Academic engagement with psychedelic studies has been limited and fragmented along traditional disciplinary lines. An interdisciplinary approach is essential for understanding the potential of psychedelics for human healing and flourishing, and for ensuring an inclusive, holistic, and sustainable evolution of the field. This paper explores the intersection of psychedelic studies and interdisciplinarity, calling for more interdisciplinary institutional and cultural approaches in academia.
Psychedelic medicine's potential to transform healthcare depends not only on novel treatments but also on new explanations of illness. Non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by psychedelics challenge the notion of an ontologically distinct self, revealing it as an anthropocentric fiction at the root of individual, social, and ecological malaise. Based on the testimonies of three African American women therapists who served as clients, psychedelic healing is an embodied process shaped by historical, social, and cultural factors, tied to community. Healing occurs through reconnecting personal narrative with collective narrative, including embodied collective trauma. The self is not unchanging but constituted by history, culture, and racialized oppression. Psychedelics strip away protective shields, creating radical vulnerability that grounds healing.