This dissertation explores the relationship between psychedelics and the body from a transdisciplinary perspective, integrating depth psychology, somatics, and phenomenological inquiry. Through embodied and relational research methods, it examines how altered states of consciousness, specifically those induced by psychedelics, reconfigure one’s relationship to the body, trauma, perception, and healing.

 

Rather than approaching psychedelic experiences as disembodied or purely cognitive phenomena, this work frames them as embodied events that unfold through sensation, movement, symbolic imagery, and somatic meaning-making. It critically examines the limitations of dominant biomedical and neuroreductive models, offering instead a lens grounded in symbolic seeing, liberatory practice, and transpersonal and Jungian theory.

 

The project draws from clinical experience, personal narrative, and participant accounts to ask: What happens when the body becomes the site, not just the vehicle, of psychedelic insight? And how can we reimagine integration practices that center bodily wisdom, rather than sideline it?