TrueLife - Dr. Lucía Levenberg - Psychedelics, Psychotherapy, & Argentina

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Lucía LevenbergWelcome, fellow travelers of the psyche and the soul.Today, we are graced by the presence of a healer, a warrior of awareness, a sentinel of the sacred self. She is not only a psychiatrist — she is an integrative alchemist of mind, body, and spirit. A public speaker. A teacher. A researcher. And above all, a deeply sensible human—guided by kindness, lit by love, and moved by compassion as a way of living.From the frontline of transformation, she serves with fierce gentleness as Head of Psychiatry at Equipo Libertador, an Argentinean clinic reshaping how we understand and care for eating disorders. She co-founded the Psychedelic Task Force within the Argentine Psychiatrists Association and stands tall as a member of Educannar, leading the charge in cannabis and psychedelic education and research.Trained across modalities — systemic, cognitive, contextual, and psychedelic-assisted therapy… fluent in endocannabinology, phytotherapy, mycotherapy, and functional medicine — she is a living bridge between ancient plant wisdom and future neurofrontiers.She is a teacher of postgraduate minds, a trainer of resident physicians, and an unshakable advocate for human rights, anti-ableism, and neuroaffirmative practices.She doesn’t just work in mental health — she reimagines it, embodying a contextual, compassionate approach to consciousness and connection.Prepare yourself, dear listener. Because today we welcome a voice who reminds us that healing isn’t sterile — it’s sacred. That psychiatry isn’t just clinical — it’s cosmic. And that love, above all, is still the most radical medicine of them all.http://linkedin.com/in/lucia-levenberg https://www.instagram.com/dra.luciaele/ One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Yes. Cimon, Cimon, see on. Ladies and gentlemen, we're back again. We have another incredible person here to talk to us, and I was hopeful that you would be so kind as to introduce yourself to the audience.

Yeah, of course. My name is Lucia Leavenberg. I'm a medical doctor from Argentina. I work as a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist in the intersection of psychedelics and neurodiversity. Woo! Psychedelics, neurodiversity, neuroplasticity. There's all these things going on in our world today. Yeah. So you just gave a talk as well. Maybe you could give some key points about the talk that you kind of gave before we started going a little bit deeper. Well, the first thing was talking about legality in Argentina. that it's a really hard topic because psychedelics are absolutely illegal in our country. You cannot possess them. It's not up for commerce, for educational purposes either. So everything we are doing is kind of risky, you know.

Right. But we really believe in harm reduction and safe access. So we need to accompany people because people are doing psychedelics anyway, because we have a huge worldwide mental health. crisis and people need answers so they're looking for different technologies to support themselves during this crisis of values so I think us mental health practitioners need to be up for it. Yeah, I agree 100%. I wasn't aware of the laws where you're from. Would you say that the is it illegal because it's like a morality argument?

Like it's an argument like this is wrong or is it a control thing? What do you think is the main reason Yeah, I think it's both. I think it's a control and a morality stuff. Mainly the war on rocks is an excuse for them to control us. Also, I think it's pretty like colonial purposes, you know, on our bodies and our territories. They want to tell us what we can do. It's really silly when you think about it that they're telling us that it's illegal to use something that. that grows in our land. Yeah. In Argentina, you have silo-siving mushrooms growing out of shit everywhere. So somewhere you're going to tell people, oh, okay, you cannot use that that grows on your cows. Yeah, right?

It's pretty silly if you think about it. It's ridiculous. Yeah. It's ridiculous. As someone who uses therapy as like a psychiatrist and I'm sure you've used talk therapy in the past, it seems to me that these plant medicines open up a whole new, incredible way to do therapy. Talk therapy is awesome and it helps people move through issues. But sometimes with the help of plant medicine, you can really move through those issues faster. Can you tell me a little

bit about using the techniques and tools that you have, Jace, and and stacking it with like the different plant medicine? Yeah, of course. Well, I actually do talk therapy. I work based on acceptance and community therapy and mindfulness-based processes. But the thing is that information it's also all in our bodies. So we need interception work as well. It's not all on the words. Sometimes you work on the words, but it's not enough.

You feel like it's not enough. It's like I've talked about it once, another, three times, four times, and I feel exactly in the same spots. And sometimes we need to remember that our mind is a manifestation of a body and that we are a whole body that feels things that has sensory perceptions, that has spiritual crises as well.

So I really need to work integrating different technologies, tools and stuff in order for us to access different information that we have on a cellular level. And that's when I think mushrooms are really nice companion. Yeah, agree. you know because even though if you have a hard experience using them and bonding with them yeah um you will find different truths that if later you are willing to integrate because i really believe in integration you know i feel like uh when you go through uh revolutionary experience like that uh all the information that is left for you Maybe it takes you ears or your whole life to integrate, you know?

Like when you have one of those experiences, then you go through time and you keep working and working on what you observe there and you grow on it. And also not only silozybin mushrooms, but we have lots of mushrooms and plants. They're really good companionship for us to work and integrate. our experiences. Maybe we are chronically fatigued because, I don't know, capitalist tax, so you need to work. 80 hours a week. I love working, but I really, I would love to work less, you know, in order to have a nice life. So we're all like trying to do the best with what we got. And sometimes what we want is really hard. It's extremely hard. Yeah. Sometimes I think so much of the mental illness

that we see is a product of the system that we live in. Of course. People trying to find a way to fit in. Of course you're depressed. Of course you have anxiety. Like you're kind of getting shit on by the system your whole life. Why wouldn't you feel these things? Well, of course.

How are, I think if you aren't anxious in this system, you're not connected. Because actually, this system is so rough. It is. Adulhood is such a risky sport. sport to do, you know, like maybe you need to work, maintain your kids, deal with lots of stuff, the internet flowing with flooding you with multiple messages that are completely once against each other, the different wars and everything that's going on. It's really heavy information. Our land and our earth is really hurting. And if you're a sensitive person and you observe that,

you are going to feel stuff that are not pleasant because that situation isn't pleasant. So I think we shouldn't order mental health for people to function in this world. Right. That is what actually psychiatry does once they want a day. I think we need to move forward to letting people order themselves by their values on what really matters to them. And when people are like dying, for example, they mostly regret stuff that are not about things. They're about bones.

Yeah. I wish I would have talked to my daughter more. Yep. I wish I would love more. I wish I would be nicer to my family. Yep. And those stuff are material stuff. So we need to know that what really matters is not what you own.

You need to own stuff, of course, because in this system, if you don't own stuff, you just like you're a wreck but that's not the main thing it's really not it's really not i heard a great quote one time that said the people that are most well adjusted in a sick society are the sickest people yeah it's crazy right that's why i'm a proud autistic woman you know nice um i'm really proud of my sensitivity you know like dsm will tell you that I'm a shitty person. You were crazy pills. Yeah.

But I actually, I feel that I feel a lot. Like my skin is really thin. Right. And I think that's what makes me a therapist that can hold space for people with a lot of different challenges in life. Yeah. And I'm all about loving the craziness. Yeah. That brings up another word, like uncertain.

is something that people have a lot of difficult time around. You know, we're always, and maybe it's the system we live in or how we were brought up, but a lot of people are really uncomfortable with uncertainty. And times probably couldn't be any more uncertain. How do you help people or what are your thoughts on the word uncertainty and trying to find a way to navigate it? Well, I think, well, we're actually wired neurobiologically to reject uncertainty. Okay.

So as mammals that we are our species, we need like routine or to predict some stuff. And we are able to accept some uncertainty in some moments and we can cope with the stress. But when every day is an absolute surprise in your life and you never know what you're going to get, it's really hard for us as humans to engage. engage with the world in this way. So maybe what we need to do is to look for an anchor that we can have. And that mostly is within ourselves and our community. I really believe in community, you know, like when you have a group that can hold you and

it's a brave space, I don't like to say safe because I think it's pretty big the word safe in this world. I don't even believe in safe. Right. but courageous. I love that. That you feel that you're community-based and courageous and you can show up and people are going to love you anyways. And I think that it's a pretty big antidote to uncertainty. I love that. Courage.

And I think that's, for me, that's something that helps me go through my life is the idea of courage. And psychedelics have been a huge part of that, like confronting your own self or confronting your shadow or just confronting why you're not standing up for yourself and how you can. Another point that comes to mind is, is there a dichotomy between, like, is there a difference between harm reduction and safety? Like, sometimes I think there is no safety. Like, how are you going to be safe? You just have to go. You have to take it. Buy the ticket, take the ride, and you got to deal with it.

But there's a lot of talk about harm reduction. Is sometimes harm reduction getting in the way of really working through problems? Or what are your thoughts? But I think harm reduction is the best thing that we could do so far in our country. in our countries without legislations. Agreed. But I think it's not enough. Okay.

And I also think if we were able to explore really our consciousness, we would not need harm reduction programs because our whole community would not be prohibiting us to express ourselves and we wouldn't feel alone in the experience. I think mainly we get into risks. Yeah. Because we don't know what's going on because we don't feel appreciated or we don't feel accompanied in those experiences. And that's a bit of big part of it, you know, like stigma and shame.

Of course. And those stuff makes us feel really at risk or really unsafe. And mostly because we have like transgenerational trauma that we need to heal because as we we were talking before this world is pretty fucked up. Yeah. So I think we need like to take a part in collective healing. It's not only an individual right, you know. It is, but it isn't.

Yeah. You go to the community afterwards and you need to be yourself there and you need to take your own shit and you're like, okay, this trait of mine, it's kind of dark and I need to work on it, honestly. And we need to embrace that darkness as well, you know, because we are not all right. I hear a lot of people talking about us if we were all like this enlightened persons. And I'm like, oh, I'm just a stupid person doing whatever she can, you know. I don't feel that invited, but okay. Yeah, it brings up a good partner. often I think that the things we don't like about other people are the things we don't like about ourselves.

They seem to be a mirror. So when you start seeing these things in people, you're like, that person's an asshole. I don't like that. Like you should flip that camera around and be like, maybe I'm that asshole. What's going on? It's interesting to think about all the different frameworks through which we see the world. Can you tell myself in our audience here a story about how psychedelics has changed the way you see the world? Oh, well, like psychedelics saved my life.

So I always say I'm so not objective about this topic because growing as a person with this really thin skin and this sensibility, I started suffering a lot since I was a kid. Yeah. So I always really troubled inside and I my thoughts were rushing, my emotions were all over the place. my sensory system was always overwhelmed. Right. I was always over adapting to places that didn't want me to be the way I was, actually. So that gave me like complex trauma and also different like violent stuff. I lived as a kid and then growing up, I met psychedelics. I went for a four-month trip to Peru.

And I sat with Wetuma and with ayahuasca. And it was awful. And it was so defiant. And afterwards, I felt such a relief. And it was like, okay, there's something here. There's something huge here. Right. It felt like an exorcism, kind of.

Not for everyone is like that. Yeah. Each one has its own experience. I had a lot of dark content inside that got out there. Right. I was really angry. So I could start working on myself compassion and on my self-esteem. And that was like the best thing I did for myself.

So then when I became a medical doctor, I wanted to dedicate myself to mental health. health because of my own mental health challenges. I wanted to help others. And I haven't had the therapist or the psychiatrist I would actually need. So I wanted to become that person. I wanted to work to become that person and to hold space for others. So I started like educating myself and researching and having experiences with different mushrooms and and and and they, and, and they, When I felt ready to accompany others, I started doing it, but it took me like 10 years to be ready. I still sometimes feel I will never be completely ready because the more I experience it and the more I accompany people and the more study, the more I realize that there's so many that we really don't know. Yeah.

And that handling with defiant mental health situations, it's really draining also. So you need to being able to regulate yourself a lot to give space to others. So, yeah, basically, psychedelics changed my life. And I think the most important thing for me was self-compassion, learning that whoever I am, it's okay. Yeah, that's a beautiful answer. It sounds like you not only changed your life, but like your community,

all your relationships, everybody around you. I'm grateful for your time today. Let's say someone's watching right now, and they're like, I would love to talk to this brilliant young woman. Do you have like a contact or what people can find you?

Well, yeah, you actually can find me on LinkedIn with my name. My name is Lucia Levenberg. And you can also find me on Instagram and in TikTok. I made educational videos So you can find me there There I am

D-R-A-A-R-A Point Lucia L-U-C-Y-A-E-L-C-Y-A-E-L-E Dra-L-L-E-L-I-L-E on Instagram and TikTok you can find me And we can talk some more You can write me a GM and I will answer it

So you're welcome. Yeah, well thank you so much for your time today I look forward to going and checking out more. And everybody should go down to the show notes and check out those links down there and reach out. I hope everybody has a beautiful day. Thank you. Aloha. Thank you.