Good Chemistry: The Science of Connection, from Soul to Psychedelics

by Julie Holland

Overview

A psychiatrist and psychedelic researcher explores the science of connection—why we need it, how we’ve lost it, and how we might find it again.

We are suffering from an epidemic of disconnection that antidepressants and social media can’t fix. This state of isolation puts us in “fight or flight mode,” deranging sleep, metabolism and libido. What’s worse, we’re paranoid of others. This kill-or-be-killed framework is not a way to live. But, when we feel safe and loved, we can rest, digest, and repair. We can heal. And it is only in this state of belonging that we can open up to connection with others.

In this powerful book, Holland helps us to understand the science of connection as revealed in human experiences from the spiritual to the psychedelic. The key is oxytocin—a neurotransmitter and hormone produced in our bodies that allows us to trust and bond. It fosters attachment between mothers and infants, romantic partners, friends, and even with our pets. There are many ways to reach this state of mental and physical wellbeing that modern medicine has overlooked. The implications for our happiness and health are profound. 

We can find oneness in meditation, in community, or in awe at the beauty around us. Another option: psychedelic medicines that can catalyze a connection with the self, with nature, or the cosmos. Good Chemistry points us on the right path to forging true and deeper attachments with our own souls, to one another, and even to our planet, helping us heal ourselves and our world. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062862884
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	129,689
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Julie Holland, MD, is a psychiatrist specializing in psychopharmacology, with a private practice in New York City. Her book Weekends at Bellevue chronicled her nine years running the psychiatric emergency room as an attending physician on the faculty of the New York University School of Medicine. Frequently featured on Today and in CNN's documentary series Weed, Holland is the editor of The Pot Book: A Complete Guide to Cannabis and Ecstasy: The Complete Guide. She is the medical monitor for several clinical research studies on treating post-traumatic stress disorder, one using MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and another examining the effects of various strains of cannabis. Her New York Times bestselling book Moody Bitches has been translated into eleven languages.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Unified Theory of Connection xi

Chapter 1 The First Connection Is with the Self 1

Chapter 2 Connection with a Partner 53

Chapter 3 Connection with the Family 99

Chapter 4 Connection with the Community 140

Chapter 5 Connection with the Earth 189

Chapter 6 Connection with the Cosmos 228

Epilogue 253

Acknowledgments 259

Glossary 263

Selected Bibliography 267

Index 275

Editorial Reviews

Dr. Julie Holland’s medical research and therapeutic practice have helped so many people heal from trauma, deepen relationships, and find meaning in life. Now she turns her attention to psychedelics and plant medicines, and their potential as growth promoters, life shifters, and meaning makers. She combines science with soul and cutting-edge research with compelling stories of lives changed and psyches mended, in a book that is helpful, moving, and highly relevant to our disconnected and anxious times.

Elizabeth Lesser

2020-04-05
It’s hard to argue the fact that we are losing our human-to-human connection. One way back, suggests Holland, a psychiatrist who specializes in psychopharmacology, is via psychedelic medicines.

To reproduce, nurture, and survive, humans are hard-wired for connection, but our current state is one of disconnection and isolation. However, as the author writes in this enthusiastic foray into the possibilities of igniting the “pharmacological fireworks in our brains,” we have the potential “to bring us back into alignment with our true purpose, which is connection.” Social isolation “has a lethality on par with being obese, or with smoking about fifteen cigarettes a day.” One expression of it is our obsession with screens; another is the opioid epidemic. Via her personal experience, interviews with experts, and a sturdy grasp of the medical literature, Holland explains the monitored use of MDMA, LSD, THC, and psilocybin mushrooms to “light a path out of chronic loneliness and toward connectedness.” The author, who edited The Pot Book: A Complete Guide to Cannabis (2010) and Ecstasy: The Complete Guide (2001), ranges among connections with the self, a partner, family, community, Earth, and the cosmos. One of Holland’s most important aims—and one that will ring true for many readers—is to tap into the parasympathetic nervous system, the flip side of the fight-or-flight state, the mode when we feel relaxed, safe, loving, and loved. There are many states of chronic stress, loneliness, addiction, and alienation that can be addressed by using the best drugs available for orchestrating the process of attachment, and they are already in your brain—e.g., oxytocin, vasopressin, serotonin, endorphins, endocannabinoids, and dopamine. Holland explores a number of avenues to access this feel-good chemistry—conscious breathing, sex, meditation, group activities—and she conveys great excitement and marvelous anecdotes about the prospects of the psychedelic pharmacopeia.

An intriguing invitation to tune into the therapeutic experience of psychedelic connectivity.

Kirkus Reviews

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