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Set and Setting
In psychedelic psychotherapy, special importance is placed on the set, or the patient’s state of mind at the time of a psychedelic experience, and the setting, which is the environment in which the psychedelic experience will take place. These distinctions come from Western, Enlightenment-era philosophies that dichotomized the mind and body. This mind-body split has been culturally transmitted over hundreds of years – as a result a hierarchy is embedded in our minds that elevates what we can intellectually grasp through the five senses (empirical data) over our emotional and non-verbal bodily responses to the world.
Other philosophical systems do not give primary importance to empirical reality, and rather view it as only part of a larger system of being. Specifically, the Indian traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism stipulate that material reality is a form of maya, or illusion, that obscures a person’s path to enlightenment. The ancient Greeks and ancient Indian Jain philosophers believed that reality is multitudinous and simultaneously possible all at once. The Sukuma tribe in Tanzania views psychological suffering as the result of spirit possession due to social conflict, and uses sensory code switching in community ritual to treat the suffering person . Shamanistic practice, common to every ancient culture in the world, still exists in the curandeiro “folk” remedies of indigenous South American cultures that utilize altered states of consciousness and ceremony to treat pain and anxiety .
In Western psychedelic practice, these worldviews are combined with the psychoanalytic concepts of the “holding environment” and “containment”, pioneered respectively by British psychoanalysts DW Winnicott and Wilfred Bion during World War II. The therapist's ability to provide a safe and nurturing environment (holding) allows the patient to explore and process their inner experiences (containing). In our practice, we provide these functions not only emotionally, but also physically. The light, materials, music and scents that you will encounter during your session are thoughtfully curated from an aesthetic perspective to enhance the experience. Your ego-dissolving and mystical psychedelic experience will be given meaning through beauty, expansive non-Western conceptions of reality, and the Western bio-psychosocial model.
Thus, psychedelic psychotherapy brings the set and setting together to heighten the therapeutic experience. Psychedelic substances expand consciousness by allowing all forms of sensation, and thus reality, to co-exist at once. Boundaries between what is internal and external, self and other, spiritual and material existence are blurred: psychoanalytically speaking, our ego lets go of these social and cultural separations. Entering the psychedelic experience with ritual and preparation for what to expect within an environment that is safe, neutral and physically comfortable optimizes the mind’s capacity to experience and integrate the altered state into everyday life.