Therapy

PT402 – Magic, Virtual Reality, and Ketamine & Internal Family Systems

March 30, 2023
Featuring: Sunny Strasburg, LMFT

In this episode, David interviews Sunny Strasburg, LMFT: Clinical Director at TRIPP PsyAssist; psychedelic trainer, consultant, therapist, and writer, specializing in EMDR and Internal Family Systems, and offering ketamine-assisted therapy as well as ketamine therapy retreats (often co-led by Dr. Richard Schwartz). 

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In this episode, David interviews Sunny Strasburg, LMFT: Clinical Director at TRIPP PsyAssist; psychedelic trainer, consultant, therapist, and writer, specializing in EMDR and Internal Family Systems, and offering ketamine-assisted therapy as well as ketamine therapy retreats (often co-led by Dr. Richard Schwartz). 

She talks about her family history with magic, and how the act of calling energy in and out pairs with psychedelic work; how the human experience is made up of contrasts; why we need to embrace the recreational part of psychedelics; how art can be used more in therapy; and how post-experience group integration is the act of creating mythology, recreating the small-community-sitting-by-the-fire archetype – that community we so desperately need. And she discusses ketamine: different ways she uses it; how it pairs perfectly with Internal Family Systems; and how it’s autobiographical medicine, making us an observer and allowing us to separate ourselves from our story.

While passionate about the mystical, magic, and reconnecting to nature, she is also very involved with virtual reality, and she discusses how VR and meditation apps are easing people into non-ordinary states and familiarizing people with breathwork. With the help of pioneering psychedelic DJ, David Starfire, she created PsyAssist, an app with music playlists and voice integration for people to enhance ketamine experiences that don’t otherwise include therapy or integration work. PsyAssist was acquired by VR company, TRIPP, and they’re running a study on people using VR before a psychedelic experience to see if data proves that VR really does reduce the anxiety so many of us feel before taking that big journey. But she reminds us: as we become more connected to technology, VR, and AI, being connected to other human beings will become more and more important.

Notable Quotes

“I call ketamine the open source code of psychedelics because it doesn’t have a very strong signature or agenda in and of itself. Psychedelics like ayahuasca and psilocybin definitely have a presence. DMT has a presence of beings that live in that space, and it seems like you go to this place that’s informed by the beings that run that space. Ketamine is more open-ended. It feels like it takes autobiographical content and feeds it back to you in interesting ways. …It has this interesting signature of pulling us out of the experience and into ‘observer mind,’ and it also has a signature of traveling. That combination is super interesting for therapy.”

“I do not see VR as a replacement for therapists at all. In fact, I think the more we get into technology and AI, the more in-person experiences with another human being are going to become increasingly valuable to us. We have evolved for hundreds of thousands of years to be prosocial animals that connect with other beings like us, and that’s not going away anytime soon. …I actually think that as AI and technology takes a lot of jobs, I think there are certain sectors of human connection that are going to become more important than ever.” 

“I love [how] in holotropic breathwork, they have the mandalas with art materials and they encourage you to create a drawing or painting of what you experienced before you speak to anyone as part of that experience. And I really like that, because as soon as you start giving words to ineffable experience, it collapses it down to something that’s simplified beyond what it was. But you can keep it in that open-ended space when you make art …or you make music or dance around what you experienced. It holds that openness and that sublime energy of the ineffable.”

Links

Sunnystrasburgtherapy.com

Sunnystrasburgretreats.com

The Theradelic Approach: Psychedelic Therapy, Perspective, Preparation, and Practice, by Sunny Strasburg, LMFT, with foreword by Dr, Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.

PsyAssist.com

Wikipedia.org: Stregheria

LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven, by Christopher M. Bache, Ph.D.

Psychedelics Today: Chris Bache – LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven

Psychedelics Today: PT300 – Dr. Richard C. Schwartz – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Psychedelics Today: PT288 – Annie & Michael Mithoefer – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, by Douglas Rushkoff

Davidstarfire.com

Imdb.com: Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within

Melissawhippo.com

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Sunny Strasburg

In this Episode

Sunny Strasburg, LMFT

Sunny Strasburg, LMFT is a psychedelic trainer, consultant, therapist, writer, and presenter. Mrs. Strasburg is an EMDR-certified trauma specialist, experienced and certified in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and trained in Internal Family Systems. She is a graduate of the Certification for Psychedelic Assisted Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies, trained in ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin-assisted psychotherapies. Sunny is the Clinical Director at TRIPP PsyAssist, developing virtual reality and mobile app psychedelic support for therapists. Sunny offers Ketamine therapy retreats, which she co-leads with Dr. Richard Schwartz, the originator of Internal Family Systems. She was a Senior Trainer at the Ketamine Training Center, co-facilitating KAP training with Bessel van der Kolk, Phil Wolfson, and other psychedelic and trauma psychology leaders. Mrs. Strasburg also leads psychedelic therapy workshops and trainings around the world.
Sunny also specializes in attachment trauma, using an eclectic approach with EMDR, IFS, and archetypal psychology. She offers ketamine-assisted therapy with individual sessions and group therapy retreats. Mrs. Strasburg has developed original protocols using ketamine-assisted therapy and other trauma treatment methods, which she presents at conferences such as the 2021 EMDRIA Worldwide Virtual Conference, EMDRIA UK, and the Boston Trauma Conference. She is trained by MAPS, Compass Pathways, and the Ketamine Research Foundation.

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