Embrace Pleasure

by Dee Dee Goldpaugh

• ISBN13: 9798888500583
• ISBN10: 8888500588
• eBook ISBN(s): 9798888500590
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2025-06-24
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

A guide to psychedelics as a path to love and healing

“A compelling, radical exploration of psychedelics’ healing potential.”—Kirkus Reviews

• Explains how psychedelic experiences offer a way to reconnect with the body, reclaim pleasure, rekindle joy, and reawaken to love

• Explores how psychedelics can support our sexual healing and offers a range of psychedelic integration techniques and somatic exercises to help release trauma and foster insight

• Shares recent research on trauma and case studies from more than a decade of professional clinical work as well as lessons from the author’s own healing journey from sexual trauma and PTSD

In this groundbreaking book, psychotherapist and psychedelic integration expert Dee Dee Goldpaugh shows how the profound healing and restorative effects of psychedelics can help us heal our sexuality, reconnect with pleasure, find wholeness, and feel good again.

Sharing recent research on trauma and case studies from more than a decade of professional clinical work, Goldpaugh explores specific ways psychedelics can heal sexual trauma, enhance sexual pleasure, and deepen our interpersonal connections. Goldpaugh looks at MDMA, psilocybin, ayahuasca, mescaline, 5-MeO-DMT, and other psychedelics and offers a range of integration techniques as well as somatic exercises to help foster insight and apply the lessons learned during psychedelic experiences to everyday life. Goldpaugh also examines the methodology behind psychedelic-assisted therapy and how readers can safely navigate risks and explore their own healing at home.

Revealing the transformative power of embracing pleasure for healing sexual trauma, this book provides an essential guide to psychedelic sexuality as a path to healing and love.

Author Biography

Dee Dee Goldpaugh is a psychotherapist, educator, clinical supervisor, consultant, and leading voice in the development of psychedelic integration psychotherapy, specifically with survivors of sexual trauma. A facilitator of ketamine-assisted retreats for both couples and individuals, Goldpaugh has taught and published widely on psychedelics and sexuality, trauma, gender, and spirituality. A member of the Women, Gender-Diversity, and Sexual Minorities working group at the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, the author lives in Woodstock, New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Alex Belser, PhD

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION
Things to Know Before You Begin Reading

1 Healing in Bliss
Psychedelics, Sexuality, and the War on Pleasure

2 Psychedelic Sexuality
Turn On, Tune In, and Connect

3 Sexual Healing
A Psychedelic Approach to Understanding
Sexual Violence and Sexual Dysfunction

4 Psychedelic Preparation and Integration for
Sexual Healing and Expanded Pleasure
Living Ritual

5 High Impact
Recovered Memories, Sexual Abuse, andPower Dynamics in Psychedelic Healing

6 In the Garden of Earthly Delights
Psychedelic Medicines for Sexual Healing

7 Stories of Transformation
Personal Narratives of Psychedelic Sexual Flourishing

8 Big Love
A Psychedelic Philosophy of the Heart

Glossary of Psychedelic Terms

Notes

Bibliography

Index