Another in our intimate webinar series, this conversation invites you to sit with a woman who has spent 30 years walking the Red Road.

Erika Gagnon is a Canadian ceremonial leader and healer who has dedicated her life to learning from Indigenous elders across North and South America. Carrying their blessings to continue traditions of healing, ceremony, medicinal plant knowledge, sacred tobacco and water blessing. Erika brings a rare depth and authenticity to her work — and a refreshing honesty about what healing truly means.

In this candid, wide-ranging conversation, Erika will share her wisdom on eldership, ceremony, and Indigenous honoring, and explore the difference between group ceremony and personal healing. She also challenges us to reconsider what we think we know about healers and healing — because in her experience, a true healer doesn't heal others, but helps others remember how to heal themselves.  

Come curious. Come open. This is the kind of conversation you don't often get to be part of.

What Is The Medicine?  

Through the lens of the Indigenous Medicine Wheel, Duncan and Jen will invite you to consider that medicine may not only be what's in the cup—but  also what already lives within you.  

As our teachings often remind us, “When we do ceremony with the sacred  plants, the plants point us in the direction to go in and down. The  “medicine” is there, waiting for you. Follow it. Go down and in to your lodge,  and see for yourself what you find.”

Sadly, in our belief and practice of  “separation”, we “think” that what we seek is “out and up”, meaning “out  there and/or up there.”

Through cultural teachings, followed by a brief  practice, we will ask you to consider an alternative possibility

Sexual boundary violations by psychedelic practitioners are a recurring and serious problem. The aim of this psychodynamic study is to identify how erotic transference and countertransference (ETCT) can emerge in psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) and how to reduce risk of harms. To this end guest speaker, Pat Song, has interviewed, thus far, 17 PAT practitioners and participants about their experiences of ETCT.

The case studies richly demonstrate how psychedelics can evoke erotic feelings, material, relational experiences, therapeutic challenges, and transference and countertransference. Several examples will be presented. For the participant, these medicines can evoke powerful experiences of erotic energy while also decreasing inhibition. If there are unaddressed problems in their intimate primary relationship, the participant can be vulnerable to developing an erotic transference to another in the psychedelic space.

For the practitioner, therapeutic challenges can arise in the form of ETCT driven by developmental or intrapsychic material, powerful relational experiences, and boundary challenges and confusion. In addition the practitioner’s life stressors can lead to increased risk of boundary violations. Psychedelics can create difficulties for the practitioner providing therapeutic touch, especially if they received inadequate training on how to set boundaries and offer alternatives to touch. Almost all interviewed practitioners felt their training on touch had been insufficient.

The case studies point to urgently needed evolution in practice and training. For example, preparation should include an assessment of the participant’s primary relationship and discussion of possibilities with erotic energy, material, and transference. Training should provide thorough grounding in transference and countertransference, relevant psychodynamic therapy concepts, and management of boundaries and therapeutic touch. A psychodynamic framework for working with ETCT will be reviewed.