Self-Care Practices with Psychedelics – A Qualitative Study of Users’ Perspectives

ABSTRACT

This article explores the psychedelic experience from the users’ point of view and through the lens of self-care, a concept within the domain of health and well-being. In a time of renewed interest in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, we aim to contribute to a better understanding of these substances by exploring their role in different settings. A phenomenological approach was used in this study. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 psychedelic users and inquired about the relationship between their experiences and self-care. Analysis of the interview data was based on inductive content analysis. Most participants reported using psychedelics with self-care intentions in ceremonial, recreational, or private settings. Self-perception and existential meaningfulness were identified as the main mechanisms of self-care. Participants also mentioned difficult experiences and adversities that impair self-care. The results suggest that for some people, the use of psychedelics may be experienced as part of a self-care process and may improve self-care abilities in naturalistic settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychedelics
• hallucinogens
• self-care
• Qualitative Research

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge all study participants for sharing their personal stories. We would also like to thank Professor Maria Carmo Carvalho from the Catholic University of Portugal for the valuable comments on this master’s thesis. We are also grateful to José Namora, Hannah Taylor, and Michael Albert for proofreading the article and providing helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For this study, we adopted the classification of psychedelics according to their effects, which includes not only the so-called “classical” psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, DMT, mescaline) but also entactogens (like MDMA), and dissociatives (like ketamine and salvia divinorum) (Sessa 2012), since they were all mentioned by the participants of the study.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.