A compelling, radical exploration of psychedelics’ healing potential.
Goldpaugh offers a personal account, anchored in history and science, of the benefits of psychedelic use.
The author, a psychotherapist with 17 years of experience treating patients and a special expertise in somatically oriented trauma therapies, here delves into the ways in which psychedelic drugs can heal a stilted sexuality and enhance pleasure. The book represents a culmination of Goldpaugh’s own 20-year healing journey (“nothing has ever been capable of helping me feel, express, move through, and ultimately reconnect to pleasure in the way psychedelic medicines have”), combining the raw vulnerability of a memoir with well-researched historical and scientific information while demonstrating a strong understanding of how the author’s experience with psychedelics fits into a broader narrative of Indigenous and Western uses. Goldpaugh skillfully locates personal histories—their own, and that of their patients—within a sacred ancient tradition, combining cutting-edge trauma research with individual case studies. The book offers novel and easy-to-understand insights into how substances like psilocybin, MDMA, and LSD can aid in sexual healing and relationship satisfaction. Goldpaugh illustrates the potential of these substances—which were long stigmatized and criminalized by the American government—to foster deeper connections, mend strained relationships, and promote a more pleasurable outlook on life. (“They all start as tools in the hands of therapists and psychiatrists with tremendous promise…But when people started using these very same substances as vehicles for personal spiritual growth, sexual enhancement, pleasure, and even political revolution…they were recast by the authorities as threats to the public good.”) The author recommends working with a professional therapist to ensure a safe and thoughtfully paced exploration of psychedelics. They also address systemic barriers to pleasure under capitalism, adding empathy and insight. Finally, Goldpaugh addresses the pleasurable aspect of using these substances, bravely rejecting Western scientists’ prioritization of measurable, productivity-maximizing results. The result is a book that feels personal and scientifically sound.
A compelling, radical exploration of psychedelics’ healing potential.Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9798888500583
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Park Street Press
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
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