Healing through the Body: The Potential Role of Daoist Meditation in Psychedelic Therapy

Psychedelics show potential for treating depression and PTSD. Current psychedelic-assisted therapy typically uses a non-directive approach with minimal therapist guidance. Clinical outcomes could improve by explicitly guiding participants to address specific symptoms. This paper proposes a variant of Daoist meditation—the outer dissolving technique in the water method—as a framework for guiding participants. The technique helps notice and release bodily tensions or blockages linked to repressed emotions. Practicing it during preparatory, integration, and acute phases of therapy may foster deeper insights into somatic manifestations of psychiatric conditions and empower emotional release. Daoist meditation is a promising adjunct to psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Psychedelics are hallucinogenic drugs that have the potential to treat depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other psychiatric conditions. The dominant paradigm in contemporary psychedelic-assisted therapy is non-directive; that is, participants undergo the psychedelic treatment with minimal external guidance from therapists. However, the clinical outcomes of psychedelic therapy could be improved by explicitly guiding participants to attend to and resolve specific symptoms of their condition. Here, we propose a variant of Daoist meditation – the outer dissolving technique in the water method – as one such framework for guiding participants in psychedelic therapy. This technique can aid participants in noticing and letting go of bodily tensions or “blockages” that are associated with repressed emotions. Practicing this technique during the preparatory and integration phases of psychedelic therapy, as well as during the acute effects of the drug, could foster deeper insights into the somatic manifestations of psychiatric conditions, while also empowering participants to release the emotions that underlie those conditions. Overall, Daoist meditation is a promising technique to facilitate psychological healing, and we encourage future researchers to consider implementing it as an adjunct to psychedelic-assisted therapy.