Women & Therapy

Psychedelics, Gender, and Psychotherapy: Intersectionality, Equity, and Emerging Feminist Practices

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies have moved rapidly from the margins of research to the center of clinical, policy, and cultural debates. Evidence suggests promise in treating depression, PTSD, substance use, and other conditions that disproportionately affect women and minorities. Yet this promise is accompanied by persistent gaps and inequities. Clinical trials remain marked by underrepresentation limiting generalizability of the outcomes, and new evidence suggests that women, LGBTQ+ individuals, people of color, and other marginalized groups often experience diminished therapeutic returns. These disparities reflect structural determinants of health, gendered power relations, and the broader system of medicalization and inequality that manifest internationally and within the U.S. context of hypercapitalism. As policies and practices accelerate based on incomplete or biased findings, feminist and other equity-oriented researchers and therapists face pressing questions about ethics, efficacy, and justice.

This special issue of Women & Therapy seeks to explore the intersection of psychedelics, gender, and psychotherapy through the frameworks of intersectionality, critical theory, feminist therapy, and epistemic justice. Drawing on the traditions of feminist psychology, intersectional approaches, and feminist critiques of science and medicine, this issue will center lived experiences of women and gender-diverse clients while interrogating the power structures shaping psychedelic research, policy, and practice.

We invite contributions that examine both the challenges and possibilities of feminist-informed psychedelic therapies. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• Why do women and gender minorities experience less benefit from psychedelic therapies — and how do intersecting biological, psychosocial, and structural factors produce disparities?

• How can gendered dynamics within the therapeutic relationship (e.g., boundary crossing, power, consent) be reconfigured — in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways — through the use of psychedelics?

• How do structural inequities (sexism, racism, classism, ableism, heteronormativity, medicalization, capitalism in mental health) shape the researched and practiced psychedelic-assisted interventions along with access, outcomes, and policy frameworks?

• What can feminist therapy, intersectionality, queer theory, and critical race theory contribute to reimagining psychedelic psychotherapies?

• How might feminist-informed models of training, supervision, and education prepare therapists to work effectively with women and gender-diverse clients using psychedelics?

• What roles do embodied experiences — sexuality, reproduction, menopause, chronic illness, disability, aging — play in shaping psychedelic experiences, including immediate responses and long-term therapeutic outcomes?

• What alternative models of healing, including Indigenous practices, feminist collectives, or other community-based or/and non-clinical approaches, offer promising pathways beyond traditional diagnostic and treatment frameworks and their limitations?

• How can therapists and clients navigate and resist policy and institutional paradigms that reinforce biases and contribute to adversity, while advancing practices that foster equity?

We welcome theoretical, conceptual, clinical, qualitative, and quantitative research, as well as case studies, first-person narratives, practice-based reflections, and policy analyses^*. In keeping with the mission of Women & Therapy, submissions should be grounded in feminist, intersectional, and socially engaged perspectives, and we especially encourage work that highlights the voices of marginalized communities, along with the work from emerging/early-career scholars.