TOGETHER WITH

Erica Rex grew up in a house where reality was always up for revision.

Her father was a psychiatrist. Her mother, a psychologist. There was always an explanation for what Erica felt, why she felt it, what it meant, and what it did not mean. Over time, that kind of environment taught her that her experience was not necessarily the final word, and that someone else’s version of events might, somehow, carry more weight.

It is a strange way to learn how to move through the world. You become observant. Quick at reading people. You also learn how to override your own instincts, sometimes without realizing you are doing it.

“I think what I came to understand is that the trauma never really goes away. It shapes everything,” said Rex. “The question becomes whether you are going to be aware of that, or whether it is just going to keep running in the background without you seeing it.”

Rex did not leave that behind. She built a career in journalism and moved between countries, but her body kept interrupting. In her 20s, she experienced a series of reproductive health crises that left her disoriented and mistrustful of medical systems. In her 30s, the symptoms did not resolve. They became ongoing and difficult to pin down, sending her back into medical offices again and again without clear answers. By her 40s, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. In “Seeing What Is There”, she writes about what it means to live in a body that keeps score, even when the mind keeps trying to move forward.

By the time she entered a psilocybin study at Johns Hopkins in 2012, she was trying to understand why, after everything, life still felt unstable. The session did not resolve that. If anything, it made it more complicated. What surfaced instead was the influence of the systems around her, medical, psychiatric, cultural, and a question that does not have an easy answer. What does healing actually look like inside structures built to manage symptoms rather than care for people?

“Women are expected to endure a lot,” said Rex. “And in medical settings, that endurance can get mistaken for resilience, when really it is just what we have learned to do to survive.”

In the years that followed, Rex navigated the layers of the psychedelic world. She participated in clinical trials, sat in underground therapy sessions, and watched an industry eager to make its pitch to the mainstream. The settings changed, but patterns repeated themselves: power went unchecked, boundaries blurred, and trust was expected instead of earned. Rex noticed how often the same charismatic figures reappeared, holding sway in rooms where people were at their most vulnerable.

“I began to realize,” she wrote, “that the promise of healing can become just another tool of control if you’re not careful.” In spaces where care was supposed to be the foundation, she found herself asking, again and again, “Who holds the holders?”

“Seeing What Is There” does not offer any easy answers. It weaves personal narrative and incisive reporting, shedding light on the tension between individual, lived experiences and the systems meant to make sense of it, including psychiatry, medicine, and the psychedelic therapy industry that now positions itself as a solution. 

“There is this assumption that psychedelics are going to heal people, but that is not actually how it works,” Rex said. “They open things up. And if the structure around that is not solid, if the people involved do not know what they are doing, then it can go very wrong.”

We spoke with Rex about the arc of her life, what drove her to write the book, and what anyone should understand before entering these spaces, especially those facing trauma, illness, and systems that often fail to fully see them.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

DoubleBlind: Your book traces the long aftershocks of trauma: childhood terror, medical abandonment, the disorientation of psychedelic states. Looking back at the full arc of your life, what do you understand now about the long half‑life of trauma that you couldn’t see while you were living inside it?

Erica Rex: I see now just how deeply trauma shaped my life. I tried every kind of therapy, and eventually psychedelics, and what they did was strip away the defenses that kept me from seeing the whole picture. They let me look at myself without being overwhelmed by the enormity of what had happened. There is acceptance now. Clarity. New revelations still come, even decades later, but they don’t destabilize me the way they once did. They belong to the same story. I cannot erase it, but I can relate to it differently.

DB: Throughout your book, your body often reveals truths your mind had been conditioned to ignore. How has your relationship with your body evolved?

ER: I listen to my body now in a way I never could before. I rarely get migraines anymore, which is a dramatic change. I’m also far more assertive in medical settings. I don’t hand over my authority. I know what is happening in my body, and I advocate for myself. What I still struggle with is how that translates into intimate relationships. I’m not sure I was ever fully authentic in relationships earlier in my life. That is something I am still trying to understand.

DB: One of the most haunting parts of your book is your MDMA session in Zurich. How do you distinguish between genuine vulnerability and the kind of permeability that leaves someone open to predatory dynamics?

ER: That is the central problem. Psychedelic states make people extremely permeable, and if the people around you are not grounded or ethical, that openness can be exploited, sometimes without anyone consciously intending harm. In Zurich, I sensed almost immediately that something was off. I had walked into a pre‑existing family system, and I was the outsider. That alone should have been a warning. The truth is that you often cannot know. That is why structure, trust, and community are essential. I would never again do MDMA in a setting where I did not know the people intimately.

DB: What do you see as the most dangerous myth circulating in the psychedelic world regarding women and trauma survivors?

ER: The idea that psychedelics are inherently healing. They are not. They are powerful and destabilizing, and they can cause real harm if the container is not safe. Women, especially trauma survivors, need to be extremely careful about who they work with and under what conditions. You need a structure around you, even if you do not yet fully understand your trauma. Safety is not optional. It is the foundation.

DB: You’ve been outspoken about the failures of psychedelic research to confront power, gender, and vulnerability. What would ethical psychedelic science actually require?

ER: It would require dismantling the patriarchal structures that have shaped psychiatry for more than a century. Psychedelics did not create these dynamics — they inherited them. The field still protects predators, still blames victims, and still refuses to examine its own power. Ethical psychedelic science would require a redistribution of authority. Therapists and researchers would need to be accountable to the people they serve, not the other way around. Psychiatry cannot be allowed to run the show.

DB: As legalization accelerates, what safeguards are non‑negotiable to prevent psychedelics from becoming tools of exploitation?

ER: We need guardrails that are at least as strict as those around alcohol, [like implementing] age limits. Screening for people with “dark‑factor traits” [such as narcissism or psychopathy]. Clear rules about who is allowed to administer these substances. But the deeper issue is cultural. We have selected for a kind of leadership, especially in tech and psychedelic business, that rewards narcissism and exploitation. Without addressing that cultural shift, no safeguard will be enough.

DB: Your description of 5‑MeO‑DMT is one of the most vivid in contemporary psychedelic literature. What did that experience reveal about consciousness that nothing else had?

ER: It revealed something essential about the nature of consciousness that I had refused to see before. It felt like being grabbed by the neck and told, “Here is the truth, and you do not get to look away.” It was complete ego dissolution, but also a profound sense of oneness. It felt like being tuned to a frequency that is always there but usually ignored. And yes, it is difficult to bring that back into an individuated life. Integration is its own challenge.

DB: You write movingly about loneliness: geographic, familial, cultural. What does belonging mean to you now?

ER: I am not sure I can define it anymore. My family of origin is gone to me. My siblings cannot tolerate the truth. So belonging has had to come from elsewhere: neighbors, old friends, small communities of people who show up when it matters. I do not know if I will ever have a cohesive sense of belonging. But I do know what it feels like when someone offers genuine care without sanctimony. For now, that is enough.

DB: Many readers will come to your book feeling broken, abandoned, or unmoored even before psychedelics enter the picture. What would you want them to understand before turning to psychedelics as a path to healing?

ER: Safety is everything. Psychedelics can be valuable, but they can also be catastrophic if you are not held by people you trust, taking substances you know are safe, in doses that are appropriate. It is brave, but also a little foolish to jump in without support. Not everyone is able to emerge with resilience. Psychedelics are not shortcuts. They amplify whatever is already present. And for women, especially trauma survivors, the need for safety is multiplied many times over.

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