PSYCHEDELICS, ART, CREATIVITY AND ART THERAPY RESOURCES

Our mission is to make the benefits of art, creativity, and the Art Therapy process safely and easily accessible to psychonauts, facilitators, researchers, academic institutions, organizations, and anyone exploring the world of psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC).

We are passionate about providing resources and supporting research, community-based collaboration, career development, and personal inquiry around the growing understanding of this unique intersection.

Welcome to an evolving portal of resources designed for you and anyone that might be interested in the crossover of Psychedelics, Art, Art Therapy, Creativity, and Non-Ordinary States Consciousness. After briefly describing the way Psychedelics, Art, Creativity, and Art Therapy relate to each other, we provide you with resources that might help you explore this area further.  This includes:

  • A list of Art Therapists/Expressive Therapists doing this work

  • Video and audio recordings of people speaking to this topic

  • Facebook groups

  • Psychedelic training programs

  • Psychedelic organizations and psychedelic news sources

  • Museums and venues that feature psychedelic/visionary art

  • Art Therapy organizations

  • List of Visionary Artists

  • Reference List

If there is anything you think we should add, please reach out to Rebecca Wilkinson at Raw1717@gmail.com.

Why Art and Psychedelics?

If you are arriving at this page, you probably have some interest in the way that psychedelics, art, creativity, and/or art therapy have been or can be related.  There is a rich history to explore, many avenues down which you can venture, and lots of possibilities to manifest.  Art and Psychedelics have been interwoven throughout the ages.  In fact, it is through art that wee know about our history with these magical substances.  This is likely because of the powerful visual nature of the psychedelic experience and the spectacular imagery that Visionary Artists have brought to the world.  The arc of art’s relationship is rich and worthy of a deep dive (Grey, 2017; Grof, 2019; Masters & Houston, 1978).  We just touch on that here and refer you to sources that can give you more on the topic.

Psychedelics Redux

As you may know, psychedelics are experiencing a resurgence of clinical research and a gradual softening of stigma after 50 years of prohibition.  That stranglehold, imposed by the politically and socially corrupt War on Drugs, has finally begun to loosen.  Now many of these medicines are thankfully being decriminalized and some even legalized.  What appears to be emerging through the growing body of research is their ability to improve wellbeing and treat challenging problems like PTSD, anxiety, addictions, trauma, treatment resistant depression and end-of-life distress.  You can imagine the profound impact this could have for people who are struggling with conditions that have left them feeling helpless, hopeless, and trapped in their despair.

The benefits of psychedelics seem to reside in their capacity to promote neuroplasticity, dampen fear responses, loosen preconceived beliefs, alter sense of self and dissolve the ego, increase feelings of unity, and access mystical, transpersonal states (Carhart-Harris & Friston, 2019).  Perhaps most importantly, they take us out of our ordinary existence and into something bigger.

Art therapy is really well matched for this work because, like psychedelics, artmaking taps into parts of the mind and consciousness not easily accessible during ordinary waking states and circumvents our verbal and cognitive defenses..  Externalizing the experience into a concrete form also helps to ground it and gives us ways to engage more meaningfully with extraordinary experiences that can be so difficult to verbally articulate.  Psychedelics take us to the deepest reaches of consciousness and art brings that back for us to see.  It makes effable the ineffable!