On Learning From The Client: The Ecstasy and Agony of Parental Guilt and How Neuroscience Can Help

Making sense of our experience using some basic neuroscience knowledge sprinkled with a little MDMA

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When it comes to my work, I have had many teachers. There are my literal teachers, those from whom I feel I learned the most during my psychotherapy training. Science is another great teacher of mine. Of course, life itself is a teacher. But, above all, my clients are my greatest teachers.

In fact, every time I encourage a client to be brave and bold, I find myself becoming a little braver and bolder too. When I encourage them to practice self-compassion, I feel that I am also being kinder to myself. And every time I support them in embracing who they are and what they feel, to speak their minds and their truth and be their true self, I receive a dose of that good medicine too.

In this blogpost, I want to honour the experience of one of my clients. But I also want to shine the light on neurotransmitters. And today's stars will be serotonin and oxytocin (technically oxytocin is a neuropeptide).

Also there will be talk about MDMA (ecstasy) and I will showcase how  we can tap into the lived experiences of our clients and extrapolate those experiences into deeper understanding of ourselves. I would never actively encourage any of my clients to use recreational drugs (cross my heart!), but if they already have, I see it as a valuable experiences to explore in therapy.

Professor David Nutt, in his book "Psychedelics", says that psychedelics to consciousness are what the Large Hadron Collider is to particle physics. Pretty awesome, right?

But what does it all have to do with parental guilt?

To answer that question, let me introduce my client, whom I will call G. One of the reasons why G sought therapy is because he had a persistent undertone of guilt embedded in his experience of parenthood. Yet, from our conversations and the prominence of his children and parenting concerns in our therapy sessions, it became clear to me that G was a caring dad, prioritising his family above all else and generally a beautiful person.

This parental guilt, we discovered, stemmed from his belief that the experience of being a father did not rank as the absolute number one in terms of pleasure among all his life experiences. In his younger years, G had an incredible period where he regularly took MDMA with his friends while attending music events that perfectly complemented the substance they were using. These were peak, intense experiences that became ingrained in his emotional and sensory memory. G. felt that these intense experiences somehow compromised the love he had for his children. He believed that by having experienced intense happiness elsewhere, he was "cheating" on his children's love, as every parent knows that nothing should compare to parental love. Right?

Parents can surely relate to this type of self-loathing. Those who are not parents will likely find an equivalent in their own experiences. Regardless of parental status, we are often so good at being hard on ourselves, aren't we?

Yet, this may be how morality works, but it's not how the brain works. By looking at the brain, we've been able understand and resolve this moral and parental dilemma. Instead of resorting to judgment (which is easy), we strive for understanding (which is harder sometimes).

Now, let's have a closer look at these two experiences from the perspective of neurochemistry. The brain and its functioning are complex, and whatever I say here will inevitably oversimplify matters, but I believe it can shed some light on the distinct nature of these two experiences and why they, while both representing ultimate peaks in their own right, cannot and should not be compared.

MDMA is an amphetamine, albeit not a typical one. Its main effect differs from typical amphetamines, as it primarily impacts serotonin circuits rather than dopamine circuits. In fact, MDMA stimulates the release of large amounts of serotonin in one intense rush. Those of you who have experienced MDMA will know the feeling.

The serotonin pathway is mainly affected by MDMA. Going from the Raphe Nucleus in the brain stem and sending projections into the cortex (yellow) and the limbic system (blue and red). For the image credit see the link below.

Understanding the neurobiology of MDMA's action is complicated (as expected, given the brain's inherent annoying complexity). However, it's likely that due to the cortex being flooded with serotonin, the perception of stimuli is greatly heightened, resulting in a peak and unforgettable experience by design.

Now, let's examine the experience of being a parent, particularly the bonding with children. The first chemical that comes to mind is oxytocin. No real surprise, the neurochemistry here is intricate, multifaceted, and frankly unfathomable to me. But let's set that aside and focus on the fact that oxytocin's role, structure and neurochemistry is very different from that of serotonin. Therefore they will yield very different experiences.

Because Oxytocin and Serotonin are like apples and pears the two experiences are incommensurable. Both apples and pears are yummy but we don't have to choose which one we like more.

However, psychonauts are never short of ideas and intrepidness and some people have trialed the combo (do not try this at home!).

Bringing this discussion of neurochemistry back to the therapy room, let's see how it aided both G. and me in our effort to absolve him of his parental guilt. As we explored the ideas around the two experiences being fundamentally incommensurable, I noticed a shift in G.'s expression. He glanced away from me, indicating that his mind was processing the information in intriguing ways. He shared with me the following insight:

"One experience is the peak of external input and the other one is the peak of internal love. It's the difference between being in love with the world and loving and holding someone so close to you."

Both G. and I became emotional as his words were flowing from some inner source. It was evident that he had reached the deepest place within himself, speaking his truth about his experiences and emotions. Through this, he found a sense of peace, and incidentally, a profound sense of love as well.

I was humbled. Once more I learned from the client. Thank you ❤️ 🙏🏻.

In this blogpost, I am not advocating for the use of recreational drugs. Instead, I am suggesting that for individuals who have had such experiences in their adventurous past, they can serve as a valuable source of insight and a tool for reflection and self-understanding, whether in therapy or beyond.

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