Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality

by Dee Dee Goldpaugh

• Explains how psychedelic experiences offer a way to reconnect with the body, reclaim pleasure, rekindle joy, and reawaken to love

• Explores how psychedelics can support our sexual healing and offers a range of psychedelic integration techniques and somatic exercises to help release trauma and foster insight

• Shares recent research on trauma and case studies from more than a decade of professional clinical work as well as lessons from the author’s own healing journey from sexual trauma and PTSD

In this groundbreaking book, psychotherapist and psychedelic integration expert Dee Dee Goldpaugh shows how the profound healing and restorative effects of psychedelics can help us heal our sexuality, reconnect with pleasure, find wholeness, and feel good again.

Sharing recent research on trauma and case studies from more than a decade of professional clinical work, the author explains how the psychedelic experience can allow us to become more embodied, reclaim pleasure, embrace spirituality, and reawaken to love. Goldpaugh explores specific ways psychedelics can heal sexual trauma, enhance sexual pleasure, deepen our interpersonal connections, and increase relationship satisfaction. The author looks at MDMA, psilocybin, ayahuasca, mescaline, 5-MeO-DMT, and other psychedelics and offers a range of integration techniques as well as somatic exercises to help release trauma, foster insight, and apply the lessons learned during psychedelic experiences to everyday life. Goldpaugh also examines the clinical framework and methodology behind psychedelic-assisted therapy and how readers can safely navigate risks and explore their own healing at home.

Revealing the transformative power of pleasure for healing sexual trauma, this book provides a guide to psychedelic sexuality as a path to healing and love.

Genres: Psychology

352 pages, Paperback

Published June 24, 2025

Reviews

[Ana Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. While so many scientific takes on psychedelics feel cold and clinical, this one brings the heart back into the conversation. It humanizes Plant medicines in a way that feels long overdue. The author’s willingness to dive into love, pleasure, and sexuality—topics so often ignored in the research—was refreshing and necessary. This book left me hopeful about the potential that these medicines hold for individual and collective healing— both of which are mutually inclusive.

[Don Shewey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among the many volumes that have been published in this era some are calling the Psychedelic Renaissance, Dee Dee Goldpaugh’s is the first to foreground pleasure – including sexual pleasure – as a key element in psychedelic experience. Goldpaugh (who uses they/them pronouns) is a trauma-informed psychotherapist and rising star in the realm of psychedelic research. They have extensive training and experience in psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy with individuals and couples as well as personal history of treating their own sexual trauma with sacred medicines.

The first half of the book focuses on sexual wounds, carefully delineating the variety of abuse scenarios that cause lasting damage as well as acknowledging the unfortunate reality of unscrupulous practitioners who take advantage of people entrusted to them for psychedelic-assisted therapy. “Trauma” is a word that gets thrown around so much these days that it runs the risk of losing any meaning whatsoever, but Goldpaugh has a way of defining it succinctly: “Serious trauma occurs when the nervous system simply cannot metabolize the events of the past, so at times they are experienced as happening right now.”

Theory and research summaries tend to get pretty dry, so I appreciated it when Goldpaugh grounds their points in case studies and personal anecdotes. “One of the most difficult patterns I routinely see in couples therapy is some version of ‘I need to feel close to you to have sex’ versus ‘I need sex to feel close to you.’ This dynamic can destroy couples as one person feels the constant pressure to be more sexual while craving emotional connection and safety, and the other years for affirmation and closeness through sex,” Goldpaugh writes. And “For many of the female clients with whom I’ve worked, the ultimate expression of sexual freedom is not being more outwardly sexual or erotically game, it’s saying no to sex they don’t want.”

(Perhaps I should mention at this point that Goldpaugh is a friend and colleague of mine – I meant them in the course of my own investigations of psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy. And I’m named in the author’s Acknowledgements.)

Once Goldpaugh has thoroughly covered the many variations of sexual violence and dysfunction, they shift gears to spell out how each of the major psychedelic substances contributes to sexual pleasure: MDMA, ayahuasca, psilocybin, mescaline, 5-MeO-DMT, LSD, 2C-b, and ketamine.

Goldpaugh doesn’t pretend to be some kind of distant scholarly observer. They have strong opinions (“When queer people and psychedelics meet, magic is made”) and a vision of psychedelic sexuality as a pathway to the love – which, corny as it sounds, the world still needs, now as much as ever.

[Antonieta Contreras · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot. Dee Dee wrote it with genuine compassion and wisdom, sharing her personal healing journey and extensive clinical experience. She makes an important topic accessible, offering insights about psychedelics and sexual healing that don't get enough attention. I like her candor and her impressive care. The level of consideration she has for everyone is outstanding.
I find the book to be perfect for anyone curious about psychedelics, especially their potential for healing trauma and reconnecting with pleasure. Goldpaugh's spiritual approach and warm tone make complex ideas easy to understand. Her intention is clear: to share a transformative path toward leaving behind past pain and rediscovering joy in intimacy.
A thoughtful, well-written guide that speaks directly to those who care about mental health and deeper healing.