SXSW 2025 (Part 2): Unexpected Support from Heroic Hearts

In March 2025, I returned to the conference that sparked my plans for last summer. In Part 2, I describe the panel and its unexpectedly positive reception.

This is Part 2 of my series about the 2025 SXSW Psychedelics Track. Catch up with Part 1. (Content warning: discussions of abuse during MAPS’s Phase 2 clinical trial in Vancouver.)

Our SXSW 2025 panel, “Co-Altered States: Being Ethical in Psychedelic Care”

During a prep call for our SXSW panel, I learned that both of my co-panelists had been urged by many others to disinvite me from the conference. (Our panel was even listed as one of the three highlighted panels in SXSW’s announcement of the Psychedelics Track.)

SXSW’s announcement of the 2025 Psychedelics Track spotlighted our panel.

Suffice to say, neither acted on those recommendations. We shared an interest in demonstrating that a respectful conversation can address important but contentious topics in the interest of public safety, despite the hostile media atmosphere that had been inflamed by the NY Times hit piece.

Reading Psymposia's response to the NYTimes hit piece

Barine described the panel’s focus, under the title “Co-Altered States: Being Ethical in Psychedelic Care”:

“Psychedelic therapy has gained traction as a promising approach to mental health treatment, but with this rise comes a myriad of ethical challenges stemming from the complexities of power dynamics and unclearly defined roles between ‘therapists’ and ‘patients’ in dual altered-state experiences. From ethical gray areas to severe violations such as sexual and financial abuse of patients, this panel aims to delve into these ethical dilemmas. Panelists will explore questions such as: What is ethical? Why does unethical behavior occur? How should the psychedelics community respond to bad actors?”

I was extraordinarily surprised by the positive reception I received, which included support from a researcher who had been working in the field for decades. Throughout the weekend, they said that if the field wants to be a force for healing, it needs to listen to what I’m saying and take it seriously.

One of the most poignant and impactful moments occurred during the Q&A, when someone stepped up to the mic and introduced themselves as affiliated with Heroic Hearts. My immediate reaction was to freeze. As I mentioned in my last post, I had been trying to advance this conversation despite a harassment campaign that was initiated by incendiary rhetoric from Heroic Hearts’ leadership, and that resulted in death threats. I didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this:

“So I work for Heroic Hearts Project. I've been working for them for about five years now…. And just want to say, everything you guys have said today has been very affirming of a lot of my observations of the psychedelic industry—community—whatever you want to call it. So, I just want to say thanks.... I've been around it—I've been doing, you know, ayahuasca retreats for veterans for five years, and— Yeah, so, you get what I'm saying. But, definitely just wanted to come up here and say that.”

That was a really huge moment for me. An individual associated with the group that accused me of sabotaging the industry for political motivations had personally seen that these issues were really happening. Going further, he realized that this also matters for veterans who are seeking care.

This fact completely undermines the narrative in Heroic Hearts’ June 2024 open letter, which triggered a wave of harassment against me and my colleagues:

“Ms. Devenot has made it her stated mission to prevent MDMA-AT’s FDA approval due to her personal antipathy towards the therapy’s sponsor, Lykos…. Ms. Devenot and her Psymposia colleagues’ motivation for opposing MDMA-AT lies in their belief that treating veterans suffering from PTSD ‘perpetuates the logic of white supremacism, capitalism, and imperialism.’ They openly refer to veterans as imperialists, white supremacists, and murderers on their website, in public speeches, and on their social media feeds. This hateful, anti-veteran rhetoric infiltrated the media and the Advisory Committee’s psyches through ICER’s draft report….

“As veterans, PTSD advocates, and Americans, it is our responsibility to expose the underlying motives for the carefully coordinated, unscientific, anti-MDMA smear campaign. Ms. Devenot and her colleagues at ICER and Psymposia have successfully manipulated the media and infiltrated the FDA’s regulatory process to the detriment of millions. Psymposia’s involvement in ICER’s report should have rendered its ‘findings’ null and void. Instead, it may single-handedly dash the hopes of thousands of veterans who continue to take their own lives due to their suffering from PTSD.”

This narrative — which was amplified by Elon Musk, RFK Jr., and Dan Crenshaw — even found its way into a letter signed by 61 members of the U.S. House of Representatives:

“[W]e are aware that as this application has made its way through the regulatory review process, certain groups and individuals have voiced criticism of the application. It is our understanding that while these critics may be well-intentioned, their criticism is not necessarily reflective of the science, but rather their personal ideological beliefs and biases related to the medicalization of substances like MDMA.

“While all Americans are free to voice their views on this and other topics of public interest, scientific evidence should not be ignored in favor of those who have been on a mission to discredit this promising treatment at all costs – especially when that would come at the cost of our servicemembers and Veterans.”

While this narrative succeeded in directing hate and threats my way, it was never true.

I presented the truth at the June 4 advisory committee meeting — almost exactly one year ago — and my motivation was always to protect public health. Pseudoscientific therapies put veterans at risk too.

Below the YouTube link to the panel audio, you can read my notes that I wrote in response to a set of questions that Barine circulated before the panel. I wrote most of the responses during my flight to Austin.

Panel audio from SXSW 2025: “Co-Altered States: Being Ethical in Psychedelic Care”

My presentation notes for SXSW:

1. How would you very briefly summarize the controversy? In a couple of sentences, in good faith, what are folks disagreeing about? Or, what are the "sides"?

To “steelman” the other side: People say we're in desperate need of new mental health treatments, and that there's solid data (both clinical and naturalistic) that MDMA is relatively safe and highly effective. From this perspective, any slowdown in access is a clear net harm. Anyone who contributes to a slowdown must therefore have nefarious motives.

On my side: Psychedelics are so powerful and important that we need to get this right. If psychedelic access is scaled in a way that leads to predictable patterns of harm, that will create intense blowback to the entire field. Identifying these problems is in the interest of the field’s longevity.

2. The initial controversy in psychedelics was whether they were too dangerous to be legal at all - that's not the type of controversy we are talking about here. So let me ask each of you outright - are you pro-psychedelics? Do you think they have a place in healing in our society?

I believe that psychedelics — like all drugs — should be decriminalized, and that they have tremendous potential for healing and other purposes. I am opposed to combining psychedelics with pseudoscientific therapies that put vulnerable groups at disproportionate risk of harm.

3. Sub-Q for Neşe: The NYT quote regarding David and Goliath - what did you mean? Are you against FDA approval of MDMA?

For years, we had been working incredibly hard to warn the field and regulators that the abuse that occurred during Phase 2 was a consequence of dangerous features of the MAPS therapy model. I was grateful that we were finally heard and taken seriously.

The therapy was so euphemistic that the highest-risk applications of touch had never even been discussed in the academic literature on the ethics of touch in psychedelic therapy.

Consider the implications of what the NYT article left out, as emphasized in a new article by Katie MacBride in Slate:

“The story neglects to mention that Buisson, who was there [in the MAPS clinical trial] in part to address sexual trauma she’d previously experienced, immediately started crying and curled into a ball when the male facilitator, Richard Yensen, asked her if she wanted to ‘lie down and spread her arms and legs.’ When Yensen tries to put a hand on her shoulder, she shakes it off. Later in the video, she’s sobbing and saying ‘Stop’ as Yensen lays on top of her, restraining her movement.”

The trial therapists were employing Grofian focused bodywork, which was explicitly promoted by MAPS’s therapy manual.

The NYT overlooked this, and grossly claimed that “After the trial concluded, the male therapist, Richard Yensen, began a sexual relationship with Ms. Buisson.” Far from a consensual relationship, this incident — which arguably meets the legal definition of human trafficking — was enabled by MAPS’s MDMA-assisted therapy model.

4. Sub-Q for Neşe: Some of these titles are quite striking, eg "MAPS is an MDMA Cult". Do you think the way that you talk about these issues is inflammatory? If so, are they unnecessarily inflammatory or intentionally inflammatory?

As I told a journalist who was concerned that the word “cult” stigmatizes New Religious Movements, I was writing for a specific audience.

“I’m not writing this for people in religious studies [who want] to protect religious movements.... I’m writing this for people who have been harmed, who are trying to understand why it was so difficult to get people to hear them.”

In therapy cult environments, gaslighting and victim-blaming are routine. People who have been impacted by these dynamics often go through a phase of confusion, shame, self-doubt, and fear of ostracization, which means the patterns are harder to bring into the open. This terminology helps victims to better understand their experiences and to connect with one another.

I was thinking about this while reading Amanda Montell’s excellent book, Cultish:

“You can't engage in a dialogue with someone who says, ‘That person is brainwashed’ or ‘You’re in a cult.’ It’s just not effective. I know this because every time I witness it happen on social media, the argument comes to a standstill. Once these phrases are invoked, they choke the conversation, leaving no hope of figuring out what’s behind the drastic rift in belief.” (p.84)

I’d argue that this perspective only applies when you’re trying to reach the people who are inside the cult. When I’m trying to communicate with a group’s actual and potential victims, I can’t sacrifice clarity to protect the feelings of cultists.

5. What are the ethical risks unique to psychedelic care, and how are they different than the risks of other similar contexts, eg therapy? We called this panel "Co-altered states" for a reason - are there any particular risks for the facilitator in becoming altered or not knowing he or she is altered?

Psychedelics have been described as “cultogenic,” because they have historically given rise to cultic groups. Many practitioners have strong beliefs about their practices, even when those beliefs are pseudoscientific. Psychedelics are rhetorical agents (as Amanda Rose Pratt’s excellent work explores). Like generative AI, they’re persuasive. As “non-specific amplifiers,” they often show you echoes of your assumptions that can feel like proof. When “true believing” therapists organize into communities of practice, these false beliefs can become entrenched by groupthink and confirmation bias, to the detriment of patients.

7. In some sense, there seems to be a tension between scientific/materialist understandings of psychedelics and mystical/transpersonal understandings.  does this tension contribute to ethical issues?

Theological beliefs that psychedelics “give you what you need” frame harms as the patient’s fault and responsibility. This is often combined with “ends-justify-the-means” reasoning: if psychedelics can save the world, casualties are acceptable.

8. To make the prior question more concrete, for instance how do you think a facilitator should account for his or her intuition during a session?

Facilitators should learn about the fact that intuition can be a vector for bias and projection.

MDMA-AT as facilitated communication for the "inner healing intelligence"

9. Some of the allegations of abuse are around certain "radical treatments" used by some facilitators, for example re-enacting a traumatic memory to allow the client to face or process it. Do you think clients should be able to consent to things like this? Or to put it another way, are there things that shouldn't be allowed to be consented to (even before a session)?

First, to back up: part of the issue here is that most people are not given the opportunity to consent to this. The details about — and risks of — Grofian focused bodywork are not disclosed during the clinical trial consent process.

This modality is currently moving out of spiritual groups into mainstream medicine, which would be pitched across the general population. This is not safe to scale, and it is unethical to impose metaphysical beliefs on patients who are just looking for evidence-based treatment options. The average PTSD patient seeking care is not trying to be recruited into a spiritual community.

10. Are some of the ethical issues the result of trying to fit psychedelic care into a scientific model? Does psychedelic treatment fit into a double blind placebo scientific model? Is it possible to make them fit or is there a deep incompatibility? Does insisting that they fit disregard or do violence to their traditional, indigenous or religious uses? Or is that kind of separation necessary?

Science is a particular kind of game, which requires that we try to prove our assumptions wrong. Some psychedelic practices don’t jive with it, because they’re unfalsifiable. Those practices should be kept in separate domains, like religion.

That said, psychedelics can certainly be studied scientifically to high levels of rigor, but most research to date has not been rigorous. As some researchers emphasized around the FDA decision, in cases where blinding / masking is difficult to achieve, you want everything else to be impeccable. You want to be attentive to reducing undue influence. You don't want to have clinicians describing the trial’s significance for evolving consciousness, or recruiting from psychedelic conferences by asking the crowd to enroll in trials to be part of the movement.

11. Do you think it is possible that your criticisms of psychedelic therapy be addressed? Is anyone doing the work that meets your standards of care right now? What do we need to change as a community to become more ethical and have fewer violations/abuse?

In a healthy field, critics would be seen as allies in a shared effort to improve safety. The fact that many portray us as enemies is a clear sign that something is off here, and that there are other motivations at play in this field than the promotion of healing.