Meet The Author

Charley Wininger has been a psychotherapist in private practice since 1989. Licensed as a psychoanalyst as well as a mental health counselor, he specializes in relationships and communication skills, treating couples and individuals in his Manhattan and Brooklyn offices.

Although he doesn’t use MDMA in his  practice, he continues to benefit from personal experience with this medicine as it informs and improves his performance as a therapist.

He completed his post-graduate training at the Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy in New York, and has continued his professional development the past fifteen years at New York’s Soma-Psyche Institute, where he learns intuition and empathic attunement skills.

He has often been featured in The New York Times and Newsday, and has appeared several times on TV.

For the past 20 years Charley has been a member of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (www.maps.org), which funds research into the use of MDMA (Ecstasy) for treating PTSD, social anxiety and other ailments.

As a former hippie of the ‘60s, he’s lived through multiple eras of psychedelic culture and carries with him the same spirit of peace and love today. “I’ve lived through it all,” he says. “And now it all lives through me.”

These days, Charley, who lectures on “Psychedelics Across The Lifespan,” is considered an elder in New York’s underground psychedelic community, meaning he’s had his fair share of encounters with substances like LSD, MDMA, psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and ayahuasca. Like any good elder, Charley is ready and willing to share what he’s gained as a result of these experiences, but unlike your typical “elderly” person, he is here to amplify an infrequently heard message: psychedelics aren’t just for youthful partying and experimentation.

When he met Shelley, his second wife, back in 2000, he found a woman who was new to these medicines but eager to try them. Together, they discovered that MDMA could serve as a kind of emotional super glue, adding an additional layer of intimacy and joy to their relationship. Moreover, it has helped them transition from middle age into their senior years.

During this time, they ventured into a forbidden world of psychedelic drug users, and found it to be enchanted. As a result, they’ve been instrumental in building the psychedelic community in New York for the past fifteen years.

Now in his early 70s, Charley uses psychedelics as a tool for better understanding his own perspectives on aging, love and relationships, community building, masculinity, and mortality. He is intrigued by the potential of these substances for, as one psychedelic researcher puts it, “the betterment of well people” – in other words, to help people live a more optimal life.

 
Charley and Shelley Wininger

Living an MDMA Love Letter

by Colleen Newvine for Lucid News

https://www.lucid.news/living-an-mdma-love-letter/

“The best part of the psychedelic community isn’t the psychedelics; it’s the community.”

“Just Call Him the Love Doctor,” Newsday feature, February 24, 2002. https://www.therelationshop.com/new-york-love-doctor-relationships-therapy

New York Times Coverage of my dating show for Current TV: https:/ /www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/nyregion/thecity/in-search-of-sex-in-the-city.html

New York Times coverage of our wedding and our marriage:  www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/fashion/weddings/29vows.html and

www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/fashion/weddings/a-healthy-relationship-all-around.html

Charley's psychotherapy website: www.therelationshop.com

Psychology Today (online blog): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/just-say-yes