Transforming Trauma & Reconnecting with Ourselves & JoyTransforming Trauma & Reconnecting with Ourselves & Joy
A Quest for Well-Being
Therapist Melissa Perry shares her personal and professional experience of trauma, complex PTSD and moral injury, and talks about psychedelic-assisted therapy as one possible route towards deeper healing. The conversation focuses on integration, spirituality and rebuilding a genuine capacity for joy, including for those who use alcohol to cope.
1:17:52•27 Oct 2026
Transforming Trauma and Opening the Door to Joy with Melissa Perry
Episode Overview
- Healing is framed as more than symptom relief; it can be a process of reclaiming identity, meaning and joy beyond what happened in the past.
- Psychedelic medicines like psilocybin may help disrupt rigid patterns in trauma, but careful screening, clear intention and structured integration are vital.
- Research mentioned in the conversation links psychedelic treatment to reduced heavy drinking days and, for some, stopping alcohol use altogether.
- First responders, veterans and healthcare professionals can carry moral injury and chronic stress that talk therapy alone may not fully address.
- Joy often starts as a deliberate practice—through small daily choices, self-compassion and connection—before it becomes a more natural way of being.
“You aren’t trauma. You have trauma.”
What happens after the panic eases and the flashbacks quiet down? This conversation between host Valeria Teles and therapist Melissa Perry looks at what life might feel like beyond sheer survival – and how joy can become more than a rare guest. Melissa, a licensed psychotherapist, Buddhist, mum, and long-time trauma specialist, brings over 20 years of work with first responders, veterans, medical staff and others living with anxiety, depression, PTSD and complex PTSD.
She talks openly about growing up in an “unhealed family”, losing her father young, and how that pain pushed her towards understanding human cruelty and the possibility of healing. As she puts it simply: “You aren’t trauma, you have trauma.” A big chunk of the conversation looks at psychedelic-assisted therapy, especially psilocybin, as a possible option when talk therapy and antidepressants haven’t shifted long-standing trauma.
Melissa explains how psychedelics can interrupt rigid patterns, light up new connections in the brain, and open a window for change – but stresses that “the medicine itself is not the whole story”. Preparation, safety, medical screening, and careful integration sessions afterwards are presented as non‑negotiable. The episode also speaks directly to those in high-stress roles who’ve spent years “just getting on with it”.
Melissa unpacks moral injury, the quiet damage that comes from witnessing or taking part in events that clash with your deepest values. She links this to alcohol and other compulsive coping strategies, noting research showing reduced heavy drinking and even complete abstinence in some people after psychedelic treatment.
Through gentle humour, spiritual reflection and very honest sharing, the conversation keeps circling back to one question: how can someone who’s lived in survival mode learn to trust calm, reconnect with their body, and let joy feel safe again? If you’re sober or rethinking your relationship with alcohol, could expanding your capacity for joy be as important as reducing your pain?
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