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In psych*delic therapy and sessions, music isn't background noise, it's a co-therapist. It can amplify the medicine, surface what words can't, and support clients through every stage of the journey.

Be sure to check out our most recent podcast with @mattxavierdj about the power of music and creating playlists for journeys. 🎶🍄

Music isn't just background noise in psychedelic therapy it's also the co-therapist. 🎧🎶

In this conversation, DJ + therapist, @mattxavierdj shares how music becomes a co-therapist in psychedelic work, amplifying the medicine and giving voice to what clients can't express. We dive into:

✨ Why live playlist mixing can transform a session
🎶The "four stages" of music in a psilocybin journey
🎧 How to curate music like medicine (and avoid cookie-cutter playlists)
👨‍🎤 Why supporting artists is essential for the future of healing music

Whether you're a practitioner, musician, or just fascinated by the role of sound in healing, this episode will change how you listen.

Stream it now on Psychedelics Today wherever you get podcasts. 🎙️

In the latest MAPS Bulletin, Matt Xavier shares an excerpt from "The Psychedelic DJ: A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Music Curation and Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy."

Drawing on his background as both a DJ and a counselor, Xavier details how decades of curating sound informed a therapeutic approach in which music supports the regulation of the nervous system, encourages emotional release, and helps clients feel grounded during psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions. Rather than treating music as atmosphere, he positions it as an active tool in the healing process.

Read the full article using the link in our bio!

In the latest MAPS Bulletin, Matt Xavier shares an excerpt from "The Psychedelic DJ: A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Music Curation and Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy."

Drawing on his background as both a DJ and a counselor, Xavier details how decades of curating sound informed a therapeutic approach in which music supports the regulation of the nervous system, encourages emotional release, and helps clients feel grounded during psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions. Rather than treating music as atmosphere, he positions it as an active tool in the healing process.

Read the full article using the link in our bio!

In the latest MAPS Bulletin, Matt Xavier shares an excerpt from "The Psychedelic DJ: A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Music Curation and Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy."

Drawing on his background as both a DJ and a counselor, Xavier details how decades of curating sound informed a therapeutic approach in which music supports the regulation of the nervous system, encourages emotional release, and helps clients feel grounded during psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions. Rather than treating music as atmosphere, he positions it as an active tool in the healing process.

Read the full article using the link in our bio!

In the latest MAPS Bulletin, Matt Xavier shares an excerpt from "The Psychedelic DJ: A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Music Curation and Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy."

Drawing on his background as both a DJ and a counselor, Xavier details how decades of curating sound informed a therapeutic approach in which music supports the regulation of the nervous system, encourages emotional release, and helps clients feel grounded during psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions. Rather than treating music as atmosphere, he positions it as an active tool in the healing process.

Read the full article using the link in our bio!

Matt Xavier
Live at Going In
Saturday June 6
@pioneerworks

Set time: 12:00–12:55pm
Plus interludes woven between sets

Matt Xavier bridges decades of underground electronic music culture with therapeutic music curation and experiential counseling.

A longtime DJ in New York’s early electronic scene and the author of The Psychedelic DJ: A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Music Curation, Matt’s work explores how sound, pacing, and harmonic attunement can shape emotional states and guide meaningful transition.

At Going In, he will curate the interludes that carry the room from set to set, helping shape the arc of a 12-hour listening environment built for sustained presence.

Visuals and flyer by @andrewcharlesedman

Tickets in bio.

Matt Xavier
Live at Going In
Saturday June 6
@pioneerworks

Set time: 12:00–12:55pm
Plus interludes woven between sets

Matt Xavier bridges decades of underground electronic music culture with therapeutic music curation and experiential counseling.

A longtime DJ in New York’s early electronic scene and the author of The Psychedelic DJ: A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Music Curation, Matt’s work explores how sound, pacing, and harmonic attunement can shape emotional states and guide meaningful transition.

At Going In, he will curate the interludes that carry the room from set to set, helping shape the arc of a 12-hour listening environment built for sustained presence.

Visuals and flyer by @andrewcharlesedman

Tickets in bio.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Part Therapy Book, Part Music Journey”. As I’m nearing the one year anniversary of The Psych*delic DJ, it’s still surreal seeing people connect with this work in such a deep way.

One of my hopes while writing the book was that it wouldn’t just read like a clinical manual or a DJ book, but something that could bridge music, emotion, consciousness, counseling, and the human experience in a way that feels alive, immersive, and accessible.

For decades I’ve lived in both worlds: the dancefloor and the therapy room. This book was my attempt to finally connect those worlds into a practical framework for psychedelic therapy, therapeutic music curation, and effective counseling practices.

Huge thanks to everyone who has read the book, shared it, supported the work, or helped spread the word over the past year. It genuinely means a lot and I’m looking forward to celebrating the book’s first birthday in June.

Purchase link in bio. 🔗

– Matt Xavier @integratedpsychedelics

#ThePsychedelicDJ #PsychedelicTherapy #MusicAsMedicine #gestalttherapy #musicforpsychedelictherapy

Stargazer is now archived on @radiozora.fm 's SoundCloud — which means you can find it any time, as many times as you need it.

@mattxavierdj and I go back nearly 30 years through the Moontribe community. This mix landing in the Over the Moon series has felt like a long time coming, and I'm so glad it's now permanent.

He forgot his headphones the day he recorded it. Mixed it anyway — from memory, across four decks, on pure feel. The result is one of my favorite things in this series: beatless, psychedelic ambient, drawn from deep in his archive, dissolving out into the dark of the Arizona desert sky. And knowing that Matt brings all of this as a psychedelic therapist and author — that the healing intention isn't metaphor, it's his actual practice — makes it land differently.

Put it on. Close your eyes. It'll do what it does.

Link in bio.

#ambient #beatless #psychedelic #radiozora #downtempo

Matt Xavier - Stargazer (scroll for tracklisting)

A beatless ambient mixtape for late nights under dark desert skies.

Mixed from memory. No headphones. Just feeling.

Out now on Over The Moon / @radiozora.fm

Link in bio / comments

Matt Xavier - Stargazer (scroll for tracklisting)

A beatless ambient mixtape for late nights under dark desert skies.

Mixed from memory. No headphones. Just feeling.

Out now on Over The Moon / @radiozora.fm

Link in bio / comments

Matt Xavier - Stargazer (scroll for tracklisting)

A beatless ambient mixtape for late nights under dark desert skies.

Mixed from memory. No headphones. Just feeling.

Out now on Over The Moon / @radiozora.fm

Link in bio / comments

Matt Xavier - Stargazer (scroll for tracklisting)

A beatless ambient mixtape for late nights under dark desert skies.

Mixed from memory. No headphones. Just feeling.

Out now on Over The Moon / @radiozora.fm

Link in bio / comments

Matt Xavier - Stargazer (scroll for tracklisting)

A beatless ambient mixtape for late nights under dark desert skies.

Mixed from memory. No headphones. Just feeling.

Out now on Over The Moon / @radiozora.fm

Link in bio / comments

Matt Xavier - Stargazer (scroll for tracklisting)

A beatless ambient mixtape for late nights under dark desert skies.

Mixed from memory. No headphones. Just feeling.

Out now on Over The Moon / @radiozora.fm

Link in bio / comments

A lot of people want the playlist, the gear, the formula, the “how-to.”

But the truth is, if you’re sitting with people in psych-del!c spaces and you don’t understand ethics, trauma, counseling skills, or how to actually hold what comes up, you can do real harm, real fast!

This work is not just about music taste. It’s not about curating a vibe.

It’s about knowing how to stay grounded when someone cracks open in front of you and trusting that what you say next actually helps and leans toward healing.

That’s a big part of why I wrote “The Psych-del!c DJ.” Not to hand people a shortcut, but to be clear about the weight of this work and the level of care it really takes.

Good music matters. So does being qualified enough not to screw up a sensitive moment.

One of the wildest things in this space is how often people chase the biggest do$e like that automatically means the deepest healing.

It doesn’t.

Somewhere along the way, a lot of people got sold on the idea that if you didn’t completely blow yourself out of the water, it wasn’t a real experience. That if you weren’t shattered, ego-deathed, and unable to remember what happened, it somehow “didn’t count.”

If someone can’t remember the experience, can’t track what happened, and has no real way to work with it after, we should at least be honest that “intense” and “effective” are not always the same outcome.

Big do$es sell stories.

Presence is what actually changes people.

*** Want to hear more? Join me and @bluemagicalchemy on our recording of @thevitalpointpodcast.

I didn’t come into this work thinking, I’m going to bring DJing into my sessions.

It happened because I recognized the same thing I’d always known on a dance floor: the room matters, the energy matters, and the music can change things.

The difference is, in this setting, the “crowd” is one person. One nervous system. One inner landscape. One real journey unfolding in real time.

That requires way more than pressing play. It requires reading what’s happening, understanding what someone is bringing in, and shaping a soundtrack that actually supports the work and their healing.

I take music in these spaces VERY seriously. Because when it’s done right, it’s not just atmosphere, it’s part of the container.

Music can shape an entire experience. In psych-del!c work, sound can unlock emotion, memory, and deeper layers that would be harder to reach without it.

There’s a reason music gets targeted when people want to flatten culture and suppress expression. It’s because music makes people feel, and feeling deeply has consequences. It creates connection. It creates movement. It creates a kind of remembering that threatens dead systems.

What music has opened something up in you lately?

*** Thank you @bluemagicalchemy for having me on @thevitalpointpodcast. Loved sitting down with you and talking openly about all of these topics. Listen to the whole podcast now for more!

A psych-del!c ambient mixtape featuring 22 compositions curated and mixed into a single continuous journey through spacious atmospheres and elastic soundscapes.

Recorded entirely from memory, without headphones, allowing intuition to guide the flow from beginning to end.

Premiering Sunday 03/15 on the Over the Moon Series — Radiozora.

——
#ambientmusic #spacemusic #soundjourney #ambientmix #radiozura