PT 623 - Dee Dee Goldpaugh - Embracing Pleasure

Joe Moore interviews Dee Dee Goldpaugh, LCSW about their new book Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality. The discussion covers the book's reception, critiques of over-medicalization, personal healing experiences, definitions of erotic energy and pleasure, historical repression of substances, and contemporary ethical concerns. Key topics Conversion therapy: historical use of psychedelics in conversion practices, risks today, and need for professional consensus to ban psychedelic-assisted conversion therapy. Motivation: reaction to dominance of the clinical/medical model in psychedelics. Author background: clinical social worker, ketamine-assisted therapy provider, sexual abuse survivor, early psychedelic integration work. Personal healing: ayahuasca and San Pedro (Wachuma) experiences leading to embodied healing and pleasure. Concepts defined: erotic energy as life force; distinction between healing pleasure and leisure. Political framing: pleasure as anti-capitalist resistance; sustaining community and activism. Links https://www.deedeegoldpaugh.com Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality