Southwest Love Fest 2026 - Presenter - Dr. Nicole Thompson

Dr. Nicole Thompson, PsyD

She/Her

CE Eligible

Psychedelic Pleasure:

The Erotic Set and Setting of Liberation

Saturday, May 2nd  |  3:30PM  |  Room: Maricopa  |  201

This presentation invites participants to experience non-monogamous sex and relating through the lens of psychedelic wisdom. Drawing from her work as a clinical psychotherapist providing psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, Dr. Nicole will show how classic psychedelic frameworks can be used to design intentional erotic containers for sex, play, and non-monogamous connection. She will guide participants in exploring how “erotic set and setting” shapes jealousy, compersion, desire, and safety and will offer pleasure-centered integration practices that help translate big emotional or altered-state moments into concrete shifts in boundaries, communication, and shared agreements.

Throughout the presentation, Dr. Nicole names psychedelics, pleasure, and non-monogamy as explicitly political and liberatory practices that challenge ownership-based models of love and the systems that sustain them, inviting us into more honest, caring, and autonomous ways of relating.

1.

Describe how psychedelic concepts such as set, setting, intention, and integration can be applied to non-monogamous sex and relationships.

2.

Identify elements of their own “erotic set and setting,” including internal states, relational dynamics, and systemic forces that shape pleasure, jealousy, safety, and desire.

3.

Outline a simple, psychedelic-inspired structure for erotic and relational containers: preparation, experience, and integration.

4.

Name at least three pleasure-centered integration practices that help anchor big emotional or altered-state experiences into ongoing relational change.

5.

Articulate how psychedelics, pleasure, and non-monogamy function as political and liberatory practices in contrast to ownership-based, mononormative models of love.

Dr. Nicole is a queer Sex and Relationship Psychotherapist providing Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy and host of Modern Anarchy Podcast. She is the author of The Psychedelic Jealousy Guide: Crafting Secure Non-Monogamous Relationships and published the first research study on Relationship Anarchy. As one of the leading theorists on non-monogamy and sexuality, Dr. Nicole bridges academic research with embodied, pleasure-centered strategies to help individuals navigate intimacy, relationships, and desire. She is also the founder of The Pleasure Practice, where she supports individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships.