Love Letters to Our Bodies
Conversations on health, healing, and happiness by, for and about African American women. An exploration of the mind, body, spirit connection. and opportunities to hear from spiritual teachers, holistic health practitioners, and women helping to make life for others.
DISCLAIMER: THE LOVE LETTERS TO OUR BODIES podcast does not provide medical advice. The opinions, experiences, AND insights shared are for informational purposes only. Nothing shared on this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other health care provider, don’t disregard or delay seeking it because of what you have heard on this podcast.
Love Letters to Our Bodies
Understanding Therapeutic Psychedelics and Their Role in Healing
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The thought of pursuing alternative therapies can be intimidating, especially when they involve psychedelic medicines. Yet with the right support, they may help people work through trauma and emotional blocks that traditional talk therapy alone can’t always address. Today, Gwendolyn Mitchell is joined by Courtney Watson, LMFT, Founder and CEO of Doorway Therapeutics, to discuss the role therapeutic psychedelics can play in healing. Courtney shares how ancestral guidance led her to psychedelic-assisted therapy and why representation matters as these treatments enter mainstream mental health care. She demystifies ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, explaining the role of assessment, preparation, and integration while addressing safety, addiction concerns, stigma, and barriers to access. Courtney also explores culturally affirming care, the importance of ceremony, and how therapy can support people navigating trauma, cancer, body changes, sexuality, grief, and end-of-life anxiety. Listen in for a thoughtful conversation about creating healing spaces that make room for the whole person.
Key Points From This Episode:
• Introducing today’s guest, Courtney Watson, and her work with marginalized communities.
• Why Courtney expanded her solo practice into a community-focused group practice.
• How ancestral guidance led Courtney into psychedelic-assisted therapy.
• The need for Black and queer providers as psychedelics enter mainstream care.
• Doorway Therapeutics’ no-code-switching policy and the freedom to show up authentically.
• How a postcolonial feminist lens shapes Courtney’s approach to therapy.
• Why Courtney opened a legal ketamine clinic and how its therapeutic process works.
• What ketamine-assisted therapy offers when talk therapy is not enough.
• Ketamine safety, addiction concerns, and how it differs from ayahuasca.
• The important role of ceremony and ancestral traditions in psychedelic healing.
• Supporting people through cancer, body changes, sexuality, grief, and end of life.
• Access to Doorways 501(c)(3) and its mission to subsidize psychedelic-assisted therapy.
• How cost and stigma limit access to psychedelic therapy in Black communities.
• Courtney’s love letter to her body as a physical archive of her ancestors.
Quotes:
“There needs to be queer and Black providers that are at the forefront with [these therapies] coming online to make sure that our people and our communities are also going to be able to receive all of the benefits that psychedelics have to offer.” — Courtney Watson [0:09:10]
“No code-switching allows for us to be a real community. And when we are a real community, as providers, then we really deeply get to understand how to serve the community that is our clients.” — Courtney Watson [0:14:55]
“A lot of the conversations, particularly in these times, that we're having around mental health, is that: ‘You are not the problem’. We are living on colonized land. We are living within colonized bodies and operating within colonized systems and structures, and that is hard.” — Courtney Watson [0:16:14]
“When I get to the place that [talk] therapy can't reach anymore, a lot of times that's related to trauma. It could be intergenerational trauma. It could be sexual trauma. There's a deep, deep repression, a deep anxiety, some sort of block, a place where it's like ‘talking is not going to get you through this.’” — Courtney Watson [0:22:26]
“The way that we hold the anxiety and the grief: that is what the therapeutic process is for. That's why we don't just give the medicine and leave you to it. You're held in a full container to be able to explore all of that before and/or after you are engaging with psychedelics.” — Courtney Watson [0:35:24]
“I am so proud to be a physical manifestation of my ancestors.” — Courtney Watson [0:43:09]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Doorway Therapeutics on Instagram
Doorway Therapeutics: IG guided reflection on the Doorway to Visibility
Access to Doorways 501(c)(3) on Instagram
Words for the Dead: Part III — @rachel.grace.newman on Instagram
Love Letters 2 Our Bodies is sponsored by Moyo Institute, Inc and the Lloyd Symington Foundation
Gwendolyn Mitchell on LinkedIn
MOYO Institute, Inc
instagram.com/moyoinstitute
.png)