Bad Hug – The Cut

Mind. Body. Control. Uncover the dark truth inPower Trip, a new investigative series with original reporting fromNew YorkMagazine.

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

On this weeks episode ofCover Story,host iO Tillett Wright and collaborator Lily Kay Ross look at the practices of Salvador Roquet, a Mexican psychotherapist who is known as the master of bad trips. By understanding how Roquet influenced Franoise Bourzat and her husband Aharon Grossbard, we realize that boundary-crossing may be inherently baked into the psychedelic guide training that caused harm to both Lily and Susan, and that they are far from alone in experiencing abuse at the hands of those who are supposed to be their therapists and guides.

Mind. Body. Control. Uncover the dark truth inPower Trip, a new investigative series with original reporting fromNew YorkMagazine.

To hear more about Roquets methods and the moment Susan decided to leave the psychedelic community, listen and subscribe for free onApple Podcastsor wherever you listen, and find the full transcript below.

Just a quick note: This series deals with sexual assault, so please keep that in mind when you decide when and where to listen. As in previous episodes, weve changed the names and voices of some of the people that weve interviewed to protect their identities. Also, at the very beginning of the episode, there are brief sounds of porn and violent war scenes.

iO Tillett Wright: Imagine youre lying on a floor. Lights are flashing and projectors are playing movies on all the walls. The Mexican psychiatrist Salvador Roquet has given you LSD, maybe mescaline. Youre tripping your face off.

The projectors start playing porn and murder and war scenes from The Dirty Dozen. You put a blindfold on and you get hit with ear-bustlingly loud music. Theres a classical piece from Debussy with a Japanese synth cover of the same song by Tomita layered over the top, just slightly off enough to feel fucked up. Then Balinese chanting starts, layered over the classical, then dad rock Quicksilver Messenger Service and Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead, all at once. Then Ravi Shankar comes in, like auditory whipped cream on your nightmare sundae.

Then Roquets assistants start walking around banging pots and pans, for some god-awful reason, holding live microphones up to you while you freak the fuck out. Hours later, youre still high as a kite and one of the assistants comes up and says, Cliff, were going to give you a shot of ketamine. Would that be okay?

Were talking about the conductor of this chaos orchestra, one of the founding fathers of modern psychedelic therapy And also, one of Franoise Bourzats teachers.

In the 70s, Salvador Roquet was called a master of bad trips. Those bad trips, horrifyingly, were by design, to help people get past their deepest primal fears of death and sex, and mommy. We called up a guy who worked closely with Roquet for a long time to understand what the fuck.

Dr. Abraham Sussman: His model came from the realization that just below the surface in most human beings is a roaring river of instinct and feeling and wild capacity and terror. From his point of view, in giving up our access to this primal stew, many people in the modern world have given up their feeling, their heart, their sense of life, their sense of discovery, their sense of amazement, and that intention of therapy is to help people recover that sense of amazement.

Wright: Roquet gave people high doses of psychedelics, blasted music and disturbing imagery at them, and observed as they completely began to crumble.

Dr. Sussman: He took lots of risks with everyone, which was his genius and his brilliance

Wright: Cliff Bernstein, the guy who got that surprise ketamine shot, says that it probably wasnt a great thing to offer him while he was super high, but overall, he still had a positive experience.

Cliff Bernstein: My ego, gone. I did not know I had a name, I didnt know I had a history. I was flying above highway 580 in Oakland. And I could feel the wind somehow. I remember the headlights of cars down below.

Wright: To help his clients come back to earth Roquet ended his sessions with something like group therapy, where everyone re-integrated and talked through what happened for them.

At other points in his career he was different. In 2002, Roquets name came up in a lawsuit. A former student dissident named Federico Emery Ulloa accused Roquet of using some of the same techniques from his psychedelic sessions to torture detained activists in the 60s. Supposedly, Roquet was trying to treat them, make them better citizens. Although Sussman says he had another motive.

Dr. Sussman: Ive talked with Salvador about that. He was in a bind, the authorities were going to shut him down. They were going to put him in jail.

Wright: But Emery has described the torture in detail. In interviews and testimonies, he said Roquet drugged him against his will, blasted him with pornographic films at full volume, and then participated in an interrogation that left him in his own words in a state of terror. Emery Ulloa later called it psychological torture and said it affected him for the rest of his life.

Dr. Roquet himself ended up going to jail twice in the 70s. Once in Mexico, and again in the U.S., for giving people drugs during sessions. So he developed a drug-free version of his practice, where psychedelics were replaced with things like breathing techniques and fasting and sleep deprivation

Franoise Bourzat: drama therapy and artwork and ritual and bioenergetics and

Wright: When we talked to Franoise Bourzat, she said she and her husband Aharon Grossbard hes the one who introduced her to Salvador actually ran these drug-free Roquet-style retreats for a good ten years.

Franoise Bourzat: And he called that Convivencia.

Wright: Like, convivium. The name that Lily remembers floating around at the underground meeting of guides that she went to. They were a bunch of renegade healers, passing down their methods including their work with psychedelics and adapting them along the way. It was Roquet, Franoise, her husband Aharon, and another important mentor of theirs, named Pablo Sanchez.

Franoise Bourzat: The mushrooms and the LSD, and then the ketamine and the music for eight hours and all this preparatory work, the long integration after and the no sleeping all that was Salvadors style.

Wright: Twenty-plus years later, Lily and Dave get on the phone with Susan, this woman whod been enrolled in Franoise and Aharons underground training to become a psychedelic therapist.

Lily Kay Ross: One of the things that I asked Susan about pretty early on was whether Salvador Roquet had come up in the training. The reason I was asking her was that I had stumbled on his name in Franoises book and then Id been on this week-long, obsessive bender trying to scoop up everything that I could find about this guy.

Wright: Susan showed us the hand-written notes she took at the training. Theres a whole section on lineage, where Franoise and Aharons ideas come from. And Salvador Roquet is central. Susans fast cursive says, Father of our work. But when she talked to Lily, Susan told her she was a little disturbed by the readings about Roquet.

Ross: Its starting to shake her confidence in the underground training.

Wright: Why?

Ross: Part of the issue is that before the training, the things that had upset her about her therapy with Eyal, she thought were just because it was Eyal. She thought that hes an outlier. But now shes starting to wonder whether some of these practices might be baked into the therapy and the history. The music and the way they talk about primal instincts and directing the psychedelic sessions like hes a movie director or something rather than just letting people have their own experiences. So at the training, Franoise goes on to speak about Pablo Sanchez, whose teachings shes also held up as important of her lineage.

Susan: And then, one of the guys in the group yelled out, I heard that you had a relationship with Pablo Sanchez! to Franoise.

Ross: Ive asked Francoise and she told me that her mentors did not cross boundaries with her. But I can say that Dave and I have now talked to 8 people who say that Franoises mentor Pablo Sanchez was having some sexual contact with women he was treating in his psychedelic therapy sessions. Almost everyone we spoke to told us that Franoise was one of the women that Pablo Sanchez had a sexual relationship with. I talked to one man who had been very close to Sanchez for about a decade and he also confirmed witnessing the relationship. So Susans second weekend of training comes up. Franoises husband Aharon arrives and Susan says that she sees scratches on his face.

Susan: So one of the men in the cohort, I was talking to him on the break and he was like, I did a journey with Aharon last night and I attacked him.

Ross: So this gets at the idea that in this group, sometimes people are encouraged to fight with their therapists as though thats healing.

Susan: He was like, I was already on a really high dose of mushrooms. And then he had me snort 5-MeO-DMT and I attacked him. But after that, I saw him as God. And then it was like, okay, break over. I remember I was like, okay, thats weird.

Ross: So it was around this time that Susan started hearing first and secondhand accounts of men who were struggling to figure out whether the kind of touching that had happened in their psychedelic sessions including sometimes touching of genitals and anal areas was okay with them.

Wright: What did they tell people was going to happen in regards to touch? What did people consent to?

Ross: Theres no reality in which a client could possibly consent to something like that.

Wright: Im currently reading a web page called Therapy Never Includes Sexual Behavior. Its from the California Department of Consumer Affairs, and it says: Sexual contact of any kind between a therapist and a client is unethical and illegal in the State of California. And this is even for two years after therapy ends. The site lists warning signs. They are unwanted physical contact, telling a client that they are special, or that the therapist loves them, excessive out of session communication, inviting a client to a meal, dating, isolating a client from friends and family, and fostering dependency on the therapist, and so on and so on. The site also says: It is always the responsibility of the therapist to ensure that sexual contact with a client, whether consensual or not, does not occur. So, like Lily said, consent does not apply here.

If you read Susans notes from her training with Franoise and Aharon, they also, by the way, say no sexual touching is allowed. But in their training manual, they suggest students may seek further education in techniques like sexual healing work with substances. Which may include, sexual contact between client and guide.

Ross: By the time Susan gets to her 3rd training session, shes getting pretty freaked out. Aharon starts talking about what he calls borderline people. Referring to Borderline Personality Disorder.

Susan: Youre always going to get those borderline people that come to you and will claim youre not doing the right thing. Or if someone criticizes this work, its because theyre borderline. (giggle)

Ross: And at another retreat, Susan says Aharon brings it up again.

Susan: He said, weve been sued multiple times. And then I raised my hand and I was like, well, what do you do when you get sued?

Wright: Heres what we know: theres one lawsuit from a former client that Franoise and Aharon settled. And another instance where they say they paid money to a former client who accused Aharon of inappropriate touch. In both cases, they denied any wrongdoing. After this one retreat that involves taking MDMA, Susan is driving home and has this run-in with an angry driver. Where they pull over and the guy comes up to her window and is carrying a gun. And Susan says that shes weirdly isnt afraid.

Susan: It got me reflecting on how much I wasnt having normal reactions to the things going on.

Ross: And in the thick of the confrontation, she realizes she doesnt have a fear response to whats happening.

Wright: Wait, wait, wait. This is not a hallucination? This is a real thing?

Ross: Yeah.

Wright: Jesus Christ.

Susan: It made me start to think about how my perception was altered so much and my reaction to things was maybe dulled down. You dont want to just eliminate fear. Fear serves a purpose for us as human beings. Its important to be afraid when there is danger.

Ross: So Susan is finally like, Okay, something is wrong here. And shes been working with this new mentor for a while, a woman that she likes. She goes to her and she tells her about all the stories shes heard about people being touched in ways that bothered them. And then, evidently, her mentor goes to Franoise.

Susan: She wrote back to me an email and it said, I spoke with Francoise this weekend. All of the things you shared with me are incorrect.

Ross, reading the email: Hi Susan. I did speak with Franoise this weekend and it seems that most of the information you were given was not correct, which can be a danger if it does not come from the people who are directly involved in the situation.

Susan: And you should tell the person who told you to stop telling people about them.

Ross: So its around this time Susan decides to get the fuck out. Thats when she makes the call to this other podcaster and eventually, she gets sent to us. And we started doing video calls.

Susan: I was searching all podcasts for anything because I wanted to see if there was something about the way psychedelics can be used for mind control and manipulation.

Ross: Its one of the things I think about a lot that people take a certain refuge in the idea that theyre immune.

Susan: Yeah, people think like, oh, youre dumb or you fell for this thing or that wouldnt happen to me.

Ross: Uh-huh.

Susan: I was realizing this, this potential of this openness that Id read about in the scientific literature that psychedelics provide. Flip the wording on that and its suggestibility. I think the psychedelics put me in a really vulnerable state and suggestible state. A porous state. If youre using marketing tools on someone on psychedelics, its going to work.

Ross: Susans experience before she met us was pretty isolated. Like why am I the only one thats so alarmed by this? But ever since Susan contacted us weve been digging.

Wright: What have you found?

Ross: Have you buckled your second seatbelt?

Wright:Were talking about Franoise Bourzat, the psychedelic guide who, when I first talked to her, made me feel like I wanted her to guide me.

Franoise Bourzat:We have trained hundreds of people, And were doing that in Jamaica. And were training people in Canada. We have been training trainers here.

Wright:So shes been a trainer of trainers. But Lilys now got a different picture.

Ross:So in the last 20 months, weve spoken to about a dozen people who say they felt harmed working with Franoise or Aharon or one of the people that theyve trained. And weve talked to another half dozen people who say that they have witnessed harm or have been told about it directly from a person who was hurt.

Wright:Oh fuck.

Ross:I think one of the refrains that comes up a lot, that Ive been thinking about a lot, is that this isnt bad apples, this is bad ideas. Dangerous ideas.

Wright:Sorry. But it sounds like a bad tree.

Ross:Or maybe a whole orchard?

Wright:Mmm.

Ross:Of course, the problem is the same as its always been in this world, which is that if you say something is dangerous, people are really quick to be like, shut the fuck up. Were trying to get these drugs legal. Youre gonna mess it all up. They make it out as if talking about real harm is more of a problem than the actual harm thats being done.

Wright:I want to just clarify something, I dont hear you saying that psychedelics are bad. Is that correct?

Ross:Yeah Like its not the drugs, its the people.

Wright:Right.

Ross:I appreciate you bringing it up because I dont want these drugs to be illegal. I think if youre going to market them as a therapy to people who are suffering from PTSD or depression or conditions they havent been able to kick, people whove experienced sexual abuse, sexual assault, rape those people are the most vulnerable to the things that can go wrong and can be the most hurt by it. Thats part of why I think its so important to talk about.

Wright:Tell me your stories.

Ross:So one of the first things that we found is a lawsuit that was filed against Franoise and Aharon more than 20 years ago in 2000. My friend put in a request for the court records, but we had to wait a couple of weeks because they had to pull the physical court records out of a warehouse somewhere. The man who sued them had gone to them for therapy. Were not going to say his name to protect his privacy. But the case was settled and he signed an NDA.

Wright:What did he say happened?

Ross:So the first thing I want to say is that Franoise has denied the allegations that he makes. She has said that these are false claims and that they only settled the case to protect her work and their children. And I have spoken to Francqoise about this, but well get to that later. The initial complaint is over 40 pages long, and were pretty disturbed by it.

Wright:Wait, thats a really important factor to me, because if theyre saying that its patently made up, thats a lot of made up.

Ross:Yeah. The lawsuit says that Franoise supplied him with various drugs that she said would open him up during their sessions. It says she told him that he needed to fall apart. So theres that idea of breaking people down or breaking down their resistance to heal them. Salvador Roquet rears his stroboscopic light head again.

It was 1994 when he first came to Franoise for help. By the next year, the suit says that Franoise began having sexual contact with this man and it lasted for almost five years. It says Franoise was kissing him and encouraging him to kiss her. She told him that their kissing was therapeutic. The lawsuit says she had harmful and offensive contact with his sexual organs, groin, and buttocks, and that she told him that their actions were necessary for his emotional health, healing, and growth. And that his, and this is a quote, passion needed awakening.

Wright:What?

Ross:She told him that her love would heal him.

Wright:Oy.

Ross:Yeah, it looks like youre having that moment where its like you can talk to Franoise and then you get this other information, and suddenly a bunch of things she says mean very different things.

Wright:Yeah, especially when its presented through this lens of we are here for healing, we take care of each other, we heal each other.

Ross:The case also outlines a really important point that comes to bear in a lot of these cases. The lawsuit says that he had begun to see Franoise as an all-loving mother figure and that with the drugs and their practices, he was in a regressed, childlike state. That made consent impossible. The lawsuit does a really good job of explaining how a therapist can abuse the childlike trust that people might have for them. Are you familiar with the idea of transference?

Wright:When you misplace something on someone else, right?

Ross:Like transferring the feelings that you might have towards a parent onto the therapist. I think it is a thing that happens and that professionals are taught to work with. Its like, if youre projecting your mother feelings on me, why dont we unpack what thats about? And that could even include if theyre expressing sexual feelings, but it can go bad where the therapist exploits those feelings.

Wright:Yeah, that seems pretty bad.

Ross:So this client alleges that Franoise gave him drugs to help him break down his inhibitions and amplify his sexual feelings. And instead of helping him understand those feelings, the lawsuitsays that she attempted to fulfill his infantile fantasies and desires as well as her own. These kinds of experiences make it really hard to trust a future therapist. How do you trust a therapist again, after your therapist does these things to you?

I think its worth pointing out too, that like all the while, as this lawsuit alleges, this man was getting worse, not better. And the lawsuit points out that Franoise isnt even a licensed psychotherapist, even though she presents herself as one.

Wright:Shes not?

Ross:No. She is working under the supervision of her husband, which is why he is also part of the lawsuit. And all this time, theyre both having him do various little side jobs for them, so hes gardening and hes babysitting their kids. Under the care of Franoise and Aharon, he gets more depressed than ever. He loses a lot of weight and develops asthma. He starts having anxiety and panic attacks and at a certain point, becomes suicidal.

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Bad Hug - The Cut