Psychedelics and the Traumatic Imagination: Three sociological hypothesis Dr. Baptiste Brossard, Department of Sociology
Event details
York Drug Science Society event
In recent years, numerous research projects and therapeutic initiatives have explored the potential of psychedelic substances—particularly MDMA, psilocybin, and ayahuasca—as powerful tools for trauma healing. While much of the discourse surrounding such therapeutic potential falls within a medical framework that emphasises neurochemical mechanisms, social processes are equally essential to understand their effects. This presentation proposes three sociological hypotheses. First, psychedelics facilitate the generation of meanings in a social world that imposes narrow self-concepts, especially in relation to work and family roles. Second, psychedelics have the potential to orient socialisation patterns, enabling individuals to question embodied perceptions. Third, psychedelics offer unique rituals and interaction forms largely unavailable in other contexts. Together, these hypotheses suggest that psychedelics should not merely be seen as innovative therapeutic tools to alleviate individual symptoms of trauma; rather, they represent a means of addressing broader sociohistorical features in which power dynamics, meaning-making constraints, and social interaction frame the processing of painful past experiences.
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About the speaker
Baptiste Brossard is a sociologist working in the areas of critical mental health and historical sociology. After completing his studies in sociology, anthropology and history at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris and School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, he served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Montreal, and obtained his first position at the Australian National University in 2016. He then joined the Department of Sociology of the University of York in 2022. At the crossroad of micro-sociology, critical sociology and historical sociology, Baptiste’s previous studies dealt with self-harm, Alzheimer's disease, behavioural addictions, and the legacy of Charles H. Cooley, of whom he is the first translator into French. His last book, Explaining Mental Illness (co-written with Amy Chandler, Bristol University Press, 2022), proposes a critical review of the sociology of mental health. His current project includes developing a sociology of trauma, through a book to be published with Polity Press in 2026.
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