Underground psycholytic group therapy in Switzerland (Meckel Fischer)

Domain VII · Transpersonal, psychedelic & altered states · Friederike Meckel Fischer · 1999 · Zurich

Historical or harm account: this guide describes what happened and how to recognise it. It is not a practice to implement.

What it is

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT, NOT FOR USE. This entry is not a therapy model. It describes one illegal, underground practice run by a named living person. It contains no doses, sourcing, routes or administration details. Every claim is attributed. Her own account is a self-report by an interested party; its…

Format

• Psychoeducation and individual substance-assisted sessions. These continued until the client felt familiar with the state. She also used them to explain the group's rules and boundaries.
• Recurring weekend groups at her home: Friday evening: dinner, group sharing and intention-setting.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Legal and regulatory status (as of the sources' dates):
• Who. Friederike Meckel Fischer was born in Germany in 1947 and trained as a physician, first in industrial medicine and then in psychodynamic psychotherapy. She later trained in systemic and family-constellation work, as a Holotropic Breathwork facilitator with Stanislav Grof, and in a Swiss psycholytic-therapy training group in the late 1980s or early 1990s. She opened a private practice in Zurich in 1997. Mosaic…
• Outcome. She and Mosaic say police raided her home in October 2009, after a former client complained, and arrested her and her husband. On 5 July 2010 the Zurich District Court (Bezirksgericht Zürich, presiding judge Philippe Ernst) gave its verdict. It rejected the charge of serious (aggravated) drug trafficking. It found that she had repeatedly supplied narcotics without authorisation over several years, in breach…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.