Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Morse, Nicole

Abstract

From a critical feminist perspective, this thesis analyzes the claims currently being made in mainstream Western research and media about the therapeutic potentials of psychedelics. By utilizing autoethnography, an autobiographical methodology that synthesizes personal experience with scholarship, I analyze my own experience with legal psychedelic therapy in the West to reveal the systemic sociocultural barriers that complicate the rhetoric touting psychedelic therapy’s potentials for healing. After introducing the “psychedelic renaissance” and the psychedelic feminist rationale behind this thesis, I share a narrative of my ketamine IV therapy experience as recalled from memory, detailing my need for the therapy and aspects of the therapy experience that are of interest in Western psychedelic research. I then move into an analysis of my experience, utilizing my narrative as a literary text that serves as my object of analysis. I address the social structures that contributed to my need for the therapy; compare my therapy experience to Western psychedelic therapy research and feminist therapy models; and make suggestions for the possible psychedelic futures in Western culture. I conclude by emphasizing the importance of tending to the sociocultural causes of poor mental health in tandem with psychedelic decriminalization and legalization efforts, reminding the reader that although psychedelics do have healing potential, psychedelic medicalization is not the only route to healing in the West.

Extent

90 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Thesis (MA)--Florida Atlantic University, 2023.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA00014285

Format

pdf

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