, you know, so it's been really interesting to find community with somebody who shares my neurotype. You know, everybody's flavor is their own kind of spice, but, you know, it's good to be connected. In that way. And, yeah, I was in tech for a long time. I used to work for a little international internet company that wasn't going to be evil, and as well as some others. And you know, I found I was teaching transformational learning, neuroscience based Managers Coach, working on some programs and being trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction instruction, and kind of feeling like I was ready for a shift and that doing the one on one relational work of body work. It's really funny. I went to it was kind of a date night. It was like a couples massage course. And I was like, No, I like this. This is fun. This is satisfying. And it's evolved from there. You know, I got to study with some of the Structural Integration and anatomy, functional anatomy greats. But then I also, you know, through my work with psychedelics, got to sit with some of the Shipibo COVID. They call them an English bone setters. So they're body workers within that particular Ayahuasca tradition and a matrilineal experience, which was really lovely. But you know, throughout the past couple years, I have had engagement with ketamine. In early 2020, I was diagnosed with complex, chronic PTSD, and then the world fell apart, and there was nowhere to get help. And one of the things that was available was ketamine, telehealth, and I had some experience with Ayahuasca, and so I was interested in giving that a try, particularly since daily I was getting messages, intrusive thoughts about existential crisis, and it was just weighing on me. It was a really dark period. And I also was dealing with chronic pain from an auto accident in 2017 and in my process of working with telehealth and then spravato, the FDA approved esketamine nasal spray. You know, I had a tremendous unwinding. Not only was I able to come to a place where I could feel safe in my own body, and that peace wasn't a threat, that vulnerability and being calm wasn't a dangerous way to be. But then also, you know, having worked with Ayahuasca, I wasn't into the ketamine chair, and, like, I wanted to be on the floor, and I wanted to have a speaker I could feel in my body, and kind of create that. And then one day, ketamine was like, you've got some, you know, Labradorite, Selenite stones with you. Why don't you try some self massage, some stone massage. And I was like, I know how to do stone massage. And it was like, Oh, the ketamine was like, you might want to stretch your hip. Now. I was like, I do need to stretch this hip. And I had an unwinding of that chronic pain. And that kind of led me to be like, Okay, this, this is something that goes together. How do I offer something like this to my clients? And that's been like a two and a half year journey of trying to figure out how to do that within a regulated structure and being above ground. And yeah, no.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  8:18  
And it certainly does sound like an unwinding and a real journey. And I think something you know that I've noticed in our conversations on this, on the show, and I'm seeing here now, is, you know that inner relationship between our personal transformation stories, our healing stories, and relationships with different medicines or plants or fungi or or even chemical structures, right? That and how that shows up, and not just our work and as well as our healing experience with other people that, how that the poisons transformed into medicine, the poison path, right? We don't have to go into that in depth, but because you know anything in the right amount can you know is either a poison or or a source of healing, but, but I find it fascinating that we have this, not just the sort of neuro diversity in common, and maybe you want to, you know, say a little bit more about how you identify, including pronouns or anything like that, because I want to make sure I'm supporting your your intersectionality, but also the fact that we have that, that sort of from tech to coming into this space and, and what we what you may not know, is I've also had that sort of, you know, that pain issue as well as you know, and, I also appreciate you being open and honest with us about your CPTSD journey, because many people will look for psychedelics and plant medicines, for healing and for transformation, and it sounds like for you, it was a complex journey, but a supportive one. But let's start with. Anything you want to say about identity, so make sure we're grounding in your source. Oh, thank you.

Suz Vera Burroughs  10:06  
Well, my pronouns are she her? I am very much from Oakland. I love Oakland, and I know I love Oakland because Oakland makes you prove it. You know, I the neurodiversity, you know, it was really interesting coming in at 3940 into a deeper neuropsychological evaluation. I had been, you know, diagnosed with ADHD with that sort of like 10 to 15 question survey, and it was like, five minutes later, here's your Adderall. Good luck, kid. And I was 37 and I was just, I got a couple years into that, and I was like, it's this. I can't tolerate Adderall. Something else is going on. I need, I need deeper support. And I had been having chronic migraines my whole life. So there was a question of how that might be affecting my neurology, similar to a traumatic brain injury. So I was like, I need a deeper, a deeper analysis. And they were like, Yeah, ADHD and sensory and social processing, but without a deep family history, there's some of those check the boxes on autism that a diagnostic diagnostic cannot check. And so I was left with, honestly, a lot of ambiguity, and without the diagnostic codes to get any support for a broader set of neurodiverse traits. And what was really difficult, too, was that you know everything you find when you're a late diagnosis, particularly if you don't have children, is so frustrating, because it's all about kids, and it doesn't relate to my life like at all. And I went through talking to autism at work programs. They're like, yeah, you interview by playing Minecraft. And I'm like, I'm 40. Have you seen my resume? Like, this is it's kind of insane, and, and it's very crazy making, and I really had to come to a point where I was like, No, I just you need to be in my own business. The nice thing about massage therapy is I can have a one on one relational scope. I get a new complex puzzle of anatomy, physiology, psychology, humanity, every, you know, 90 minutes to two hours. So my puzzle, my puzzles are satisfied. I also get to be in a low light environment where I get to control the music and the kinds of sounds that work for my ear. And I'm usually using journey music and a 360 speaker underneath my massage table. So then I get to drop into that space as well and invite the client, whether they're working with substance that day or not, to come with me into that kind of nervous system altered state of consciousness that for me is right on the other side of my eyelids whenever I kind of want it, now and and that's really fun, because it's like, Team meditation, Team Tai Chi. I'm deep in my present moment noticing I'm using my body and staying healthy. So it's like, I get all this stuff out of it and and then I also get to approach really interesting questions, like, what does dynamic consent look like in a psycholytic dose of ketamine?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  13:23  
How many stop you in here? You know to let's wind wind back. Let's do a little unwinding ourselves to talk about those sensory issues. Because, you know, it's very clear in how you're sharing that you find your current work to be supportive to your sensory experience for your neuro diversity and and also find it therapeutic and interesting, also in terms of the types of clients. But could you talk a little bit about, if you're comfortable with it, we don't have to go anywhere. You don't want to go we care about dynamic consent here too, about what, how do we assess this sort of sensory needs? What? What sensory needs Have you had experience with? And how would you define what? What would you say is a sensory need? And so for people who don't understand that sort of languaging and, and, and where you've had challenges in that area getting those needs met? Yeah, that's

Suz Vera Burroughs  14:19  
a great question. And I will point there is a neurodiversity, sensory affirming checklist, preparation for psychedelic journeys that you and I have worked on with levy joy and Justine Lee, that's available. That's a more in depth document, but I think one example could be that I'm photophobic, and could you not see that? Yeah, fine. So photo photophobia is basically like, I'm very sensitive to light. People will often come into my house and they'll be like, Oh, it's kind of like a cave in here, like, like, I'm always operating at like, 80% of the light level that anybody else needs. And. And then, you know, some people, I think with autism, are they're like, wearing the earphones is kind of like code forth, you know, like, but for me, it's my my extra dark sunglasses. I call it my eye armor, so, like, you will not see me outside, even on a slightly overcast day without my shades. And what that means is that, you know, within a journey space, I like a low light environment, it really supports me. But it also means that, like in a work environment, things like fluorescent lights can be really irritating, and that low level of consistent irritation by the end of a work day in an office can make me quite grumpy. You know, I think that the opposite would be light seeking. So that's an interesting one, where people might really be stimulated and need that with light. They might be attracted to things that move, and almost unable to see things that are static. And so the document kind of goes into each of the the eight senses, as well as other issues like sleep and circadian rhythm and some other languaging and specific things. But there are all these little areas where there's a shift from, you know, if we're looking at a bell curve, maybe the first two standard deviations. It's like you're maybe on one tail or the other. Do you find light irritating and upsetting, or do you find light exciting and energizing? And how does that create your overall affect and your ability to operate in the world, in all the ways that we need to operate in the world in order to survive. And

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  16:44  
I love this so much because, I mean, obviously, because I identify but, but also from an ethics perspective, and also an everyday ethics perspective, right? One of the things I feel is such a strength from either, you know what, however people choose to identify, you know, whether you think about, you know, an ableist culture, or being on the spectrum, or on the autism spectrum, or ADHD, or just, you know, highly sensitive, however, but the fact our general culture In the West, I'll just say, right, isn't generally supportive or sensitive, literally sensitive to differing sense sensory needs and and I think there's the because of people on the spectrum advocating that there's been more understanding and education. But I love how you connected, not just your own needs and your own position on a light spectrum of sensitivity and sensory sensitivity. And that's just one aspect, right? You mentioned the several that are in the document, and I love that you're already bringing up the documents. I can't already tell, like, I haven't gotten to the part about, like, what sources do you think are supportive for people? And we already know at least two that that we want to point to people that we've we've collaborated on. But what would you say the other part is the fact of a psychedelic experience. So one thing that people on the spectrum are more privy to all the time, that people who are entering in a journey state, or a conscious altering state, which can happen through, you know, breath work or meditation, there's other means is that it changes and shifts your sensory sensitivity. You know, either more or less, how has your own experience lent itself to creating a more ethical and more supportive environment in your view, for your clients, you mentioned the sound that you you're sending for yourself right in the and the the environment and the temperature and the all the things, all the senses, and you're it's attuned primarily to you. How do you blend that in that, in that dynamic consent, way that you like to phrase it. How do you work with that? How do you define dynamic consent? And how do you work with differing sensory needs in your practice?

Suz Vera Burroughs  19:11  
Yeah, and in my practice, it comes up a lot. I think I'm starting to be known for somebody who can work with hypermobility, which is very prevalent within the neurodiverse, included, yeah, yeah. And I'm, you know, I like to be gender affirming, and a lot of other things that just have, you know, a lot of overlap. I feel like what's important for me is within my intake. I have some questions, you know, that are that are important around you know what somebody's sensitivities or identity based needs might be. And then the other thing too is I like to make sure somebody has a clear no and so often I'll. I'll do something like, when I step out of the room and they're getting on the table and changing, I'll turn up the music a little bit to a point where it's like, it's a little bit too loud. And then I'll come in, I'll be like, how's the table? How's the music volume? And I'm looking for them to be like, No, you can turn that down. And then my response is always, thank you for letting me know. So it's never oh my gosh, I'm sorry, or like, oh, I screwed up. Or like, Yeah, whatever. It's like, Thank you for letting me know, even when they're telling me something positive. Oh, that feels really good, right there. Oh, yeah. Thank you for letting me know. Or, Oh, that's a little bit too much pressure. Thank you for letting me know. I try to keep the verbal check ins a little bit lighter, because I have quite a dropped in state, but usually within like, the first 10 minutes, I'll check in. How's the pressure? Not just as a general question, but would you like, more or less are the same, and just giving people that space to to give voice to what their needs are, and to have them met, I do say though that, like I'm not going to do anything that I think is going to harm my body or harm my client's body. So some people want a level of pressure that I can't deliver, and while they are centered within the environment, it is that dual consent, right? Like I have to consent to using my body to touch and I need to use it in ways that are wholesome and helpful for myself, and that means studying body mechanics, making sure that I'm not ending up with tendonitis and like that kind of stuff.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:29  
Well, well, before you continue on, I want to, like, clarify some of the terms you're using, so dynamic consent, if I can reflect back for you as a combination of having that consent at the beginning of the process and then having check ins, you know, depending upon what you're doing, to dynamically check in and re check in. And I imagine there's possibly even a check in post or afterwards. But then you also mentioned the dual consent. Could you define that for people and explain what is involved for you in a dual consent Yeah,

Suz Vera Burroughs  22:03  
you know, a client might come to me and want me to do something that is either outside of my scope of practice or that I find is unethical, and I have the right to say no, and that can be hard, because there's, you know, there's money on the line, there's pressure, there's Certainly, you know, being a neuro diverse person, the alexithymia, sometimes it's hard to know how I feel in that moment about a request, and having scripts that allow me to respond and give myself some time is really important. But ultimately, it's like it's a two way street. I think that there's this idea in a lot of disciplines that the client is so centered, and then the practitioner has all of the power. And I find that it's interesting in kink communities, which we've talked about quite a bit, is that actually people know that the bottom actually has probably the majority of the power in the situation, but it's like as the professional, I hold all the legal liability, and particularly within my field, it's regulated not as a health care benefit, but as a law enforcement problem, so nobody's riding to my rescue when I'm getting sexually harassed. So I have to really set up a lot of checkpoints and structure in that intake to make sure I'm not just letting anybody walk in my door. If you've called me at Friday at 1am You're not my customer. I'm not consenting to work on you. That's not what I offer. And if you're calling me, if me at Friday at 1am you're looking for sex work, but you're really bad at looking for sex work, which means you're probably one of the dangerous ones that I don't want anywhere near me. So there's certainly, like, I have to find ways to practice when people who are like, Oh, can I just bring my ketamine and, like, it's, you know, I swear it's prescription grade. And I'm like, I'm in my above ground world. This is the place I live. I'm regulated as a law enforcement problem. Do not get cute. I'm not going to consent to that. And if that means that I'm not going to build a relationship with somebody as a potential refer or client, then I accept that, that that's the consequence. No,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  24:15  
and I think that's really important. So just to just to clarify, so dual consent models are based on the fact that both people or individuals, whoever's involved in the activity, have the capacity to say the yes and the no and to renegotiate consent. The yes can always turn to a no, the no can't turn to a yes and and also, you're bringing in elements of scope of practice, right? You know, where is your, your natural boundary, in terms of the practice, where who you, who do not see, and how that shows up, in terms of that consent model, right? But also this aspect of power dynamics that I really appreciate, that you're bringing up as well, right? Where? Who has the power like you know, in some ways, you know you have more power and authority as the professional, as the as the person who, who people are coming to, as the quote, unquote expert to receive support and healing from right. And in other ways, in terms of how you practice, you empower your clients a little bit more, and in part, that that balances things out more, or at least helps to support a more balanced dynamic and and I appreciate also what you said about Oakland earlier. I just want to give an extra nod. My mom was born in Oakland, and, but, um, but let, let me get to the touch piece. I know we wanted to spend time talking about the touch, and I know you work with touch with substance. So like a lot of people, and maybe I'm over generalizing, have a negative view on any touch in general, right? I think we have a touch averse culture in the West, at least in terms of how we talk about it, uh, but in terms of using a substance with touch, there have indeed been real harms that have happened with substance and touch. Could you speak a little bit in general about that concern and then help help bridge us to this conversation? Yeah, thank

Suz Vera Burroughs  26:19  
you. Yeah. Yeah, there are a lot of stories of harm out there. I feel like they're quite sensationalized, and often, you know, I've been doing legislative work in California around psychedelics, and finding that these stories come up when there's a power grab involved in ways that are not restorative to those who are harmed, and are often not with the full consent of those who were harmed. And so that, for me has been really interesting, especially since I'm like, I and I've been in communities where harm has happened and had front row seats for things, and yet, you know what we're not talking about is how to do it? Well, we're not talking about the discernment of this is, you know, an ethical, well held space, and this is not, and I know you have the psychedelic safety flags document that's really helpful with that. And, you know, I think when we came together with some of our other colleagues and friends to create a document. It was like, Well, if we were going to teach people how as a counterpoint to how not, and as building this skill set and tool within this very low touch culture, the second lowest touch culture in the world, and noting that psychotherapy, which has dominated, you know above ground psychedelic frameworks, as well as the capital U underground, the little U underground? Maybe not the stolen ground, but you know that psychotherapeutic framework is a distilled mirror of our low touch culture, so it's low touch within low touch, within low touch. And so somebody like me comes along and says, I'm gonna do regular massage with ketamine. And people are like, that's awesome. I want it. How do I get it? Can I just order it off your spa menu today? And it's like, no, that's not how I work. Thank you for your enthusiasm. And then, you know, I'll also get a lot of shadow flying at me. And one of my elders gave me a great piece of advice with that, because she had been through it with cannabis in California. And she said, You know, when somebody brings that shadow, just acknowledge it and say, but that's not what I do in my office. And I came back to her a month later, I said, Oh, this is really working. Thank you so much. She said, I'm going to give you another one. She said, say, that is what I do in my office. And so I really appreciate this one, as a neurodiverse person, having a script, but that also, you know that people are coming from, often a really good place of wanting to protect, yeah, and imagining the harms that could happen within this dual modality, multi modality kind of container, without considering the benefits. It's I saw one example recently on blue sky where somebody was talking about, like, you can talk about the harm of chemotherapy for children, but if you're not talking about the benefits, then you're not actually doing a risk analysis. You're not, you know, thinking about like on balance. You know, if we have an opportunity to work on some of this touch, wounding, unwinding, chronic pain within one holistic container that is, quite frankly, in our medical framework, completely siloed, even though chronic pain and PTSD and depression all have a very interwoven relationship. You know, when my clients say, like, this has been the missing piece of tying everything together, and it puts a capstone on their process that they've already been through, it's like, How can I not keep doing that? How could I not advocate. Hate for that

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  30:01  
well, and I love that you brought up, you know, risk benefit analysis, right? You know, risk assessment. I love a lot of what you brought up, but, but in terms of, you know, like it is true, right? Like a lot of things are risky, and you weigh them even, if it's even, if you're dealing with two harms, right? You're comparing harms, you know, like with chemotherapy and you know the cancer, right? You have a known harm, a known risk, and and chemotherapy as a potential treatment, depending on the type of cancer and the type of you know, the situation for the individual, right? There's no one size fits all for chemotherapy, either, right? Just like that psych psychedelics and plant medicines aren't for everyone and, and for some, it's too risky, and the benefits will never outweigh and. And similarly, for chemotherapy, it may be too risky for some, you know, it'll never outweigh and and you need to really look at it in terms of what, what the possibilities are. So I love that you brought that part up because there's this tendency, and maybe in part because, because, not just because of the the Tetro version in a cultural sense, but because of real harms that we want to acknowledge. And to be honest, at least from my perspective, that people still don't recognize the real risks involved and and don't do the proper assessment because we don't have the education right around it. But I love that you're, you're an advocate for that, that education. I know we also have met doing advocacy for SB, 509, and other bills. So maybe, maybe I'll give us a little bit of a lighter term before we go back into touch, to give us a little bit of a sensory break, a regulatory break. You know, do you remember how we met?

Suz Vera Burroughs  31:59  
I remember seeing you speak a couple times at conferences that I was also at. I definitely remember that,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  32:14  
you know, you went up on me. I was like, I was I was because, like, one of the things I like to do in this show is trying to, like, expose and make visible the relationships that a lot of people don't see, right? They'll see us as talking heads, or they'll see the work or whatever, but they won't see the relationships and how we source in community and and I'm like, well, we've, we've done work in advocacy together, which like that was actually very minor in comparison to a lot of the other things. And we did work on the on touch document, we can talk a little bit about that and and the neuro diversity. I want to say that I met you like. Like was from the autism psychedelic community, which I think is a beautiful thing, because I definitely would like to bring some attention to that community, and since we've been talking about that a lot, and sensory needs and the neuro diversity checklist, or the sensory checklist, as we like to call it, now, I just want to recognize and have gratitude for our evolving friendship, because I certainly wouldn't have thought We would have spent so much time talking about touch or sensory needs and and and have gratitude for helping you, helping me to kind of shift some of my my own hesitation around touch and substance. Because I think, I think there's good reason for people to have that hesitation. But the same time, you know, how many people are willing to go to the one massage therapist, and you are licensed and trained and with a very brief conversation, a very brief intake, have it, you know, disrobe and be touched, right? And there's a sort of hypocrisy in our relationship here touch, yeah,

Suz Vera Burroughs  33:58  
and it's weird because, like, touch is a luxury in our culture, and not just talking about, you know, violation, harm, which I work with a lot of survivors in my practice, but also touch omission harm, yes, I love leaving that. Why don't you explain what a touch omission harm? Yeah, I would. So one of the, one of the ways we've connected is you came and spoke at my conference, touch on touch with substance that I produced because beating my head against the psychotherapeutic framework was just giving me bruises on my third eye, and I needed to be in community with people who wanted to have this conversation. And yeah, yeah. So one of the the things that came up thematically in that conference was this idea that, you know, within a touch averse culture, we have real long term behavioral and health deficits that are related to. To structured touch. You know, particularly under five years old, that kind of safe, nurturing, sort of connection. Not only does that help through touch, we start to understand self. It's a very, very important developmental tool for having boundaries at all. But then we look at people who have had that kind of touch neglect, and then at 1819 the emotional dysregulation is there. There's some behaviors that are fairly innocuous, like taking extra hot or long showers that can happen. But then there are things like seeking sex that you don't really want because it's your only access to touch and all of the risks that come with that kind of that kind of neediness and sexual behavior. So there's a lot of this long term stuff, and I find within my container, I'm often working with people where I am stepping into some kind of matriarchal or parental archetype, which I have to have good energy hygiene around, but I am often providing nurturing, safe touch. People have said, you know, I I never realized how good it would be to just cry with somebody that has their hands on me, and that is supportive, but that I'm not having to engage with verbally. So doing that non verbal, relational work is incredibly powerful. And at the same time, I'm also trained to be like, okay, here are the yoga poses you can do at home, because this muscle is quite tight, whatever those things are. So I kind of like to hide, hide the the structural and postural and all that stuff within this very nurturing, ceremonial container. I think what also makes people feel good is that being the survivor myself, I kind of take a trauma informed approach that is quite mostly non verbal, but that is there and then continues to build. Like, I use hot towels a lot, like I use this hot towel stretch across the front of the chest, where a lot of people are rolling into armor right their heart space or hide their breast tissue, and then they have back and neck problems. And, you know, if somebody is a survivor, sometimes getting in there, you know, you want to think about how you're going, you're going to get into pecs. And

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  37:29  
maybe you want to say, like a lot of people, will drop trauma informed how would you briefly define

Suz Vera Burroughs  37:35  
that's funny, because I came by my trauma informed care the hard way, you know, and I do have all the coursework for being a certified trauma professional. It was deemed that massage therapist did not qualify for the full certificate after I passed my exam. And it was really interesting, because there's this big What does trauma informed mean in a in an academic continuing education structure, which is like, hey, recognize that epigenetics exists, recognize that nervous system responses to chronic trauma exist. And then there's having the lived experience of that, and then having gone through my healing, being able to, like you were talking about in the beginning, transform the poison, like I'm a Benny Jesuit over here, but like taking it in nerd bait, nerd bait,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  38:33  
like maybe, maybe we can help ground this by talking about, you Know, transitioning to the the untouched document and and that, you know, psychedelic safety flags is always what I point to, because Leah Friedman, you know, she, she started that collaborative process that's available, and that led epic to create and CO create other collaborative documents, one on, like psychedelic practitioners, code of conduct that that Liam worked on with mind, mind medicine, not my medicine with with the organization in Europe, not the one in Australia. And then, and then seeing in that document that it was missing touch, and a conversation around touch while the same time we want to as an ethics supporting organization, really wanting that conversation to happen and avoiding it is not being supportive. So started gathering collaborators like yourself to co create the on touch document, and and you could say what your thoughts and feelings are about that and, and you've already said a little bit about why you got involved. But one thing I think that's coming up, in terms of trauma informed, for me, in relation to that, and we've talked about it, you and I before, this idea that you know, maybe that level of trauma informed should also match whatever your your training is, and the level of touch you're engaging in, right? Even if you're in a non. Touch practice, you need to have education and be informed, trauma informed, and you need to have a way of talking about touch. And then, if you have a high touch practice with high touch training, you need a higher standard for that, that trauma informed approach because of the level of touch so, so maybe you could talk about, like, what, what did you gain out of the process of working on the on touch document, you know, what? What did you What did, what surprised you? And working on a collaboration like that to kind of unveil a little bit of the behind the scenes. Yeah,

Suz Vera Burroughs  40:43  
well, I feel like, you know, you were able to gather a group of high ethics, high touch, but, but slightly different, you know, kinds of practices. But there were some things that were thematic. And one of them was this, like, we can't keep talking about harm and not talking about how to do it well, and that these were people who were not having theoretical conversations. These were people had real clinical experience. And that is a voice that is not being amplified within the conversation of psychedelics and touch is the people who actually do that work, and so to create a document with people who were really doing it, I felt like offered a lot of really valuable perspective, but it also gave me a chance to distill some of the things that I've learned in practice and think through, how do I communicate these I can't do every massage. Massage is not a scalable business, and so I really have to do risk reduction and put out those kinds of materials if I want to have a broader impact. And some of that stuff, you know, can look like, yeah, okay, being trauma informed, we just talked about, like the chest might be a high need, high risk active area. One other thing that I do, and I would also say, if you're a psychotherapist, check out Sabrina Santa Clara on these topics, is to, you know, have somebody move their body toward my hands as an introduction. So that might look like taking a deep breath. I'm syncing up with their breath. I'm trying to see okay, can I learn from their breath what's going on with their nervous system? But then also taking a really deep breath and then saying okay, On your next inhale, your rib cage will rise and meet my hands, you know, or working with through the hot towel on the chest, like giving the sense of warmth and comfort, um, that's mediating the direct skin to skin contact. It could be things like non verbals, like, before I move drastically to a different part of the body, I'll often touch the table, or I might make a little sound if I'm near the head, and that is a subtle announcement of My presence at that location, so that it's not startling. And all of those little things are are interesting. But we started off with, like, the glossary, like, what are we even talking about? And that was, like, a fantastic exercise you suggested. And we even got into this conversation of like, wait a minute, we're talking about touch. Have we talked about energetic touch? Have we talked about entities? I've certainly been tickled by sound and had a synesthetic experience myself with with Changa. Some like, wait a minute, there's this whole other part of the touch conversation, and some of it is substance and context specific. We also recognize that within the broader psychedelic community dominated by psychotherapy, the people were not talking to people who were really good at negotiating and navigating consent, particularly the kink community. For me as a massage therapist, it is professionally dangerous for me to be involved in this conversation. And yet, as a parallel to indigenous reciprocity, if we're going to be talking about kink models, how dare we not mention the community that we're drawing from. And so that opened up a conversation about, well, what about non Therapeutic Touch, intimate touch, you know, between sex partners, like all of this stuff is happening, and having a document that has the the broadest container, the broadest sense of touch possible, it's like, oh, you know, then it is a public comment document. So hopefully people from all of these different spaces and ways of thinking can can find a trailhead where they are on their edge and they need to do some work. They they can find what is the broader context. If you're, you know, very risk averse, to somebody who is willing to take risks, you get to see the. Other side and maybe some of the thinking there, and find ways to say, like, Well, how do we, how do we just have a conversation about where we are before we start to engage? And there's also practical tools in there, like worksheets and things that, okay, well, maybe it's time for me to make my own touch contract, and that that has also led me to develop more coursework at unwed learning.com around ethical, safety and support. Touch. How do you create your own touch contract that's for your scope of practice? How do you find this alignment with your client? But then also, you need to have alignment with the substance, plant, fungi. Teacher. You need to have alignment with the container, the kind of furniture, there's so much,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  45:44  
there's so many things in it, and no wonder, no wonder, people find it challenging, not just as a even if, even if you're a practitioner who is skilled, right? It tends to be a particular scope of practice, a particular modality, a particular medicine or couple medicines you know, or particular lineage or you know or relationship, but maybe you can, you know, as we wrap up this conversation, and I know I could talk to you forever, especially with our spectrum meanness. But what would you recommend, what sort of sources or community relationships or advice? I mean, you've already given so many different possibilities. But what about the new person who's coming to this space who knows nothing about it or only what they find on a Google search? What would you advise them? What what would be? What do you find is really supportive for a healthy practice and relationship?

Suz Vera Burroughs  46:47  
Well, one, I think, taking, taking your time, you know, examining, do you have a sense of urgency, and where is that coming from? It could be just general, you know, hype train, choo choo excitement. It could be that you're just under a tremendous burden of suffering, but examining that urgency, because it can really lead down some difficult paths, and I've certainly been down a couple of them myself, I feel like being aware that I think everyone I know who has a lot of experience in the psychedelic space. If I say, Oh, we've all had that one best, worst person that ever sat for us, at some point, you're going to find somebody who you've chosen to exquisitely exacerbate all of your stuff. It's going to be hard and, you know, just to be like, it's okay to step away, it's okay to be an electron in a community and take your time and really get to know is this a community that I want to be involved in? Acacia Lu is here in Oakland, who's also neurodiverse in one of her talks at the autistic psychedelic conference. You know, she said, Don't sit with anybody whose traits you wouldn't take on as your own. And I was like, Oh, that was like a revelation, like the idea of the permeability of some of the neuro, neuro diverse, flavor,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  48:13  
energetic. I mean, there's, like, lots of ways you know, who are the mentors are? Who do we have around us? Who do we connect with? Who are we in relationship with? But I love that this advice of, you know, take your time, slow down. You don't have to rush. But also seeing attention to like the you know, who do you really want to connect with? You know, who are, who are those five closest friends? You know, type of thing, yeah. And

Suz Vera Burroughs  48:38  
I also want to say that, you know, if you're seeking touch with substance, I'm obviously very pro that, but know that, you know people are going to be out there abusing it, and so you know things like the psychedelic safety flags, document, the on touch document, all of those things are going To be really important. Give yourself some filters to look, look at things through, because the potential for abuse is it's high, and it's happening above ground in clinical studies, underground, stolen ground. So there's no place that you're going to go that you're not going to run into this. It's

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  49:18  
a risk. It's a risk once we were talking about risk and benefits. It's a, you know, it's a risk of the space, and we can't pretend that it's not a part of the risk that people are presented with. And maybe, and maybe, as we close out, you know, I've really enjoyed this conversation. We've hit a lot of different topics for people to hit, you know. And I obviously, you know, I care about accountability. Maybe, maybe you could say some closing thoughts about, like, what, what do you do for yourself for accountability and practice that that helps you be a safer person for others to come to.

Suz Vera Burroughs  49:53  
I think being in community with other practitioners is really, really important. Um. Getting those different perspectives and being collaborative. I have a weekly meeting with my primary prescriber. We talk about our cases, we talk about how things are going. Mentorship and supervision is not a part of the massage therapy professional structure, and I think in this space, it's very important. I think it's also like, if you're gonna do altered states massage therapy, you also need to be trained in how to hold space for altered states. And it's very hard to get into trainings that are above ground, but find, find some mentorship, and, you know, buy in like 80% to whatever these

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  50:42  
are all excellent places of advice. You know, be in community, have mentorship, have continual check ins, regular check ins, especially to Fauci on your practice. But most of all, thank you for being part of my community and my collaborative community, and for all the work and organizing work, believe me, people like if it wasn't for Susan, it would not have come together as beautifully as it has. It's not my Spectrum skill set. But thank you so much. Send you so much love and you and your clients, and look forward to when we can talk next.

Suz Vera Burroughs  51:15  
Thank you for you, Sandra, we'll see you later.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  51:20  
I really love the conversation that I had with Suze for many different reasons, because you can kind of see some of the intersectionality of identity in terms of being someone who's on the spectrum and and how having different needs can be supported through practice, but also how one's personal needs in that sort of focusing on consent for from both sides, not not just on who you're serving, but also making sure that your needs are being met. And you can see even how some of the work she she does Sue, does around touch in her practice comes from real personal experience, both in terms of experience of harm, but also in terms of her own needs and and how supporting her own needs in practice resulted In a different type of practice and working with legal, psychedelic and altered states practice, I know, as we mentioned at the beginning, there are some issues around touch, and I want to not be to belittle the fact that harm really does occur in this space around touch, and our bar should be really high. Our standards high because the risk is higher when touch is involved, just in general, let alone when touch is involved with a substance or any sort of altered, conscious, altered state. So I wanted to make sure I left you with that thought that while I want to make sure this different perspective was included, you know, I want us to be really educated and informed and have the resources you may need to have these conversations. Look to community in relationship, but also, you know, make sure you have support. Check in with yourself, go slow and and don't rush in. I mean, that's a good rule of thumb in general for pretty much anything. But when it comes to when you add an additional risk factors, whether it's from your own personal history, or whether it's the type of doing a substance or having any touch, right or no touch at all, all these pieces, you know, not just add complexity, but increase our risks. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be able to engage in certain practices. I'm sure many of you listening to this have had a massage, right? But we need to be diligent and conscientious and increase our standards of care and stay within our scope of practice. Most people who are practicing in this space, at least in my humble experience, don't have the training at the level that they would need to have in order to do any work at all, somatically, with with the body, so my error encouragement on the side would be to not do that practice. Doesn't mean that there aren't some people who are well trained, but you need to do serious vetting. And at least in this case with Sue's, we have a legal practitioner. Her, who has worked very diligently on increasing her standardial practice. I can't vouch for anyone on this podcast. I've never experienced Susan her work personally, so I can't vouch for that either, but I will say that there is that intention, and most of the people who I talk with in these conversations really do care about better practice, and I think it's going to be a process for us to figure out what, what kind of agreements we need to have, what kind of standards we need to have in place. And given that it is a sort of a wild west, people tend to say, but, but even with practices we're familiar with like massage, we need to have better information, better education and better support for people, whether they're coming from an experience of trauma or not. So just a End Note that please don't see this as permission or acknowledgement that all people who practice touch are safe. If anything, if someone says that that's what they're doing, you should look into it further. And if it's your first time, I would not personally recommend that's where you start. So once again, start low and slow and higher standards, knowing the risks and the potential benefits and weighing them out for yourself and what's an integrity for you, your family, your communities and in relationship. And let's all work together to reduce harm and abuse in this space and be a source for one another. Thank you for joining me on psychedelic source. If you found value in today's episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast 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.