Therapy Archives

June 12, 2026June 12, 2026

Out of This World: Why AI Belongs Beside the Therapist

Editor’s note: Sabba Nazhand is the founder of Safar, a platform building AI tools for psychedelic integration practitioners.

When I was around twelve, I had a Michael Jordan poster on my wall. Jordan flying through space, with the words “Out of this world.”

That same stretch of my childhood, my mother was fighting severe depression.

Almost every day for a summer, she would come into my room, cry in front of that poster, and say, “They want me out of this world. They want me to die.”

That moment never left me. Not having the right support. Not being able to name what I was going through.

So I did what many of us do. I learned to perform. To achieve. To become someone others would want. I spent most of my life as a shell of myself, chasing love, recognition, safety, belonging. I attached myself to anyone and anything that made me feel wanted.

That foundation eventually crumbled. I lost myself. Depression set in, and thoughts of suicide circled. Death started to look like a north star. A connection to peace. A way to finally silence the noise.

I am telling you this because the conversation about AI in mental health care has become bloodless. Abstract. A debate between technologists and clinicians, fought in op-eds and panel discussions, while the people who actually need help keep waiting. I am not interested in that conversation. I am interested in this one: what would have changed for my mother, and for me, if we had the right care?

The Gap That Almost Took Us

My mother did not lack the desire to get better. She lacked access to consistent, sustained care. That was the early 1990s. For people like her, that kind of care has only gotten harder to find.

More than 122 million Americans live in federally designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas. Wait times for a new appointment run from three weeks to six months. Nearly half of behavioral health workers say the shortage has made them consider leaving the field. Three quarters fear lives will be lost because of it.

These are not statistics to me. They are the distance between my mother crying in front of a poster and someone being there to help her through it. The distance between a person reaching out and a person giving up.

We cannot train new therapists fast enough to close that gap. We can extend the reach of the ones we have.

What I Mean by “Beside the Therapist”

I do not mean a chatbot that pretends to be a therapist. I mean tools that work inside the clinical relationship, extending the practitioner’s capacity rather than circumventing their role.

The most underserved moment in mental health care is not the session. It is everything between sessions. A client has a breakthrough on a Tuesday. Their next appointment is in two weeks. By then the insight has faded, the emotional charge is gone, and the practitioner is scrambling through notes to catch up before the call.

Tools that support reflection, journaling, and pattern recognition between sessions can preserve what emerged in the room. Not replacing the therapist’s interpretation, but surfacing the material so the therapist has something richer to work with when the client returns.

AI documentation tools have already been shown to cut charting time by more than half. That is hours returned to actual care. Hours a burned-out practitioner with 50 clients needs.

Then there is pattern recognition across time. Humans are extraordinary at reading a room. We are less reliable at tracking subtle behavioral shifts over months. Systems that analyze mood data, sleep patterns, and engagement signals can surface trends a practitioner might miss. Not because the practitioner is careless, but because they are human, managing their own overwhelm.

A clinician at the University of Washington put it simply: therapists have historically been limited to what a patient remembers on a particular day. Now we are learning how to bring the rest of a patient’s life into treatment.

The Evidence Is Early. It Is Also Personal.

A randomized trial of 210 adults, run by psychologists and psychiatrists at Dartmouth and published in NEJM AI, tested a generative AI chatbot called Therabot. Participants with major depressive disorder saw an average 51 percent drop in symptoms over eight weeks. Participants with generalized anxiety disorder saw a 31 percent reduction. The lead researcher said the results were comparable to randomized trials of psychotherapy with human providers, in roughly half the time.

What struck me most: participants reported a therapeutic alliance with the tool approaching norms for human outpatient care. The technology did not just deliver information. It created a sense of being heard.

I know what it feels like not to be heard. To perform wellness while drowning. To need someone at 2 a.m. and have no one to call. I am not suggesting we hand everyone an app and call it therapy. I am saying continuity matters. Presence matters. And for the millions of people sitting in the gap between crisis and care, a well-designed tool is better than silence.

At Cedars-Sinai, physician-scientists are studying XAIA, a program that uses virtual reality and generative AI to deliver conversational therapy in immersive environments. They encoded more than 70 best practices from expert therapy sessions into the system. Not to replace the expert, but to extend the expert’s approach to the moments when no therapist is available. Early findings in npj Digital Medicine found the approach safe and worth further research.

Where I Come In

I work in psychedelic integration now. I build technology, including a platform called Safar, to support practitioners who guide people through some of the most profound and vulnerable experiences of their lives.

Integration is the work that happens before and after the medicine. It is where the insights from a session get translated into lasting change, or do not. The practitioner shortage that plagues mental health care at large is magnified here, where the pool of qualified, experienced guides is a fraction of the demand.

AI cannot hold space the way a skilled practitioner can. It does not know when silence is more therapeutic than words. But it can help a practitioner stay connected to 50 clients between sessions instead of 10. It can surface a journal entry from three weeks ago that holds the thread a client needs to pull next. It can flag when someone’s engagement drops off, a signal that often precedes the hardest moments, and prompt the practitioner to reach out before the crisis instead of after.

That is what responsible deployment looks like. Not a chatbot pretending to be a shaman. An instrument in the practitioner’s hand.

Name the Risks or Lose Credibility

Any honest conversation about AI in mental health has to reckon with what can go wrong.

Dependency is a legitimate concern. Research from OpenAI and the MIT Media Lab found that extended heavy use of AI chatbots can heighten loneliness and emotional reliance, the opposite of the therapeutic goal. Sycophancy is baked into many large language models, which are optimized to keep users engaged, not to challenge them.

Data privacy in mental health is a moral obligation, not a compliance checkbox. The information people share in their most vulnerable moments deserves the highest level of protection.

And there is the cultural dimension. The vast majority of counselors in the U.S. identify as white, while racial and ethnic minorities make up nearly 40 percent of the population. Tools trained on narrow datasets risk amplifying the biases already built into care. If the technology cannot serve diverse populations, it will deepen the inequities it claims to address.

None of this is a reason to reject AI in mental health care. It is the reason to build it right.

What I Wish Had Existed

I think about my mother in front of that poster. I think about the version of me that was calculating exits.

Neither of us needed an app. We needed a human being who understood what we were going through and had the capacity to stay with us through it. That human being was unavailable, overwhelmed, or did not exist in our zip code.

The mental health crisis is not waiting for a perfect solution. Millions of people are already turning to AI chatbots because they cannot find or afford a therapist. The tools are arriving whether the field is ready or not.

The question is whether we build them with clinical integrity, practitioner oversight, and real respect for the person on the other end, or whether we leave it to the market to sort out.

I know this space. Professionally and personally. I watched my mother suffer. I suffered. The system wasn’t there for either of us. That’s why I’m here.

June 3, 2026June 3, 2026

Three Brain Injuries, One Iboga Protocol, and What It Tells Us

A new case series in Frontiers in Pharmacology is going to circulate widely in psychedelic circles. Three people with lasting symptoms after a brain injury went through a six-week iboga microdosing protocol paired with therapy. Two improved and held those gains. One had less impressive gains, but still improved despite adverse events in their life.

Before this paper get flattened into “iboga heals brain injury,” it helps to read what the paper actually says. The authors are careful.

Since there are special risks with Iboga, we should be too.

What the study did

Burton Tabaac, Robin Carhart-Harris, and Teresa Yung followed three patients through a participant-directed protocol using whole Tabernanthe Iboga root bark. Not isolated ibogaine, which is the drug most clinics use. Lab testing put the material at about 3.8% ibogaine by mass.

Patients dosed four days on, three days off, for six weeks. The daily amount ran from 0.1 to 1.0 grams of root bark, which the authors estimate at 3.8 to 38.5 mg of ibogaine-equivalent. Each met weekly for Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), a body-focused, relationship-centered approach. Supplements and lifestyle changes were also part of the protocol.

The three patients were a 43-year-old man with post-concussive symptoms after a motorcycle crash; a 40-year-old woman with seven years of headaches and brain fog after oxygen loss during an avalanche burial; and a 19-year-old woman with post-concussive symptoms after a car crash.

What happened

The first two did great, though the paper is careful to grade them differently. The man’s case it calls substantial improvement. He went from multiple daily anger outbursts and near-daily headaches to no outbursts and headaches every few months. He came off all his medications. He described himself as “better than ever, and better than before the accident.”

The 40 year old woman is the person the paper declares having complete symptom resolution. She stopped an antidepressant she had taken for twenty years. Her brain fog cleared. She said she felt like she was “living back in her own brain.” Both held their gains at long-term follow-up.

A timeline note matters here. This patient had also used psilocybin and LSD on her own, starting in 2021, and she credited LSD with part of her cognitive recovery. That use ran years before the iboga protocol began in late 2024, and she did not take either during the active treatment weeks. So it is not a case of mixing drugs in the moment. It is a reminder that she arrived with a psychedelic history the paper says shaped her baseline.

The third patient is perhaps the most interesting case. She sourced her own iboga and followed a protocol like her father’s, who had used it for his own TBI. And for a while, she improved a lot. She went from describing herself as “feeling drunk 90% of the time” to about 45% symptomatic. Her emotional volatility dropped by roughly 70%, a change her father confirmed. Nausea, vertigo, and hand numbness resolved completely. Headaches fell from several a week to one self-resolving episode in a month. Then, at her June follow-up, headaches, mood swings and cognitive fatigue came back . The authors say so directly, noting her path “may partially reflect the expected natural recovery curve” of mild TBI.

What the case series can’t show

This is simply a case series. It covers the experience of three people. It helps raise questions and can’t be seen as proof that iboga caused anything. Too many things were happening at once to credit any single one, not to mention the small sample size.

It was never iboga alone. The protocol paired the plant material with six weeks of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, a structured somatic approach that does real therapeutic work on its own. AEDP is not a background variable here. It is a core part of the treatment, which is exactly the problem for anyone trying to credit the iboga. When a serious psychotherapy, a ritualistic frame, supplements, and a strong expectation of getting better all run at once, you cannot clearly see what the plant is responsible for. The second patient’s earlier psychedelic history similarly reflects how messy real world case studies can be.

This shouldn’t undercut the value. We suspect that this case series is tremendously important.

Most concussion symptoms fade on their own. Even long-running cases can improve without treatment. The 19-year-old was three months out from her injury when starting microdosing which is well inside the window where people often get better. The two strong responders had carried their symptoms for years, and standard care had not moved them. That contrast is an essential part of the story.

A word about the dose

“Microdosing protocol” suggests something very specific, which is not the case. The daily range spanned a full order of magnitude, from about 3.8 to 38.5 mg of ibogaine-equivalent, and patients largely chose their own dose inside it. One person’s “microdose” could have been ten times another’s.

That range deserves attention, because dose is where iboga’s risk lives. Ibogaine can stretch the heart’s electrical cycle, called the QT interval. This can happe in a way that can trigger fatal heart rhythms, and the danger climbs with the amount in the body. The authors screened for heart problems and dangerous drug interactions, which is generally recognized as essential when working with this plant and it’s most famous molecule.

A tenfold, self-directed spread on dose is hard to study and harder to reproduce. Two people following “the same protocol” may not be running the same experiment. I personally find merit in the approach, given my experience, but understand why some might want more dose specific research, which I hope we’ll see sooner than later.

It also muddies the comparison to the veterans that the late Nolan Williams at Stanford studied, who each got a single weight-based flood dose under medical monitoring. The authors know this dose problem is substantial and list standardized dosing as a top priority for future work.

To counterpoint to all this caution, at Psychedelics Today, we have not seen a single report of a serious cardiac event from an iboga microdosing protocol. This is obviously not proof of safety. We might just not be hearing about it. Microdosing happens quietly, outside any system that would track a problem.

Ibogaine’s cardiac risk seems to rise with the amount in your body. A few milligrams a day is not the same load as a single flood dose, so it stands to reason the heart risk is lower. Lower risk is not no risk, which is why the screening in this paper still matters.

How it fits the larger iboga picture

Many readers will think of the Stanford work in veterans with traumatic brain injury. That study used a single high “flood” dose of magnesium-ibogaine and reported large drops in PTSD, depression, and disability. A later imaging paper from the same group went into new territory by using brain scans before and after treatment. The researchers found lasting increases in blood flow across the cortex and deeper brain regions, plus reorganized connections across brain networks. The blood-flow gains in the left insula and anterior cingulate (different parts of the human brain) tracked with reduced disability. Reduced blood flow is a known signature of brain injury, so this showed measured repair, not just symptom relief.

The two studies are near mirror images. Flood dose against microdose. A research clinic against a self-directed outpatient protocol. Pure molecule plus-magnesium against whole root bark. These papers come at the same question from opposite ends of the dosing range which makes the case series worth deeply considering.

Almost all the serious iboga science to date has used a single high dose, given once. This series asks a different question: what happens if you give small repeated doses over weeks, alongside structured therapy? We still don’t know the answer, and three uncontrolled cases do not provide it. But the question is a legitimate one, and it is new a newish and edgy conversation happening in psychedelic circles, at least in the USA. A weak study can still point at a good hypothesis. The value here is the study design ideas the patient outcomes are suggesting.

What might be driving it

The authors offer a possible mechanism and hold it loosely. The lead idea is neuroplasticity. In rodents, ibogaine raises growth factors like GDNF and BDNF in brain circuits tied to repair, and the thought is that a sustained microdosing window might push a brain with a stall in repair to remodel, with therapy shaping where that growth goes. They also note that a concussion’s mechanical shearing and an injury from oxygen loss are different harms that may still meet downstream in the same inflammation and plasticity pathways.

The authors measured none of this in these three patients. No growth factors tested, probably because this is hard to test in humans. No imaging of repair, which is quite expensive.

They call extending the rodent and addiction research to chronic brain injury “highly preliminary.” It is a story offered as a reason to run better studies, not a result.

The sourcing question

The paper does something most iboga research skips. It names its source: a family in the Congo, harvested through traditional practice.

That matters, because the wider iboga trade has a dark side. By most accounts, the large majority of iboga and ibogaine used outside Africa comes from plants poached in Gabon and moved out through Cameroon. INTERPOL reports that the same organized networks running ivory now traffic iboga, clearing protected forest as they go. Gabon treats iboga as a strategic resource and has moved to limit exports. High prices and online demand keep the illegal trade going.

If microdosing protocols like this one catch on, demand grows with them. Interest in iboga’s promise has to carry the sourcing question alongside it. Not as a footnote. As part of the same conversation.

A more bullish reading

Not everyone reads the paper as cautiously as its authors wrote it. Court Wing, of REMAP Therapeutics and the Psychedelics and Pain Association (I’m a board member) calls it a demarcation line. A possible turning point not just for traumatic brain injury and post-concussion syndrome, but maybe for stroke and other brain conditions down the line.

His argument is worth hearing in full. Look at the actual exams, he says. The patients’ standard neurological workups came back normal. Their function tests and psychological evaluations look, to him, like remission. In his reading, the reason the authors stop short of saying “recovered” or “in remission” is not that the people aren’t. It is that academics writing a case series structurally cannot make that claim. “No clinician looking at their psychological evaluations and function tests would claim that they are not in remission,” he says. All three described what felt to them like full recovery, and the people closest to them agreed.

On patient three, Court reads the “relapse” differently than the paper does. He puts her slide back at the point her microdosing stopped, after her sixth session, and notes she asked to do another round. To him, that says she needed a longer course and a deeper integration period, not that the approach failed.

And he points at what he sees as the real opportunity: pairing iboga microdosing with other forms of neurorehabilitation, not just psychotherapy. Prime the nervous system for a few weeks before or during the dosing, he argues, and the effects could compound. This is the way psilocybin paired with mirror-box therapy has amplified results for phantom-limb pain, a condition with a heavy cortical and structural-plasticity component.

Here is where I would mark the line. Court may be right, and his neurorehab-pairing idea is one of the more interesting hypotheses to come out of this paper. But his reading of patient three—iboga worked, then wore off—is one explanation. The paper offers another in the same breath: she may have been recovering and fluctuating on her own, the way mild TBI often does. Both fit the facts we have. The optimistic story and the natural-recovery story are still standing in the same room, and we need more data to tell them apart.

What to do with this

Not call it proof that iboga heals brain injury. The evidence here cannot carry that, and the authors would say so first. What it can support is smaller and more useful. This is a strong enough signal to justify some research in humans.

We need more carefully documented cases, small pilot studies with real controls, standardized measures, plasticity biomarkers, and follow-up long enough to separate drug effects from natural recovery and expectation.

Three substantial cases, in a screened, multimodal, honestly reported series, is a reason to lean in.

Lets get to work and make this research happen.

May 8, 2026June 11, 2026

No Promises and No Goals

An excerpt from Radical Adventure: An Inquiry into Psychedelic Psychotherapy

Content note: This article briefly mentions suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

I am afraid that in this renaissance of the use of psychedelics the whole enterprise is going to be medicalized. This, to me, means that big mistakes are going to be committed and opportunities squandered. For example, if you suggest to a patient that their psychotherapy could be enhanced with the use of a psychedelic, how will you ask for “informed consent” when neither you nor they know what they are consenting to? One of the other pseudoscientific questions that arises in psychedelic therapy is: How do you select your patients? What are the selection criteria? Well, as far as I have been able to ascertain, there aren’t any. Self-selection, I would say, is probably the best criterion. I have never suggested to anybody to do an LSD session. I only respond to people who say, “I’m going to do one.” Self-selection. Because anything else, any other criterion or restriction basically shows the therapist’s fear, his need to cover his own ass, to avoid being held responsible by the authorities.

I would say that some people instinctively just want to stay away from it, and I support them 100 percent. I would never want to talk anybody into it. I would never promote it. I would never say that it is a panacea. But equally strangely some people passionately seek it. Some people want the experience without knowing anything about it. The very first time I took LSD, I did not know what I was getting into. No matter how much you read about it, no matter what people tell you about it, the experience is a total surprise. So, in a way one has to be an adventurer.

There is one criterion that I sometimes watch out for. If you come to me and you say you want this kind of treatment, as we talk I may realize that in your life you are overloaded with responsibility, you carry the weight of your family, have lots of responsibilities, carry a big burden, and you are kind of the strong man in your family and among people that you work with. I might begin to sense that you are actually a bit suicidal. That is, you think you could lighten your load if you could only die. That this is the only way out for you; you do not have the wherewithal to say “No, I don’t want to do this anymore.” If you might want to exit by killing yourself, then it may not be a good idea for you to take LSD. The reason is that when you have gone deep into an altered state of consciousness, there is a moment where there is a kind of choice to make: Do I want to come back? And then it could occur to you, “Hey, this is an opportunity, I just go crazy here! I could be one of those people who go psychotic because of LSD, never come back, and then my family will have to take care of me, and doctors will take care of me, and I will have no responsibility.” So, if there is this sense, then I might say don’t do it. I do not want to give anybody this option of exiting from the responsibilities by going crazy because they took ayahuasca, LSD, or psilocybin. Alternatively, I would say that first you would have to be in therapy until you find your way out of being overburdened, until you are not tempted to use drugs to go AWOL.

I will tell two little stories that illustrate the dangers of pretending to know selection criteria. Under current prejudices, neither of the two patients in my stories would have been allowed LSD psychotherapy.

Mary was a roughly fifty-year-old woman, very depressed. She was in a mental hospital when there were still mental hospitals in Vancouver. And she was in a locked ward. She received several courses of electroconvulsive therapy, and she was on major antipsychotics. She had attempted suicide four times. Her psychologist at the hospital, who was a patient of mine, for some odd reason thought that Mary could benefit from seeing me. So, it was the psychologist who transported this woman to see me twice a week for fifty-minute sessions. For three long months, this woman came in, sat down, did not move a muscle, never looked at me, and just sat there silently. Three months, twice a week. “Who am I to say anything to her?” I thought at first. I welcomed her, and there we sat. After a while, I began to notice that I was thinking things that I probably wouldn’t be thinking if I had been alone, if I hadn’t been in her presence. Now, those thoughts, which I thought arose because I was with her, I started to verbalize. I even joked that she was my analyst because she was quiet, and I was speaking. She did not crack a smile. To cut a long story short, her first words to me were spoken after three months and totally surprised me because by then I expected that she would never speak. She said, “I’m afraid of you.” I said, “What could I possibly do that would be harmful to you?” She said, “You might take my freedom away from me.” I said, “How?” She said, “I’m afraid I won’t feel free to commit suicide if I continue this.” I did not think that was such a bad thing. So that is how it began.

We engaged in regular, unassisted psychotherapy for about three years, during which time she weaned herself off all psychiatric medication. What we came to was that she lived in a 24/7 soap opera. From the time she was born, she wanted to be the good child of her parents, be the good student at school, and then the good wife to her husband. Then she said she didn’t want any children, but her husband insisted, so she had to be the good mother to her children. She was very keenly aware that no one was interested in her. Everybody was interested in the mother, in the daughter, in the wife. I had to make very sure that I didn’t expect her to be a good patient. It would have been one more weight on her shoulders. Clearly, her attempts at suicide were to escape the 24/7 soap opera. I mean, imagine yourself having to perform 24/7, and there is no way out, no way to get offstage, except, she thought, by offing yourself. I could understand. The only alternative I could offer her was that maybe there is a way to be authentic and not have to play anything or anybody without having to kill yourself. I wasn’t sure, but at least it seemed to me worth trying before she really annihilated herself. And then she had the bright idea that she was going to take LSD. I thought she was either brave or foolhardy, but I was willing to accompany her into the unknown. First session, absolutely nothing happened. She got even gloomier than before. A month later, she said, “I’m doing it again.” I said OK. It works, she cried. She had a horrendous experience of abandonment. She saw me walking away from her. She said, “All I see is your back, and you’re leaving.” Now, that opened something up. That opened up a trauma that she hadn’t talked about before. She was three years old, in Germany, where her family was stationed, when they got the order to go back to Canada, and her parents suddenly thought, “We haven’t even seen Europe.” So, she was three years old, and they put her with a German nanny. In her words, they “parked me like luggage.” The older children and the parents went off for a six-week tour of Europe. Of course, the German woman who looked after her didn’t want any crying, didn’t want any tears, so, from that moment on, she felt she was a piece of shit because gold you take with you, shit you leave behind. She got the message. She thought I, too, would leave her sooner or later. It was a very dark, sad, traumatic LSD session. A month later, I thought she was going to kill herself for sure. It was clear between us that suicide prevention was not my job, and it was clear even between her husband and me that if he wanted to protect her, he would have to keep a twenty-four-hour vigil. I could not do that. She informed me that she was doing a third and last LSD trip before ending her life and—guess what?—she came out of that episode smiling and laughing. In terms of Stan Grof’s four stages of birth—bliss inside, no exit, bloody battle, bliss outside—she came out in bliss outside, and she conceived a way of being where she did not have to play any roles, and she was not too frightened that her husband wouldn’t have anything to do with her, her children wouldn’t have anything to do with her. Because that was her fear, that unless she performed the roles, no one would tolerate her. In Laing’s terms, used in The Divided Self, she found her way from object-for-the-other to subject-of-desire. Now, this was more than ten years ago, and she is still perfectly well. She is living a very creative and happy life. She performs occasional grandmother functions, which she used to dread but now embraces because she is in control of it. She does not play the grandmother; she is the grandmother. Once a year, she sends me a little note: “Love you and hate you!” She need not have been diagnosed with a complex form of mental illness, and then treated with electric shocks and poisonous medication. She needed me to listen to her with a love that recognized her total being, and accepted it, with no strings attached. Then she could escape from the prison of having to be good and obedient. LSD simply helped with the regression necessary to find and reconnect with her long-abandoned authentic self.

The second story illustrating the uselessness of selection criteria is about Lana, a woman I worked with for at least four years. She was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. She was a fifty-five-year-old woman who would suddenly, in front of my eyes and ears, turn into a seven-year-old boy.

I thought she was pulling my leg. Around that time, I was going around saying and teaching that multiple personality disorder was iatrogenic. Patients just performed that to entertain their therapist. But it was apparently not so. So, I wanted to look up the literature on what to do with somebody who is so split. And then I resisted the urge, and I thought she is going to teach me. Her multiple personality disorder is not like anyone else’s. That’s how we proceeded. The little boy taught me everything. The little boy knew everything. He was the repository of all the memories of torture and sexual abuse that she went through in her childhood. She knew nothing about the boy. She remembered nothing of the abuse. Occasionally, she would come in as the woman. She would say hello, the boy would come out, and at the end of the session, she would come out and write the check and sign it and ask, “What did we do?” But, of course, when I offered to tape-record the session, she would have none of it. It took a while, but magically, the two personas integrated.

Physiologically she manifested some very interesting phenomena. She wore glasses with a very strong prescription. When the boy came out, the boy took the glasses off, and he had perfect vision. She was allergic to peanut butter. The boy could polish off half a jar of peanut butter and show no symptoms. If she had a cold and took aspirin, he would call me up and say she was overmedicating him. After he disappeared, blended into her, because she was slowly able to receive all the information that he was the repository of, she had to change her glasses; her new prescription was half as strong as the original.

After that, for about five years, she was fine and lived her life and worked. And then she phoned me up and said she was going to do some LSD. I thought, what if the boy comes out again? But that was my worry, not hers. I mentioned it to her, but she said, “Well, then we’ll deal with him.” Her reason was that she thought that her life was a little bit gray, not enough color in it. She felt that some creativity in her could be loosened up, that there was still some stultifying fear. Again, to cut a long story short, she had a very deep LSD session. At one point she was crying, and there was snot and tears all over her face, and I, without thinking, wiped her nose with my handkerchief. She later identified that moment as life-changing. She said nobody had ever done that for her. This allowed her to feel the grief of never having been cared for, of never having been loved. It is the smallest things that can make the biggest difference, and these actions cannot be programmed. They somehow have to be allowed to happen. There is no protocol, there is no schema, there is no book of how to conduct a protocol of a debriefing or an integration. Being able to talk with others who have had similar experiences, to be in a community, is highly desirable, but it isn’t a community that has ideas about what should happen. It has to be a community that is open to surprises and who will let me be and not speak of what I do not want to speak of and not put pressure on me that I have to integrate. I don’t have to do anything. To embark on psychedelic therapy is to head into the unknown in each other’s company, with no promises, no particular goal. Psychedelic psychotherapy, at its best, can heal both therapist and patient. Within a therapeutic relationship, the experience during an altered state of consciousness becomes integrated in the patient’s life in the process. I think it is very important to think of taking psychedelics within therapy. I wouldn’t just do a psychedelic trip with a stranger; I would first have the relationship, then the psychedelic. Integration would be continuing the relationship after the experience. How do you integrate climbing a mountain with your therapist? Continuing the therapy and continuing the relationship. There is a relationship before climbing the mountain, there is the climbing the mountain, and then you talk about how I was in trouble and you helped me, or I was in trouble and you didn’t help me, or I thought you were going to do this, and you did something else and I had an experience. This is where it is absolutely important that somebody who just wants to have a psychedelic experience without therapy is barking up the wrong tree. It might turn out to be harmful. Integration is the relationship itself. It is the relationship between the therapist and the patient that heals, not the method, not the protocol, not the psychedelic; it is the relationship.

April 22, 2026April 22, 2026

Why Ketamine Is Changing Psychiatry

Scott Shannon - Why Ketamine is Changing Psychiaty ChatGPT Image Apr 22, 2026, 01_27_54 PM

Something about modern mental health care is clearly not working.

Depression continues to rise. Suicide has climbed dramatically over the past two decades, anxiety disorders are now commonplace, and our teens are suffering at unprecedented rates. At the same time, psychiatric medications have never been more widely prescribed. Millions of people take antidepressants every day, yet a large percentage still struggle with persistent suffering.

For clinicians working in the field, this creates a quiet but growing sense of unease. Many of us entered psychiatry with the hope of helping people heal, yet too often our role has been reduced to managing symptoms. The tools we inherited—daily medications designed to correct presumed “chemical imbalances”—can sometimes help, but they rarely produce the deeper transformations patients are searching for.

Over the past decade, however, a new movement has begun to reshape how we think about mental health and healing. The psychedelic renaissance has reintroduced a radically different idea: that certain medicines can catalyze profound psychological change when used in the right context.

Within this emerging paradigm, ketamine has taken on a unique and unexpectedly important role.

A Medicine Hiding in Plain Sight

Ketamine is hardly a new discovery. For more than half a century it has been used safely as an anesthetic in operating rooms and emergency departments around the world. Physicians know it well. It is predictable, inexpensive, and remarkably safe when administered properly.

What has changed is our understanding of its effects on the mind.

At sub-anesthetic doses, ketamine can relieve severe depression with extraordinary speed. In many cases, patients who have struggled for years with treatment-resistant depression experience meaningful relief within hours or days.

For a field accustomed to waiting weeks for antidepressants to take effect—if they work at all—this alone was enough to capture attention.

But as clinicians began working with ketamine more deeply, something even more intriguing emerged. The medicine did not simply relieve symptoms. It seemed to open psychological space for change.

Patients frequently reported experiences that felt surprisingly psychedelic: shifts in perspective, encounters with powerful emotional material, or moments of existential insight. Many described the experience as stepping outside the rigid patterns of thought that had trapped them for years.

Ketamine was doing something different.

From Symptom Suppression to Psychological Flexibility

For decades, psychiatric medications have primarily functioned as stabilizers or suppressants. They dampen anxiety, lift mood slightly, or soften emotional extremes. While this can be helpful, it rarely reorganizes the deeper psychological structures underlying suffering.

Ketamine appears to operate through a different mechanism.

Research suggests that ketamine temporarily disrupts activity in the brain’s default mode network, a set of interconnected regions associated with self-referential thinking and rumination. At the same time, it dramatically increases neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to form new neural connections.

In practical terms, this creates a window of flexibility.

During this window, the rigid narratives that often define depression—stories of hopelessness, shame, or personal failure—can loosen. From this altered vantage point, people may see their lives differently.

For some, this shift can feel nothing short of revelatory.

Importantly, this is not merely a pharmacological effect. The experience itself appears to matter. Insight, emotional release, and meaning making frequently accompany ketamine sessions, especially when the experience is integrated through psychotherapy.

In other words, ketamine does not suppress the psyche. It can help open it.

The Bridge Medicine

Ketamine’s unique legal and clinical status has also made it an important bridge within the broader psychedelic renaissance.

Classic psychedelics such as psilocybin and MDMA are currently progressing through regulatory pathways in the United States. The clinical data supporting these treatments is compelling, and many believe they will eventually reshape psychiatric care. We do have psilocybin available in Colorado and Oregon in regulated state programs that stand very clearly outside of psychiatry.

But these medicines remain restricted in mainstream care for now.

Ketamine, by contrast, is already legal and widely available for off-label psychiatric use. This has allowed clinicians to begin exploring psychedelic-informed models of care years before other medicines reach approval.

In this sense, ketamine occupies a fascinating position between two worlds.

On one side lies conventional psychiatry, with its emphasis on symptom management and daily pharmacology. On the other side lies the emerging psychedelic paradigm, where episodic experiences catalyze psychological and spiritual transformation.

Ketamine sits squarely between them.

It speaks the language of both worlds.

Ketamine and Psychotherapy

Perhaps the most significant development in recent years has been the rise of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP).

In this model, ketamine is not used simply as a pharmacological antidepressant. Instead, it functions as a catalyst for psychological exploration. Psychedelic therapies may represent the first time in modern psychiatry that medication and psychotherapy are intentionally designed to work together rather than separately. Rather than suppressing symptoms day after day, the medicine temporarily opens the mind, while psychotherapy helps shape the meaning of what is discovered there.

At lower doses, patients may remain conversational while experiencing softened psychological defenses. This state allows therapists to work directly with difficult emotional material that might otherwise remain inaccessible.

At higher doses, the experience becomes more inward and reflective. Patients may enter immersive altered states in which symbolic imagery, memories, and insights arise spontaneously.

Following the session, psychotherapy helps integrate these experiences into lasting psychological change.

Clinicians often observe that therapy conducted in the days following ketamine treatment can be unusually productive. The mind remains more flexible, more open to new interpretations of long-standing patterns.

In many cases, months of therapeutic progress can occur in a far shorter period of time.

A Gentle Introduction to Psychedelic Terrain

Another reason ketamine has become so important is that it provides clinicians with a relatively accessible entry point into psychedelic therapy.

Classic psychedelic medicines can produce deeply transformative experiences lasting six to eight hours. For practitioners unfamiliar with these states of consciousness, this intensity can feel intimidating.

Ketamine journeys are shorter—often less than an hour—and the depth of the experience can be carefully titrated through dosage and delivery methods. This flexibility allows therapists to gradually develop skill in supporting altered states of consciousness.

Different delivery methods and dosing strategies open different layers of experience. Even small adjustments can shift the psychological landscape of a session, offering clinicians a direct encounter with the complexity of consciousness itself.

For many professionals entering the psychedelic field, ketamine has become a training ground for learning how to work with and learn from the psyche in new ways.

Consciousness and the Ketamine Experience

Ketamine also offers something that goes beyond clinical symptom relief.

The dissociative nature of the experience can temporarily separate awareness from the usual stream of thought. For many individuals, this reveals something profound: that consciousness itself exists independently of the narratives we normally inhabit.

Patients sometimes describe the experience as encountering a vast field of awareness beyond their everyday identity. For someone trapped in the constricted mental loops of depression or anxiety, this glimpse can be transformative. It demonstrates—experientially—that their suffering is not the entirety of their being.

This realization alone can rekindle hope.

In some cases, ketamine experiences even resemble the transformative qualities reported in near-death experiences: a shift toward greater openness, compassion, and appreciation for life.

While such experiences cannot be predicted or engineered, they point toward deeper dimensions of healing. For some people, it becomes the kind of encounter that quietly reshapes the course of a life

Challenges and Responsibilities

Despite its promise, ketamine is not without risks.

Like many psychoactive substances, it carries the potential for misuse if taken frequently or without proper oversight. Excessive use can lead to dependence and physical complications. Recent trends toward loosely regulated telemedicine prescribing and home use have raised concerns within the field. Without careful clinical structure, ketamine could be reduced to another daily coping tool rather than the catalyst for transformation it can be.

The psychedelic model is fundamentally different.

Rather than frequent dosing, it emphasizes episodic, intentional experiences embedded within therapeutic and relational support. The goal is not escape but insight.

Maintaining this distinction will be critical for the future of ketamine therapy.

The chemical effect of ketamine also comes with some challenges. The ketamine response is not as durable as a classic psychedelic, and it is less likely in my experience to trigger a transformative metaphysical encounter. It often requires more psychotherapeutic support, on-going integration or repeated treatment.

A Glimpse of the Emerging Paradigm

When viewed within the larger context of the psychedelic renaissance, ketamine begins to look less like a niche treatment and more like a preview of what mental health care may become.

For much of the twentieth century, psychiatry approached the mind as a malfunctioning machine that needed chemical correction.

The emerging paradigm suggests something very different.

It suggests that the psyche possesses its own inherent capacity for healing and reorganization. Medicines like ketamine may help unlock this capacity by temporarily loosening the rigid patterns that maintain suffering. In this framework, the clinician becomes less of a technician and more of a guide. The therapeutic relationship becomes a container for exploration rather than a mechanism for control.

The Inner Healer

The psychedelic renaissance is often described as the discovery of powerful new medicines. Yet what these therapies may ultimately reveal is something much older.

Human beings appear to carry within them an innate movement toward healing. Beneath the layers of fear, trauma, and rigid patterns of thought lies a psyche that is constantly attempting to reorganize itself toward greater coherence and wholeness.

For much of the past century, psychiatry has struggled to see this. Our treatments have often focused on managing symptoms rather than engaging the deeper intelligence of the mind.

Ketamine is beginning to change that conversation.

By briefly loosening the habitual structures of consciousness, ketamine allows many people to encounter something they had forgotten was there: a wider field of awareness, a renewed sense of possibility, and the quiet realization that healing may not need to be imposed from the outside.

It may already be present within.

In this way, ketamine does more than relieve depression or catalyze psychotherapy. It offers a glimpse of a different model of care—one in which medicines serve not as suppressants of the psyche, but as catalysts that help reveal its intrinsic capacity for transformation. If that vision continues to unfold, the future of mental health care may look very different from the past.

And ketamine may be remembered as the medicine that helped mainstream psychiatry rediscover the healing intelligence that has always lived within the human psyche.

April 17, 2026June 11, 2026

Op-Ed: Iboga, Ibogaine & 5-MeO-DMT: What gets missed when complex medicines are reduced to standard protocols

etero iboga - gpt generated with edits in canva.

Ibogaine, the alkaloid derived from the Tabernanthe iboga plant, and often through a more sustainable option voacanga africana, is front and center, riding the third wave of the modern psychedelic movement.

We hear of miracle stories: opiate withdrawals vanishing into thin air, neurotransmitters reset, an injured brain healing, trauma stored in the body and mind fresh with new perspective. But what happens when we not only extract a single alkaloid from a master plant, but also extract context, culture and tradition? As these medicines move towards standardization, we risk confusing safety with completeness.

The lesser known full-spectrum iboga, a perennial shrub found in Gabon, Cameroon and the Congo basin of Central Africa, is a root bark with a complex profile of alkaloids working in a powerful symbiosis. Iboga is a sacrament of the Bwiti tradition, a spiritual system with many branches practiced in the villages of the forest.

One might even say that working with iboga is akin to listening to a full symphony, an orchestra of sensation and sound, while the extracted, often semi-synthetic, ibogaine is like hearing a singular, transformative note. Clinical ibogaine has an essential role in treating addiction and supporting people in critical moments of need. But when we mistake the molecule for the entirety of the medicine, something important gets lost.

The Bwiti teach about truth, strength and resilience. The tradition is rooted in animism, honoring the wisdom of all beings, plants, animals and material. It is important to name that Indigenous knowledge, like most spiritual systems, is ideally worked with through an internal knowing and connection to community, and less so when placed on a pedestal, or through guru-ification of a singular person, group or rigid ideology.

However, when iboga is removed from its cultural roots, something essential goes missing that is not easily replaced by training, intention or clinical framing. In its traditional context, iboga is not a drug or even a plant; it is a living consciousness that requires relationship much like any human being would. It is held within lineage, ritual, community and a system of meaning that shapes both the experience and what follows it. Without that living framework, the experience can become untethered. What remains is often a powerful and disorienting pharmacological event that lacks the relational and symbolic anchors that help a person metabolize what they encounter.

Some believe that iboga should not be separated from the Bwiti tradition, but what does this actually mean for both western iboga providers and ibogaine clinics? Many iboga providers travel for initiation, rites of passage, and the observation and witnessing of Bwiti elders. They make their way home to the western world, serving as bridge people. Some providers honor the tradition while also allowing for the reality of the modern mind, nervous system and experience. Others attempt to replicate an Indigenous ceremony without lineage, creating confusion and appropriating what is not theirs to carry.

Ibogaine clinics tend to focus on the properties of ibogaine, and less so its cultural roots. While the presence of medics, therapists and a contained, well-supported environment is vital, we cannot forget where the medicine comes from. The land, the elders and the tradition are integral to the medicine itself.

It is less often we see earth-based traditions or Indigenous voices, teachings, or students of elders brought into clinical spaces. With the rise in popularity of ibogaine, we are seeing more clinics serve as revolving doors, with extended waitlists and missing context for what a participant just experienced.

Ceremonial wisdom sees each person as an individual expression of nature. Without truly honoring lineage and elders through a living bridge of connection, not just a reciprocity check or week in Gabon, we are missing an imperative aspect of the work.

In western settings there is often an attempt to compensate for this loss through structure and protocol. While structure has value, it can give a false sense of completeness—iboga and ibogaine are not self-explanatory.

Without a cultural framework that contextualizes memory, identity and potential psychological rupture, participants may leave with insights that are difficult to integrate or in some cases destabilizing. The absence of context can also shift the power dynamic in subtle ways, placing more interpretive authority in the hands of facilitators, who may not be rooted in a relationship with a lineage that has stewarded this master plant for generations.

Efforts to legalize ibogaine have accelerated in recent years. Colorado’s ibogaine bill HB26-1325 includes “benefit-sharing” language with Bwiti communities, though in practice this remains largely symbolic and difficult to quantify. Could the focus on a single alkaloid be driven less by the medicine itself and more by what can be patented and standardized?

When medicines are reduced to their pharmacological components, it becomes easier to treat them as modular tools that can be sequenced and optimized through protocol. The rise of ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT stacking is an example of how standardization can both support and undermine safety.

The increasingly common sequencing of ibogaine, often delivered without traditional context, followed by 5-MeO-DMT—an extremely expansive psychedelic that produces a powerful nondual experience, warrants pause and attention.

There is a tendency to assume that because 5-MeO-DMT often produces short non-narrative experiences, it is simpler to administer. This assumption can lead to an underestimation of both the intensity and the aftermath, particularly when stacked with ibogaine or iboga. Individuals can emerge from these sessions with a profound shift in perception that requires careful support as well as community integration.

When care is overly protocol-driven there is a risk that facilitators miss key signals or move too quickly through stages that need more time and attunement. What is gained in efficiency can be lost in precision.

On one hand, the development of protocols has helped reduce certain acute risks. Clear screening processes, dosing guidelines, and medical oversight have brought a level of consistency to an otherwise unpredictable space. On the other hand, the drive toward standardization can flatten the complexity of the experience and the people undergoing it. A protocol can account for physiological and psychological variables. But can it fully account for readiness, relational dynamics, the spiritual field, or the subtle ways in which a person’s history interacts with the medicine?

Individualized care, whether in clinical or ceremonial settings, does not mean the absence of structure; it means that structure remains responsive and relational rather than rigid and extractive. It requires facilitators to develop a high level of sensitivity to each participant to understand when to follow a guideline and when to deviate from it. The benefits of this approach include a greater capacity to meet people where they are and to reduce the likelihood of adverse outcomes that arise from misalignment. The risks are that it demands more experience, more accountability, and a willingness to operate without the safety net of a one-size-fits-all model.

The alternative is not the absence of structure, but structure in service to relationship. Protocols that remain flexible, responsive and grounded in the individual rather than fixed sequences applied uniformly. When they are treated as living frameworks rather than fixed formulas, structures and systems can support both safety and depth. When they become substitutes for judgment and relationship they can blur the very complexities they are meant to manage. Do they remain in service to the person, or slowly begin to replace the very awareness that keeps the work safe?

April 16, 2026May 8, 2026

Dr. Michael Alpert and Peter Alberding: ALS, Existential Distress, and Ketamine Therapy

ALS and ketamine therapy are at the center of this conversation with psychiatrist Dr. Michael Alpert and Peter Alberding, who was diagnosed with ALS in late 2023. Alpert is a Boston-area psychiatrist with experience in MDMA-assisted therapy research for PTSD and a private practice that includes ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Alberding shares what it has been like to face a fatal neurodegenerative illness while working with ketamine in a structured clinical setting.

Alberding explains that he was not looking for a casual psychedelic experience. He wanted help facing fear, grief, loss of function, and the reality of death. Over time, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy became a tool for processing those changes more directly than talk therapy alone had allowed.

Early themes in ALS and ketamine therapy

The episode opens with Alberding’s diagnosis and the emotional shock that followed. He describes ALS in direct terms: a fatal disease that gradually takes away voluntary muscle control, with very limited treatment options. That led him to explore whether ketamine might help with existential angst, fear, anxiety, and the need to face what was coming with more clarity.

Alpert outlines his approach to ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. He uses preparatory sessions, careful informed consent, music, a structured therapeutic setting, and post-session integration. He explains that the work is not just about the drug itself. It also depends on trust, intention, safety, and the environment in which the experience unfolds.

Core insights on ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for ALS

A central theme in the middle of the episode is that ketamine sessions are not predictable. Some were intense and difficult. Others were peaceful, joyful, or simply restful. Alberding says not every session produced a major breakthrough, but even sessions that offered only temporary relief still felt therapeutic.

Key points from the conversation:

Ketamine helped accelerate emotional processing during a time-sensitive medical crisis
Music played a major role in shaping the emotional tone of sessions
Trust between therapist and patient was essential, especially when vulnerability or supportive touch came up
Some sessions reduced fear of death by allowing Alberding to experience dying in a way that felt peaceful, connected, and even joyful

The discussion also gets specific about clinical practice. Alpert talks through dose strategy, intramuscular administration, preparation, integration, and how he responds when a patient enters a frightening state. He makes clear that supportive touch must be discussed in advance, consented to, and handled with precision.

Later discussion and takeaways from ALS and ketamine therapy

In the final section, Alberding explains how ketamine helped him move through several phases of illness: fear of what was coming, the experience of losing bodily function, and then a more direct reckoning with mortality and personal agency. He says he is no longer afraid to die, even though he does not want to die.

He also describes a gap in standard medical care. ALS treatment may address the physical course of disease while leaving psychological and existential suffering under-addressed. This episode points toward a role for ketamine-assisted psychotherapy in serious illness and end-of-life care, while staying clear about the limits of one patient’s experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ALS and ketamine therapy?

Here, it refers to ketamine-assisted psychotherapy used to help a person with ALS process fear, grief, mortality, and major changes in function.

Can ketamine help with end-of-life anxiety in ALS?

This episode presents one patient’s experience, not a universal claim. In Alberding’s case, it appears to have helped with fear, acceptance, and emotional processing.

Is ketamine-assisted psychotherapy the same as ketamine treatment alone?

No. Alpert stresses the importance of preparation, therapeutic rapport, music, setting, and follow-up, not just the medicine itself.

What role did music play in these ketamine sessions?

Music helped shape mood, offer structure, and support emotional movement during difficult or profound moments in session.

ALS and ketamine therapy in this episode are discussed through one patient’s experience, one clinician’s approach, and a broader question about how medicine responds to fear, suffering, and mortality when cure is no longer possible.

Transcript

Transcript disclaimer: This transcript was generated by computer software and may contain errors, omissions, or minor inaccuracies. Please refer to the audio recording for the most accurate version of the conversation.

Kyle Buller: [00:00:00] All right. Hello. Welcome everybody to Psychedelics today. Really excited to have Dr. Michael Bert here, and Peter Albertine here. And this is gonna be a really fun, special episode, um, kind of talking about, uh, a patient’s journey, um, with Ketamine assisted psycho psychotherapy, ALS. Um, so I’ll pass this over to you, Michael.

Kyle Buller: Um, for an introduction, if you can introduce yourself to the audience.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Hi everyone. My name is Dr. Michael Alpert. I’m a psychiatrist based in the Boston area. I worked previously on the clinical trials of MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD, and I’m currently in private practice in the Boston area doing a combination of medication management talk therapy and ketamine assisted therapy.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And I’m really looking forward to joining both of you on the podcast today.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, likewise. Thanks for being here. And Peter, we’ll pass it over to you.

Peter Alberding: Well, good [00:01:00] afternoon. I, am Peter Alberding. I live in Boston, or I live in a suburb of Boston. And, uh, I’m 60 years old. In the end of, 2023, I received a diagnosis of ALS.

Kyle Buller: Mm,

Peter Alberding: which, uh, for those who don’t know what ALS is, it’s a neurodegenerative disease, which. Slowly robbed your ability to control voluntary muscle movement and, uh, is a hundred percent fatal. Um, there are limited, very limited treatments available, and, um, as one might imagine that causes a lot of, uh, uh, uh, as Michael has taught me existential angst among other things.

Peter Alberding: And, um, sometime, I don’t know, in March or April or June, something like that, several months into the diagnosis, [00:02:00] I, uh, was interested in pursuing psychedelic therapy to help me address a variety of, uh, you know, emotions and, uh, you know, issues to address around, you know, life and, and, um, and the, you know, the difficult challenge of facing a disease like this and was referred to Michael.

Peter Alberding: Uh, through a, a, a psychiatrist affiliate with MGH. And, um, that’s my brief background.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Well, thanks for being here and thanks for, again, hopefully sharing your story with us today. Sure. Yeah. Um, Michael, I’m curious, you reached out, um, to pitch this idea, so I wonder if you want to give a little bit of background about, um, yeah.

Kyle Buller: This, this episode from your perspective.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Sure. Well, over the course of our work together, Pete has shared pretty consistently the desire [00:03:00] to speak more broadly about his experience with others. And it’s overall felt like it’s been a really positive experience going through this ketamine treatment over the past two years or so, and wanting to tell more people about that, wanting to have some kind of a way of ness giving back and.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: I was familiar with the podcast for several years and it seemed like a really great place for both of us to be talking about our experiences working together after having done so now for about two years. Um, so I floated the idea to, uh, Pete, he’d already mentioned that he’d had his own podcast and had been speaking very publicly about having a LS and had talked about what that was like for him, which had me thinking that a podcast might be a good place to do this.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: So thanks Pete for being so open to sharing your experience and Kyle for [00:04:00] interviewing us.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, I’m excited for it. Um, so Pete, maybe let’s dig into a little bit of like your story and how you got started with, um, you know, working with Michael. And I’m kind of curious, was this your first introduction to like using psychedelics as like a treatment?

Kyle Buller: Yeah, psychedelic with ketamine is, you know, we can go back and forth about that definition, but

Peter Alberding: Right. I mean, I guess I had certainly never experienced ketamine, uh, in my life. I have, uh, like a lot of people in younger days, uh, you know, on a recreational basis, done, you know, taking mushrooms and, uh, uh, so had some, it wasn’t naive to, uh, sort of the concept of expanding your mind through chemical intervention, uh, if I may say it that way.

Peter Alberding: But, um, you know, this was, ketamine is a lot, I didn’t know what to expect. It is a very different [00:05:00] experience than, uh, say, you know, psilocybin. Um, and so I, I was, uh, you know, like a lot of people I had read Michael Pollan’s book, uh, what, how to, how to Expand Your Mind or I can’t remember the title of it. Is that Right?

Kyle Buller: How to Change Your

Peter Alberding: Mind, how to Change Your Mind? Sorry. And, um, was curious and, uh, you know, did, did some research, contacted a few people and happened to have a connection to, uh, uh, uh, like a chairman emeritus psychiatrist from MGH who introduced me to Michael. And we probably had, uh, I don’t know, five or six talk sessions before ketamine, you know, became a, you know, do we want to pursue this path?

Peter Alberding: I mean, the way, the reason we got in touch, the reason I, uh, took the step was because I was curious to see if ketamine was a good idea, but I didn’t walk in this office and say, let’s do ketamine [00:06:00] for sure. Uh,

Kyle Buller: what was it about ketamine that, I guess, like piqued your interest were, were you reading any studies about it or hearing other people with their treatment?

Peter Alberding: Uh, good question. I, what the, what the primary issue is. I didn’t want to, I mean, I am aware. Uh, know some folks in the Boston area who are kind of underground, uh, you know, trip guides or whatever you want to call ’em. I was not interested in doing this in a nonclinical setting. Um, and so, you know, unfortunately the, you don’t really have an option, right?

Peter Alberding: It’s ketamine or nothing. MDs are not gonna, aren’t able to work with these other substances. So I would, I would’ve been open to, uh, any, you know, MDMA or mushrooms, but that, that wasn’t an option. And after getting educated on ketamine, I said, let’s, you know, I’d like to, I’d like to try it.

Kyle Buller: And I guess when you were thinking [00:07:00] about, um, reaching out to, to do ketamine, was it, what were you kinda looking for?

Kyle Buller: Was it some of that existential angst or were you looking at it from like a different perspective, whether it was like dealing with a little bit of pain or.

Peter Alberding: Um, well, if you think about, so the, the, the diag, you know, a LS is a very slow progressing disease. And so if I divided it into thirds, the first third is really diagnosis and, and just terror, you know, fear, um, not of the unknown, fear of the known.

Peter Alberding: It is very clear what’s gonna happen to somebody. Maybe not the order in which you lose your function, but you know what the end of the road is leads to the same place. And so that first third is really just getting your arms around this is real and there are some really terrible things that are gonna come [00:08:00] down the chute.

Peter Alberding: And, uh, I think it is prudent to try to wrap your arms around those things as pest as one can, uh, before. They hit. Um, and that, you know, I, again, I just decided I didn’t, I wasn’t seeking out ketamine necessarily. I was seeking out, um, whether to pursue ketamine. You know, it started out as a curiosity and enough curiosity that, um, you know, we went and had several sessions, but it was a, uh, you know, it took a little while to sort of get to the point.

Peter Alberding: I think Michael is appropriately, uh, you know, doesn’t want people walking in his office saying, let’s do ketamine. Um, for all, I presume the obvious reasons. And, uh, and I certainly wasn’t in that frame of mind anyway. Um, so it was more, uh, it had nothing to do with physical pain or anything. It was more just [00:09:00] anxiety, fear, terror, what?

Peter Alberding: However you wanna, all of the above.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. And Michael, I’m curious, like what’s your approach to ketamine assisted psychotherapy? There’s so many different kind of like schools of thoughts, different routes of administration, like how do you approach this work?

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Well, thinking of it on the kind of higher level like that, I’ve been working with ketamine in a way that’s similar to the way that I worked with MDMA as part of the clinical research studies for PTSD.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: So as Peter was saying, I have several preparatory sessions with people as really a chance for us to get to know each other for the people I’m working with, to become familiar with me, to ask the questions they have about ketamine and for them to have a chance to really share their life story and talk about what they’re hoping to be getting out of it.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And from my perspective, I want to explain [00:10:00] as much as I can about what are some of the. Um, range of experiences that people can be having with ketamine. Uh, and also really be sure that people are making as informed a decision as possible. And ideally to even have the chance to test out what it’s like being in my office in to some degree of vulnerable space.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: For some people they might even put on eye shades and, uh, wear headphones and listen to a piece of music during one of one or several of the preparatory sessions just to get a sense of what that environment’s like. Um, so I’ll start off with a couple of prep sessions. The actual ketamine sessions themselves.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: I think about them usually in roughly thirds where they’re about three hours long each and ballpark. That first third of the session is what I think of as kind of like a preparatory psychotherapy time where we’ll [00:11:00] talk maybe about what’s coming up for the. Person in the room, what their intentions are, how they’re feeling, how I can help facilitate, uh, the, we transition over to actually using the ketamine, which people might be inside.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: For ballpark, I usually allow about an hour, but some people can be inside for much longer, some a little bit shorter. And then the last part of the session is really a chance for people to begin integrating and processing the experience however they see fit. For some people it might involve using art supplies.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: For many people, it involves us having some time to talk. Uh, some people want to have some period for silence or contemplation or even listening to music. So I really try and follow people’s process and track them where they’re at in the moment. And in terms of how I administer it, I mostly work with intramuscular injection.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: I usually, for you prescribers out there typically start ballpark around [00:12:00] 0.5 m per kg, which for me feels like a. Enough of a dose that people are able to get kind of a sense of what the medicine can do for them. For many people that really feels like it’s a sufficient dose. Um, and we can always adjust up or down in future sessions.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And I try and frame the first one as in introduction to the medicine and what its effects are like physically and psychologically for you. And thinking of this as part of a multi-session process of us all just figuring out what’s going to be the optimal, not only dosing, but the psychological prep and the, uh, environmental setting that we can be creating.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: In between the ketamine sessions, particularly at the beginning, I really encourage people to have at least a couple of non ketamine follow-ups where we can talk about what that experience was like. And for people like Pete, who I’ve been working with for some period of time, who [00:13:00] also are getting a fair amount of support in other areas in their life, we might eventually get to a cadence where we are just meeting on, say, uh, once every several weeks kind of basis just for the Ketamine sessions.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And that’s kind of where, uh, Pete and I are at right now. Having worked together now for two years and given all the other things that are going on. And I’d say the approach that I take with it is also really paying a fair amount of attention to this setting, meaning that I am. Curating playlists. I’ve got some singing bowls and wind times in my office that I can use and I’ll even work in essential oils, try and pay a fair amount of attention to the environment in a ways that you’re probably seeing in things like the, uh, maps manual or other, um, psychedelic research protocols.

Kyle Buller: Awesome. Thank you for that. Um, yeah, I love that people are like starting to incorporate [00:14:00] a little bit more singing bolds if they have that background, like the vibration of that probably feels different. And PE you could probably speak to that. Like what is that like to like have that live music element?

Peter Alberding: Uh, you know, the, I knew it was coming the first session. I will say that as I became. You know, I sort of knew how, how things were gonna roll. Uh, it was almost, uh, it, it had a little Pavlovian effect I think in the sense of, you know, you get those, uh, overtones going and it just, I, I, it just sort of sets a mood of, um, uh, I don’t know, serenity or calmness.

Peter Alberding: Uh, and, and like a vibration of energy. I don’t want to sound all, you know, foofy about it, but it’s, it’s, it, it does something. It’s hard to describe what it does, but, um, it’s helpful.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: [00:15:00] Yeah, I really like using the singing bowls in particular, right at the beginning, shortly after I’ve given the injection. I also will say sometimes work with lozenges, but mostly with the injection and the injection.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: The intramuscular injection sets in pretty quickly. So after I’ve gotten that taken care of, then I’ll do the singing bowl for a couple of minutes, multi medicine, starting to kick it, and then it’ll start with the playlist.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that’s really nice. I used to do like a little repetitive drumming with folks, um, as they, because I would work with lozenges, um, and almost like kind of get somebody in that like relaxed trance state with the drumming beforehand, um, while they’re holding it for like 10, 15 minutes.

Kyle Buller: Right. It’s like just, you know. Um, Pete, I’m kind of curious to like, dive into your experiences a little bit, like Yeah. What were your first couple, uh, academy experiences like?

Peter Alberding: W Yeah, so the, I, you know, I was, uh, in, in terms of [00:16:00] the, you know, the setting intentions, you know, I, we sort of were ready to go and I came in for the first session and I, I, I think I said something to the effect of, I, I don’t really have any intentions.

Peter Alberding: I’m not sure what to expect, and I’m just an open book, and I, I’m just gonna let my brain go where it goes. Um, and I had no idea what the intensity of what was coming my way. Um, so the first session was, was super intense and very positive. And I, I, if I remember the first one correctly in the sequence here, I was very, I was exploring my body basically.

Peter Alberding: I was my first symptom. And when Michael and I first met, it was basically, um. It pretty significant weakness in my left hand, and the rest of me was like, you would, if you, you know, if you were sitting with me, you wouldn’t know I had, there’s anything wrong with me. Um, so it was, [00:17:00] it was relatively mild, but I spent a lot of time sort of like holding my left hand in my right hand and exploring my hand in some detail, and then my forearm and worked up to my shoulder.

Peter Alberding: And, um, I, I, I sort of, uh, would say I went through the seven stages of grief, you know, in, in one session, you know, which is not exactly true, but it’s pretty close. It was, yeah, this is, this isn’t, you really have this disease, um, and, you know, deal with it kind of thing. Uh, was the first session, I think this, and it was so intense that I, after the first session, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna do a second session.

Peter Alberding: Um, and, uh, I thought about it a little bit and I said, well, let’s, let’s, let’s get one on the schedule. And you know, Michael and I talked about it and, um, you know, [00:18:00] let’s assume we’re gonna do it. And the second one I came back for, I, you know, I was a little, I was nervous ’cause it was very uncomfortable, uh, seeding control of, you know, I, I say to people, you, for me, I, I turn into an amoeba, you know, you have, you lose control of, uh, you know, of, of yourself.

Peter Alberding: You’re totally inside your own brain. And, um, you know, that’s a, uh, it’s a little bit unsettling. And the, the second time we, the second session we had, I knew it was coming. And so that, that got me a little nervous. Um, and I think the third session I had, uh. Uh, things went south on me. I, I got, it was, uh, a little scary.

Peter Alberding: Um, and, and, uh, not for very long, but maybe a third of it or something, or a fourth of the session was, uh, I was in a dark place and wanted to get out of it. [00:19:00] Um, and, you know, for a variety of reasons, a, that’s a, a good reason to be doing this with a professional. Um, you know, after the first session, I remember saying to Michael, I can’t imagine anybody does this, does ketamine recreationally, I got, just seems insane to me.

Peter Alberding: But, uh, you know, obviously people do. So what do I know? But, um, it, uh, it is helpful to have a professional ’cause Michael sort of pulled me outta the tailspin. Um. Two ways. One, by, by, you know, soothing me or, uh, getting me, uh, redirecting me a little bit and, and two, um, with music. And I’m sure we’ll spend some time talking about the importance of music and the role that, uh, music plays in guiding either guiding or sort of being a leading, uh, indicator of where, where you may want to go and can, [00:20:00] uh, it just plays a big role.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, we should definitely get into to the music part. Um, Michael, I’m kind of curious, like, you know, when you do see somebody kind of like tailspin as Peter’s describing, like what is, like, how do you support somebody through that when you see somebody like really in it.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: That is a great question. Well, something I’ll add before answering that one though was I wanted to mention in terms of uh, Pete’s second session, how different that was from the first one.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And I remember you coming out of that session feeling like it was incredibly peaceful, blissful, having, being at this state of not feeling stressed and like everything happening with your body was biology and chemistry and just being amazed at the miracle of life. And it’s just amazing. Yeah. It’s just amazing just what [00:21:00] a different head space it was and it really surprised me and hammered home for me, this whole beginner’s mindset of no matter how many people I work with, with ketamine, no matter how many times we work together, even with the same dose, how every one of these experiences is just going to be different and there’s just unique.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: No way to predict it from what, at least from what I can tell. Um, but in terms of having these kinds of, uh, more difficult experiences, I think in that third session, I remember you were feeling like you were in a dark place, kind of on the edge of an abyss almost. And so I put out my hand. Mm-hmm. And, uh, Peter and I had had conversations about the role of supportive and therapeutic touch.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: I’m not a trained body worker, but I had offered as long as we both consented to it before and had clear signals around the use of touch, um, to do something like hold his hand or put a hand [00:22:00] on his shoulder. Um, so I offered for him to hold my hand and when he was. In that kind of dark space, that sort of abyss was just taking my hand and moving it around.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And there was something I think to that, that seemed to be kind of grounding in the moment. And it seemed like it was able to kind of calm things down a little bit. Uh, the music that we were listening to, I think it was this kind of amorphous sound suite of a couple of different sound bath instruments, but it wasn’t anything particularly melodic or that had any kind of direction.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And so then we shifted gears on that and I think it ended up helping out with some of those, uh, some of those difficulties. So yeah, I think for me, to the extent that someone’s able to be engaging verbally with expressing themselves asking for something, um, you know, I just try and get a sense of where they’re at.[00:23:00]

Michael Alpert, M.D.: If we’ve talked about some things that might be helpful in terms of grounding them. In those moments, we might try doing something like that. Like in this case, you know, talking about just holding a hand. Um, and then if possible, I’ve noticed, yeah, shifts in the music, just doing some kind of shift in the environment whenever someone’s feeling like they’re in a place that’s really tough or they’re feeling really stuck, can be helpful.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And something that we’ve talked about is that just because someone’s in a place that might be bringing up a lot of difficult emotions or, um. Difficult memories. It’s not necessarily something to automatically move away from. There’s not necessarily quite as much time for the dialogue around that. With Academy Session, I found as there is with MDMA where someone’s inside, you know, in that for eight hours and we can have some pretty extensive discussions about what’s going to be helpful, you know, and going in and out of [00:24:00] the experience.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Um, and so I do tend to really go with, um, the side of maybe having a little bit less dialogue around it that I might with a psychedelic that lasted longer. And if someone’s saying that they really want for there to be a shift, and they’ve sat with that, uh, really kind of responding to that as much as I can.

Peter Alberding: And, and I, I think I’m sure that it’s individual for me, like putting fear on top of existing fear was not helpful for me. Right. And yeah. Um, and I, and I think the, uh, it’s not that I, I sort of recall the music. It wasn’t like the music was atonal, but it, there wasn’t a structure to it and the lack of structure, you know, I don’t think the music caused that, but it didn’t help.

Peter Alberding: And the change of music and to say Michael offered his hand, we had discussed [00:25:00] ahead of time, like, Hey, is it, you know, is it okay if I touch it? Like, if you reach your handout, that’ll be a good signal. So, I mean. I was hanging on for dear life and my hand, my hand went out pretty aggressively. Like, uh, save me kind of thing.

Peter Alberding: Um, uh, and, and that, that was helpful.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And I wonder if you could like, chat a little bit more about like, how that was helpful because, you know, there’s a lot of conversation lately in the psychedelic, uh, world about touch, um, and how sometimes it can be a little controversial, especially with folks that don’t have training, but also hearing from your experience like that was really beneficial and it sounded like that really helped you to get out of a, a pretty dark place in, in a sense.

Kyle Buller: So I wonder if you could like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk a little bit about that experience of like maybe asking for a handheld,

Peter Alberding: I mean, I, I, there’s gotta be an enormous amount of trust between clinician and patient, first of all. Um, ’cause I can imagine that, uh, it’s, you know, the, the [00:26:00] patient is in a very vulnerable situation.

Peter Alberding: Um, the, uh. You know, I think we, there were a few occasions where I needed some, some handholding. I mean literally some handholding. And, uh, I, I think it was, uh, you’re not alone. Um, like it was just knowing I’ve got somebody there with me, uh, in that, in that moment and, uh, is, is gonna, you know, hold onto me so to speak.

Peter Alberding: I mean, it’s, it’s almost metaphorical in what, I mean, you are physically holding hands and, and I remember doing a lot of like mo circular movements and Michael would just sort of go with me. Uh, yeah, yeah. A lot of that. Um, so it was reassurance. It was in the combination of, okay, there’s some holding, Michael’s obviously multitasking ’cause he’s working on changing up the, you know, the mojo with the, with the music.

Peter Alberding: Um. [00:27:00] And so I, you know, the other thing about ketamine from my experience is you have no sense of time. And so I can’t tell you if I was in that sort of state of anxiety or fear for two minutes or 15 minutes. I like, it felt like a long time. My guess is it probably wasn’t.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Yeah. And one other thing I’d wanna add, as, uh, Pete’s talking about how there needs to be this certain degree of trust between client and therapist and, uh, Kyle, you’re bringing up these issues of therapeutic touch. It brings up the issue of, well, what happens if I’m working with someone who does not want any kind of therapeutic touch or does not consent to that as we’re going into the session and what are ways that I’m able to help facilitate if someone were to be.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Wanting to have [00:28:00] some kind of connection with another person while they’re going through a psychedelic experience. And I’ve had this situation come up of working with people who do not want to have any kind of, um, non-medically necessary touch. I always frame it as thinking of touch in a couple of different categories.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: You have the, um, the kind of touch of me checking vital signs or me keeping someone from falling while they’re walking, that I consider as one category, which is separate from something like supportive touch, uh, holding someone’s hand or therapeutic touch of say, you know, doing body work if I were a, uh, trained body worker.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Um, but in situations where you have someone saying that they. Do not want supportive touch. What I’ve done is during some of the prep sessions, we might, um, come up with ways that they’re able to feel the presence of another person, but without physical contact. And that can mean things like, um, putting say a pillow on [00:29:00] their stomach and then, uh, kind of pressing down with that or else, uh, using say a tuning fork on, uh, their forehead.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Um, or you know, even some people will have like a cord or a rope that they might pull on, or like a towel they might pull on one end and I pull on the other. Uh, there’s all kinds of ways of feeling like another person is there and recognizing the presence of another person even without there, uh, being any kind of physical contact.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And so I think there’s lots of ways that people can have. Those needs met while also respecting any kind of, uh, protectors or boundaries that they, um, for whatever reason, uh, make clear during the, uh, preparatory sessions.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Really great points there. Thank you. Um, and maybe forgot to mention this before we hit the record button, but I would love Yeah, feel free to, like, also, [00:30:00] I think you guys know each other really well, so it’d also I think, be interesting to hear you guys like Yeah. If there’s questions or comments that come up, um, just even kind of like riff off each other a little bit there.

Peter Alberding: Well, uh, so I, one thing that was on my mind is sort of Michael in the intro said, you know, to thanking me for being willing to do this and try to help people, the impetus for that was that I was very open, you know, I am a patient at, uh. Heal center at at Mass General, which is a world renowned, uh, multidisciplinary, a LS clinic.

Peter Alberding: And my doctor is a very well known, like internationally well known. These people are excellent. It’s top shelf, um, care. And I was very open with them about the ketamine therapy that I was doing as a, this has been enormously helpful to me and uh, you know, you should know that I think that it would be helpful for others.[00:31:00]

Peter Alberding: And it was interesting that they, uh, acknowledge what I was saying and maybe engage for a minute, but I could sort of tell they just didn’t wanna go there ’cause they didn’t. It’s just outta their universe of things they think about. And that, that’s what kind of prompted me thinking, you know, I’m gonna, uh, I’m gonna evangelize a little bit.

Peter Alberding: I, I ke I don’t think ketamine is appropriate for everybody who has some trauma that they’re dealing with, but I think it could be helpful to a lot of people, and it surprises me how little, um, sort of mental health, uh, discussion there is in an a LS clinic like that. Uh, it’s, it’s, you know, sort of medical and, uh, uh, you know, assessing the rate of disease and talking about clinical trials and, and all that.

Peter Alberding: But basically there was no discussion of, you know, psychiatric treatment or mental health treatment. And, [00:32:00] you know, just in general, nevermind, um. You know, psychedelic treatment. And so that just got me thinking like, wow, maybe more people, this just needs to get out there. I think it needs to be better.

Peter Alberding: Understood. I think there’s a stigma associated with, you know, just the word ketamine. Um, among other things,

Kyle Buller: I think you kind of highlight that like mind body split, you know, which, you know, makes sense. You know, I think medicine does things really well in that degree of like, you know, really focusing on like, how do we treat the disease, right?

Kyle Buller: But like, maybe they’re missing the whole psychological psychiatric portion of it, which is also having a big impact on you as well. Um, and it’s like, yeah, how do we bridge that gap a little bit more? And, um, yeah. I’m kind of curious, like what has been your jour, your healing journey there with, um, with ketamine more from that psychological, um, perspective that you would want doctors and therapists to, to know [00:33:00] about?

Peter Alberding: Yeah. Uh, so I would say that the. So I’m, I’m, uh, a little beyond two years from diagnosis and two years and four or five months from symptom onset. The typical life expectancy of a somebody diagnosed with a LS is two to four years, and I’m pretty confident I’m will be right in the middle of that, uh, bell curve, uh, would be my guess.

Peter Alberding: And there are sort of three phases in my mind. Phase one is just the, uh, the fear of what’s coming. And I suppose you could just stick your head in the sand and say, I don’t wanna know anything about this disease, and just let things come. That’s not my approach. And, um, so I’m pretty, uh, clear-eyed, have been pretty clear-eyed about what’s coming.

Peter Alberding: So the first third is just the angst and fear of what’s going to happen. The second phase is the things that we’re, you were afraid of happening. [00:34:00] Are now happening. And so when Michael and I first met, I had left hand weakness since then, my left hand is non-functional. My right hand is maybe 30%. Like I can move my thumb.

Peter Alberding: Um, I spend a lot of time in a wheelchair. I could still shuffle along with a rollator. I have a feeding tube. Uh, I need non-invasive breathing support. Um, my voice is, you know, weakened considerably. So it, uh, but that’s pretty, you know, a lot of things have happened in a relatively short time. And so the phase two is really the, uh, the, the things you’ve been afraid of are now happening.

Peter Alberding: And, uh, you have to get comfortable with them somehow. And now I’m in phase three, which is sort of the, there’s no more, there’s no more intervention. There’s no more, there’s nothing more that I am going to do. Uh. Treatment [00:35:00] wise, I participated in a clinical study, sort of the, the, the G tube, the feeding tube was the last thing, uh, last step.

Peter Alberding: I was, I am willing to take from an intervention standpoint. So now it’s, you know, I continue to decline, but it’s more getting comfortable with, you know, my life is gonna end. And, uh, I can’t tell you when I, I could narrow it down pretty closely. Uh, and that I wanna have some agency over how that happens.

Peter Alberding: And in each phase, ketamine has helped me, um, address head on in, in ways that I don’t think would, uh, be able to do with just talk therapy. I mean, it’s just, it’s your, your, your mind. It’s just amazing to me what a chemical can do. To, uh, get your brain [00:36:00] to, you know, see things just radically differently and come to grips with them.

Peter Alberding: So I, I sort of described to people who are curious, you know, obviously not clinical folks, but you know, whatever friends or people that are wanna hear about the experiences, um, that you, you don’t really know. Uh, I just lost my train of thought. You don’t know where your mind is gonna, is gonna go. Um, oh, I remember where I was going.

Peter Alberding: Is that the, I think you, you get a lot done with talk therapy. Um, I think there are lots of things that you, it would take years and years and years and maybe you’d get to them and talk therapy and, and adding ketamine to the mix accelerates the, the process. It felt that way for me, um, of. Because I don’t have a lot of time to, yeah.

Peter Alberding: I don’t have 10 years to sort these things out, first of all. Um, but it just, it, uh, it accelerates the timeline, uh, [00:37:00] or it accelerated my timeline of come into grips with, you know, very difficult reality.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Thank you for being so open and honest about that. And as you’re sharing that it could like kind of just like put myself in and say like, what would I feel if I was going through something like that?

Kyle Buller: And kind of feel a little bit of that heaviness. And it just gets me thinking around just like drug policy of like having, you know, medicines available. I mean, we’re talking about ketamine at least schedule three, but thinking about like psilocybin and some of these other molecules of like just saying no, like you can’t have access to that.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. When you know people are actually suffering and, and going through really intense things where it could be really helpful to deal with a lot of the emotional and psychological components of, of a disease like this. Like it’s gotta be terrifying.

Peter Alberding: Well yeah, and this is off topic, but um, you know, medical assistance and dying is another thing that’s nuts that, I mean, in [00:38:00] Massachusetts.

Peter Alberding: There is no medical assistance in dying and, and denying somebody agency who is going to die, um, strikes me as, uh, backwards. But that’s a conversation for, in a different forum. Um.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, I, I think just being able to have agency over our own, our own life is, is so important.

Peter Alberding: Yeah.

Kyle Buller: I forget what they ended up doing with that whole right of Right to Try act that got passed, which gave potential access to Schedule two substances.

Kyle Buller: I believe that were still going through clinical trial for folks with like terminal illness. So theoretically, like, you know, you could get access with like a doctor’s note for psilocybin, but again, I forget what happened to that bill. But, you know, I think it, it should totally be, you know, available for folks.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: I mean, this is something that really came up with the MDMA clinical trials. There was technically an expanded access program that was supposed to, [00:39:00] um, make. MDMA assisted psychotherapy available to people with PTSD, prior to FDA approval, but only, I think there was only something like 50 spots made available in that, which is a drop in the bucket.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: So I think it really speaks to, uh, not just having on paper these policies like right to try or expanded access, but actually having, uh, policies that allow for numbers that are large enough and, um, processes that are straightforward enough that people can actually access these treatments, um,

Michael Alpert, M.D.: under a limited circumstances. And especially for things that are, uh, pretty far along in clinical trials, even if they’re currently, uh, schedule one substances.

Kyle Buller: Peter, I’m, I’m kind of curious, um, if you’re open to exploring like your relationship to death, um, and like, you know, it’s pretty interesting that. [00:40:00] Did like a comparative analysis number of years ago, comparing like a lot of the substances to like, near death experiences. And I always thought psilocybin or DMT or Fami, EEO would be up there, but it’s actually Ketamine that ranked the highest.

Kyle Buller: Um, and I I’m curious if that has helped like your, your death anxiety or your relationship to death of like, going through this treatment?

Peter Alberding: Not, yeah. I, I would say it’s not only has it helped, uh, it’s, I am not afraid to die, um, which is a bold thing for me to say. I’ve, I guess probably a lot of people have a fear of death.

Peter Alberding: I, I have always had a fear of death, you know, since I was an adult for no particular reason. Just, uh, um, well, and there was, there was actually one session in particular where I was, uh, in a. Like in a poster bed lying down. I, I was off kilter. It wasn’t like, uh, flat on the ground, but it was, uh, I was in a weird position and there were, [00:41:00] I was in a dark room with some lighting, um, dim lighting, and there were sil silhouettes around the bed.

Peter Alberding: And the, the silhouettes were, you know, family and loved ones and close friends. None of the silhouettes were specific people, but that’s who the silhouettes represented. And I was dying. I, this was literally, I, I was at home and it was, you know, it was the end of my life and I was dying in bed and I remember kind of laughing in a joyous way and like blurting out.

Peter Alberding: I’m sure Michael has this in his notes, blurting out, this is great and, and this is how I wanna die. And, and it was pleasant. And ever since that experience, uh, um, you know, I, I don’t wanna die. Uh, I don’t wanna accelerate my demise. I have some lines in the sand that [00:42:00] will lead me to the conclusion that the quality of my life is no longer, uh, sufficient to continue with it.

Peter Alberding: Um, and that, that, uh, I mean, there were a bunch of experiences that led to that. I, you know, I don’t think I would’ve gotten to that without the prior experiences. Um, is, is my sense. I, you know, who knows. But that, that they, they kind of, they built the sessions of built on each other, um, for the most part.

Peter Alberding: And, and, uh, that one kind of got me over the. I, you know, over the hump or I, I don’t know how to describe it just got me to a point of, okay, this is gonna happen and I, you know, there’s either something pleasant on the other side or there isn’t. Um, and I’m gonna find out and, uh, you know, it is what it [00:43:00] is, you know, for lack of a better way to phrase it.

Peter Alberding: And, um, I’m, I’m good with it, which I, you know, I think if you try to put yourself in the position of thinking about having a diagnosis like a LS

Peter Alberding: I’m, anybody who just sort of does the hypothetical, what was the, what if this was me? Uh, uh, you’d say I, um, I’d be scared. I, you know, I don’t know what I would do, but I certainly fear would be one, a big one. And, uh, I can confirm that that is, that is certainly part of the process. And then it’s like, well, what do you, okay, now, you know, now what?

Peter Alberding: Um, ’cause sitting around being afraid every day actually doesn’t move the ball forward in terms of addressing these things. And that’s, that’s sort of the process I went through. Michael, you were about to say something and I kept

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Yeah, I was, I was just thinking as you were talking about this, about, uh, well first of all, that [00:44:00] session in particular, how it was almost like this way of experiencing, at least from my perspective, it seemed like this way of experiencing this really feared thing, your, your death, but in a way that actually felt so supported and joyful and almost happy and, um.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Something that came up in that session that’s come up in a couple of others is just all of the, uh, people in your life who care about you, who love you, who you feel so close with, and just feeling like they were really present with you, um, in that moment. Um, and then just being able to have this experience of this really feared thing, but in a way that actually felt almost blissful or happy and really connected with other people.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: It’s almost it, from my perspective, it seemed like being able to imagine dying in a radically different way than you had been almost, um, was kind of my read for [00:45:00] that. Um, and you know, just how in so many other sessions, kind of to what you’re talking about, each one’s built on each other and on the others, and, um, each one’s been a unique experience, but how.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: At each stage of this disease’s progression, it’s like those experiences are tapping into some of these fears. Like there’s been, there were some earlier sessions, um, where it was like your head was still there and then your body’s just kind of melting in and that, you know, the idea of the body melting away, especially just, you know, given how important your body’s been to you for, you know, so much of your life, you know, sports, music, it’s, everything has just involved.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: It. Just having this experience of the body melting away and having that actually be something that you felt pretty good about and pretty pleasant about how that was

Peter Alberding: almost mirrored well, and that was, that was in the [00:46:00] context of me. Thinking a lot about, you know, quality of life issues and kind of,

Michael Alpert, M.D.: yeah,

Peter Alberding: what’s, what, you know, how far can you go, kind of thing.

Peter Alberding: And I had a, um, a guy I was pretty good friends with who, who had a LS and passed away a year ago November, who chose to, he, he lived for about seven years, but by, you know, a little bit, very similar progression as mine. Uh, both where it started and the rate at which it got worse. And it was right around year three and a half or so, year four, where he was, IM like immobilized.

Peter Alberding: He had no function other than he could move his eyes and, you know, type with his eyeballs. And he got me thinking about, and this guy was full of joy, loved, you know, wanted to be alive, you know, under all circumstances. And he got me [00:47:00] thinking about the possibility of, you know, continuing for as long as you can.

Peter Alberding: And in that context, I had this session where, I mean, I describe it as if you see like a time lapse of a, of a, you know, an animal or a, you know, body decomposing into the earth. Um, not in a morbid way, just in a biological way. And I, my body decomposed in the earth and all that was above ground was my head.

Peter Alberding: And I remember laughing and saying, wow, you know, you can live a productive life with a functioning brain. Um, now my thinking on that has subsequently evolved. ’cause that’s, that is not a path that I would choose, that, I won’t choose that it’s, but those are obviously individual decisions. It was like, that was fascinating.

Peter Alberding: And I never in a million years, would that have been something that popped through, you know, went through my [00:48:00] brain that I experienced, you know, inside my brain with the absence, you know, in the absence of, you know, medical, uh, assistance. And it was, it was, you know, Michael, how many sessions have I done?

Peter Alberding: I’m not sure. 12 or 14 maybe. You know, I was, you may not know off the top of your head. It’s not, it’s a lot. I, you know, you, you’ve done,

Michael Alpert, M.D.: you’ve done a fair amount ball, I’d say ballpark. About a dozen,

Peter Alberding: yeah. Or so at this point. So that, that’s would be my guess. So let’s, let’s say it’s a dozen, I would say seven or eight have been, you know, sort of profound experiences and, uh, you know, four or so, were just.

Peter Alberding: Like, you know, no magic happened. I, I, you know, a lot of, uh, interesting stuff happened, but I didn’t really walk away with any insights or, [00:49:00] you know, that I, that, you know, we’re lasting. And to me that was okay. ’cause I, I remember, you know, every time we have a session, Michael and I have a conversation, should we keep doing this?

Peter Alberding: And, um, there might have been two in a row where there’s sort of, nothing profound happened. And I said, look, honestly, the, if I just do ketamine and it’s just escapism, and I, I spend a couple hours not thinking, you know, not even thinking about the, my condition, um, that’s therapeutic in and of itself. And, uh, and so, you know, not, I just, it’s, my point is not every session is, uh.

Peter Alberding: You know, God shows up and has a conversation with you. You know, I mean, it’s, they’re just not every time, you just don’t have a profound experience every time. But I had a lot of profound experiences.

Kyle Buller: I think that’s an important reminder even for folks that like always [00:50:00] wanna focus on like the mystical or big experiences.

Kyle Buller: I was trying to create a presentation a while ago for a conference when the mystical takes a vacation. Um, and it’s just like, you know, as you’re saying, like sometimes that rest is just as important just to tune out, to not think about what’s going on, right? Like when your life might just be like overridden by fear and anxiety to just get that space to finally rest is therapeutic.

Kyle Buller: So I really appreciate you kind of like highlighting that. ’cause I think when we talk about psychedelics, people are always want like, the really big experiences and, and that’s where, you know, a lot of the, the nuggets are, which to some degree is true, right? But I think there’s also the golden nuggets there when you’re able to just rest and,

Peter Alberding: yeah, and I think I went into, I’ve gone into every session, you know, sort of with no expectations of what’s gonna happen.

Peter Alberding: Michael and I talk about. You know, I, we will have conversations about what’s on my mind, but what’s on my mind is not necessarily, [00:51:00] not necessarily gonna have anything to do with what happens. Uh, you know, when the ketamine hits my brain, sometimes it does. Plenty of times it doesn’t.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Yeah. And I’m just thinking as you’re talking about, uh, having a co a couple of these sessions that just really felt like a way of taking a break from everything else that’s going on and the value of those.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: You know, that’s something that I really try and take into a lot of the psychedelic work that I’ve been doing, uh, with, certainly with Ketamine, and also to an extent with some of the MDMA studies I was working on, um, where sure, there’s a ton of value that people can get out of these big mystical experiences coming face-to-face with death, all or some higher beings.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: There’s also a ton. That I think we really need to value in just having a chance for pure appreciation of beauty, escape, [00:52:00] joy, relaxation, all these qualities that can really come up. And the way that’s really influenced my work in the way I’ve approached it, um, since I started working with psychedelics is trying to take the music a little bit less self seriously than I had.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And you know, I, Pete and I have talked a fair bit about the music that he’s listened to, the stuff that he likes. You know, I think there’s a lot of principles that I have tried to keep in mind when creating playlists, um, especially with someone who’s new to psychedelics, really trying to avoid lyrics in any languages that someone might understand, uh, curating a certain arc, um, what have you with that.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And then there’s also really a time and plays for throwing in a song that. I think just might be really fun to listen to, uh, both for me and for, uh, the person who’s, uh, having the session. And I think some of the best moments in the Ketamine work that Pete and I have done together have [00:53:00] been when I’ve just put on like a Grateful Dead or Beatles song.

Peter Alberding: Yeah. I mean the, the the, um, uh, is it here, there and everywhere? Is that the Beatles song that Yeah. So there was one session where he opened. Yeah. Yeah. That and across the

Michael Alpert, M.D.: universe. Yeah.

Peter Alberding: And like he, Michael is a, is a, I I’ve come out of, uh, ketamine, uh, you know, journey a couple times that, dude, you are brilliant.

Peter Alberding: ’cause he’s, he’s throw, he’s either thrown a curve ball that was perfect. And I, I think a fair amount of time, it’s an audible, it’s not like he’s actively. Uh, making some choices. Uh, uh, most of the time it’s a set playlist, but not always. I, it is my sense and, and the, like that Beatles tone that it’s, that we started with because he, he’ll, we’ll talk about, you know, what, what’s, what kind of mode do you wanna be in today?

Peter Alberding: And I’m pretty consistent with [00:54:00] pleasant and relaxed and happy, you know, upbeat and, um, you know, starting a session with that song. Just, just set the, set the tone. I think it’s helpful that we share a similar interest in music at at least you, you understand what, you know, what I enjoy and the, you know, the types of instruments I prefer to hear.

Peter Alberding: And I’m gonna go out on a limb and say, you’re pretty good at that, among people that have different musical interests. And it is a, a, uh, I don’t wanna put a percentage on it, but like. The musical, the music aspect of a session is of significant importance, um, in how, uh, the experience is in any, in any given session.

Peter Alberding: I mean, um, some of those sessions where it was just, uh, well, you mentioned one earlier. I just, [00:55:00] I I spent the whole session amazed at the un unlikeliness of us even being on the planet, right? You can think back and say, well, you know, 10 generations ago somebody didn’t die of the bubonic plague, which, you know, and, and here we are, I mean, just the amaz amazement of human life, which, you know, what could sound like, you know, some guy who smokes some pot and is, you know, pontificating.

Peter Alberding: But it, it was powerful. And the, you know, just the spending some time contemplating the universe. Um,

Peter Alberding: may sound silly to some, but when you’re facing some, what I’m facing for me, uh, is not so silly. Um, so I, you know, each person’s individual, but things that might sound a little [00:56:00] esoteric or out there when you’re talking about, you know, uh, the end of life, um, has a little broader, uh, applicability.

Kyle Buller: That appreciation, right.

Peter Alberding: Yeah.

Kyle Buller: It’s just like,

Peter Alberding: because I, I’ve been focusing on, I’m sorry to interrupt the

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Peter Alberding: And my wife and I have talked a lot about this, and we are really focused on instead of the sadness associated with my demise, which obviously exists and, and there’s, there’s plenty of that, but let’s focus on. The joy of the life we have and our experiences and you know, we have three adult children who are doing great and what we’ve created, and it is a heck of a lot better and healthier to focus on those positives, to get in the right mindset, to be accepting of what’s coming.

Kyle Buller: Do you think you would be able, [00:57:00] oh, sorry. You can go Michael. I was gonna say, do you think you, you would be able to appreciate those small little moments without like, you know, working with Michael and doing therapy and ketamine? Or do you feel like that fear and anxiety would continue to be debilitating in a way?

Kyle Buller: I,

Peter Alberding: I personally, I think it, you know, debilitating might be overstating it. I wasn’t, the fear and anxiety that I had was not debilitating. I was working in just, you know, sort of stuffing it in a, stuffing that stuff in a file cabinet. Um, reasonably well. I, I wouldn’t say I’m a particularly introspective person in my life, and I was highly confident that if I didn’t go into that file cabinet and start dealing with it, uh, it was gonna come back and bite me in the ass at some point.

Peter Alberding: Uh, and I thought I was prudent to try to avoid that, um, because I, I just think it’s hard to, it would be very difficult to be facing the end of your life and not [00:58:00] having processed of, you know, all of these issues.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Yeah. I’m just thinking about how, and some of the, especially some of the earlier sessions, you know, you’ve talked about really feeling a need to, um, almost kind of hold, hold it together, put on a brave face and kind of get through, um, and kind of really be strong as you’re facing this and almost wanting to do that for other people and.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Yeah, it’s really felt, at least from my end, like it’s been a value experience getting to, uh, talk about all of the range of things that are coming up for you. Um, the gratitude, the acceptance, and also some of the things I feel more, uh, vulnerable. Um,

Peter Alberding: and I, you know, I realized one of the things I realized a little early on was even if I want to be, woe is me or mad at the world or whatever, you [00:59:00] know, I’ve got lots of people close to me and they’re gonna need some leadership from the person who’s being right.

Peter Alberding: If I’m walking around with a dark cloud over my head all the time, um, you know, that’s not only is that not that good for me, but it’s really not helpful for others. And so I’ve, I’ve, part of my style is there’s a fair amount of morbid humor that, um, comes outta my mouth from time to time, which, uh. Uh, it’s, you know, part of my way of dealing with it, but I, I just don’t think any of this I would be in a far worse, I mean, I’m not even in a bad spot actually now I’m, I’m in a good spot, but I, I, I would not be in the spot I’m in without having the, um, I, I just, I’m not a huge talk therapy guy.

Peter Alberding: I just, I don’t really feel like I have that much to think, like, to talk about necessarily. But the combination of, of talk [01:00:00] therapy and, you know, I, I use the euphemism, you know, medical intervention or whatever medicinal intervention, um, is, is, is a mixture that brought it outta me, for sure.

Kyle Buller: How important has those, like integration sessions been for you?

Peter Alberding: Meaning, uh,

Peter Alberding: guess like the after the academy experience or the, the in-between sessions?

Kyle Buller: Yeah, the in between sessions.

Peter Alberding: We did, uh, you know, we had, I dunno, four or five talk sessions before Ketamine come into play. And then I think we did, uh, into three or four integration sessions. Does that sound right, Michael?

Peter Alberding: Something like that. Something like that, yeah. Yeah. We just, I, I think Michael and I had a particularly good rapport and, and we also had really good sessions after the ketamine. You know, I sort of came out of the Ketamine experience.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Yeah. Like in that last hour,

Peter Alberding: in the [01:01:00] last hour. Um, and so we, it didn’t take that long to get to a point of Michael was comfortable and I was comfortable that the integration sessions were, uh, I, I, there was, I was doing sufficient self integrion so that when we, I got back for the next session, we could, you know, we would talk about it and I was, I would’ve done.

Peter Alberding: I sort of left it up to Michael to say, Leslie, you know, I’m happy to do these, uh, integration sessions. I don’t know that we need to, but I’ll, you know, I’ll let you be my, I mean, he’s been my guide the whole time.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Yeah. I, I try and, uh, individualize it, especially after having had a couple of ketamine sessions, um, you know, for a number of factors.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Um, it felt reasonable for us to, at this point, be in a cadence of just meeting for the ketamine sessions themselves. You know, in addition to the psychological piece, there’s also the logistical one, the fact that there was a number [01:02:00] of other appointments and things that you were going to Yeah, yeah.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Wanting to be, you know, everything wrapping up work, spending time with your family and feeling, if you were feeling in putting all this together, like. The integration sessions either were not necessarily helpful or possibly even taking away from some of these other things that were going to be really important and meaningful for you.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Um, I didn’t have a strong need to push that. Um, but we do always have time before and after the dosing to really process that. And especially right afterwards, the lines are open if there’s something that’s coming up and we need to chat.

Peter Alberding: I think if someone is maybe in a deeper crisis situation, I’m sure it’s you probably you’d push a little harder to have integration sessions.

Peter Alberding: Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And, but I think most of our ketamine sessions we’re probably 90 minutes in, in a talk session before we even get to the ketamine. We are. Yeah. Seems to me we spend a [01:03:00] lot of time on, uh, at our appointments.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Yeah. We do a fair amount of talking and I think you’re usually inside for about 40 minutes or so.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Yeah. It’s been pretty consistent. Yeah. Um, we’ll do a like. We’ll do an initial dose and then maybe, uh, like 15 milligram booster, about 15 minutes in or so. And with that, you’ve been pretty consistently waking up after 40 minutes, so that at least there’s the time relief for talking. Yeah. Um, and more recently, the frame has shifted a bit where, um, I’m now going over to, uh, Peter’s house and administering it, um, for, uh, you know, a number of reasons, which has, um, you know, shifted, I mean, can, can’t drive, and I’m not, I just

Peter Alberding: physically,

Michael Alpert, M.D.: uh, yeah.

Peter Alberding: The ability to get to Michael’s office is, uh, isn’t really there. I mean, I,

Michael Alpert, M.D.: yeah. And so we had like one session with, uh, Peter’s wife and, um, yeah. Now the, it’s shifted a bit how we’re doing the work.

Peter Alberding: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. [01:04:00]

Kyle Buller: Have you noticed a difference between doing it in the office versus your home?

Peter Alberding: Well, so the, the first time we did it at. At at home Lynn. Lynn was there, correct? Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, we were married for 33 years. We met in college, like, you know, we, we’d been known each other for a long time. Um, and she sort of sat by my side and I held her hand and I, I stroked her hair and told her I loved her and apologized for being sick.

Peter Alberding: I mean, it was a, I, I cried. It was, it was quite emotional for me. Uh, interestingly, it wasn’t that emotional for her. ’cause you, you know, you’re not, she was just sitting next to me, but didn’t really, you know, nobody would know what’s going on in the, in the person’s brain. Um, and so that was pretty powerful.

Peter Alberding: It was comfortable to be at home. Otherwise it’s, you know, you, you’ve got eye shades on. [01:05:00] You’re listening to music. I, it could be, you know, you could be, I, for me, I think, I feel like I could be anywhere. My, you know, like in the, in the, uh, the most recent session. I mean, this was pretty interesting as, ’cause I’ve never, I’ve always been comfortable lay down and, you know, sort of ready to go when it’s time.

Peter Alberding: And in the last, I don’t know, six or eight weeks, my breathing has, uh, declined, you know, considerably that like, if I lay flat on a floor, I, I might suffocate if I didn’t have breathing assistance. And so I need to be at an angle. But, uh, before the last session, I was just in some, some respiratory distress and I was a little stressed and like, I think Michael had the syringe, like ready to go and I, I hit the, hit the abort button like three or four times.

Peter Alberding: I said, you know, I’m sorry, I need a minute. And had to crank up my ventilation, uh, device to get my [01:06:00] breathing back on track. And so I was really, I was worried about having. You know, respiratory, uh, and, you know, you get, they, they, it’s a vicious cycle if you start having a respiratory distress. ’cause that distress just gets, increases the respiratory distress.

Peter Alberding: And I struck me as, uh, problematic to be in some respiratory distress while on ketamine. Um, so there are some unique aspects to, uh, Michael coming here so I can be tilted up. Um, and obviously have my machine, you know, at my side and, uh, you know, helping me, um, just get through the session.

Kyle Buller: You bring up like an interesting point.

Kyle Buller: And Michael, I’m curious like, is there a point where, you know, we know Ketamine is, has a pretty decent safety profile used in the hospital all the time. Is there a point where like, you know, the [01:07:00] disease is at a certain point where it feels risky to possibly use ketamine?

Michael Alpert, M.D.: I mean, the, the short answer is there’s always going to be some sort of risk involved with, uh, dosing someone with ketamine.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Um, you know, it can have, um, a number of different effects. Uh, there’s a very small but non-zero chance of laryngospasm. Uh, you have the blood pressure effect, any number of other things that can be coming up. Um, what I would say with that is if it seemed like, um, say Pete’s. Medical profile had, uh, shifted significantly to the point that say you, you know, were having, uh, real trouble, um, uh, uh, very real, uh, trouble getting the oxygen that you’re needing even without ketamine on board.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Um, I’d probably be having a discussion with, um, PCP, maybe having a care [01:08:00] team meeting just for us to be reassessing what the risks were in that situation. So short answer is everybody’s going to be different. That said, it is, uh, something that I have worked with and many other people have, uh, worked with, with patients who are in hospice settings.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And, um, there’s, uh, many hospice providers who, um, will work with ketamine as a form of pain control. So. I wouldn’t say that there is any say all or nothing, and each case is just going to be individualized. But especially for something like this, we’re going to wanna be thinking, uh, through things on an ongoing basis.

Kyle Buller: Oh, you’re muted there. Oh,

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Pete, Pete.

Peter Alberding: Yeah. No, I was telling my wife that the doorbell is about to ring. Um, well, I can assure you that the thought has occurred to me also, that there’s potentially some, uh, you know, some risk, uh, as, in addition to Michael thinking about it, the one, uh, consideration that [01:09:00] I’ve had is the, the, the non-invasive ventilation unit that I have is like, if I, if I stop breathing and this thing is attached to me, it’s gonna blow enough air into my lungs to keep me breathing.

Peter Alberding: Um, so there’s a significant, uh, sort of safety valve associated with having my BiPAP machine, you know. Running and attached. Uh, just from my perspective, I, I know that, um, and, you know, that’s, that’s part of the reason I wear it, but it’s a pretty sophisticated device that’s not just blowing the same amount of air every time.

Peter Alberding: It responds to what’s what, how my, what my respiration is in terms of how hard it’s going to fill my lungs up. Um, which is not me thinking of a moment from a unique circumstance. I, most people are not dealing with my, the disease that I have. But

Michael Alpert, M.D.: yeah, I was just thinking of a moment in one of our earlier [01:10:00] sessions where you were very still on the sofa in my office and it was this moment of almost experiencing a deathlike stillness.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And I remember from my perspective, just watching you being a little bit nervous, and then you started breathing and then you told me afterwards in the integration that you were thinking, oh no, here’s this, uh, you know, six, five dead guy on my, so five, you know, Michael’s probably gonna be getting worried.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: I gotta take a couple of breaths. Um, so, you know, this being something that’s kind of been an ongoing part of our, uh, work together.

Peter Alberding: Yeah, that was funny. Yeah.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Just

Peter Alberding: in that vein, the, uh, the time where I was, I was envisioning dying and the silhouettes around the bed. I remember saying to myself sort of at the end of like, don’t die actually.

Peter Alberding: Now you’re on ketamine, so don’t die. ’cause Michael’s gonna have a problem on his hands among other things, uh, which is part of the dark humor. [01:11:00]

Kyle Buller: Which is probably needed at times. Right.

Peter Alberding: I think if you can’t laugh about some things, it’s far worse.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I actually see we’re a little bit over time and this, uh, interview just flew by.

Kyle Buller: So, um, Peter, I just really appreciate you and your time and for sharing your story. I feel like this is gonna be really helpful for a lot of people listening that, you know, maybe they’re going through it, family members, um, just getting some insight. And Michael, thank you as well for, um, you know, sharing all your insights and, and pitching this idea.

Kyle Buller: So I would love to wrap up with some closing thoughts. Um, and Michael, since you just went off mute, maybe we’ll pass it over to you if you have any like, closing thoughts to, to wrap up.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: Sure. Well, first of all, I wanna thank both of you for, uh, doing this interview and, uh, it’s been such a privilege to be able to accompany Pete on this journey over the past couple of years.

Michael Alpert, M.D.: And I’m hoping that in the course of. Our work together. And also in the course [01:12:00] of doing this podcast, it’ll get people to really, seriously consider what role, not only ketamine can be playing, but ketamine assisted psychotherapy that really pays attention to the role of things like, uh, music talk therapy, the preparation, all of these other aspects that have just been so influential to the work that we’ve been doing together, and take these seriously as we’re thinking about what it means to be incorporating Ketamine, uh, into mental health context and more specifically psychedelics into, uh, western medicine at this point in time.

Peter Alberding: Well, my pleasure to be on with both you guys. Um, I, uh, my attitude is I, I would like the, you know, whatever the traditional medical community or however you wanna phrase that to particularly people dealing with like critical life, you know, life ending illnesses to, uh. Be knowledgeable about ketamine [01:13:00] and how beneficial it can be to, for many people.

Peter Alberding: Uh, you know, I don’t know that it’s right for everybody or not right for everybody. I, but I would encourage anybody who’s dealing just from, from a existential angst standpoint, I think there are many other applications for, for academy treatment. But as far as I’m concerned or my, you know, my specific situation, uh, I would encourage anybody to at least get educated and consider how it might be helpful.

Peter Alberding: Um, because it has had enormous, enormous, I’ve had enormous benefits from it that, um, I’m grateful that I found Michael. Frankly, I, I’d be in a far different situation, um, uh, in the absence of the relationship that we’ve developed.

Kyle Buller: I am glad that you found Michael as well and were able to start this journey.

Kyle Buller: So yeah, thank you again both and Peter, thank you for your [01:14:00] very vulnerable and, and shares with us today. It’s been been a real blessing. Yeah.

Links

For Pete’s Sake Podcast

Michael Alpert MD – https://www.mdmalpert.com

March 25, 2026May 9, 2026

Esme Dark: Psychedelics, Somatics and the Shadow

Dr. Esme Dark joins Kyle Buller for a conversation on psychedelic therapy, somatic psychotherapy, and shadow work. Based in Australia, Dark is a clinical psychologist, somatic psychotherapist, and psychedelic therapist. She shares her perspective on Australia’s authorized prescriber model, the role of psychotherapy in psychedelic care, and what it means to work with the body before, during, and after a psychedelic experience.

The discussion stays practical. Dark draws on her work in research settings, including psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for generalized anxiety disorder at Monash University. She explains that Australia has not decriminalized psychedelics. Instead, psilocybin and MDMA can be prescribed in limited cases through a psychiatrist-led system. That distinction matters, especially as public discussion often moves faster than the actual clinical infrastructure.

Kyle and Dark also explore what happens in the therapy room. They talk about nervous system activation, body-based awareness, co-therapy, breathwork, and the challenge of knowing when to intervene and when to stay out of the way. The episode also turns toward creativity, self-expression, and the parts of the self that often remain split off or underdeveloped.

Psychedelic Therapy in Australia

One of the clearest parts of the episode is Dark’s explanation of Australia’s current model. Public conversation has sometimes framed the country as opening the door to psychedelic treatment broadly, but the reality is narrower. Access is limited, the process is highly structured, and psychiatrists remain central to the model.

Dark notes that the slower rollout may have some benefits. Psychedelic therapy is not just a matter of giving a drug and waiting for a result. It asks for careful preparation, therapeutic skill, and the ability to support people through material that may be emotionally intense, physically felt, and difficult to name.

The episode also addresses cost. Treatment in Australia can be extremely expensive, which raises obvious concerns about who can realistically access care. Dark points to ongoing efforts to involve insurers and veteran systems, but affordability remains one of the major constraints in the current model.

Somatic Psychotherapy and Psychedelic Care

A central thread in the conversation is somatic psychotherapy. Dark describes how her training shaped the way she tracks breath, posture, muscle tension, and other bodily responses from the first preparation session onward. In psychedelic work, that kind of attention can be essential. People may not always have words for what is happening, but the body is often saying a great deal.

She also speaks directly about a skill many therapists have to learn the hard way: not doing too much. Psychedelic therapy can bring up a strong urge to guide, interpret, or help too quickly. Dark argues that part of the work is staying regulated enough to let a process unfold without immediately trying to shape it. Kyle reflects on the same tension from his own clinical background.

This part of the episode touches on several practical themes:

tracking the body, not just the story
recognizing nervous system activation early
using co-therapy for steadiness and perspective
respecting how personal nonverbal expression can be
helping clients stay with intensity rather than shutting it down too soon

There is also a useful discussion of breathwork. Kyle talks about using it before ketamine sessions to help people become more familiar with emotional activation, and after sessions to revisit material that still feels unresolved. Dark sees breathwork as valuable as well, especially in a country where therapists have fewer legal pathways for their own psychedelic training experiences.

Shadow Work, Voice, and Expression

The later part of the episode moves into shadow work. Dark uses the term broadly. The shadow is not only trauma, pain, or fear. It can also include strength, desire, creativity, and other parts of the self that have been pushed aside. Kyle connects that to the idea of the “golden shadow,” where the disowned material is not only difficult, but potentially vital.

That leads into a more personal exchange about public speaking, podcasting, and finding one’s voice. Dark shares that an earlier psychedelic message to “learn to sing” eventually came to mean something less literal: using her voice more fully through her work and through her podcast. It is a good example of the patience these experiences sometimes require. Not every insight needs to be acted on immediately, and not every image needs to be interpreted at face value.

By the end of the conversation, the larger point is clear. Psychedelic therapy asks for discernment, patience, and humility. It also asks for therapists who can stay present with complexity, rather than rushing to simplify it. This episode is especially useful for clinicians, therapists, and serious students of psychedelic care who want a grounded discussion of somatics, embodiment, and the realities of practice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Dr. Esme Dark?

Dr. Esme Dark is an Australia-based clinical psychologist, somatic psychotherapist, and psychedelic therapist. She has worked in research and clinical settings and hosts the podcast Beyond the Trip.

What does Dr. Esme Dark say about psychedelic therapy in Australia?

She explains that Australia’s system is limited and psychiatrist-led. It is not decriminalization or broad public access. Psilocybin and MDMA can be prescribed only in specific cases through the authorized prescriber model.

Why does somatic psychotherapy matter in psychedelic therapy?

Somatic psychotherapy helps therapists and clients pay attention to breath, posture, tension, activation, and other bodily signs that often become central during psychedelic experiences.

What is shadow work in this episode?

Shadow work refers to parts of the self that have been pushed out of awareness. That can include pain and fear, but also creativity, confidence, desire, and voice.

What topics does this Psychedelics Today episode cover?

The episode covers psychedelic therapy in Australia, somatic psychotherapy, shadow work, integration, therapist training, breathwork, co-therapy, cost, and access.

Links

Dr. Esme Dark website: https://www.esmedarkpsychology.com.au/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dresmedark/

Transcript

Kyle Buller: [00:00:00] All right. Hello. Welcome everybody. I’m excited to be here with Dr. Esme Dark. Um, we had a few conversations around collaborating on this podcast. You have your own podcast, um, beyond the trip, and we thought it would be fun to just collaborate on this live stream, this live podcast, and I think start talking about policy, around Australia, also the us.

Kyle Buller: I always find it fascinating that it feels like Australia beat us to the, the legal framework. So Dr. Dark, can you just introduce yourself to everybody?

Esme Dark: Thanks Kyle. I’m Dr. Esme Dark. I’m a clinical psychologist and a somatic psychotherapist, and I’ve worked as a psychedelic therapist on research trials here at the clinical psychedelic lab at Monash University and on some [00:01:00] clinical projects.

Esme Dark: And so, yeah, I’m kind of really excited to be here today. I’ve been, I’ve followed psychedelics today for a long time. It was such a, I really wanted to start, uh, beyond the trip podcast to kind of highlight, I guess, what’s going on here in Australia with the, as we rolled out the regulations. Um, and I was listening to one of your podcasts, Kyle, where you talked about one of the reasons for psychedelics today, um, being about, one of the reasons for starting it was to kind of highlight some of the depths.

Esme Dark: Lens.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Depth psychology lens. And one of my reasons for starting beyond the trip was to highlight the importance of psychotherapy. And so I thought, I’m gonna contact Kyle and see, see whether he would like to collaborate. And here we are.

Kyle Buller: I love it. I love it. Yeah. Joe and I really kind of wanted to highlight a lot of the breath work, transpersonal and depth oriented work.

Kyle Buller: ’cause that’s kind of been at the, the basis of our work. So I always love chatting and collaborating with other somatic depth oriented practitioners. I think it’s important. Um, [00:02:00] and sometimes not always talked about, especially probably from the clinical perspective there that you’re doing in, in the research.

Kyle Buller: Um, so maybe we could start off there, like what has been going on in Australia, uh, in regards to psychedelics?

Esme Dark: Yeah. So it’s a really interesting time to be working in psychedelics in Australia. I was, um, I started working at the clinical psychedelic lab. Gosh, it must be sort of four years ago now. Um, I was working on a trial looking at psilocybin assisted psychotherapy for generalized anxiety disorder.

Esme Dark: It was one of the biggest ones and one of the sort of starting ones, there was one trial before this with Dr. Mar Ross and her team looking at psilocybin assisted therapy for end of life care. But we were kind of, it was, felt like the, the space was just really getting going in terms of the research. Um, and then partway through we found out that, um, they were rescheduling these medicines.

Esme Dark: Um, and there’s a lot of myths around what’s actually happening in [00:03:00] Australia. So it’s really good to. To kind of talk about it a little bit here. Um, so what’s happened is it’s not decrim, so a lot of people think that to start with. So just to say that’s definitely not what’s happened. Um, they’ve basically taken psilocybin assisted psychotherapy and MDMA assisted psychotherapy, and they’ve rescheduled these medicines for use under the authorized prescriber scheme.

Esme Dark: So what that means is that, um, if you, you are a psychiatrist, you can apply to, uh, a human research ethics board for an authorized prescriber license to prescribe these medicines alongside psychotherapy. So one of the great things, um, about the model here is that they’ve really gone for this authorized prescriber model, but alongside the psychotherapy.

Esme Dark: So it’s very, the, uh, protocols that are being rolled out are very similar to those in, say the maps trials or in our trial where there’s like a dyad, we’re doing the prep dosing [00:04:00] integration. Um, so these medicines are able to be used but only under the authorized prescriber, like from a psychiatrist perspective.

Esme Dark: And a psychologist can be involved in the therapy and a psychotherapist can be involved in the therapy. And the rules are different between each human research ethics board. So I can’t get into the, too much of the, um. With weeds about that? ’cause it depends on, on who’s, yeah.

Kyle Buller: And is psychiatrist, is the psychiatrist prescribing and them being there or are they prescribing, administer and then leaving?

Esme Dark: So, that’s a good question, Kyle. Like, it, it depends. So they have to be, they’re clinically responsible, so very often they’re a part of the, so it’s done in a dyad model, like in the maps, um, protocols. And so there’s always two therapists usually in, in the, in, in the way that I’ve done it, both on the trials and um, in the clinical spaces that I’m aware of.

Esme Dark: And one of those might be the psychiatrists. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it might be to [00:05:00] psychologists or to a psychologist and a psychotherapist. Um, those rules are different in different areas, different states as well. In Australia, we don’t have quite the same. Like difference between states as they do in the us.

Esme Dark: Um, but there are some differences as well. So I’m in Victoria, which is, um, in, in Melbourne. I live in Melbourne, so.

Kyle Buller: Awesome. Yeah. And I think I remember this past around February, 2022 or 2021. I forget ’cause I remember I was at a conference called Can Deic and I remember hearing the news while I was there.

Kyle Buller: Um, what has the rollout been like? So it seems like it probably took a while to get going. Um, and I’m not too sure if you can talk about like, what, what ha has that rollout been, has there been any kind of like constrictions roadblocks as it started to roll out?

Esme Dark: Yeah, so it’s been the slower rollout. So initially, um, when it was announced, I think it was around that time, we were kind of in the middle of the, the trial and we had a meeting about it.[00:06:00]

Esme Dark: And it initially, it sounded like they were going to be doing it quite quickly, but in fact, what’s happened because of the regulations around it. Um, so, so people, it’s, it’s actually treatment resistant depression and treatment resistant PTSD. Mm-hmm. Um, so people have to fit lots of different criteria and they have to be assessed by the psychiatrist to see if they can fit those criteria to, to be, um, to be worked, to have these medicines.

Esme Dark: So, so yeah. I think it, it has been slower than anticipated, which I think is a good thing, you know, because in many ways Australia kind of, yeah, we beat the stick in in some ways, right? Yeah. And, and, but actually we, we, it’s, it’s something that requires potentially a real shift in. A real shift in how we seek healing, a real shift in focus of how we treat people.

Esme Dark: And so I think it’s good that it’s been a slower rollout because there’s, you know, psychedelic as, as you well know, psychedelic [00:07:00] therapy is about healing and working with whatever’s underneath the symptoms, not symptom management. And it’s a whole different process to what is usually the diagnostic medical model where people are kind of, you know, reducing symptoms and attached to particular diagnostic labels.

Esme Dark: And actually, I feel like these medicines and this work really invites us to go a lot deeper than that. And

Kyle Buller: so

Esme Dark: I feel like there’s a real education piece in our community around that. And so I’m glad it was slower for that reason. Um, and it’s also one of the reasons I started the podcast.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Buller: You know, I think like we’ve all been really eager for psychedelics to like get legalized in whatever framework or decriminalized, but you know, as things start to roll out, you start seeing a lot of these like road bumps along the way. And I think. Taking our time with that can also be really important, right?

Kyle Buller: Because these are really profound experiences for folks. And thinking about like what guardrails are are in place, what is the accessibility [00:08:00] like, um, for, you know, ’cause the medical model is expensive. I think that’s why a lot of us here United States have also been like, you know, let’s look at some other models.

Kyle Buller: And that’s what we’ve seen rollout, um, here in the States. Yeah. So what has it been like for accessibility for folks that are trying to get treatment? Like, how expensive is it? Does insurance cover it? Is it all outta pocket?

Esme Dark: Yeah. Um, it is one of the key things that we are all. Concerned about and working on is the cost.

Esme Dark: It is expensive at the moment. So currently, um, and this is, I mean, actually changing all the time, so just to, to say at the moment, um, the, it’s probably it’s not covered by too many insurance companies or some parts of the sessions may be covered by Medicare. So in Australia we have something called Medicare, which is, um, the, like for me as a psychologist, for example, um, people can get a Medicare rebate.[00:09:00]

Esme Dark: Part of this also, people come to see me and they, they can get those reduced fees. So some of that system is, is possible to use, um, with some of the therapy. But, um, it’s still really expensive. You know, it can be 25,000, $30,000 for a course of treatment. We are really, it’s really, you know, because, um, but we are really working really hard to, um, bring insurance companies on board and the veteran affairs organizations as well.

Esme Dark: So there’s a lot happening in that space, and it’s changing all the time. Um, we are really talking a lot about improving access because, you know, that’s prohibitive for so many people and we are really concerned about that in the space. Um, it’s, you know, the model that, that we are working with is, is, you know, is there the same model that’s using clinical trials?

Esme Dark: It’s the one where the research evidence. Comes from. And so it’s really important, I think, to stay true to that best practice, but also how do we do this in a way that means that other people couldn’t afford it? You know? [00:10:00] Um, I think what that will mean, um, is the government coming on board more, um, and also some of the insurance companies.

Esme Dark: And then there’s, there’s a lot happening in that space. I’m not an expert on all of that. If you had my colleague Monica from the psychedelic consultancy here, she would be able to speak to a lot of this, um, in detail. But, um, there’s a lot of people working hard behind the scenes to improve access. Um, yeah.

Kyle Buller: That’s good to hear. Do you feel that, like, I’ve heard like maybe drug policy in Australia’s a little bit more conservative, but like would, do you see them moving towards like a decrim model or like a service center model that’s outside the, the medical model there? Or do you feel like that might be like way down the line?

Esme Dark: I don’t know. You know, Australia surprises me. I’m originally from the uk. Um, I’ve been here maybe 12 years. I think. Um, I, I, there’s lots of people that would love to see that happen, or at least to see the restrictions shifted into a way [00:11:00] that means it’s more affordable. Um. It’s so hard to say. You know, generally Australia is, um, more, I think, uh, conservative in their drug policy.

Esme Dark: So it feels like that might not not be on the cards. It’s not, you know, tell, tell me about America, like what’s happening in the us I know it’s different state to state when you probably have different reflections, but how is it all going over there?

Kyle Buller: Yeah, you know, it really started with, um, Denver decriminalizing psilocybin just in the city limits there, um, back in 2019.

Kyle Buller: Um, and then Oregon followed after that and legalized, um, psilocybin within, uh, a healing service center model. So that was outside of like the scope of, um, you know, this more medical model and people without a diagnosis could then go receive services. And then we’ve seen, um, these smaller city ordinances pass through the decriminalized nature movements.

Kyle Buller: So we have number of, uh, towns and cities throughout the US that have [00:12:00] passed these local resolutions, um, to decriminalize it. So it takes away, you know, possible criminal charges for possession, gifting, et cetera. Um, theoretically, right, like it could, you know, state. Could always come in, feds could always come in.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Since they, these are just like local, uh, resolutions. It just means like, you know, it should be the lowest priority for police enforcement. Um. Then we had Prop 1 22 pass here in Colorado, which, um, legalized psilocybin within or legalized natural medicine. Well, hold on. Um, there’s two bills there.

Kyle Buller: Decriminalized natural medicines. So it allowed folks to grow gifts, consume natural medicines, um, mushrooms, cacti. Masculine, uh, containing cacti that isn’t peyote, DMT, um, et cetera. Um, ibogaine isn’t on that decrim list in a way. Um, there’s some kind of restrictions around it. Um, and then they have the [00:13:00] legal, uh, framework there as well where people can go to a service center and that they’re mainly focusing on psilocybin in the, in the healing centers.

Kyle Buller: Um, and it sounds like they’re gonna be expanding in, into ibogaine treatment as well. There was just a conference that happened over in Aspen a few weeks ago. Uh, Joe just did a podcast, wrote an article about some of the recap that happened there. But it is a, a discussion around, you know, can they get iboga, uh, treatments, um, up and running after they really get like the psilocybin, um, structure in place.

Kyle Buller: Um. And then we’re seeing other, uh, states too, like New Mexico just passed, um, a legalization bill that’s more kind of like in a medical model. Mm-hmm. Um, New Jersey just is trying to advance a bill around. There’s a little bit, it sounded like there was a little bit of confusion, um, on the internet around what Bill actually got was advanced.

Kyle Buller: Um, it’s not completely passed. It still has to, uh, you know, go through a few more steps. But, [00:14:00] um, new Jersey’s trying to create like a pilot program, um, to see. Um, you know, how this could get rolled out and I think they would incorporate that they’re allocating like $6 million and I think it’s just towards like getting it started in hospitals first.

Kyle Buller: Um, and so we’re seeing policy across the board from decrim to the medical model, um, that are rolling out here. Um, and we’ll see on the federal level, you know, that is something that just still lags behind is federal rescheduling and stuff like that. Um, I did see an article recently that the DEA has been, um, trying to like up production around, um, psychedelics for clinical trials.

Kyle Buller: ’cause they would typically like restrict how much could get produced in a year for, for that. So it sounds like, you know, more clinical trials, more research, um, is on the way, but you never know. It’s always, uh, up and down. We could see like an example with, uh, Oregon for, uh, when they passed, uh, their decriminalized, [00:15:00] uh, bill, I was confused.

Kyle Buller: Measure 1 0 9, measure one 10. Um, I think it’s, yeah, it’s

Esme Dark: complicated.

Kyle Buller: Um, but they, they, they, they passed a decriminalization bill with the legalization bill and they’ve rolled back on that. So in that bill, it actually decriminalized like a lot of different substances, not just psychedelics. And since mushrooms and psychedelics were also wrapped up in that when they reversed it, it actually criminalized, um, psychedelics outside of say the service center model.

Kyle Buller: Um, so yeah, there’s been a lot of stuff happening. Um, and it just seems to be kind of like, you know, compounding, which is exciting. Um, that, you know, I never thought it would be happening this quick when I first started getting more involved in psychedelics. So it’s cool to see policy does change, um, over time.

Esme Dark: Yeah. Is my wifi Okay, Kyle, I, I can just, um, change to something else.

Kyle Buller: [00:16:00] Yeah. Maybe. It looks like it’s a little fragmented. Yeah. So maybe if you, do you want to switch over to something else? Yeah,

Esme Dark: I’ll try. Yeah. Yeah. The joys of the Australian internet. Just gimme one second.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Kyle Buller: All right. So everybody that is tuning in, we’ll just. Do a little pause here while we get the wifi figured out. There’s also been some, I guess, intense solar storms that have been rolling through. Um, I think there’s a, a big solar flare that happened on Tuesday or Monday, and so they’ve been kind of predicting there might be some like weirdness with wifi and electronics.

Esme Dark: Oh, there you go. Yeah, it’s, um, so it’s, mine can be up and down. So I’m back now I think. Is that all good? Oh,

Kyle Buller: you are? Yep.

Esme Dark: Awesome. Um, yes. Wow. I mean, I, I find, I still find it fascinating how different the federal and state legislations are in, in the [00:17:00] US and how must be quite complex, you know? Um, my colleagues and, and friends Bruce and Marsela from Maps, they’ve been sort of trying to get their center off the ground.

Esme Dark: Um, and it just, you know, it feels like there’s just a lot of complexity for all of us, but also really exciting. I agree. I never thought that we would be where we are in Australia. I just had no, it was a surprise to a lot of us. Um, I

Kyle Buller: think so, because I remember the policy was trying to move forward with Mind Medicine in Australia, and then it seemed to get blocked, and then I remember just all of a sudden it was like, the news broke.

Kyle Buller: And you’re like, what? Just, what just happened there? Like,

Esme Dark: yeah. And you know, I am. I think one of the things that, um, you know, in terms of the work here that I would really like to see and advocate for is, is looking at, um, because at the moment the, uh, access to people with treatment resistant depression with psilocybin assisted psychotherapy, and people with PTSD who’ve tried some other [00:18:00] treatments for MDMA assisted psychotherapy, but I would really like to see end of Life Care really looked at.

Esme Dark: Yeah, there’s a lot of people advocating for that. I’ve got a podcast series coming up next year about that because there’s actually a lot of research for that population too that, and you know, I think almost all of us will unfortunately know someone in our lives who is touched by cancer and probably who has passed away from cancer if you look at the rates.

Esme Dark: Um, so I really would like to see that use expand in those populations.

Kyle Buller: Same and just being able to have access to it. Um, I always remember something, um, one of our past, uh, guest, uh, Dr. McLean from she at Hopkins working on these, you know, it was like, we don’t know when we’re gonna die. Right? And there’s this idea that like, if we have these transitory tools that help us to confront death and life, like shouldn’t we just [00:19:00] naturally have access to some of this stuff so we can confront that?

Kyle Buller: And I always come back to a quote that I learned during, um, a course I took on death and dying. It’s, you know, how we live our life is how we prepare for death and how we prepare for death is how we live our life. Mm-hmm. And so like if we’re able to like, confront that, does that shift the way that we approach stuff?

Kyle Buller: Right. And if somebody is, um, confronted and is diagnosed with terminal illness, like should they have a human right? To be able to like, you know, ease some of that suffering and anxiety. And you kind of see a bit of the hiccups up in Canada where they have the special access program and sometimes I hear that people have a hard time actually getting access and approval for that, even though they do have terminal illness and, um, mm-hmm.

Kyle Buller: So, yeah, I agree. I wish that that would also expand as well.

Esme Dark: Hmm. Yeah, I feel like it’s something that I work with so much in my private practice. You know, I’ve put a private practice, I do psychotherapy individually [00:20:00] with people and, um, one of the things that is such a common thing is fear of death. So the kind of, the existential fear of death, not the kind of, even if someone is not sick, but they, maybe they, when you get underneath the anxiety or whatever is presenting, it’s that.

Esme Dark: And so often it’s about. A lot of things, but one of the things it can be about is a life not lived in the way that they wanna be living it. You know? Do you know the book Staring at the Sun by Irving Yulong?

Kyle Buller: I don’t think so, no.

Esme Dark: Oh, he, it’s a beautiful book about, um, death anxiety and his own death anxiety and, um, yeah, it’s really great.

Esme Dark: And it talks a lot about these different ways in which you can support people with that and kind of, um, he’s very like self-disclosing in that book. He’s an amazing, uh, God, he must be getting quite, quite a lot older now, but existential psychotherapist, who’s a whole bunch of books that I love. Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Nice.

Kyle Buller: And how did he approach that [00:21:00] topic of like, did he have his own experiences with death or like psychedelics or.

Esme Dark: Death, fear of death. Yeah. I think he, um, he lived with this kind of death anxiety that his whole life that he realized was affecting how he was in the world. Um, and so he started to reflect on what would be important for him.

Esme Dark: And he talked about like, you know, I guess he’s very self-disclosing about writing books as kind of putting some of himself in the world so that he can

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Continue to ripple out. And I guess we all ripple out in, through the people that we love, um, the way that we are in the world and the people that we care for.

Esme Dark: Um, we leave a little piece of ourselves with them, don’t we?

Kyle Buller: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And like. I mean, something like that just reminds me of like, you know, when you are on your deathbed, like, are you gonna regret not doing things right? And so it, it goes back to that, that thing, it’s like how we prepare for death is how we live, live our lives, right?

Kyle Buller: Yes. It’s like, we’re not thinking about that. Are we really consciously showing up [00:22:00] for the life that we really wanna live?

Esme Dark: Yes. Yes. This is a great topic. I could keep, keep going on this. You know, I feel, um. I feel like I’m, the reason that I ended up making this huge life change to move to Australia is partly to do with my first job as a psychologist, which is in bereavement counseling.

Esme Dark: Mm-hmm. And, and I think there’s something about being that close to people who have recently had someone in their lives die that makes you really think about those big questions, you know?

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Um, yeah.

Kyle Buller: It’s hard not to, you know? Yeah. I think it puts it right in your face and you go, Hmm. Yeah. I think the hard part is like actually integrating it, right?

Kyle Buller: It’s like we can have a lot of those insights and then, you know, we’re back to the 3D um, back in the grind and, you know, I think that’s, that’s the tension point for a lot of folks. Totally. Um, how, how did you get involved in, in the psychedelic work?

Esme Dark: Hmm, great question. So I, um, I was working as a psychologist in, um, refugee [00:23:00] mental health, actually for quite a lot of years, um, in, um, torture and trauma counseling.

Esme Dark: Mm-hmm. And, and so, um, I could say a lot about that, but one of the, I guess the pathway to here was that I was, I think you have to live slightly under a rock to not know about, um, to be working that much with PTSD and not hear about maps and what they were doing. And so I learned about what MAPS was doing and MDMA assisted psychotherapy and having really good impacts with PTSD.

Esme Dark: And so that was kind of my, my, my doorway into this work. And then. During, uh, COVID, I decided we had a really long lockdown here, and I got in touch with an old friend who, who I saw was doing that work. So she was on, well, ended up not have the trial ended up being delayed, but she was starting to work on the MDMA assisted psychotherapy trial at Monash Uni with the first responders.

Esme Dark: And I said, oh, I’m really interested in that [00:24:00] work. And she said, why don’t you come and work with us? I think you’ve got the right background being a somatic psychotherapist who’s also really interested in depth psychology. Would you like to come on over? And so that’s where, that’s where I began, and it’s been an amazing adventure working at the clinical psychedelic lab with a great team of really like-minded, um, therapists.

Esme Dark: And, um, Dr. Paul Ignite Ski who heads up the lab is, is a really, uh, great, great person to work alongside and been lots of cool projects happening there.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, amazing. What’s your journey been like with like training and providing psychedelic therapy? Like, you know, as a traditional therapist, a somatic therapist, like what did you have to learn?

Kyle Buller: What’d you have to unlearn to start really working with these medicines?

Esme Dark: Yeah, I was just thinking about this yesterday in preparing a bit for this call, and I’ve been, I’ve actually been teaching, um, on the psychedelic education program at Monash as well. So this has been like a real live question for me.[00:25:00]

Esme Dark: Mm. Um, what do I want to sort of teach other people? What did I need to learn? And I feel like, um, when I was been working with, say with the, I worked for about two years on the Psilocybin Assisted Psychotherapy trial, so we were working with people with generalized anxiety disorder in a. Dyad therapy model.

Esme Dark: Um, and so I think one of the things that I found really important is if I, if I think about dose days in particular and somatic approaches, you know, learning how to really track someone’s body

Kyle Buller: Hmm.

Esme Dark: Really, really support them to have things that kind of move through, but also learning how to, to get out of the way as well.

Kyle Buller: Yeah,

Esme Dark: yeah. And just let happen what is happening in the space and that kind of balance of like actually, um, when someone is in a dose day, most of the time. Myself and my co-therapist are really just kind of holding the space, being alongside really supporting them. But sometimes we’re not, sometimes we’re doing, [00:26:00] we’re doing stuff.

Esme Dark: Um, and I was thinking the other day, I, you know, um, was supporting somebody to move a somatic process through their body, but I was kind of doing it even the other recently, you know, from a place of something that I thought should happen.

Kyle Buller: Mm.

Esme Dark: You know, and, and actually when I reflected with my co-therapist, I think it was a bit confusing and a bit too much for them.

Esme Dark: Like I was getting ’em to do a push, um, which can be really helpful. It is really helpful. I knew this person really well, worked with them for many, many sessions. Um, but in that moment, on the dose day, it was me thinking, trying to be a good somatic therapist. And actually what, what I find so much better is, um, just really amplifying what’s going on already and not bringing something in, which sounds like you’re not doing a lot, but you’re actually doing a lot when you are.

Esme Dark: Mm-hmm. Learning how to amplify and track someone’s body

Kyle Buller: and how do you get outta your own way in those situations? [00:27:00] Great. Yeah, that’s

Esme Dark: a great question. I think, um, you know, meditation practice and grounding and coming into my own body has been really helpful in general as I’ve been practicing meditation for a long time and yoga and those practices like really help me to get in my own body.

Esme Dark: Um, and so then I’m just kind of in my body watching the other person move through whatever they are moving through. And I think how you get out of your own ways also, it’s a great having a code therapist. If I’m thinking I might go check in, I might do a thing now. Um, what are you feeling? Um, and, and I think it’s really important to have really good supervision.

Esme Dark: So if you really know yourself and you know, what’s yours? Then you’re also more likely to get out of your own way.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Sounds so straight. You know, it, it’s, it’s a complex thing though, right? What about you? Yeah, yeah,

Kyle Buller: yeah. I love that you bring up like the, the team aspect. I mean, that’s definitely been a [00:28:00] lot of my work too, like hosting groups, whether it’s breath work groups or we’re doing, um, you know, international retreats.

Kyle Buller: Um, just having other people to check in with. And, you know, for me it is a lot of like, you know, just body awareness and thinking like, okay, what’s coming up? Is this me? Is this actually, you know, for the client, for the participant? Um, if I feel like it’s a little bit for me, I have to like, really dig in and, and like think about that.

Kyle Buller: Um, and so I always try to use that, that weight acronym, like why am I talking, why am I treating, et cetera. Mm-hmm. Um, and yeah, like a good example of this is we had somebody at a retreat or workshop one time. They were. Just very vocal. Mm-hmm. And there is a part of me that was like, I need to tell this person to stop because it’s de like disturbing everybody else.

Kyle Buller: Mm-hmm. Um, and so I’m like, you know, bringing it in. I checked in with other facilitator and, [00:29:00] you know, I was like, what should we do here? And I think they even said, well, why are you feeling like anxious? Or Why do you feel like you need to stop this? I’m like. At the root of it, I feel like I’m being a bad facilitator.

Kyle Buller: You know? ’cause I’m worried about everybody else. Like, is everybody else like being disrupted by this? Um, and you know, we made the decision not to, to intervene and, and let that person’s process like ride. But it is really hard. ’cause I think also as like therapists and helpers and whatnot, we want to feel like we’re productive.

Kyle Buller: And I think feeling productive is like either talking or trying to do something and like just pulling back and like, as you mentioned, like actually it’s really helpful. You’re actually doing a lot by not intervening or, or doing anything at, at those times. But it’s hard. I think that’s like the hardest thing to try to like unlearn as like a helper.

Kyle Buller: It’s like really allowing people to trust their own process and that, you know, that they’ll, um, and to create that [00:30:00] space for them to, to do that exploration. Have agency over it a bit more. But it’s, it’s tough.

Esme Dark: Yeah. Totally. And you know, I’m trained in sensory motor psychotherapy with them, the Pat Ogden school.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: And you know, one of the things I was reflecting on in my training, you know, that one of the, uh, 10, the basic kind of principles is that sometimes when the nervous system is dysregulated, it’s because there’s a stuck defensive response within the body that needs to come through. Um, and when we did our training, that was kind of, we were taught, you know, the sort of main ones that people might think of, like a push or a kick or a mm-hmm.

Esme Dark: Right. You know, and you’re not doing those fast. When you move a stuck defense response through the body to re help with the nervous system reset, it’s very slow and mindful and pressurized. But what I was thinking about when I think about my psychedelic work in dosing is that it’s really taught me that people’s bodies.

Esme Dark: And the movements that need to happen are so much more idiosyncratic than that. Mm. [00:31:00] You know, and actually, like, if I think about that case I mentioned where I was trying to help that, that person and, and that movement was useful for them previously and, and after, um, but it wasn’t the right moment then, you know?

Esme Dark: Right. They needed to do something else and it might be just a, a shaking or a pushing in a different way. Could be anything really, you know? Um, and I think that’s been a big learning for me too. I kind of just really, I never knew what’s gonna happen in, on a dose day. I might think I do, I might have dosed, worked with someone a lot of times, but you never know.

Kyle Buller: You have to be prepare prepared for uncertainty and the unknown in this work. Right.

Esme Dark: Yep.

Kyle Buller: Yeah,

Esme Dark: absolutely.

Kyle Buller: Where do you think the overlap is between like, um, psychedelic work and somatic work? You know, I know Somatics has been very popular, um, recently and there’s a lot more talk about like nervous system regulation and learning [00:32:00] how to like work with the body.

Kyle Buller: Um, do you find that it is a powerful adjunct to psychedelic therapy? Um, or as you’re saying too, like, you know, maybe I need to pull back and actually not do this thing right now. Right.

Esme Dark: Yeah. I find it really, really helpful for what I was just talking about in terms of learning how to track.

Kyle Buller: Hmm.

Esme Dark: I feel like it taught me how to track a body and the posture and even from the first, uh, preparation session, if I think about my work on the, uh, generalized anxiety disorder trial where people that we are working with their nervous systems were really, really, really heightened.

Esme Dark: You know, I am. I think even from the first session, I’m, I’m, I’m checking out like, okay, how are they holding their body? How do they relate to their body? Like, where are they? I, I noticed that they, they’re sitting really tense in a particular part of the body. I might get curious about that. Um, because I guess one of the ways that I understand anxiety, sometimes it’s [00:33:00] different for everyone, but it’s like a kind of disconnection with the body.

Esme Dark: Even though the body is talking emotionality in the body can, um, you know, you can have a lot of anxiety and then underneath that it’s grief or anger or right. You know, um, and so I find it helpful in that way to help people to kind of navigate that space to get to know their body before going into a dosing, because on those days, people will get taken there.

Esme Dark: I feel like, I guess, I guess if I think about how I’ve seen these medicines work, it, it is, you know, we spend so much time in our head in the modern world, and somatics has got really popular in the last 10 years, but we still, you know, all of us, I, most of us spend too much time in our heads. And so it, but so much of the way that we experience the world.

Esme Dark: Um, is nonverbal. And so of course these medicines will take us into that place in our body so, so often. So I think it’s helpful for people to have, [00:34:00] um, an orientation almost into some of the things that might happen.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, and I always think, and I kind of say it’s almost like we’re very somatically illiterate as a culture, and I just think about like what comes up in psychedelics.

Kyle Buller: Like people might feel different sensations, emotions and not know what to do with it. And I think at least like helping people to have practices or develop a language on like, oh, like this anxiety I’m feeling isn’t necessarily bad. Like, maybe there’s actually content to work there with. Um, and how do I work with that instead of just continuing to try to suppress it?

Kyle Buller: Um, but it takes a while I think, for people to like learn that, um, and be curious about it.

Esme Dark: Totally. A hundred, I completely agree. I love that somatically illiterate. I think we, we are, you know, like yet also so much of the time when people are suffering it’s because their body is feeling so much intensity.

Esme Dark: You know, the people I worked with [00:35:00] in the anxiety disorder trial, that was definitely true for. Um, and I think it’s also helpful, you know, if I think about, I was lucky enough to be a part of, um, a before we did the psychedelic trial with psilocybin at Monash, we did, um, another kind of trial where we had our own self experience.

Kyle Buller: Oh, cool.

Esme Dark: So yeah, the therapists, um, sat for each other in dyads, and so we did like a mini version. Um, this sort of psilocybin trial was about three months of therapy and dosing, but we did a mini version where, uh, I had like one preparation session with two therapists, one of which was my dyad partner for the trial, and then a dose day, and then an integration session, um, which was really the best training that I could have ever had, and I wish was available more freely.

Esme Dark: Mm-hmm. To, to, to psychologists and, and psychiatrists and people working in the space in Australia now. ’cause I feel like that’s one of the things that I feel most concerned about is that there’s not really [00:36:00] a legal pathway for people to do that.

Kyle Buller: I, I was just gonna ask Yeah. For folks that are starting to get involved or they able to have their own experience, or, no,

Esme Dark: it’s not legally at the moment, unless it’s part of a trial.

Esme Dark: Which people are doing and try, you know, and, and also I think it’s really important to research these things. Like to see, to research the effectiveness of that, like how useful it was. And there was a big, it was, you know, there was a lot of really good evidence that we got out of that trial. Um, and so people are doing that, but there’s not, um, that’s the complication, you know, it’s, it’s really, they’ve taken psilocybin and MDMA down from being at the same level of restriction as arsenic, which is kind of wild down level, but only one, you know.

Kyle Buller: Mm-hmm.

Esme Dark: So that’s makes it difficult.

Kyle Buller: That’s interesting. They would build a pathway for like clinical research, but not like actual practice as it’s become like legal for, for other folks. Yeah.

Esme Dark: I think that, I think it, if anything ha I think that [00:37:00] will, I think it will start to happen. Hopefully. I mean, I don’t know, but there’s a lot of people kind of advocating for that too.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Um. We were able to do it through a trial, which is great. And I had, um, a lot of things happen from my dose day, but one of the things was a, a really intense stomach pain that came up kind of partway through. And, um, you know, I was supported with that and given, you know, a pillow to hold and, and then it continued to unfold in the evening I went home.

Esme Dark: I was picked up by wonderful support person and, um, I went home and I continued to work with it. Outside of the session and kind of, and sat in, in a, in a bath and just kind of did some breathing. And I have those practices, you know, I, I know how to do that. Um, it didn’t surprise me. Um, and so if I think about how I wanna prepare people for this, kind of, for this work, it is about that, that, that the somatic processing can also continue after the session.

Esme Dark: It’s helpful to [00:38:00] have, I, I’m curious about how you work with breathwork, actually, and how you support people with that. Um, but ’cause I think, I, I think it could be really helpful as well.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, I think, um, well I guess before I get into the breath work, like that stomach thing, did you see that as something psychosomatic or byproduct of like the psilocybin that you’re taking?

Kyle Buller: Like, you know, ’cause we talk about like nausea does come up and there might be some stomach stuff, but like, do you see it as more physiological or that was more kind of psychosomatic and there’s like emotions there that you had to continue to work with?

Esme Dark: Definitely emotional. I hold so much in my belly and I’ve had, you know, experience with this IBS my whole life and like stuff like that.

Esme Dark: So there is, uh, it felt very emotional and in the session. I came out and said to my lovely therapist, you know, I’ve got this really bad stomach pain and it’s really, I go, I don’t wanna go there. And, and they were like, is that something that you need to go towards? Maybe, do you need some [00:39:00] support? Would you like a pillow?

Esme Dark: We can come and hold your hand. You know, they were, uh, and they encouraged me to go back. Um, I did change my body position, which I also think can be really helpful. You know, if I think about like, being able to, I sat up and not lying down anymore. Um, I also really always like to have a yoga mat on the floor for, for people and me as the, a facilitator.

Esme Dark: Um, but I kind of went, I, and so I sat down, closed my eyes, and I went in and I had some really big insights come through during that. Process, process. And so that continued to come through later. Um, outside of that, so kind of almost like, um, sort of really a lot of download of information and, and processing of emotion.

Esme Dark: So yeah, I definitely felt psychosomatic to me.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. I always feel like I need to like, move that energy when it’s coming up. Like I feel like when I’m just like stuck and like rigid, it just gets like more intense. Um, so to be able to like, like move and, and breathe [00:40:00] into it, I think is, can be really important.

Kyle Buller: But, um, yeah, I think for me, like u using breath beforehand can be really impactful. ’cause I think sometimes when we’re in those really deep experiences, people sometimes forget to breathe in a way, you know?

Esme Dark: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Buller: And. When something really difficult’s coming up to just like, you know, practice before going in.

Kyle Buller: Like what does it feel like to like sit with those emotions? And so sometimes before, um, doing ketamine therapy with clients, I would actually just do some short breath work sessions. Mm-hmm. So we could like, just see what it’s like to like induce a non-ordinary state without a substance first, learn how to like, navigate big emotions when they come up in that state.

Kyle Buller: And then just to help do a little bit of that preparation. And then on, I think during the session, um, you know, just returning to the breath when things get really gnarly. Um, and people feel like what’s going on. Um, and I know for [00:41:00] me, like my, in my personal experiences, like if I didn’t have all that like breath work stuff, I, you know, it would’ve been really challenging.

Kyle Buller: Um, I just think about like my experiences before breath work and then like after doing more breath work and how that those breath work practices. Help to deepen the intensity in a, in a different way for some sort of like, resolution instead of trying to like push it away and be like, oh, I don’t wanna feel this, right.

Kyle Buller: This is too much. It’s like, it allows me to like be with the experience even though it can be really intense. Um.

Esme Dark: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Buller: And then on the other side, being able to like, use it as like an integration tool. Um,

Esme Dark: yeah,

Kyle Buller: yeah. Allowing people to like do some circular breathing to get back into that state. Maybe it helps with like a little bit of resolution.

Kyle Buller: Um, but I think like after psychedelics, you kind of, I think timing’s interesting. I remember we did, um, a session, a breath work thing, like at a retreat and the folks that had the session the day [00:42:00] before. Felt like it was too activating, but the people that dosed two days prior said it actually felt like it helped to resolve a lot of things that like were left unresolved.

Kyle Buller: So it helped to like bring some of that back to the surface, um, for, for more processing. Um,

Esme Dark: that’s really interesting. Yeah, I can imagine that. Like, you know, that, that would be really helpful. You know, I, um, in, in the, in that integration space, like I, I remember I did, um. A ho because a holotropic breathwork workshop with some colleagues.

Esme Dark: And you know, I guess that is when we, when we were training for the, I think this was later, I think it was for the MDMA assisted psychotherapy trial, not the psilocybin one. Um, but like I’m writing, um, a clinical intervention at the moment for a new trial that’s in development, which is, um, looking at psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and partnering with men’s behavior change, um, for, for men who perpetrate [00:43:00] violence.

Esme Dark: And so it’s a pretty complex area and we’re still developing it at the moment, but really thinking about this question of how to support. The therapists mm-hmm. Into, to learning how to do this work. And I was thinking about breath work as a, an a legal option.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Um, and holotropic breathwork, you can go so deep.

Esme Dark: I remember, I thought, I listened to you talk about this and you were saying that you were a little bit skeptical the very first time I was You did any breath work?

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: I was so skeptical and I was blown away by the experience and I was so surprised. I said, well, how is this gonna do anything? And then the next thing you know, I was in a very deep process.

Esme Dark: Um. Being supported, we kinda set it up. So it was a similar sort of support structure to what would happen in a psychedelic session, which was really helpful in, in learning how to do this work. Yeah,

Kyle Buller: yeah. I remember I was chatting with Rick Dolin about this and seeing like, you know, ’cause a lot of folks do use breath work as a training modality, as like [00:44:00] a, you know, a legal way.

Kyle Buller: And he said, you know, I think it’s really great for like psilocybin therapy because you’re very hands off. But with like MDMA therapy, since it’s a little bit more like, you know, a little bit more talking, it might not actually like be maybe the best thing. But I think it does help to teach you to like be with yourself.

Kyle Buller: And I think that’s the most important thing when it comes to that training. It’s like, how do we just be with ourself when there’s big catharsis going on without always needing to like intervene right away. And I think that comes back to like getting out of our own way, right? It’s like, oh, I’m feeling triggered right now.

Kyle Buller: ’cause somebody’s having like this, this big thing unfold and. How do I stick with my breath? How do I stick with my body and just like, not need to, to, to do that and intervene, but

Esme Dark: yes. Right. I, I’m smiling because, um, I was teaching about this on recently and, um, you know, I think it just takes a lot of practice and it’s great [00:45:00] if you have two of you, because sometimes, you know, as a therapist, we’re gonna be, something’s gonna come up for us and someone’s having a big release or being, being, you know, loud or distressed or, or, or, or in, you know, panicking, right?

Esme Dark: Mm-hmm. Which is kind of one of the harder things I think if someone starts to panic and

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: You know, gets really distressed that way and it’s so contagious, that nervous system activation. Yeah. And so learning how to just. Really ground and knowing when you need to take a moment and your co-therapist can have a go for those of us that are fortunate enough to work that way.

Esme Dark: I know it’s not always the case, but, um, it’s really important.

Kyle Buller: It’s interesting, yeah. How like, somebody else’s experience can really impact us. And you’re saying panic. And when you mention that, I remember an experience where somebody was like dealing with a lot of panic and anxiety and they needed to go outside and I could feel that like, even though I felt like I was like grounded, like as soon as we like left that [00:46:00] container, I could feel the panic and anxiety like way more where I’m like, Ooh, like maybe we should go back inside where it feels safer.

Kyle Buller: Um, but yeah, those mirror neurons, right. And like we’re co-regulating with each other in, in a way.

Esme Dark: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Even just thinking about the case that I’m, I’m, there’s been a few people with, in a generalized anxiety disorder, understandably people might meet something and maybe this is flowing us into that shadow work conversation.

Esme Dark: They might meet a part of themselves that’s really scary and they’re really afraid and they kind of wanna, they, you know, whip the eyes. Shes the headphones off and they wanna run away. And I so understand that, you know, and I remember really, I think that’s when you can get pulled eye can get pulled into trying to do too much as well sometimes.

Esme Dark: Mm-hmm. Be like get talk too much kind of, and actually. You know what a person needs when they’re like, that is really less words. Calm

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Space. Um, [00:47:00] but it happens quickly, right? Like I can even feel a bit of a memory of that in my body as I’m talking, you know, like, oh no, what do I do? They, you

Kyle Buller: know.

Kyle Buller: Exactly. Um, you’ve mentioned like rip the headphones off and like the eye shades off. I think that’s something I’ve had to like also unlearn in a bit. Like when I was doing a lot more ketamine therapy with folks, I noticed those with like pretty significant trauma. Had a really hard time actually, like wanting to put headphones and eye shades on.

Kyle Buller: And that kind of challenged me in a way ’cause it’s like, you know, this is the framework which we come from. And I had to be like, actually, what would it look like if we took more of this like trauma-informed relational approach and say, yeah, maybe we don’t need to do that right away. We, maybe we can get there and we can take like small steps to that so you can feel safe instead of saying like, you need to do it this way.

Kyle Buller: Um, and that was like a big challenge, challenge for me to like unlearn, be like, oh, okay, even though like I’ve been taught [00:48:00] this framework, this is like how we do everything. Maybe it’s okay for somebody not to wear headphones and eye shades right off the bat. Um, with, with some of this stuff, like how do we, I always say it’s like how do we get in the water and swim together?

Kyle Buller: Um, so we feel safe enough, um, to, to go in, into the deep end together.

Esme Dark: Yeah, that’s beautiful metaphor. And I think, um, how do we, yeah, how do we do this together? Because we, we often say, or I often say like, we are with you, like wherever you’re going, we are here, we’ve got this, we’ve got you, we’ve got the, we’ll look after you physical body as well and make sure that everything is safe on the couch.

Esme Dark: And, um, and yeah, I think, I think it is really important to go with what feels okay for the person in the space, you know? Um, and I’ve certainly had people who just wanna close their eyes. Yeah. And, and people who wanna sit up, people who wanna get up and move, you know, and I think there’s a bit of an implicit message in the protocol sometimes that [00:49:00] we should all lie down on the couch and not move.

Esme Dark: And I’m a super kinetic person. I’m standing up right now. Me too. Yeah. I kind of, yeah. Yeah. And I, I have to have like, um, a yoga map for myself, but also I feel like it encourages other people to get down onto the mat too and move their body. Um, which is really important, I think.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. You were bringing up the shadow and, um,

Esme Dark: yes.

Kyle Buller: How do you define shadow work? What is shadow work to you?

Esme Dark: Yeah. Thank you. I think, um, you know, it’s, it’s, I was just reflecting on this and, um, I really liked, I I, I know you did a course not so long ago with the integration circle and, um, it was that, that actually the shadow can have this idea that it’s something really hard, right?

Esme Dark: Like it’s something really dark and like inherently negative. But so often in my experience as a therapist, it’s actually something that, that the person might shut off is any, any part of themselves that they kind of put into their unconscious because [00:50:00] they deem it somehow unacceptable. And that might be wanting to be an artist, as you said, on, on, on that course, when your family really wants you to be.

Esme Dark: In a corporate job. And I think, you know, it really got me thinking about the people I’ve worked with. And so, so often at the core of whatever kind of therapy we’re doing, whether it’s psychedelic work or other kind of work, is that there’s a part of themselves that they really wanna bring into the world, but they feel they can’t.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: And the tension of that builds and builds and gets called depression or anxiety or, you know, and, and, and so, uh, very often we kind of wanna take someone down to meet those parts within themselves and to bring that out into the open, you know?

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: It’s not to say that the shadows, not all can, it can also obviously be parts of us holding pain.

Esme Dark: You know, I’m an IFS therapist as well as, um, the other types of therapy and I kind of, that the idea of that we xr these child parts of ourselves that are [00:51:00] holding pain is also something that. Feels important to me.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And like what are those like golden parts that want to come out? I remember, um, somebody saying like, shouldn’t therapy or psychedelic experiences like always be hard, like, am I not doing the work if I’m not like going into like the pain and grief?

Kyle Buller: Um, and you know, I tried to challenge that, like kind of thinking about this golden shadow aspect, knowing that like. Maybe your nervous system actually needs to rest and what does that, and you could automatically like just see, I don’t wanna do that. Right. It’s like, actually maybe that’s where the work is.

Kyle Buller: Like how do we actually find rest in the nervous system instead of always chewing up the the darkness? Um, and that can be really hard, right? Because I think when we think about the quote unquote work, we think about those darker aspects. I need to get to the bottom of this wound, but. As you’re saying too, like what about those like exile [00:52:00] parts that really wanna shine, that really wanna like be expressed that want to be the artist that wants to like, you know, start a podcast or create a substack or like, you know, put their voice out there.

Kyle Buller: Um, but that other part saying don’t do that, you’re not worthy of it. Um, you know, and so then you have this interplay between that shadow, that more darker part, but then there’s other part that really just wants to come out and say, Hey, this is who I am. Um, and I think that’s the integration. I think that’s really where, kind of like the work is.

Kyle Buller: It’s like how do we bridge that gap there? Um. Because, yeah, it just might get exiled again. And if we’re using that like parts, work language.

Esme Dark: Yeah, exactly. And you know, I remember a dosing session on the psilocybin trial and one of the participants just started singing, beautiful little beautiful voice, and my co-therapist and I was so deeply moved, you know, that she was just.

Esme Dark: That they were doing [00:53:00] that, that they were singing. Mm-hmm. And we were like, wow. Yeah. And, and, and it was like that creative expression was just coming through, you know? Yeah. And I mean, I, I actually am someone who’s pretty terrified of public speaking as, as historically, right? Yeah. Yeah. And like, and, and so for me, doing a podcast was a huge push.

Esme Dark: Like it was a, you know, there’s the professional reasons, but also a personal journey of like, I, I have stuff I wanna say about this field at this moment. Yeah. And I’m, I’m gonna do it.

Kyle Buller: What made you kind of get over that? Or like, how have you been working with that edge to step into that a little bit more?

Esme Dark: Um, I guess like, you know, I think it’s feeling the tension and being kind to those. Those parts. You know, I feel really well supported by my wonderful colleagues who, you know, even today, you know, live stream is a scary thing, right? Like, for me anyway, [00:54:00] and, and my colleagues just really supporting me and my friends, but also like noticing those parts and going, oh, okay.

Esme Dark: It’s all right. It’s okay. We’ve got this. We can, we can do it. You know? Um, and, and I have a beautiful therapist who I’ve worked with for many years. Um, I think it’s really important as a therapist to have your own therapy. I go in and out of that, and the reason that I use IFS, um, a lot in my practice is because I’ve benefited so much from it myself.

Esme Dark: And so I really find that working with those parts within me helpful and noticing them somatically.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: And, and, you know, grounding, I’m always, I, I, I’ve got no shoes on. I find like standing and having my feet on the ground squishing my toes. Yeah, it’s really helpful for this kind of stuff.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Um, yeah.

Kyle Buller: And do you ever, like, I’m noticing like you’re holding your, your, uh, hand there. Like are you, do you notice like a knot or anything that ever comes up? Um,

Esme Dark: yeah, yeah, [00:55:00] yeah. It, it’s, it’s here, it’s like a little knot here. Mm-hmm. Um, used to be here actually, but I don’t get that as much now.

Kyle Buller: Mm-hmm.

Esme Dark: Um, but it’s often here and so I just kind of hold that place and breathe into it a little bit.

Esme Dark: Sometimes reminders from my community to take care of those parts of myself before I do things like this.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: But I do that myself too.

Kyle Buller: Well, thank you for showing up and, you know, doing the work and letting that like golden shadow shine and it’s tough. Um, I think I’ve probably talked about it here and there, but I have like the same type of like, you know, wound in, in the way around like that throat chakra.

Kyle Buller: And this has been a really tough, tough journey, um, over the years of like, you know, I remember sometimes we would, um, put episodes out when we first started and I’m like, I don’t wanna put that out to the world. And Joe’s like, we gotta put it out. And I’m like. Uh, can we edit it a little bit more? Can we like delete it?

Kyle Buller: Can we like redo it? And all of a sudden the [00:56:00] episode goes out and you’re like, cringing a bit and you’re like, uh, but then like, you know, somebody might like reach out and go, that was awesome episode. And I always come back to it’s like, you know, we’re, we’re our own worst critic. Um, and yeah, like how do we like get out of our own way at that times?

Kyle Buller: But still does, doesn’t make it easy. Um, really doesn’t make it easy. It’s definitely one of these challenges that, um,

Esme Dark: I didn’t know that about you, Kyle. I, yeah, I that’s, I, I’m, I’m really glad that you put, put, got out of your own way and put this all out there. You know, 300 and something episodes in now, right?

Kyle Buller: Uh, like 800, I think.

Esme Dark: 800.

Kyle Buller: Oh. Between me and between me and Joe. Um,

Esme Dark: amazing. Wow.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. So,

Esme Dark: and do you still ever get like that or you kind of, it’s not so, oh, totally much of it. You do? Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And public speaking. I hate public speaking ironically. Um, it’s funny, I can do this stuff, um, or like teach, um, but like sometimes I remember I [00:57:00] did a, a conference, like in person, the entire ride down.

Kyle Buller: I was like having a panic attack. It’s like, uh, um, yeah, and I could notice it. It was like all in the throat. I’m like, you know, I constantly clear my throat. I always feel like there’s something in there. Um, but yeah, it’s like this, uh, it’s all kind of like shadow wound, um, that has showed up for me trans personally in psychedelic and breath work experiences.

Kyle Buller: Um, I know. Astrology is a little kind of controversial still at times in certain circles, but it’s also represented in there as well, like where my Chiron placement is and, and stuff like that. And then I could look at like, you know, my biographical history and like the amount of times where it felt like my voice was suppressed.

Kyle Buller: Um, I’m also like, I, I don’t have a formal diagnosis, but like definitely dyslexic at times. Um, so like, I’ll screw words up. Like, uh, when I grew up in, um, like reading out loud was like the most terrifying thing, and I would have so much anxiety in [00:58:00] school and like, I would always screw words up and like, you know, my classmates would always laugh at me and stuff like that.

Kyle Buller: And I still, you know, I find myself like screwing words up or like, you know, I’d mix things up or can’t say a word and, but, um, I think I’ve learned to just find humor in it. It’s like, you know, my imperfections and we’re all human, um, and we all have our imperfections and, and that’s okay. So

Esme Dark: Totally. Yeah.

Esme Dark: A hundred percent. I think it’s one of the most common fears. Public speaking. I was talking to a friend who’s doing a course about it recently about, about the same thing. You know, I, I remember I, I got, I did a talk once at the Australian Childhood Trauma Conference when I was in my refugee work days.

Esme Dark: And I was meant to be in, um, like a, a small kind of workshop space, which is I was kind of doing something in the small room and because of some scheduling, they bumped me to the main room with the podium and everything with like 20 minutes notice, which is kind of good. ’cause I didn’t really have time to run away, which is exactly what I wanted to do.

Kyle Buller: [00:59:00] Yeah, yeah.

Esme Dark: Um, it’s terrifying, you know? And like it was, I really had to, I I, I almost didn’t do it, you know, but I, I pushed through that anxiety a little bit and it was okay. You know, and people are so, yeah, people. PII think one of the, I had a really beautiful piece of feedback about the podcast recently that someone said that there was an episode I did with Bruce and Marsai that they had shared with a, with a client who had found it really helpful for helping them to prepare.

Esme Dark: And so for me, I was like, yeah, that’s, that’s great. That’s kind of one of the reasons I wanted to put it out there.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, that stuff’s priceless. Like that type of feedback to like hear be like, oh wow. Like, you know, it’s actually like having an impact in a way. Um, and I think that’s like what keeps me showing up at times.

Kyle Buller: But, um, for all of you listening, you know, hopefully it’s motivation to, you know, step into some work that maybe you’re scared of or hesitant. It’s like that is that shadow work, right? Like [01:00:00] just being able to address some of that and the integration is like showing up, uh, to do it, which, but it’s also terrifying.

Kyle Buller: You’re like, ugh, frees up and, yeah.

Esme Dark: Totally. Yeah,

Kyle Buller: totally. Do you have a formal, like back, I was gonna say, do you have like a formal background in any sort of like Jungian psychology or,

Esme Dark: I am. I, I’ve done, I’m not a Jungian therapist, but I’ve done some training in process work and I feel like, oh, cool. I am someone who.

Esme Dark: I, I think it’s kind of always been the underlying kind of principles of how I work. So when I worked in, um, the refugee mental health space, I always did a lot of sand tray work.

Kyle Buller: Oh, cool.

Esme Dark: So I don’t know if people will be familiar with that. So you kind of, I was working with young people and kids actually, and families then.

Esme Dark: So that’s where you kind of have a sand tray of a particular type of figurines, and then you just, you create a space that feels safe and that the, the person will create worlds and just free [01:01:00] freely with the, with the, uh, uh, with the different things that they put in the tray. And I was astounded by how amazingly people were able to communicate with me that about things that they wouldn’t have been able to, even though we were working with interpreters a lot.

Esme Dark: So, yeah. So I, I think it’s, I think the idea that. The core idea that the psyche given the right conditions will move towards healing. An individuation is something that has underlined so much of what I do, but I’m not trained, I would not like to call myself a Youngian Allen or anything like that.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Buller: Awesome. And do you see like, um, well I guess, uh, something else popped in my head. Sorry, kind of going off. That’s fine. Um, process work, is that like Mendel’s process work or,

Esme Dark: yeah, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, and I think that’s been something, you know, some colleagues of mine are, are really deep in that space, um, at the clinical psychedelic lab at Monash.

Esme Dark: Um, and I definitely have been really influenced by that, but [01:02:00] also have done a lot of reading and my own work with that model as well.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, I love Mendel’s work. It’s pretty interesting. Um,

Esme Dark: yeah.

Kyle Buller: And do you see like, kind of like this, like archetypal process, Jungian shadow work, like really important for psychedelics or like the integration process?

Esme Dark: I, yeah, I think it just seems to naturally take people into those places of depth within the psyche, right? You know, that’s kind of how, one way, I mean, there’s many ways to understand how psychedelics work, of course, but it feels to me that that’s, that people often go into those places. And so I think it is helpful.

Esme Dark: You know, I’m always really careful not to, um. Impose any particular frame on somebody. But I think having that knowledge around archetypes and the collective unconscious, um, and different energies and, and archetypes that might emerge is really helpful as a therapist to kind of help guide, um, to help guide the, the person, but [01:03:00] also to help guide myself and understanding it.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Yeah. What, what about you, Kyle?

Kyle Buller: I’ve found it to be, yeah, really important for like trying to understand all the weirdness that comes up in psychedelics. Like when there’s a lot of like symbology symbols kind of archetypes to arise. It’s like, what’s my relationship to that? And as you’re saying, it’s like not to necessarily like put a framework on it for somebody, but I guess my take is like, how do we get more curious about that stuff that’s arising and like here’s like kind of a map that we can use as a way to like understand like, yeah.

Kyle Buller: How have other people kind of explored um, this stuff in the past? Like, I’m really interested in dreamwork, um, and. You know, there’s just so much interesting stuff that comes through dreams, and I feel like dreams are inherently psychedelic in a way. Um, yeah. And, you know, it’s like how can we use that to also, you know, do integration work, continue the ongoing [01:04:00] process there.

Kyle Buller: Um, and you know, the, the mind and the psyche are so vast and so depth, um, you know, there’s so much depth there and it’s like, what does it all mean? You know? And I think that’s like where the analytical mind comes in. It’s like, oh, what does this all mean? I could just sit here and like, think about it all day.

Kyle Buller: Um, but I think it helps to just provide a little bit of context, um, to like, maybe how do we make sense of. These things that are arising in the psyche. I always think about something a teacher told me, it’s like, you know, being lost at sea without a map is terrifying. Um, and I think it is important for us to have some sort of map of the psyche, um, how whatever that is for people, you know, maybe it’s like more religious, maybe it’s more depth oriented psychology approaches.

Kyle Buller: Maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that. But I think developing some sort of map can be a, a grounding rod for folks. Um, otherwise you’re just like untethered.

Esme Dark: A hundred percent. I really, and, and I, I, I completely agree. And I think it’s, so, it, it, [01:05:00] you know, it’s taken me back to my, very many years ago I did a, um, my doctorate research was actually about how people understand their experience of what was termed in the literature, like paranoia and paranoid delusions.

Esme Dark: And in that research there, it was really interesting to notice how people made sense of things in different ways and how important it was to be curious and to ask. And, and I bring that curiosity to the psychedelic space, but sometimes people really are like, is that, is that a literal thing? Or knowledge?

Esme Dark: Right. Or like, and I think that’s where some of the arc, you know, speaking, able to speak from a youngian frame can be really helpful to help people go. Okay. Like let, let’s not necessarily take everything. Literally that’s important in psychedelics. Yeah.

Kyle Buller: As, uh, Terrence McKenna used to say, psychedelics seem to foster funny ideas.

Kyle Buller: Um,

Esme Dark: yeah.

Kyle Buller: And, uh, you know, sometimes we have really great insights, really great ideas that come through, but sometimes we [01:06:00] also need to like, learn discernment and go, yeah, you know, maybe that’s not. You know, something I should be paying attention to all the time. Um, and I think that, I think that’s a really important skill that we should all learn.

Kyle Buller: Like, how do we discern information that comes through to us? Um, when do we believe it as like, ultimate truth? Or when do we believe it as like something, okay, this is like interesting. Maybe I could like shelf it and come back to it, um, later at, at another point.

Esme Dark: Yeah. You know, I, I, I think, uh, I’ve spoken about this before in the podcast, but I had a, in the journey at Monash, I had this thing come up that said, you should learn to sing.

Kyle Buller: Mm. And

Esme Dark: I was like, that’s weird. I can’t sing. I don’t, I don’t know about that. That doesn’t sound like something that I wanna do. And, um, but I sat with it and I thought, oh, you know, maybe I’ll call a singing teacher. And, and then, um, you know, over the months it was like, no, this is, you should do the podcast.

Esme Dark: So [01:07:00] that’s, it became this kind of different thing. That was the integration piece for me. It’s like, what did that mean for you?

Kyle Buller: Right?

Esme Dark: It meant, it meant this, and that feels right to me now. Um, yeah.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Using your voice. Right. And so it’s like singing could be symbolic of using your voice in lots of different ways.

Kyle Buller: Um,

Esme Dark: totally.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Esme Dark: Yeah. And that was the integration of sitting with not acting straight away and, um, and seeing what really felt right. Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. For me, that’s beautiful.

Esme Dark: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Buller: Awesome. Well, I see that we’re over an hour this time. Yes. Just flew by here. Um,

Esme Dark: yes.

Kyle Buller: Anything that you wanna close with for today?

Esme Dark: Yeah. Um, maybe where people can find me. Yeah, so you can find me at my, if people wanna find out any anything or just get in touch, you can find me on my website, um, which is just Esme Dark Psychology. Um, I, I’ll put all this in the show notes for you. I’m also over on Instagram, just Dr. Esme Dark, and then you [01:08:00] can find the clinical psychedelic lab at Monash.

Esme Dark: If you just Google that, you can find that as well, so you can find out about the research that we’re up to. We’ve got so many cool projects starting next year. I’ve only spoken about really one of them. Um, and. Next year I’ll be running a workshop for anyone in Australia. So an in-person workshop around somatic approaches to psychedelic therapies, and then hopefully some online workshops as well.

Esme Dark: Um, if I have the time, it’s so busy, right. Trying to do all the things, but I’m really keen to do that. Yeah.

Kyle Buller: And I know this is also gonna go out to your audience, um, and it’s going out to our audience as well, but your podcast too beyond the trip, right? Yes. So people can find you there.

Esme Dark: Yeah, they can find me at Beyond the Trip podcast and we’ve actually just very recently started to be on YouTube, so I’ve been going for about a year and about 12 episodes in, I think.

Esme Dark: Nice. I’ve got lots of exciting stuff coming up. Yeah. Next year. Um, you know, that special that I spoke about, about, um, the [01:09:00] potential use of psychedelics at end of life. I’ve got some interviews, Dr. Bill Richards, who’s already been on the podcast. I’ve already recorded some. Um, and then Dr. Mar Ross, who did the first clinical psychedelic trial in Australia with people with end of life.

Esme Dark: If you But the end of life. So yeah. Amazing nots coming up. Yeah. Amazing.

Kyle Buller: Well, thank you for all the work that you’re doing and yeah, showing up.

Esme Dark: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Kyle. Yeah, it’s been really great. It went really quickly, didn’t it? Maybe we’ll have to, we’ll have to do another one sometime.

Kyle Buller: Part two. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in as well, and we’ll catch everybody later. So thank you again.

March 5, 2026March 5, 2026

Navigating Colorado’s Regulated Psychedelic Model: Lessons From the Front Lines

Entering the legal, regulated model of psychedelic therapy was the last thing on my mind when I moved to Colorado.

I spent most of my life in rural Appalachia, bouncing from one small mountain town to the next, making a living in healthcare while pursuing creativity as a visual artist. Alongside that, I practiced as a psychedelic guide, serving individuals and small groups to share the deep healing I had experienced through psilocybin. That work existed within an unregulated ecosystem shaped by relationship, trust, and responsibility rather than formal oversight.

Like many people who find their way to psychedelics, my path was personal long before it was professional. I am a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault, and I lived with chronic pain rooted in complex trauma. Years of processing through traditional therapy and other modalities were foundational to my healing. Yet there were deeper layers I could sense, but could not access.

Psilocybin therapy became the catalyst for a change I had no idea was coming. Through ethical, safe facilitation, I learned how to integrate parts of myself that had long been hidden, suppressed, or fragmented. I developed attunement, an ability to self-regulate, and a toolkit of modalities that actually worked for my system. These skills will serve me for the rest of my life.

During this time, I knew I was being called to guide others through this terrain. I had no plans for it to ever go beyond serving my community.

That would change.

A Legal Landscape Emerges

Within months of leaving my friends and family behind, Proposition 122 passed in November 2022, setting off a cascade of events that altered the trajectory of my life and the lives of many others in Colorado.

The Natural Medicine Health Act (NMHA) was signed into law in May 2023, kicking off the development of rules and regulations across multiple state agencies to oversee what would become the Regulated Access Program. As defined by NMHA, natural medicine includes psilocybin, psilocin, DMT, ibogaine, and mescaline (excluding peyote), with psilocybin designated as the first substance to be regulated for therapeutic use.

Far from being a seamless rollout, it was a living process. Rules were drafted, revised, clarified, and at times contradicted as agencies worked hard to build an entirely new regulatory framework.

For those of us watching closely, the question quickly became whether to wait for the dust to settle or step into the uncertainty.

Making the Leap

My roots are steeped in blue collars, bootstraps, and a healthy dose of skepticism toward authority. Opting into background checks, licensing fees, inspections, and state oversight did not come easily, especially in a practice that has long existed outside formal systems.

Those in the psychedelic world aren’t exactly known for their ability to toe the line, myself included. But the regulated model is bigger than any one person. It represents a broader attempt to increase safety, accountability, and access in a world still reckoning with the damage caused by the War on Drugs.

After sitting with the decision, my heart knew what was right. Go Within Collective came to fruition and would become the second licensed psychedelic healing center in Colorado.

I was excited. And terrified.

What I have learned along the way has been invaluable, including the art of how and when to pivot.

What Regulation Looks Like in Practice

In addition to the challenges of opening a small business, we faced obstacles we had never anticipated. In 2025 alone, we navigated:

Obtaining general and professional liability insurance, with most quotes being prohibitively high or had exclusion clauses that left us unprotected
Renting a space in a jurisdiction that allowed us to operate
Interpreting rules and regulations as they were being drafted
Finding professional support (accounting, legal, and financial) familiar with our industry
Being lumped in with the cannabis industry despite major differences
Financial planning while licensure fees and requirements were still being drafted
Building HIPAA-compliant systems for patient records, consent, and inventory
Designing and installing compliant security infrastructure

Each of these hurdles was more than an inconvenience. Together, they revealed what participation in the regulated model actually requires: infrastructure, documentation, oversight, and systems designed to protect participants, facilitators, and the public.

Every challenge we faced was overcome without outside financial investment. Bootstrapping the business placed a high personal financial burden on myself and my business partner. Creativity, adaptability, and leveraging every skill we had became essential.

Hours were spent combing through more than a hundred pages of draft regulations. To preserve our budget, we initially moved forward with legal counsel who was not deeply familiar with NMHA rules and regulations. When we were finally able to hire a legal team within the psychedelic industry, the relief was immense.

At one point, the bank we were working with closed our accounts and called our debt due to the nature of our business. We didn’t learn this until our healing center license fee check bounced. We scrambled to access our funds and submit payment before missing the deadline.

With no technical background, I built our electronic health record system to meet regulatory and operational requirements as they were being finalized, drawing on my years in healthcare to guide its structure. As regulations matured, those systems were refined to remain compliant.

The same was true for our security system. Quotes were far beyond our budget, so I rolled up my sleeves and figured it out (everything from cloud-based video storage to installing a 24/7 camera system). Fortunately, there is no photographic evidence of me sitting on the floor surrounded by cables and blinking lights, exasperated and tearful.

One final surprise purchase nearly broke me. After we were licensed and operational, we learned that our scale for measuring natural medicine was not compliant. We had to purchase a specific model, then have it certified and stamped. In isolation, it was a small expense. But to my nervous system, it felt like the waves of unexpected costs would never end.

Community in the Midst of Uncertainty

The state-regulated program did its best to keep participants informed. We had an investigator assigned to our healing center whom I could reach out to when questions arose, which helped clarify key issues. Still, as with any new government program, resources were limited.

What emerged from the confusion was a community of healing center owners, facilitators, and cultivators helping one another solve increasingly complex problems. Organizations such as the Healing Advocacy Fund became invaluable resources during this time.

One phrase showed up again and again in our conversations: “clear as mud.”

Some chose to wait on the sidelines until the dust settled. It’s a reasonable strategy, but not one that suits my nature. Had we waited, we would have avoided certain pitfalls. We also would have missed insights that can only be gained by getting a little muddy.

Safety, Accountability, and the Role of Regulation

Psilocybin therapy requires a container capable of holding vulnerability, complexity, and risk. Indigenous communities upheld this container for thousands of years through lineage, ritual, and communal accountability. In a modern world increasingly disconnected from community, the regulated model is one way we attempt to recreate accountability at scale.

In practice, that accountability shows up in ways that directly affect decision-making. Standardized screenings, informed consent, and transportation planning create clear boundaries before anyone ever enters a psychedelic state. Medical partnerships allow us to assess complex cases, seek clearance when appropriate, and deny access when it is not safe to proceed.

Liability insurance, documentation, and scope-of-practice requirements changed how responsibility was shared and how care was followed up afterward.

Some of the ways safety and accountability show up in Colorado’s model include:

Standardized screenings, informed consent, and transportation planning
Partnerships with physicians to assess complex medical cases and deny clearance when it is not safe to proceed
Pathways for clinical facilitators to work within their licensed scope, increasing access to those with complex cases
Required training standards for licensed facilitators that include safety, ethics, and cultural education
Liability insurance that provides financial accountability
Systems for investigation and consequence when harm occurs

These measures do not eliminate risk, but they help reduce preventable harm. When facilitators and participants feel supported by clear structures and accountability, conditions are more favorable for responsible, well-held psychedelic work, particularly for those with complex trauma histories or elevated vulnerability.

Criticism, Tension, and Necessary Dialogue

The regulated model is not perfect.

Some worry it will further erase Indigenous culture through Western medicalization. Others are concerned about commodification, insufficient training, or the risks of making powerful medicines widely available. Cost remains one of the most significant barriers to access.

These critiques are valid and deserve continued dialogue.

My goal is not to claim regulation as the superior path, but to engage honestly with its realities. Underground, ceremonial, clinical, and state-regulated approaches all coexist and likely will continue to.

The real question is how this model is shaped, who it serves, and whose voices are included in its evolution.

Healing centers across Colorado are experimenting with sliding scales, nonprofit structures, and collaborative networks to expand access. Long-term, broader normalization and policy reform will be necessary to reduce costs and widen availability.

The Work Itself

With all of the infrastructure, compliance, and unexpected expenses, it could be easy to forget why I stepped into this in the first place. But the work itself is deeply meaningful.

Supporting someone as they prepare to enter a psychedelic experience is not something regulation can minimize. Watching the mix of anxiety, hope, skepticism, and courage bubble to the surface is an amazing thing to witness. If anything, the added structure has clarified my role. The container is more defined, expectations are explicit, and the responsibility is shared. And within that structure, the human moments are just as real as they were before.

There are days when the administrative weight feels heavy. But it is a gift to have developed a nervous system regulated enough for someone to anchor to while they are moving through their own challenges, helping them to expand their window of tolerance within their own system.

I am privileged to be trusted in witnessing people meeting parts of themselves they have avoided for years.

I am honored to see the relief that comes when someone realizes they are not broken.

I am grateful to have the capacity to sit with grief, pain, anger, and long-held trauma surfacing in ways that are messy and profound. Unregulated or regulated, that is foundational to any ethical psychedelic work.

The regulated model hasn’t diluted the meaning for me. If anything, it has asked me to hold it with more precision, more humility, and more care.

Moving Forward Together

Colorado’s experiment will influence policy and practice far beyond state lines. Those of us participating now carry a responsibility to engage critically, transparently, and humbly. We must learn from missteps and remain open to course correction.

The regulated model is one chapter in a much longer story about how we all relate to these medicines, to healing, and to one another. As the story continues to unfold, it may offer lessons worth carrying forward when approached with care, dialogue, and accountability.

February 10, 2026April 3, 2026

Dr. Chandra Khalifian and Dr. Kayla Knopp: Enamory, Ketamine and Couples Therapy

Enamory is a clinical practice, training institute, and nonprofit research organization focused on psychedelic assisted couples therapy. In this episode, clinical psychologists Chandra Khalifian and Kayla Knopp discuss their work integrating ketamine assisted psychotherapy with evidence based couples therapy models.

Both guests trained as academic researchers at the University of California San Diego / Veterans Affairs consortium, where they worked on large scale couples based PTSD trials. They later co founded Enamory to continue clinical work, train therapists, and conduct research focused specifically on relationships.

Read their recent article with us here.

Early Themes in Enamory and Couples Therapy

The conversation begins with Dr. Khalifian and Dr. Knopp describing their background in couples based PTSD research and how that work shaped their clinical approach.

They explain how existing couples therapy models often stall when partners cannot soften, access vulnerability, or understand each other’s internal experience. Their early exposure to MDMA assisted therapy research highlighted how psychedelic states can temporarily reduce defensiveness and rigid narratives.

Key early themes include:

Couples therapy rooted in assessment and case formulation
PTSD research as a foundation for relational work
Limits of insight without emotional flexibility

Core Insights From Enamory’s Ketamine Assisted Model

A central focus of the episode is how Enamory structures ketamine assisted couples therapy. The approach remains psychotherapy led, with ketamine used as a support tool rather than the primary intervention.

Dr. Khalifian and Dr. Knopp describe several dosing models used at Enamory:

Dual psychedelic dosing for shared perspective shifts
Dual psycholytic dosing to allow gentle interaction
Individual sessions when relational patterns interfere with joint work

All dosing decisions are informed by a detailed assessment process. Integration sessions focus on translating insights into concrete relational change using established couples therapy skills.

They also emphasize collaboration with medical prescribers and clear scope of practice boundaries for therapists.

Later Discussion and Clinical Takeaways

Later in the episode, the discussion turns to vulnerability, silence, and systems level change in relationships.

The guests explain how silence in therapy allows emotions and meaning to emerge without therapist overdirection. They describe common relational stuck points, including fear of vulnerability, shame, and beliefs about being a burden.

Additional topics include:

Conscious uncoupling as a therapeutic outcome
At home ketamine use with structured preparation and integration
Group and retreat based couples work as a future direction

They also outline Enamory’s clinician training program, which includes didactic instruction, consultation, and experiential learning opportunities.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Enamory focused on?
Enamory works at the intersection of couples therapy, ketamine assisted psychotherapy, clinician training, and research.

Does Enamory only work with ketamine?
Enamory currently offers legal ketamine assisted psychotherapy and draws on research experience with other psychedelics.

Is Enamory’s approach evidence based?
Yes. Their clinical work is grounded in established couples therapy models with structured psychedelic integration.

Who is Enamory training designed for?
Licensed and pre licensed mental health professionals with foundational couples therapy and ketamine knowledge.

Does Enamory work with couples who may separate?
Yes. Conscious uncoupling is treated as one possible outcome of relational work.

Closing

This episode documents how Enamory applies structured couples therapy principles to ketamine assisted psychotherapy, with attention to assessment, dosing strategy, integration, and therapist training.

Transcript

Enamory – Psychedelics and Couples Therapy

Kyle Buller: Hello. Welcome everybody to Psychedelics today. Really excited to have both of the co-founders here of Enamory, Dr. Chandra Khalifian, and Dr. Kayla Knopp, welcome to the show. Really excited to have you guys here.

Chandra: Thanks for having us. We’re excited to be here.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, we’ll do some intros. We’ll let you introduce yourself.

Kyle Buller: So Chandra, you’re next to me. I’ll start off with you if you wanna give an intro on who you are.

Chandra: Awesome. Yeah. So I am a clinical psychologist and a co-founder along with Kayla of Ena. Marie and Kayla and I, um, have been academic researchers throughout our career. We met while we were at the University of California San Diego / Veteran Affairs Consortium.

Chandra: So our work has really focused on couple based clinical trials. And we started Ena Marie a few years ago, um, because we were. Both really interested in [00:01:00] continuing to do more work in with psychedelics and really had a dream of kind of creating an academic model where we could have more freedom. And so Enam E is now our private practice clinic, a training institute where we work with other therapists who are interested in learning psychedelic assisted couple therapy and a nonprofit where we do research focused on couples and psychedelics.

Kyle Buller: Cool. I love how integrated that is. ~~Mm-hmm.~~ And Kayla, I’ll pass it over to you.

Kayla: Normally I don’t need much of an introduction. After Chandra goes, we sort of introduce each other together. But yeah, I’m, I’m also a, a licensed clinical psychologist. Chandra and I are based in San Diego and so we work with people all throughout California and, ~~um,~~ yeah, and Anne Marie has been our passion project for the last few years and we’re so excited to be here talking with you about working with couples in psychedelics.

Kayla: It’s such an exciting area and one where I think it’s gotten a lot of underground attention, but not so [00:02:00] much academic research attention. And so we’re really excited to be bringing it to the mainstream.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, there hasn’t been much research. I know ~~like, um,~~ they were trying to do some of the, ~~uh,~~ I know Anne Wagner was ~~like~~ doing some stuff and I know the ~~myth~~ offers were trying to do some stuff with ~~like~~ MDMA for couples ~~and,~~ but yeah, it’s a really exciting thing.

Kyle Buller: So I would love to hear ~~like~~ your journey, ~~like~~ how did you guys get interested in, ~~like~~ focusing on, on couples work?

Chandra: So, ~~um,~~ I, we’ve both been interested in couples throughout our training. ~~Um,~~ I have been kind of on my own personal journey with psychedelics. I went to undergrad at uc, Berkeley and read PL and was very interested in how psychedelics can support openness and empathy and love and vulnerability.

Chandra: ~~Um,~~ but didn’t bring those worlds together until I got to San Diego, and Kayla and I both worked with, ~~um,~~ our mentor, Leslie Moreland, and we were working on a couple’s PTSD trial. It was the world’s [00:03:00] largest couple’s trial ~~until, I mean.~~ It is the world’s largest couple’s trial. ~~Um,~~ but it was specifically focused on PTSD.

Chandra: So when we finished that trial, maps reached out to Leslie and asked if she would do an MDME trial. And she said, I don’t know anything about psychedelics and Kayla. And I said, we are absolutely doing this. We’re gonna do it together. We’re a team. And so Kayla and I were actually trained by Annie and Michael, mid Hofer and have done a lot of work with Ann.

Chandra: ~~Um,~~ so that was kind of how we got there initially. And maybe Kayla, I’ll let you kind of take over what Anne Marie has built and what we’ve done so far there.

Kayla: Sure, yeah. Yeah. We’ve really enjoyed, I think, working with, ~~um,~~ couples and psychedelics in the context of mental health disorders, which is sort of primarily where the academic research has gone and full credit, a Ann is a good friend and has been an absolute pioneer of this work, particularly in the context of treating PTSD.

Kayla: ~~Um.~~ But Chandra and I are couples people first and foremost. And so [00:04:00] we really wanted to pursue what does it look like to just work on relationship healing, ~~um,~~ using psychedelics. We both, ~~um,~~ had our own kind of solo private practices, ~~um,~~ that we did on the side starting in postdoc. And, ~~um,~~ really started just developing this shared vision for what would it be like to be able to build a clinic where we can offer legal, psychedelic assisted therapy, which right now is ketamine assisted psychotherapy with couples, ~~um,~~ and where we can train other people who wanna learn this model.

Kayla: We, we developed the interest in training because, ~~um,~~ once we started doing this work, we looked around for training and guidance from other. Researchers and therapists and there just really wasn’t much published out there. I think there were a lot of people who were sort of doing this work under the table, ~~um,~~ and kind of, ~~you know,~~ doing it quietly.

Kayla: But, ~~um,~~ we couldn’t find, ~~you know,~~ published validated models of, of psychedelics working with couples outside the context of, ~~uh.~~ Mental health disorder. And so we made it, ~~um,~~ people were [00:05:00] asking us for, for, ~~you know,~~ sort of how we did our work and wanted to learn from us. And so we built this training program.

Kayla: ~~Um,~~ and ~~you know,~~ at heart, Chandra and I are also both researchers, we are PhD psychologists, we write papers and grants for a living. That’s what we do. And so we are also, we have a nonprofit foundation that we built so that we can run research studies also within the context of our clinical work, ~~um,~~ at ena.

Kayla: So we’re building a little academic medical center at ena. That’s

Kyle Buller: amazing.

Kayla: ~~Um,~~ so that we can really move this work forward in a way that’s aligned with our vision and, and that isn’t quite so constrained as you are in an academic setting.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. That’s amazing. Awesome work. I’m curious, you were talking about ~~like~~ being part of ~~like~~ that largest study on PTSD with couples and ~~like,~~ what was ~~like~~ the interventions, ~~like~~ how were you guys working in that study?

Chandra: Yeah, the protocol is cognitive behavioral conjoint therapy for PTSD, ~~um,~~ CBCT, and it really focuses on, ~~um,~~ kind of establishing safety in the relationship, learning communication skills, identifying [00:06:00] where the individual with PTSD, the, the study that we worked on was with veterans, but it’s also been done with community couples, ~~um,~~ where they’re avoiding, where PTSD is kind of constraining their life.

Chandra: And then they work on challenging some of those maladaptive stories together. ~~Um,~~ so things like, I can’t have my back against the door, or It’s dangerous, or All the doors need to be locked, or if I show vulnerability, then I’ll be taken advantage of. So things like that that are impacting the relationship, but also the person with PTSD, their life.

Chandra: And so that that treatment is also the treatment that has been used with MDMA so far. ~~Um,~~ so the study that we worked on and the study that Ann Wagner and Michael and Andy and Candace worked on in the community was CBCT with MDMA sessions, ~~um,~~ in the treatment protocol.

Kyle Buller: Amazing. [00:07:00] Yeah, I would love to kind of dig into Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Some of your work. ~~Um,~~ and how do you guys structure, ~~like~~ your ketamine sessions when it comes to couples work? Are you doing it together? Is one person going at one time and another time ~~like~~ Yeah. I would love to hear about ~~like~~ your protocol and, and how you approach this work.

Kayla: Kylie, you should sit in on our training at the end of the month.

Kayla: We can tell you all about it. I love it. ~~Um,~~ but, but yeah. I, yes. ~~Um,~~ so we are a very, we, we practice with a very psychotherapy centered model of ketamine assisted couple therapy, which means the way that we practice and the way that we train therapists, it’s to really think first and foremost about. What model of couple therapy are we using?

Kayla: What are the mechanisms of change that we think are active here? What are we trying to target to help this couple get unstuck from the patterns that they’re stuck in to make the shifts that they wanna make to have the relationship that they wanna have? And so we always start with a really detailed assessment con joint and individual assessment interviews, and we build this case formulation that we can [00:08:00] present to the couple in the form of this visual pattern, ~~um,~~ that we pulled from a couple of different models of evidence-based couple therapy that sort of traces this infinity loop of the interaction cycle that couples can get stuck in.

Kayla: ~~Um,~~ from there we can identify, ~~you know,~~ where they’re getting stuck and where we wanna shift to help them get out of that stuck place. And. Ketamine comes into the treatment plan to support some flexibility, some openness, some shifts in those kind of tricky stuck spots, right? ~~Like~~ we know that ketamine can help us make contact with emotions and stories and memories that are otherwise a little bit difficult for us to have capacity to hold.

Kayla: It helps us be more open and able to understand our partner’s perspectives. It helps us feel more empathy and, and closeness with our partners. And so we use Ketamine to support those couple therapy changes that we’re trying to make on the basis of our specific, ~~like~~ unique assessment for a particular couple.

Kayla: And ~~um,~~ Chandra, do you wanna talk a little [00:09:00] bit about the dosing models and how we think about that?

Chandra: Yeah, so there are several different dosing models. So Kayla just went through kinda assessment and then they’re gonna develop relational intentions during prep, and that’s really gonna help inform what dosing model we do.

Chandra: So we can either do. Dual psychedelic, which is gonna be a full dose. Both partners are there, ~~um,~~ and they’re gonna have a psychedelic experience. And we’re really looking for that big shift in perspective, a lot more flexibility and understanding around those stories. ~~Um,~~ or we can do dual psycholytic.

Speaker: ~~Hmm.~~

Chandra: And that’s really gonna be kinda that softening and openness, but we’re still gonna be able to kind of communicate and do work during the session rather than a full psychedelic dose. And then we do most of the work during integration. ~~Um,~~ or sometimes we’ll choose to do an individual session, an individual [00:10:00] psychedelic session.

Chandra: And that’s really, if there is some pattern that is interfering, ~~um,~~ with the couple being able to kind of drop into the session together. So sometimes there is ~~like~~ a really strong caregiver pattern and so maybe that would. Stop one person from being able to fully drop into the experience. ~~Um,~~ or maybe we’re doing kinda some trauma work or exploration initially before doing a conjoint session.

Chandra: So anything that we’re choosing to do in the medicine session is going to be in informed by the assessment and case conceptualization. And then we move into integration and we are building this so that anyone with any evidence-based couple therapy training can do this model. So it’s not ~~like~~ the Chandra and Kayla model that ~~like~~ you have to learn this whole new thing starting from scratch.

Chandra: [00:11:00] The integration, all of the skills that therapists are. ~~Like~~ learning during integration are called what they actually are and exist across evidence-based couple therapies. So softening into vulnerability, cross reflecting approach instead of avoidance. So emotion focused couple. Therapy has their own names from it.

Chandra: Integrated behavioral Couple therapy has their names more kind of behavioral ~~like~~ Gottman may have different names. So we really, ~~um,~~ encourage therapists to come to our training knowing what their model of couple therapy is and understanding how the mechanisms influence change for couples based on their model.

Chandra: So then we can all talk about it together and then take our Ketamine assisted couple therapy training and then just fit it into their practice in a way that feels really streamlined.

Speaker: That makes sense. ~~Uh,~~ that’s really cool to ~~like~~ be able to have that flexibility on ~~like, you know,~~ what [00:12:00] type of dosing strategy to do and Yeah, it makes sense really based off of ~~like~~ the ~~um, you know,~~ assessment and ~~um,~~ whatnot.

Speaker: I’m curious, ~~like~~ when you do ~~like~~ the dual psycholytic dosing, ~~like~~ are they, ~~like,~~ are the couples usually chatting together at times? Or ~~like,~~ are you guys ~~like~~ really ~~like~~ having them focus internally and maybe not doing that? ~~Um,~~ yeah. Curious how you approach that psycholytic dosing when you do it together?

Kayla: I wouldn’t say chatting, but they are interacting a little bit more. That’s kind of the purpose of doing the lower dose Ketamine. If you’re not fully dissociated and on a fully inward journey, you can come out more and do more external processing. And we use that specifically when we want the couple to be interacting more and, and couples who might be engaging in a ketamine journey on their own might choose that when they wanna be able to, to share with one another, right.

Kayla: What they’re feeling and experiencing. So typically it looks like very soft, very slow, just kinda sharing and listening in that space. We’re specifically not trying to do a whole lot of ~~like.~~ Problem solving and, ~~you know,~~ adjudicating conflicts that came up [00:13:00] over the week. We’re not ~~try,~~ that’s not a space where we wanna be doing a whole lot of cognitive work.

Kayla: We want people to really be in their experience and sharing whatever sort of comes up for them in terms of their thoughts, their feelings, ~~um,~~ whatever it is that they’re experiencing. And, ~~um, you know,~~ even with the psycholytic dose, typically people do have some inward time. We’ll encourage folks to start with an inward focused meditation and just tune into whatever is coming up for them.

Kayla: And then often people will sort of come outta their eye, shaves and outta the headphones and wanna share something. And, and often the things that people are sharing in that space are really beautiful. Just really soft. Connected reflections. I had one couple not that long ago who was ~~like,~~ I just had this to his partner.

Kayla: He said, I just had this vision of you as this ~~like~~ beautiful moth that would just drop flowers behind you after you were flitting around in the world. And it was just ~~like,~~ so lovely. So I think that’s typically the kind of communication that people are having.

Kyle Buller: Oh, that’s beautiful. And, ~~uh,~~ can’t remember if you mentioned it, or maybe I listened to it in one of your other talks somewhere.

Kyle Buller: You guys do, ~~uh,~~ lozenges and sublingual, right? [00:14:00] Or do you do any Im at all. Or mostly just ~~we,~~

Chandra: yeah, we do sublingual in our practice. ~~Um,~~ we do collaborate with other prescribers. So sometimes couples will go do IV or Im and do prep and integration with us. Yeah. But if we are doing the medicine sessions in our clinic, we do sublingual.

Chandra: Cool.

Kayla: And I’ll just mention too for, ~~um,~~ I, I think just one of the things that’s really important that we train therapists on is how to stay within your scope of practice. Yeah. Which is that we are psychotherapists, we are not medical doctors. Ketamine’s a prescription medication. So we really rely on our prescribing partners to co build a treatment plan with us.

Kayla: So they write the prescription, they do, they decide on the dosing, we’ll inform them about, ~~you know,~~ this is the kind of session we wanna have and, and they’ll work with us on that. So a really tight relationship with your prescribing partners is so valuable, but we don’t. ~~Right.~~ The medicine, we don’t provide the medicine.

Kayla: It’s self-administered, ~~um,~~ lozenges in our clinic.

Speaker: Yeah. Super

important.

Chandra: And there’s so many for anyone who’s listening, ~~um,~~ there are lots of paths [00:15:00] to link up with prescribers. So Journey Clinical, ~~um,~~ exists in most states in the US so that’s something that you can Google and be connected with. And then, ~~um,~~ we have really amazing prescribing partners here in San Diego, so if people have questions about how to, ~~you know,~~ reach out to MDs, usually people who care about this space wanna be collaborative and they wanna work with you.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Beautiful. I’m curious, you brought up some of these stuck points, um, when you were chatting a little bit ago, and I’m curious, yeah. What are some common stuck points for, for couples that you see over and over again?

Chandra: I’m a burden, my partner would be better off without me.

Kayla: Mm-hmm. If my partner did something that hurts me, it was.

Kayla: Either on purpose, done maliciously on purpose to hurt me, or it’s because there’s some sort of fundamental flaw with me. Um, rather than, you know, sort of focusing on just the behavior. People tend to really personalize things like [00:16:00] that, um, stuck points around. Um, it’s not safe to be vulnerable, right?

Kayla: Mm-hmm. The only way that I’m ever gonna get my needs met is to either pull back, to protect myself or to get really angry and demanding. And, um, both of those things keep me safe. I think that’s a place where people get really stuck rather than sort of being fully present and, and open. Yeah,

Chandra: yeah.

Chandra: Unfortunately, um, in our culture, we don’t do a good job of teaching. I mean, in many cultures, um, teaching people how to share their emotions or how to hear someone’s emotional experience, not as criticism or a threat to the relationship. And we cannot have intimacy without vulnerability. And so if we’re never able to share what we’re experiencing, we’re never going to feel intimately close.

Chandra: And in the beginning of a relationship, that’s typically okay because there’s lots of [00:17:00] passion and fireworks and you’re having a lot of sex and like, that’ll keep you bonded. Um, but over time, that is going to stabilize and new relationship energy is gonna. Kind of balance out and fade. And then we have this opportunity to have this very deep, vulnerable connection where we truly see someone and are seen and understood, and, and we have no playbook on how to do that.

Speaker: Mm-hmm. Why do you think that is? Or where does that come from?

Kayla: Well, so many places, um, for a lot of human history, intimate partnerships have not been about. Close, intimate connection, right? It’s been a property deal, it’s been a financial arrangement. And I think now, you know, in sort of recent history, we have really high expectations for what our romantic relationships provide for us in terms of meeting our, like deepest, most intimate needs.

Kayla: We want our partners to be our [00:18:00] best friends, and we want them to be, um, you know, our, our sort of life partners. And also we want them to be, you know, uh, somebody that we can, um, you know, turn to when, when things get tough. And that we put a lot of pressure on our partnerships, right? And I think like we just haven’t fully caught up yet in terms of the skillset that it takes to support a partnership that feels like that, right?

Kayla: Um, and in the US we just don’t live in a society that really values vulnerability and authenticity. We live in a society that tends to value competitiveness and individualism and. Like harshness, right? People wanna win. People wanna, um, you know, get one over on other people. And so I think like we just don’t grow up in a society either that really values sort of the more communal, softer ways of, of staying connected with people.

Kayla: Even though all of the research is extraordinarily clear that that is the key to like life, success and happiness is the [00:19:00] strength of our connections with other human beings. It’s not how much you get paid at work. It’s not how often you win a competition. It’s how close you are to other humans.

Chandra: And the beautiful thing about psychedelics is that you like almost can’t not feel that when you do psychedelics.

Chandra: Like I right? Don’t know anyone who has done psychedelics and hasn’t felt this like deep connection with the earth and people and desire to love and support one another. Like that is a. Common, almost universal experience of psychedelics and so they’re so helpful for couples when couples have lost contact with that or dunno how to access it or haven’t learned it.

Kayla: Yeah.

Kyle Buller: What about those times where people might feel a little bit more disconnected after psychedelics, where maybe they realize I’m not connected with my friends as I [00:20:00] used to. I’m starting to see the world a little bit differently. Or like partners, right? Like mm-hmm. That’s a really challenging thing.

Kyle Buller: People come back and they’re like, Nope. Like I realized I need to cut the cord here.

Chandra: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We actually do a fair amount of work in our practice focused on conscious uncoupling, and so I think that that, that experience is. Like it happens, people have a psychedelic experience and realize like, I’m not living in line with my values.

Chandra: Either I’m disconnected from my friends and I want to be, or I’m not quite like this group that I’ve been a part of, or my partner and I are growing in different directions. And psychedelics can also be helpful in that process to navigate that process with love. So we are often taught that a relationship that lasts a lifetime is a relationship success.

Chandra: And it doesn’t matter if you [00:21:00] miserable, you stay in that and you continue in that relationship.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Chandra: And we very much don’t believe that. We think that relationships that are connected and kind and we put effort toward, like that’s a relationship success. And so doing the process of conscious uncoupling.

Chandra: With the help of psychedelics can, can facilitate gratitude and love and moving through this process and still potentially having shared community or family. Um, so you don’t have to kind of rip it apart and hate each other. You can go through the process and still be connected in a really healthy way.

Kayla: Yeah. And I, I think like that’s, that’s sort of one issue, right? Which is like, you do a psychedelic experience, you have a psychedelic experience, and then you sort of are confronted with a truth that’s been inside you, right? That like, maybe this place that I’m in isn’t right for me. Um, actually we hear that a lot with people who come out of [00:22:00] a psychedelic experience and I’m like, I gotta quit my job.

Kayla: Um, right. I gotta get out of something that I’m doing. We always caution people, you know, like, you don’t wanna be making huge decisions right away. You wanna sort of sit with something and integrate it and allow the meaning to sort of emerge over time, right? We, we don’t always know immediately after a psychedelic experience, like how that’s gonna translate into our life.

Kayla: So we always urge like, just give it some breathing room and see how that develops. Um, the other issue that I think you were alluding to, Kyle, which is what if I do a psychedelic experience on my own and my partner isn’t there and I come home and they’re like. I don’t know what you just did. I don’t know who this new person is, who’s in my living room.

Kayla: Like we have this like 20 year marriage that I still feel really heard about and I’m glad that you’re feeling better. But what, how do we, you know, how do we reconnect around this? And so we are really, really passionate about doing integration together with couples, even if only one person has done a psychedelic experience because, um, it is so difficult to [00:23:00] understand what your partner has gone through if that’s not an experience that you’ve had.

Kayla: And if you can have support. From a, a therapist or coach or other professional to do that integration together and really sort of be on the same team about what that experience means and, um, you know, how you can understand one another through this transition, through this change. I think that can also be really helpful because that, that can be really painful for people.

Kayla: That discussion.

Kyle Buller: Have you seen like times where that tension got really intense and the other person really couldn’t like, understand or, or see the person that went through the psychedelic experience?

Kayla: Honestly, I think we don’t really see that because the people who are working with us are working with us as a couple.

Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. And they’re like, we’re really able to help them with that. We, so I have certainly heard a lot of stories from folks when we give talks or do workshops, we, we give talks and workshops at festivals and around the community and things like that. And often people will come back up to us afterward to go, man, I wish I had heard this bef while I was in my last relationship because this was such a pain point for [00:24:00] us that I would have an experience or my partner would have an experience and we just couldn’t figure out how to reconnect afterward.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. I always come back to a lot of, uh, like, uh, Dell La France’s work, like really trying to like prep systems and it’s something that we don’t always think about, but like we are in systems. Like we’re social creatures, we come back to different systems, and it’s like, sometimes that change can be so jarring where it’s

Kayla: like,

Speaker: whoa, what, what did you just do?

Speaker: What are you into now? Like, and it can be like, yeah. Really confusing for the whole system.

Kayla: Yeah, that’s, we talk about that a lot in couples work of any type, which is that any time you change a component of a system, even if it’s a really, really good change, it’s gonna discombobulated the whole system.

Kayla: Right? Like, it’s like this precariously balanced baby’s mobile above the crib, right? Like, you change one piece of that and the whole thing’s gonna bounce around until it re stabilizes in a new position. So, yeah. And, and when you think about a really big change, like sometimes people experience on, on a psychedelic, um, uh, journey.

Kayla: Yeah, for sure. [00:25:00]

Kyle Buller: Yeah. That’s why I kind of love like what you guys are doing and trying to like Yeah. Help the system instead of it being so separate. Right. Yeah. Um, and I’m kind of curious too, you kind of use, you used this term like conscious unc uncoupling, and it just makes me wonder about like, the different generations and like how maybe each generation has different perspectives on relationships and how has that like, you know, shifted over the decades and, and whatnot.

Kyle Buller: Um, like, you know, you’re bringing up like before, you know, you were committed to a relationship and if you were in it, that was successful. If you were in it for a while now, you know, it’s like the newer generations are kind of thinking about relationships in a much different way. Um, and I’m wondering, yeah.

Kyle Buller: Are there any like challenges or whatnot that have been coming up in, in your work?

Chandra: Yeah, I think different generations definitely think about relationships differently. I think that by the time they get to us, they’re, they’re more [00:26:00] open-minded about it. So, I mean, we have couples in our practice that are in their sixties to late seventies and are thinking about what do they want the next 20 to 30 years of their life to look like, which is a long time.

Chandra: Um, and so there’s not, I think couples can or more can decide what they want their relationship to look like or not look like at any point in time. And I think that there is more education about different relationship structures and opportunities. So, yeah, I think when people come to us, they’re kind of more curious and have questions and are open-minded.

Chandra: I think that we of course, don’t see a lot of the relationships that are very structured and stagnant and are going to stay in that.

Kyle Buller: Right.

Chandra: Potentially unhappy for.

Kayla: Yeah, I do [00:27:00] think more and more people of all generations are giving themselves permission to not stay in unhappy relationships. Right. I think that is a cultural shift.

Kayla: It’s also an economic shift because I think, um, the ability to do that depends on whether each partner has the ability to financially support themselves. And I think as. Um, particularly for women, I think that’s becoming increasingly the case, which means that people don’t have to stay married in the same way that they used to, um, among younger folks.

Kayla: I think it, like Chandra is saying, there’s a lot more like open-mindedness and awareness of different kinds of relationship structures. Our clinic does specialize in working with folks who are non-monogamous and who have other non-traditional relationship structures. So we certainly see a lot of people coming to us to explore that specifically.

Kayla: But I think even in the general population, there’s more awareness of an, an interest in different kinds of relationship styles and structures. The challenge that I see for the younger folks who work with us is sort of a decision paralysis that I think is related to more awareness of choice. [00:28:00] I work with a lot of young adult couples who have been together for.

Kayla: Eight to 10 years, right? Since their early twenties. And just can’t decide, do we wanna commit to one another in a more permanent way? Do we wanna have kids? Do we wanna get married? Do we wanna buy a house together or like not? And how do we even make that decision given all of the possibilities in front of us?

Kayla: And I think that’s a, a real challenge for a lot of people in a unique one.

Kyle Buller: How do you approach that?

Chandra: Sorry. I was, uh, slightly different, but on this, I was just thinking about, um, one of my individuals that I’m working with who, um, another person in our practice has seen them as a couple. Um, she’s in her late fifties and she’s monogamous.

Chandra: Um, and one of her close friends who’s younger, uh, is also monogamous, but there’s a desired difference in that relationship. She wants a lot more sex. Her partner wants less. And my patient was like, I just told her that [00:29:00] she should have sex with other people. And I’m like, what? I’m like, you’re, you’re monogamous.

Chandra: And she’s like, I know, but you know, I had my ketamine session and I’m understanding that people can love people differently. And I told her that she should come to you guys or they should come to you guys and they can have any structure they want. I’m like. Wow. That was a big shift. You came in here pretty close-minded.

Chandra: She was like, yeah, I don’t have to be that way anymore. I’m like, all right.

Kayla: There’s, maybe that’s our new tagline. Do ketamine get non monogamous? Just kidding. Um,

Chandra: she’s staying monogamous.

Kayla: She, but she’s like, okay,

Chandra: my friend doesn’t have to be.

Kayla: Well, that’s true. That’s true.

Chandra: Yeah.

Kayla: I think, Kyle, to speak to your question, like how do we work with that when people are stuck in this decision paralysis, I think a lot of it is helping people get connected to their values.

Chandra: Mm-hmm.

Kayla: Um, if you’re not making a decision based on constraints. And instead you’re making based on your own free choice. Then the only guiding factor you have, the only guiding light is your values. This really comes from acceptance and commitment therapy, which is [00:30:00] a very excellent evidence-based third wave, CBT.

Kayla: Chandra and I both practice from Act quite a bit, and it really is centered around the idea of getting connected with your own values and then choosing how you wanna engage in your life in accordance with those values. Right? And that might not be maximizing short term happiness all the time. That might be building a life that feels meaningful and connected and purposeful, and something that gives you a bigger sense of meaning.

Kayla: It’s that, that’s why it’s such a nice pairing with psychedelic work. So we start there with partners, right? Like what are your values as an individual? What is your value as a couple? Right? Or in a relationship together. Mm-hmm. And how does your life relate to those values? Is that informative at all in coming to this decision?

Kayla: The other piece of it that I find myself working with folks a lot on is comfort with uncertainty and ambiguity. Because we can never fully know the outcome of our choices. And young folks, um, I think do tend to be quite anxious for a number of different reasons. People really wanna know for sure that things are gonna work out [00:31:00] okay.

Kayla: And of course, if you look at the world around us, of course people are anxious. Like that makes sense. Um, but the reality is that’s not how life works, right? Sometimes we just have to make a choice and trust that whatever happens, we’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna be able to handle it. So I think those are the, the two biggest tasks I take.

Kayla: I’m curious, Shandra, what you do actually,

Chandra: I think, yeah, also definitely everything that you are talking about and also reminding people that like choices are not permanent. Everything in life is always shifting. I was working with, um, a woman yesterday and she’s like having decision paralysis and she’s like, I just can’t make a choice.

Chandra: I’m like. Of course you can. And if it isn’t right with the life that you wanna build, we’ll make another choice. And that’s okay.

Speaker: Mm-hmm. It’s fascinating, you know, just like outside of like relationships, you know, I definitely see that in clients too, like career friends, where do I [00:32:00] wanna live? What do I wanna do?

Speaker: You know, and it’s like, I think in like, you know, our time in human history, like we are so bombarded with like optionality, right? It’s like,

Chandra: yes,

Kyle Buller: you can kind of do anything in a weird way. Um, and with like the technology, the opportunities versus like, yeah, you think about like. A hundred years ago or whatnot.

Kyle Buller: Right. It’s like maybe you grew up in a small town, you had this job, you had this family, and that’s what life was. Um, yeah. And you know, now we can get on planes, we can communicate through PE to all sorts of different parts of the world through this technology. And, um, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty interesting that like, I think in human history, like we’re at this point where I think, yeah, we have so many options in a way.

Kyle Buller: It does create a lot of paralysis of like, what the hell do I do? Right.

For

Kayla: sure.

Speaker: And then with all the uncertainty that’s unfolding around us too, then it’s like compounds. And you’re like, what the hell do I do now? It’s like, is AI gonna take our jobs? Like

Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. And people feel a lot of [00:33:00] pressure to, to make the perfect choice or to like make the best possible choice.

Kayla: I think that there’s been this sort of cultural zeitgeist for a, a long time around this idea of like maximizing your personal potential, right? This is like a very like Bay Area tech bro biohacking kind of a thing. Like eat the perfect food to maximize all of your biological systems at all times. And it’s like, or have a meal that you enjoy, you know, with people that you care about.

Kayla: And I think people take that a, we, we’ve really had this like cultural pressure to like at all times be maximizing right? And be doing the perfect thing. And, you know, and really like that is, I don’t know, I don’t know about y’all, but like that is not how I view the purpose of my life. I we’re here for. A short while.

Kayla: And I think that we can make other choices to just live the best possible life that we can in the time that we’re here, and really take a lot of pressure off of ourselves to always be making the exact perfect right choice. And as Chandra said, like everything’s gonna shift, everything’s gonna change anyway.

Kayla: The only certainty is that change will occur. So all we [00:34:00] can do is make the best of the moments that we have and just like, try our best to relax about the rest of it.

Speaker: Yeah. I think you bring up a good point about like our own values, right? Really helping people to figure out, like yeah, what do they value in life?

Speaker: What do you believe in? Um, yeah. Really help guide us, um, doing couples work without ketamine, um, versus in incorporating ketamine and, and psychedelics. Like, what is, what have you noticed? Has it made the work a little easier? Has it made it challenging in different ways? Like yeah. How, how’s that been?

Chandra: It. F broadly definitely makes the work easier.

Chandra: Um, just because if we do a medicine session early on after that assessment phase, we’re able to have kind of a big shift in perspective. And that’s often where we get most stuck in couple therapy is like people are so backed into their [00:35:00] corner and it’s so difficult for them to see their partner’s perspective and soften and have a deeper understanding.

Chandra: And that’s the point that we’re trying to get to in any evidence-based couple therapy really is having a deep understanding of our partner’s experience. Because once I have a deep understanding of your experience. What you’re doing makes sense and I don’t wanna hurt you. And it’s so much easier to make behavior change.

Chandra: And so with ketamine there is kind of more ease and we can kind of get to the outcome that we’re looking for. Whatever the couple has identified, is their goal, the life that’s meaningful to them. Typically in about half the time, a typical course of traditional couple therapy is about 20 sessions. Um, and so we could maybe get there and, you know, 10 to 12, um, or sometimes there’s like so much rigidity that [00:36:00] couples won’t soften, but that’s, mm-hmm.

Chandra: That’s not typical. Um, typically couples will benefit from couple therapy.

Kayla: Yeah. As a researcher, I like really wanna know the empirical answer to this question, Kyle. And I don’t think that we have a, we don’t have a data based answer yet. We’re trying to collect data. Um, if you, if anybody out there knows some philanthropists who feel like funding some research studies on this, like we are really trying to collect some data so that we can answer that question well.

Kayla: Like, what does ketamine do for us in our couples work? Is it worth it? Um, anecdotally my experience is the same as Chandra, is that we just see change happen so much more quickly, uh, which is a beautiful thing for couples who have been struggling and suffering for a long time. Additionally, I think that there are at least some cases that I’ve seen where I don’t think that couples would’ve been able to make the shifts in their relationship.

Kayla: Mm-hmm. Or in their perspective of their relationship without a psychedelic experience. I think they, couples therapy doesn’t work all the time for every couple. Right. Sometimes people are too stuck and and are unable to get out of their own [00:37:00] way in order to do the work that they wanna do. And I think there are certainly some cases where they can get there with ketamine or other psychedelics where they otherwise wouldn’t.

Chandra: I think another question is like, are there differences between couples who are seeking ketamine assisted couple therapy compared to couples that are seeking traditional couple therapy? So of course our clinical experience is with couples who are coming to us saying that that’s the treatment that they are interested in, or they start couple therapy and then.

Chandra: They say that they are interested in trying ketamine. Um, so there hasn’t, there hasn’t been like any randomized controlled trial.

Speaker: Right. So I mean, you’re getting probably a pretty open group of folks coming in. Right. It’s like they probably don’t research open, are desperate or desperate

Chandra: and open.

Speaker: Yeah. Um, what about challenges that you’ve kind of bumped up against in this work?

Kayla: I mean, um. It’s expensive. Yeah. That’s a challenge [00:38:00] for clients, right? Like I think, well couple therapy is so rarely covered by insurance. Anyway. That’s been a real source of frustration I think for a lot of folks and, and for us in our practice is that insurance companies don’t value relationships and they don’t value couples therapy.

Kayla: And the only way that some couples therapists are able to bill for it sometimes is by saying, oh, it’s a depression treatment, you know, or whatever, which is frustrating. So I think accessibility is a real challenge. Um, you know, ketamine sessions are not covered by most major insurance companies and can be quite expensive for people to access.

Kayla: So that is a challenge that we would like to, to really figure out a way to, to work around. Um, and, you know. Ketamine’s a prescription medication too. So sometimes people who are interested in doing ketamine therapy are not eligible for some sort of medical contraindication. Um, and that can be frustrating for folks, although ketamine is so much easier to work with than some of the other psychedelics that we have worked with in the context of research studies, like NDMA, um, ketamine has way fewer medical [00:39:00] contraindications than NDMA, which is lovely

Speaker: and kind of nice too, that it’s a lot shorter.

Kayla: Yes, shorter duration.

Chandra: Yeah. And Kayla and I really care about increasing access and so we will work with couples, um, to figure out like how can we potentially do self-guided sessions. The real cost is kind of the three hours in clinic. And because ketamine. Is such a inward focused journey. If you’re doing a psychedelic dose, the couple can be set up really well with preparation and they can do their medicine session at home, and then we can meet for integration either later that day or the following day.

Chandra: Journey Clinical covers the ME eval. Typically it’s in, it’s covered by insurance. And so if couples are interested in this, there’s probably lots of different, um, flexible options. You can talk with your providers [00:40:00] about to increase accessibility.

Speaker: How do you guys feel about at home use?

Chandra: I think if it’s set up like so we provide our couples with what they’re gonna listen to.

Chandra: We talk through how they’re setting up the environment. We meet with them before and we meet with them after. And so if they have the right. Environment and it’s safe and quiet and kind of contained. We know what they’re listening to. It is, it’s great. It’s been great.

Kayla: Yeah. And also, you know, working with responsible prescribers, right?

Kayla: Like I feel quite strongly that like I’m comfortable with prescribing a few doses of sublingual lozenges for at home use. It’s pretty difficult for that to become a drug of abuse for people just because of like the way that you have to consume it and, and all of that. There have been a lot of really high publicity news stories of folks who have been prescribed vials of injectable ketamine for at-home use, and that’s been quite dangerous.

Kayla: So I’m not a fan [00:41:00] of that. Um, so I think like responsible prescribing practices are so important and then having a. Some kind of structure and support is also really important to scaffold at home use. We created, um, a couple’s preparation and integration guide for couples to use for ketamine journeys that are not gonna be working with a therapist ’cause maybe therapy isn’t accessible or something like that.

Kayla: Because we still wanted to have folks who are gonna do these experiences on their own to have all of the information about how to set themselves up for success. So, um, I think ketamine absolutely can be used safely for at-home dosing, but it does require some attention to sort of the safety and best practices.

Chandra: And what Kayla is talking about, that’s on our website. Anyone can go there and get it. It’s a PDF and it walks through preparation, how to set up the space, what questions to ask your partner to identify relational intentions, um, goes through different dosing models, and then integration, also kinda what questions to ask after to make meaning and how to continue [00:42:00] integrating so anyone can get that.

Speaker: I kinda love that model of like, yeah, working with like couples or partners like that. ’cause it’s like, yeah, you could do like this sitter journey or pair with them and like they are in a safe environment. Like Yeah. To your point about like, you know, ethical prescribing and dosing, you know, it’s like,

Chandra: yeah.

Kyle Buller: I think for some folks like at home makes it way more accessible if they’re like trained and have experience and they can do it safely. Like it can sometimes be lifesaving in, in a way. Absolutely. Um, versus like, yeah, I mean I had a client, his. It was so much, you know, and getting prescribed like doses was really high.

Kyle Buller: And then like having like ample amount of it too, and I was like, what is going on here?

Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. Which is just not in the best interest of the patient, right? Like, first of all, I, yeah, ketamine is a little bit difficult to dose, uh, precisely because people’s absorption rates are different and the subjective experience of it can be really different.

Kayla: But we know from the research that if you take too [00:43:00] much ketamine, we, we stop having mental health benefit and it starts becoming an anesthetic, right? And like that is actually not helpful for people. So more is not more when it comes to ketamine.

Speaker: Right. And then also like, I guess like method too. Are they spitting it out?

Speaker: Are they swallowing it? Right? Are they getting like that more prolonged experience? Um,

Kayla: yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. Have you guys thought about like, you know, just thinking about like accessibility too, like group work with, uh, couples too. I don’t know if you guys do that already or,

Chandra: yeah, we love groups. Um, it’s been challenging to get like a group of people consistently who can make the same time, who comes.

Chandra: So there’s like more logistical challenges with groups. But we have, I mean, we’re both trained in the va and the VA has lots of groups and there’s so much benefit to learning from other people’s experiences and feeling connected. You’re not alone. Um, practicing skills [00:44:00] together like. We love groups and we would love to run groups.

Chandra: Mm-hmm. Um, we developed an acceptance and commitment therapy protocol for individuals that is kind of focused on relationship challenges. It’s been easier to get individuals in a group still kind of working on relationship skills. I think it’s easier to get couples to like a retreat, so mm-hmm.

Speaker: Yeah.

Chandra: Like a weekend rather than something that’s weekly ongoing. But

Speaker: that’s what I was kind of thinking, like retreats format. Yeah. Yeah.

Kayla: I attended a couples ketamine retreat actually in upstate New York with, um, it’s, uh, oh, I forget their branding. It’s Jane Gum’s group. Oh, yeah. In upstate New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Like with so

Kayla: ketamine. Exactly. Um, and it’s, it was a phenomenal experience. I attended with my, my partner at the time, and it was just like a beautiful. Um, group of couples altogether supporting one another. Our experience is that people often think they don’t want [00:45:00] groups ’cause they’re like, oh, it’s private.

Kayla: I, I don’t wanna share with other people. I don’t know that I want a group. And if anybody listening to this is thinking this, I promise you, like doing a group therapy experience will be one of the most profoundly beneficial and positive experiences of your life. People. Love groups once they get into them, they think they don’t want them, but they love them.

Kayla: And so I think we’re, we’re really trying to figure out a way where we can facilitate more group couples experience, not only to make it more accessible, but also because there’s magic that happens when you’re together with a group of other people who are all sharing the space and working on the same thing together.

Speaker: I was one of those people thought I would, I hated groups when I first started. Right. Any sort of group work and Yeah. Now I love it because, you know, it’s like, you know, just being able to connect with others and, um, yeah, we’re social beings, right? Like we can’t do this work in isolation all the time.

Speaker: Like, we need to have connection and, um, as one of my teachers say, we’re the descendants of successful tribes, you know? Mm-hmm. Like the ones that. Went off on their own, [00:46:00] usually didn’t make it. But it also, I think, hits some of our most primal fears. Like, what happens if RU projects me? Right? Or if I don’t fit into the group?

Speaker: Like, that’s terrifying. Um, and so I think maybe that’s what keeps people out at times.

Kayla: It absolutely does. And I, I will often tell people, like, I can summarize my job as basically helping people do the thing they don’t wanna do. Right. Like the thing that you’re scared of, you should probably be doing that thing.

Kayla: Um, in this case, like being vulnerable with other people. Of course. That’s scary. That is an evolutionarily reinforced fear, right? Of being rejected by your social group. And the more you can lean into that and realize, oh wow, I can let people see me and I will be okay and I will be loved, and actually some people might not wanna be with me, but other people will.

Kayla: And that’s okay too. Like those are incredibly powerful healing experiences. So the fear is pointing you at something that matters.

Speaker: Yeah. I know this is, might be kind of like individually based, but you know, you’re talking a lot about like vulnerability and like [00:47:00] communication and I wonder what type of, if somebody is like really struggling with that, like how do we foster vulnerability and like open communication.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Chandra: Really, really slow down.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Chandra: I think that a lot of therapists, um, also feel kind of discomfort with quiet or space and really slowing down. I’m, I’m working with a couple right now that came to me from another couple’s therapist. Um, and that was exactly, the woman had a lot of difficulty dropping into vulnerability just because, so first there has to be space for it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Chandra: And then we can kind of do small shares first. Right. Exposure. So we can share something if we’re thinking about, you know, vulnerability, we can share something that is kind of just below the surface and get deeper and deeper. And we get deeper when our vulnerability [00:48:00] is met with supportive responsiveness.

Chandra: And that’s often something that has to be taught to couples, right? So I am only going to make myself as vulnerable as the person who I’m talking with can create a safe space for me. And so we do that over time together in couple therapy, and then the couple learns it and they can do that on their own.

Kayla: Mm-hmm. I would also say, like, I think a lot of times people think that they’re being vulnerable and they’re not. We can be so guarded that even sometimes we, we don’t even realize how guarded we’re being. Right? So like, if, if I go to my partner and I say, you know, I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling. I wanna be vulnerable.

Kayla: And what I’m feeling is really annoyed that you didn’t pick your socks up off the floor. That’s not actually a vulnerable share. And I’ve had couples tell me to my face, mm-hmm. I was vulnerable. I told them how much, what they were doing pissed me off. That’s not vulnerability, right? And so often it starts from within of really getting in tune with [00:49:00] yourself, um, to sort of like, look under the hood, right?

Kayla: Okay, you’re angry, you’re frustrated, you’re annoyed. What’s, what’s that about? What’s under the surface there? Can you peel that away and look underneath and find the hurt? Find the pain, find the shame. Find the fear that’s underneath. Some of those harsher, defended emotions, right. Look underneath the armor.

Kayla: What are the stories that come up for you, right? That sort of reinforce, um, why this is so painful for you? You know, this really reminds me of the time that, um, you know, I used to come home from school and no one was there to take care of me, and I felt abandoned. And so now the minute that my partner’s not where I expect them to be, then I panic, right?

Kayla: Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Right. So it really does involve a lot of self knowledge too, and a lot of introspection that I think can also be really difficult for people.

Chandra: And I think the socks, like, it’s kind of a silly example, but it’s so common, right? Socks, dishes. And so for people who are listening often, um, the [00:50:00] vulnerability that is connected to that is like, I am alone in the relationship or the work that I do isn’t appreciated.

Chandra: And so going into that place, exactly what Kayla’s saying of kind of lifting up the hood and like, what does the sock represent? It represents that. I have to take care of things on my own and I’m alone. Mm-hmm.

Speaker: And what I’m hearing is like in that example, it’s like one part, that first example you gave, it’s almost like placing blame in a way.

Speaker: It’s like, I’m annoyed and maybe not going deeper. And it’s like, well, why? Why am I annoyed, right? Mm-hmm. Like, why am I feeling this way? Oh, okay. There’s actually some deeper stuff there. That’s right. Yeah.

Kayla: Yeah.

Chandra: It’s teaching people how to access and communicate their emotions, but then also teaching the partner how to create a space where it’s safe to share.

Kayla: Yeah, totally.

Speaker: Yeah. Right. ’cause then there could be that like fear of like, what if this isn’t accepted? What if it creates more low back? And now we’re like in a, another fight with something. [00:51:00] Instead of

Chandra: trying to hold that space, I could say, this makes me feel lonely and like, you don’t care about the home.

Chandra: And my partner could say, that’s stupid. I do care.

Speaker: Yeah.

Kayla: Yeah. That’s really painful. Yeah. There is no vulnerability without some risk, right? Mm-hmm. And there is no intimacy without kind of taking that risk too. That is what makes relationships so special and so beautiful. And so, you know, a lot of this is.

Kayla: One discernment, right? Get vulnerable with people who are safe to be vulnerable with, right. Who you can trust with your vulnerability. And two, is sort of an inner fortitude, knowing that I am strong enough, I am valuable, and I am worthwhile. Even if I don’t get a sensitive response, even if I don’t get an empathic response from my partner, that actually doesn’t mean that I’m not worthwhile, right?

Kayla: So I think it’s, it’s both of those at the same time that we work with people on.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Chandra, you were, uh, mentioning something about silence. And silence I think is really hard [00:52:00] for people. Like what makes silence special? Like how, like when can it be therapeutic versus like just being lost in the void and feeling really awkward?

Chandra: Yeah. Um, I mean, silence creates space, right? And that doesn’t have to be. With a couple or in a therapy session, it can be those things. It can also be alone, right? So constantly throughout our lives, we’re listening to music, we’re doing something we have the news on, like we don’t actually give ourselves much space for silence.

Chandra: And silence is the space where we can learn about ourselves or learn about the person that is in front of us, because when we’re silent, then we can experience our emotions, we can experience our thoughts. And all of those things are communication, right? So people are often very afraid [00:53:00] of their emotions.

Chandra: They think that if they feel angry, they’re gonna destroy everything. If they feel sad, they’re gonna fall into a bottomless pit and never find their way out. And sitting in silence allows you to feel those emotions and. Have that communication and then make a decision moving forward both with yourself or with the person that’s in front of you.

Chandra: And so with therapists, like it’s so important to allow that silence so that couples and individuals can step forward and share and have their own learning.

Kayla: Mm-hmm. Silence is ye yes to everything Chandra just said. And I think in and of itself, silence is also uncomfortable.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Kayla: And so helping people get used to holding themselves even in discomfort is really important, right?

Kayla: I think like we live a lot of our lives trying to avoid discomfort, but discomfort is actually your friend. Discomfort is, um, important. And so when we [00:54:00] stop trying to avoid every moment of discomfort, then we have a lot more freedom and a lot more capacity in our lives. So sitting in silence is good practice with that too, right?

Kayla: Like, if this is uncomfortable for me, what is it like to be uncomfortable and to just stay there and not try to resolve it?

Speaker: We will use some silence here. Yeah, no, I think it, it’s so good. Like I’ve been, uh, telling my clients I like to use silence more because there is that time where it’s like people share things and sometimes we expect a response right away.

Speaker: Um, versus like, sometimes people need that space and do a little bit deeper processing, and it’s like if we just respond right away, then it’s like, yeah, we’re, we’re maybe guiding things in a different way versus like. People kinda need to let that like dust settle after, especially after a big vulnerable share where they’re like, should

Kayla: Yes.

Speaker: Really shared that. Like how do I, you know, and then let, let people sit with it a bit.

Kayla: Yeah. In our, we were, we were trained by maps, um, for MDMA assisted therapy, and as [00:55:00] part of the consultation that we got in, in, um, so we were, you know, using that in the context of a research study that we were on. And so our tapes would be reviewed and we’d receive consultation and a big piece of feedback, you know, always with anybody learning to do psychedelic work is say less, do less, leave more silence, leave more room for the client.

Kayla: And I think by the, by the end of this trial, we were really leaning into that and I had so many experiences of leaving a session and being like, oh my gosh, I’m so glad I shut up because when I stopped talking. And left space for the client. They did something incredible. They did something profound in the room that I left for them when I got out of their way.

Kayla: And so, yeah, I think trusting the person that we’re with that, like in the silence, something incredible can emerge from you. I don’t need to, I don’t need to be directing that. I’m just gonna get in your way.

Kyle Buller: Has that challenged your traditional training [00:56:00] as a psychologist?

Chandra: I don’t. I, so I learned, I really liked teaching new therapists that acronym wait, which I forget where it comes from, but it’s not mine.

Speaker: I always think it’s Dick Shorts, but it could have come from so many different people.

Chandra: Yeah, so, so weight stands for why am I talking? And I think that applies to. All therapy, no matter what you’re doing.

Chandra: And it’s something that we teach in our training. It’s like the words that you use should have a purpose, right? You should know what you’re saying and why you’re saying it. And you know, that goes back to our assessment and the mechanisms of change. And if you’re saying something and you don’t know why the hell you’re saying it, like don’t say it.

Kayla: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I, I think that it has definitely complimented and strengthened my traditional [00:57:00] therapy, um, kind of training, um, and skills and has made me feel more confident and more comfortable in doing exactly what Shandra said. ’cause we do get trained to shut up and get out of the client’s way. And yet it can feel hard to do when you have a 60 minute session and you’re like, we gotta get stuff done and I’m on a protocol.

Kayla: You know? So I think that it has given a lot of permission and a lot of confidence in just being like, I’m just gonna like take some breaths and we’re gonna sit here and be here together and see what emerges.

Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, because I know sometimes people feel like they always need to be like talking or directing instead of like this more non-directive approach where you just like sit back and like maybe let things unfold in a way.

Speaker: Mm-hmm. Um, and yeah, I think sometimes that can be challenging for, for some people to like maybe unlearn that very directive approach and be like, okay, maybe I can take a non-directive approach in this situation versus always being very directive. And it’s a balance, right? They’re both important.

Chandra: And that’s, I mean, again, like harping [00:58:00] on conceptualization, like that’s why that is so important because if you have a good conceptualization and you have a map, a treatment plan, ultimately, like we want clients to.

Chandra: Get to that shared vision through their experience and their insights. And you can hold that and you can be directive, but you’re not talking all the time, right? They’re, they’re doing that work that you’ve mapped out together, that you’re working toward, and you can support that work without taking up the whole session.

Kayla: Yeah, we could monologue about this for a while, Kyle. We have strong opinions about this, but yes. I, something, another show. Yeah. Something very powerful happens when you as the therapist are very clear on what approach you’re using and what mechanisms of change you’re trying to support. Right? And you have [00:59:00] that very clearly and you’ve collaborated with your client on that, and then you back up and allow it to happen rather than trying to micromanage every moment.

Kayla: Um, I think that there’s a misconception about what non-directive means among a lot of folks. It doesn’t mean we’re not doing anything in the session. When we were first trained, we, we trained with, with Michael and Annie mid Hofer and got to watch a lot of their tape. And, um, I was watching them going, oh, they’re not doing nothing.

Kayla: They’re doing internal family systems. That’s what they’re doing. That’s what they’re trained in. They’re doing IFS, but they’re not showing up to session being like. Okay, client, I will now do IFS at you. Right. What they’re doing is they’re holding that frame of allowing different parts of people to emerge.

Kayla: Right? And that’s what they’re supporting and creating. And so that’s, that’s sort of the approach that we take to our work, right? Is that we build a space, right, for the, the kinds of healing experiences to emerge that we know need to emerge on the basis of our case formulation and, and the theory of change that’s in our psychotherapy, and [01:00:00] then we let that happen.

Chandra: And a really cool thing about psychedelics. Another really cool thing is that like psychedelics, kind of like the, like inner healer. I was like, I don’t know if I buy this, but like the inner healer actually like, kind of does evidence-based treatment. Like I remember when I started learning acceptance and commitment therapy as like a fresh PhD student, and I was like.

Chandra: I already know this, like psychedelics taught me acceptance and mindfulness and like cognitive diffusion. Like I’ve been in this place, I’ve felt all of these things before. And so like of course it’s a treatment because of course that’s what leads to openness and engagement and a meaningful life, and identifying your values.

Chandra: So as we’re watching these tapes in our training, like patients are naturally doing this, and if we [01:01:00] have the conceptualization in our mind and we know evidence-based treatment, then we can support it because we know the mechanisms of change and they’re happening in front of us naturally.

Speaker: When you said like that inner healing intelligence, maybe like a little skeptical, has that changed for you?

Speaker: How do you approach that? Because it is like kind of, I hate to use that term like woo woo, but like sometimes people feel that way and they’re really turned off by like that term. Yeah. So like how do you approach that as clinicians?

Chandra: I think that everyone’s inner healer is a little different, and I think sometimes your inner healer works really well and sometimes, like, I remember Kayla and I were sitting in the session in our training together and I’m like, what if sometimes the inner healer is a little broken?

Chandra: And like, I think sometimes people feel that way is like, I’m not having the outcome that I’m looking for. I’m not reaching the places that I’m supposed to get to. And that experience is [01:02:00] okay too. And that’s why you’re doing this work with a therapist. You’re not doing it on your own, and so you’re not alone in it.

Chandra: And your inner healer has a buddy.

Kayla: Mm-hmm. I, I. There’s a big part of me that tends to think that at the end of the day, all psychotherapy is the same thing, and we just call it different names. I think the Inner Healing Intelligence is a different name for something that, you know, we, um, different concepts that we are very familiar with.

Kayla: Right. Which is like a sense of intuition and a sense of your own values and a sense of your own sort of deep needs. And if we can get out of our own way, you know, we can know ourselves and support ourselves. And I’m, I’m down with that, right? I think at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is to help people let go of the psychological defenses that are keeping them stuck and welcome experiences, good and bad, that are gonna let them live a meaningful life that’s.

Kayla: Name the psychotherapy where that’s not the [01:03:00] goal, right? Like that’s always what we’re trying to help people do. Um, and so we might label it different things. I don’t mind that I, you know, I think we can call it whatever. And I think it, especially in psychedelic work, it’s so important to leave room for whatever, meaning people wanna construct of it.

Kayla: Right. Is the psychedelic experience literally true? Is it a metaphor? Is it its own thing that you then get to make meaning of what? Like, it’s not important to me that we all agree on what that is. I think it’s okay that we all make our own meaning at the end of the day, we’re kind of all on the same path.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Beautiful. John, when you were saying like, maybe the inner healer’s like broken, um, you know, something that I kind of think about is. Especially with trauma like that lack of like when we get our agency taken away, like something has happened against our will and then there’s like that lack of trust in our own self.

Kyle Buller: Um, and I feel like a lot of that work is like helping people to like reclaim their agency and trusting whatever that is, their inner voice. But it’s really hard to [01:04:00] do. When I remember I had a client say like, how do I trust things when like the universe is just constantly shit on me. Yeah. Yeah. It’s scary to trust, right?

Speaker: It’s scary to listen to yourself, um, if like bad things just keep happening over and over again.

Chandra: Yeah. Yeah. It is really scary. Um, and, you know, trust is so, I mean that’s something that we see with trauma is like, it becomes this blanket. I can’t trust anything. Nothing safe. Yeah. And trust is like so nuanced, right?

Chandra: I can trust my. Friend to take out the trash. When I ask her to take out the trash, I can trust someone with my finances. I can trust someone with my kids. I can, right. Like once we start breaking it down, people can see that, oh, I can trust myself to show up to work on time, or I can trust myself to listen to my friend when they need me.

Chandra: And so the work of building that is, um, [01:05:00] bit by bit over time and that feeling is so common and I like totally okay. Starting from that place of, it’s too scary to trust anything right now.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. It takes time. It takes time to, to rebuild that. So,

Chandra: and anything that’s broken can be put back together. I think that visual, I don’t remember if they showed in the MDMA, um, training or like somewhere else, but.

Chandra: Or like what that process is, but the process of, um, like when bowls are broken, fusing them back together with gold and creates like this really beautiful, um, new piece. I think just reminding people that Right, everything’s a process and we’re gonna get to some outcome that we’re looking for together.

Chandra: And it doesn’t have to be today and it can take time.

Kayla: Yeah. Kintsugi is what that’s called. It’s called Kintsugi. I love that. Yeah. And, uh, that was [01:06:00] the Burning Man temple. This, this past year was, uh, supposed to be a Kintsugi. Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Oh, nice. Are you guys both burners.

Chandra: Yes.

Kayla: Chandra’s an old burner. I’m a new burner.

Kayla: Yes. But yes, we’re both burners. Nice.

Kyle Buller: Nice. I still haven’t been it.

Chandra: Kayla, Kayla’s a burner from the day she was born.

Kayla: I,

Chandra: she’s like, I dunno if I’m gonna be able to do this. And then we got out there and I’m like, you are the, it was my 13th burn. I’m like, you are the best burner.

Kayla: I’m a new burner in this life.

Kayla: I must have been a desert rat in a past life though.

Chandra: Yeah. I have not. And she has everything I could ever need. I’m like, I don’t know how I survived out here for over a decade without you. Like, everything I need is in that bag,

Kayla: Kyle. You gotta go. I, that’s, it’s an experience. It’s, I think it’s so much more than, I’m sure everybody says this, that’s so much more than you can possibly describe in words, but the experience of humanity at its very, very best I think is the experience you get at Burning Man.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. One day I’ll make it out there. Have you guys, uh, come across Joe’s art car out there at any point?

Chandra: What is his art car?

Speaker: Big [01:07:00] crab. Um, it’s like a big red crab. The crab car.

Kayla: I dunno that I’ve seen the big red crab car.

Speaker: Yeah, you’ll have to chat with them about it then at some point. Yeah. All right.

Kyle Buller: Well, I see that we’re getting at time. So you guys have a training coming up at the end of the month and I would love to hear it and yeah. Let some of the listeners and audience know about what you guys are up to.

Kayla: Mm-hmm. We are offering our second training for Ketamine assisted couple therapy. We offered our first, last fall in person in San Diego, and it was so fun to be with people in person.

Kayla: This time we’re offering it online so that it’s more accessible to folks. It’s Saturday and Sunday, February 28th, March 1st, starting at, what did we decide about eight or eight 30 in the morning Pacific time. Um, so ought to be reasonably accessible in most time zones. Um, so yeah, folks can register from, from anywhere in the world if you wanna join on those two days.

Kayla: And we, it’s a really comprehensive didactic training. It’s 14 [01:08:00] continuing education credits for mental health professionals, and it covers the assessment that we’ve been talking about. It covers different models of dosing, ketamine with couples. It covers integration. Um, it covers, you know, everything that you need to know from start to finish, um, to start feeling really confident in working with couples, doing ketamine work.

Kayla: And it’s the first step on kind of a more comprehensive support structure that we’re building for

Chandra: therapist. And, um, doing that training also gives you access to weekly consultation, weekly group consultation, um, with us for three months. Kayla, is it three?

Kayla: Sure. I can’t remember.

Chandra: It’s on the website. Um, so that’s also an amazing deal.

Chandra: If you are starting to work with couples and you’re feeling a little bit like you don’t know exactly what to do, you do the training, you get all the information, you’re not alone. After that, you can come to weekly consultation and ask questions. [01:09:00] And we also will have upcoming experientials after that.

Chandra: So you’re very well kind of taken care of in that. And yeah, we’ll be supportive.

Kyle Buller: Sweet. And does anybody that’s joining need to have any sort of training in couples therapy or can they come not knowing too much about it?

Chandra: So we expect you to have some training in couple therapy just because of kind all of what we talked about with you today.

Chandra: People should at least be coming in with some model and kind of know why their treatment works. We did have some people join the in-person who, um, had like come with their partners to San Diego and then learned about what we were doing and asked if they could come and they actually like participated and had great questions.

Chandra: So if you are worried that your training maybe isn’t enough. Email us and [01:10:00] we can either connect you with something in the next month, a webinar, that would be enough, or we can talk about whatever training you do have and if that is enough to be able to participate in this.

Kayla: Yeah, you don’t need to be extensively experienced in working with couples.

Kayla: Didactic training is fine and in fact, like a one or two hour webinar is probably sufficient. Um, we just want it to not be all brand new because we’re not providing a solid foundation. Um, in, in couple therapy we’re expecting that, you know, a little bit. Same with Ketamine work. We’re expecting that folks know some of the main principles of working with ketamine.

Kayla: Um, and if not, then we can direct you towards some, some great webinars on that.

Kyle Buller: Wonderful. Well thank you for doing that work. Um, it’s really exciting that you guys are out here doing it. ’cause Yeah, it seems like it’s not a big focus in the psychedelic world. I think it’s so important, um, to, to be offering this and I hope more research happens.

Kyle Buller: Um, so yeah,

Kayla: me too.

Kyle Buller Anybody wants to help fund research, push you in your direction? Um,

Kayla: yes, please.

Speaker: I would love, I would love more research in, in

Kayla: this

Speaker: area.

Kayla: It’s a [01:11:00] tax write off. We have a nonprofit come write us a big check and, and really help move this, this research forward.

Chandra: And so many people, I think that I, I do think that a big issue is that people don’t know that there are people who can do this research because there are so many couples all around the world whose relationships have been changed dramatically by psychedelics.

Chandra: And so I think as pe more people know that we’re doing this and like we are trained as academic researchers. We can definitely kinda get this done. Then there will be more opportunity for people to donate.

Kyle Buller: Yes. Wonderful. Anything you guys wanna close with for today? Any closing thoughts?

Kayla: Thanks so

Chandra: much for, it’s really fun to talk with you.

Kayla: Yeah, thanks for having us on and for, for everybody listening and, and we hope that this inspires people to care about, um, psychedelics for relational work. This is like our life’s passion, so we’re really excited to get to [01:12:00] talk about it and share it with y’all.

Chandra: And we’re happy to talk with anyone who has questions.

Chandra: So you can email either of us. It’s chandra@enamarie.org or kayla@enamarie.org. We’re responsive. Um, reach out to us. We love to talk with people.

Speaker: Awesome. Well, thank you both for joining today. It was a really fun conversation and thank you everybody for tuning in and listening. So we’ll catch you next time.

January 22, 2026June 11, 2026

Joshua White – Fireside Project and Lucy, an AI Training Simulator for Psychedelic Support

Fireside Project is a nonprofit that helps reduce the risks of psychedelic experiences through a free support line, coaching, education, and research. In this episode, Joshua White speaks with Psychedelics Today about why real-time support matters, what it takes to run a national hotline, and what Fireside learned after more than 30,000 conversations since launch.

White shares how his background as a lawyer and his early hotline volunteering shaped Fireside’s model. He also describes how festival harm reduction work, including lessons from Zendo-style support spaces, revealed a major gap: people often need help during an experience and after it ends.

A major focus of the conversation is Lucy, Fireside’s new voice-to-voice role-play simulator designed to improve psychedelic support skills through low-stakes practice.

Early Themes With Fireside Project

Joshua White introduces Fireside Project as an accessible safety net for people who are actively having psychedelic experiences or processing past ones. The support line launched on April 14, 2021, and relies on trained community volunteers who commit to a year of service.

White explains why anonymity matters. He argues that a phone-based container can make it easier for callers to share vulnerable material without fear of judgment. He also frames service as a key part of integration for volunteers who want to give back or prepare for work in the psychedelic field.

Core Insights From Fireside Project

White describes the early difficulty of building Fireside from scratch, including legal design, insurance hurdles, training development, and fundraising. He credits seed support from David Bronner and Dr. Bronner’s for helping Fireside prove that people would actually use a psychedelic support line.

He also explains a key harm reduction point: calling emergency services during a non-medical psychedelic crisis can escalate risk. Fireside aims to help people regulate, re-orient, and stay safer when panic or fear shows up.

Key concepts discussed include:

The thin line between healing and traumatizing during high-intensity psychedelic states
Why callers often need connection, not rescue
How volunteer capacity and call volume shape how long conversations run
The difference between support during an experience and longer-term coaching support

Later Discussion and Takeaways With Fireside Project

The conversation then turns to Lucy, a training tool White describes as a “flight simulator” for psychedelic practitioners. Lucy is not part of the live support line. Instead, it offers emotionally responsive role-play scenarios so trainees can practice staying grounded, tracking consent and boundaries, and responding to crisis cues.

White also addresses recording and consent. He argues Fireside needs strong training feedback loops to improve safety and quality. He describes an anonymization approach designed to remove phone numbers, strip identifying details, and distort voices while preserving emotional tone. He also explains the post-call option for callers to delete their recorded conversation.

Practical takeaways include:

Simulation can help trainees stay regulated when intense material emerges
Better training can reduce unnecessary diversion to emergency rooms
Clear consent language and easy deletion workflows matter for trust
Coaching can expand the continuum of psychedelic support beyond therapy

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Fireside Project?

Fireside Project is a nonprofit that runs a free psychedelic support line and provides coaching, education, and research to reduce risks around psychedelic use.

Is Fireside Project only for bad trips?

No. Fireside Project supports people in challenging moments, but also people seeking grounding, connection, and help processing past experiences.

What is Lucy from Fireside Project?

Lucy is a voice-based role-play simulator that helps train psychedelic practitioners through realistic scenarios and feedback. It is not used to answer live support line calls.

Does Fireside Project record calls?

White says Fireside records conversations for training, then anonymizes the data and offers a deletion option after the call.

How can clinicians use Fireside Project resources?

Clinicians and trainees can use Fireside Project as a harm reduction reference point, and Lucy may fit into training programs as a simulation tool alongside supervision and practicum work.

Does Fireside Project record calls?

Fireside Project records some calls for training purposes. Joshua White says calls are anonymized, phone numbers are deleted, and identifying details are removed.

Can I opt out of having my call saved?

According to White, callers are notified that calls are recorded. After the call, people receive a follow-up message with the option to delete the anonymized recording. He also says Fireside plans to add clearer opt-out options before a call is saved.

How is my identity protected if calls are used for training?

White says Fireside strips personal data and uses voice distortion for Lucy so voices cannot be recognized, while emotional tone is preserved. He emphasizes that recordings are not sold, shared, or licensed outside the organization.

What happens if law enforcement issues a subpoena?

White explains that subpoenas must be specific. He says Fireside cannot match anonymized calls to individuals or phone numbers because that data is not retained. He also describes challenging overly broad requests in court if needed.

This episode shows why infrastructure matters in the modern psychedelic resurgence. It highlights real-world risks, the need for scalable training, and the practical limits of emergency systems for psychedelic distress. If you want a clearer view of harm reduction, coaching, and simulation-based learning, this conversation with Fireside Project offers a grounded starting point.

Transcript

Joe Moore: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to Psychedelics today. Joined today by Joshua White, founder at Fireside Project. How are you today?

Joshua White: Doing great. Excited for the chat.

Joe Moore: Yeah, it should be fun. So, um, first thing we wanna do, what is Fireside Project?

Joshua White: Fireside Project is a nonprofit that has a mission of helping people reduce the risks of their psychedelic experiences, and we do that in a few ways through operating our psychedelic support line, which offers free support to people who are actually having psychedelic experiences and also wanting to process past ones.

Joshua White: We do it through our coaching program where people can sign up for a coach and receive scheduled long-term support by video, uh, when they’re preparing for and integrating psychedelic experiences, but not during, we do [00:01:00] it through, uh, public education and we do it through research.

Joe Moore: Thanks. So when, when did you all start?

Joshua White: Sorry.

Joe Moore: Yeah. When did you all start doing fireside project?

Joshua White: Yeah, so the psychedelic support line launched on April 14th, 2021, just in time for bicycle day. And so the support line has been operating for roughly four and a half years. We’ve had more than 30,000 conversations, and it’s been really a beautiful experience.

Joshua White: The line is staffed by volunteers from the community who commit to one year of service, and I think we’ve trained at this point, like over 600 volunteers. So it’s really a beautiful way for people who are either wanting to be of service, we like to say service is the highest form of [00:02:00] integration, uh, and or wanting to prepare for a career in psychedelics.

Joe Moore: Yeah, that’s super cool. Um, so how, how did this idea come around? For you?

Joshua White: Yeah, it’s a great question. So, um, my first professional chapter was as a lawyer. I was mostly working for the city of San Francisco, but I, you know, I’d felt that I had sort of been like, pressured into practicing law because, you know, my, my dad is a, a lawyer and, um, never felt the deepest level of alignment with it.

Joshua White: But then when I started going to therapy and taking psychedelics at about 20 years ago, at this point, I, I fell in love with, um, emotional support and psychedelics and psychedelic healing. So I began to kind of plot and escape from the law. I, I began to volunteer on a hotline in San Francisco [00:03:00] where I was living at the time.

Joshua White: That was part of a nonprofit then called SF Child Abuse Prevention Center. Uh, and basically parents could call in if they were. Feeling very activated and worried about what they were gonna do, and I just fell in love with support lines and, and providing emotional support. I thought that it was so powerful how we can create such a safe, non-judgmental container for people, um, by phone and through anonymity, which I think really can create this freedom to share about very vulnerable topics in a, in a deep way.

Joshua White: Um, I also fell in love with psychedelic support by volunteering with the Zendo project at festivals like Lightning in a Bottle and Burning Man. And so at the start of the pandemic, I was solo quarantining. I saw how, uh, the psychedelic field was kind of blowing up, you know, ketamine, telehealth was starting.

Joshua White: The maps, uh, study was moving into phase three and it just really seemed like, um, there [00:04:00] was an urgent need for. Widespread psychedelic support for experiential training and so forth. And so really I kind of combined a couple of my loves, uh, hotlines and psychedelic support and also just really trying to do good for as many people as I possibly could.

Joshua White: That was kind of my focus at the City Attorney’s office, uh, suing businesses, exploiting marginalized communities.

Joe Moore: So, uh, it seems like there’s a lot of service going on. That’s great. So, um, let’s see, what was it? Where do we want to go? I assume you, you had seen some bad situations with psychedelics in your past or difficult ones.

Joshua White: definitely. You know, I was always, for me it was a contrast. I was always very lucky because I had psychedelic community, I had a supportive partner and I had a, a [00:05:00] therapist who was very psychedelic friendly.

Joshua White: so, and I could also feel within myself how urgent sometimes those different support, um, uh, supporters were. And then for example, when I was volunteering at the Zendo project, um, you could really see how. Terrifying. Uh, dangerous, uh, it could be, you know, there’s a great phrase, like the line between healing and traumatizing is at its thinnest on psychedelics.

Joshua White: And so I could really see at the Zendo project people who were getting really close to that line and, and even sometimes crossing it. And, and one of the kind of sad things about, you know, volunteering with the Zendo was that the festival would end and then people often didn’t have, uh, integration support afterwards.

Joshua White: And so I, I think, like, yeah, my experience at festivals really caused me to see how important it’s to have, um, you know, really [00:06:00] robust support. I mean, in a way, fireside project is like, you know, the Zendo project, if it were everywhere and open 12 hours a day. And also did integration support.

Joe Moore: I. What was it like coming up with the, the whole organization and vision?

Joe Moore: I’m sure it was like somewhat complicated, or is it like, you know, you just get a little box and you’ve got an 800 number and you can take calls from wherever

Joshua White: it was. It was very complicated. You know, I had never, um, created an organization. I’d never even like really worked at an organization. All of my jobs had been with first the city of San Francisco and then the federal judiciary before that.

Joshua White: Um, so I, I didn’t really know anything about starting an organization. And so in a way, my, my approach could be described as like jumping off of a cliff and trying to build a plane as I was hurdling towards the rocks. Now I was, I was lucky, you know, I, I was able to pull in [00:07:00] some really, um, amazing people from the start.

Joshua White: Uh, you know, Hanifa Washington, who is now part of psychedelic, medicine psych, PMHA, psychedelic medicine. Hanifa has spent, sorry, hafa, if you’re listening. You know, a couple of years with, at least with us really helping to, um, hone the, the vision and the mission, helping to design our initial training.

Joshua White: Uh, we also had Adam Rubin working with us, who had spent a lot of time with the Zendo and other organizations. Um, but it was really hard. I mean, we had to build everything from scratch. Uh, we had to, we had to, we had to define the kind of like legal framework for it. Like, in other words, how is it legal to be a support line for psychedelics?

Joshua White: We had to get insurance and convince insurance companies that we were insurable. We had to write our training program, we had to develop marketing materials, uh, and we also had to get money for this organization. Uh, so all of that was very difficult. I mean, the, the, [00:08:00] the psychedelic philanthropy sector was still kind of coming into its own, really starting to ask itself.

Joshua White: Okay, now that. The maps clinical trial is kind of most of the way through. What do we want to do now in terms of an ecosystem. And so we were very lucky that, um, we were able to kind of like make the case that this harm reduction tool should really be part of, uh, the kind of like foundational, um, like the safety net of, of the field.

Joshua White: And we almost didn’t make it right. The, the person who kind of swooped in last moment to help us was David Bronner of, of, um, Dr. Bronner’s soap company. And, you know, he provided some kind of like seed funding of his and of Dr. Bronner’s and then, uh, connected us with some other supporters, uh, to allow us to kind of.

Joshua White: Stay afloat while we, um, while we, while we built this and, and try to really just like demonstrate would people actually use this? Right? It’s like, we thought it [00:09:00] was a really cool idea, but is anyone actually gonna call a support line while they’re tripping or while they’re talking, wanting to talk about a past trip that they had?

Joshua White: And it turns out the answer is yes. Um, but we had to prove that concept.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Obviously, um, crazy interesting project for you to be working on. And, um, I remember just how excited everybody was that it was happening, um, and. You and I had some interesting conversations, right? Like, do I, do I actually call somewhere and leave a, leave a trace of this, you know, they tell me it’s a bad thing I’m doing and then, or do I call 9 1 1 or do I tough it out?

Joe Moore: And like, there’s a lot of really interesting stuff there. Can you, can you kind of go into the, the thinking there?

Joshua White: Yeah, for sure. I mean, so there, there are a few different kind of pieces of this, right? One is, [00:10:00] especially if you’re new to psychedelics, and of course there are so many people who are new to psychedelics these days.

Joshua White: Um, you might mistake. Feeling like you are dying, um, through ego dissolution with actual dying. And so there are people who do go to emergency rooms, not a lot, but some, or who call 9 1 1 or nine, eight, eight. Not a lot, but some. And in all likelihood, unless you’re having a true medical emergency, it’s the absolute worst thing that you, that you can, that you can do.

Joshua White: I mean, imagine going into an emergency room, um, on acid and getting injected with Thorazine or something like that. I mean, talk about the line between healing and traumatizing. You are well on the wrong side of the line probably if you’re interacting with emergency services. So, so there’s that on one side.

Joshua White: Um, and then on the other side of things, as you said, people are calling us and talking about, um, [00:11:00] you know, taking illegal substances. Right. So one initial question is, how on earth is that legal? And the, you know, the answer is this is harm reduction, right? So in other words, harm the sort of fundamental principle of harm reduction is people are gonna be engaging in a practice that has risks and our role is to help reduce those risks.

Joshua White: And so for that reason, we only talk to people who have. Already consumed the psychedelic. So for that reason, we can make sure that we’re inoculating ourself, if you will, against a claim that we’re encouraging people to take psychedelics. We don’t encourage people to take psychedelics. We can support them after they’ve made that decision and create this kinda safe space for them to process their experience.

Joshua White: Now there’s another question, which is, um, sort of do no harm, right? How can we make sure that we are honoring the trust that our callers place in us? And this is really the foundational principle [00:12:00] of what we do. And, um, and so we. I think we honor, we go about honoring that trust in, you know, a bunch of different ways, right?

Joshua White: But when it turns, when it comes to people actually reaching out to us, we wanna make sure that, um, that records of them reaching out to us have been fully anonymized. And so that means things like deleting the phone number, uh, so that if we got a subpoena, for instance, for a particular phone number or a particular name, um, we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t be able to respond to it.

Joshua White: Um, but then, I know we’ll get into this more, but like, of course, another way that we, you know, need to, like honor the trust that our callers put in us is by continuing to get better and better at what we do. And that’s, that’s a whole kind of internal process within, within Fireside that has a lot of different parts.

Joshua White: But I’ll, I’ll pause before I kind of dive into that.

Joe Moore: Yeah. So there’s, there’s a lot here.

Joshua White: Yes.

Joe Moore: Yeah. [00:13:00] So I guess, uh, a quick thing about a tangent, if you will. Zendo has this situation. Mm-hmm. You know what, what folks at Zendo and perhaps Fireside are consenting to is, Hey, I’m here in the case of an emergency.

Joe Moore: Um, I’m not here to be your non-consensual trip sitter. You know, can you talk about that a little bit and how that’s maybe a challenge sometimes?

Joshua White: I’m not. Can you elaborate on what you mean by non-consensual trip sitter?

Joe Moore: I didn’t, I didn’t consent to sitting for you for five hours.

Joshua White: Oh, I see. I see. Yeah, that’s a great, right.

Joshua White: So in other words, we at Fireside, you’re saying, may not have consented to that. Yeah. So that’s, it’s a really interesting question and it kind of brings up, I would say like. A couple of things for me, right? I mean, one, one of one of them is, um, that there is a perception sometimes that fireside is like the bad trip hotline and we don’t like the term bad [00:14:00] trip, but the challenging trip hotline.

Joshua White: And that that is not accurate. It’s too narrow, right? We support people who are in search of connection, who need someone to just listen and unpack their experience. And we also support integration callers. Um, so, so there’s that piece of it. But that being said, you know, people tend to not wanna spend all that much time on the phone.

Joshua White: Um, so if someone took a bunch of mushrooms or acid and they really wanted a human being to spend five hours with them. You know, we don’t have a limit on trip calls, but the way that it kind of like shakes out in reality is that people reach out to us usually with like a particular need, right?

Joshua White: Sometimes the need is, I just wanna feel connection and that need can be satisfied through sometimes a five minute conversation or a 45 minute conversation. Um, other times that that need might. Take longer to satisfy. [00:15:00] Like there’s something really intense from their childhood coming up and they really want to unpack it.

Joshua White: So we’re really like there for all of it. Uh, and we have limited bandwidth, right? We have three to five volunteers on every shift. Some shifts, as you can imagine, call volume is higher. And if we’re in hour three of a conversation with someone and call volume is really high, we might, um, invite the person to call back later if they need additional support.

Joshua White: So it’s kind of a ba a balance that we, that we get into. But generally, like people don’t seem to want a full trip, duration, trips sitter by phone. Like it just doesn’t tend to be that enjoyable.

Joe Moore: Yeah, that’s fair and good. Good as an observation. Yeah. Um, so. Cool. So what, um, I’d like to maybe pivot into is the new thing that you all just launched.

Joe Moore: Can you tell us about it? [00:16:00]

Joshua White: Sure. So we launched, uh, last week, uh, or I guess at this point, it’s almost two weeks ago, a um. What we like to think of as the first AI client, or another way of thinking about it, is a, a, a role play simulator for psychedelic practitioners. So we call it Lucy. And Lucy, uh, is an emotionally intelligent voice to voice simulator.

Joshua White: So, Lucy, to be crystal clear here, Lucy is not on the support line. Lucy’s exclusive goal is to help train practitioners how to get better at what they do. Uh, and, and that’s that. We, we kind of had this idea for a few reasons. As you know, you know, psychedelics are, are, you know. Sweeping the country, uh, hopefully FDA approval will be coming soon.

Joshua White: And there’s really a need to provide [00:17:00] high quality experiential training to aspiring practitioners. You talk to universities, you talk to, um, you know, companies in the field, and they’ll tell you it’s just really hard to get experiential training. And when you look at other types of professions, like let’s say a pilot, a pilot’s not gonna get behind a cockpit until they’ve spent some real time in a flight simulator.

Joshua White: And so Lucy is a flight simulator for psychedelic practitioners. So in other words, Lucy plays the role of the person having the psychedelic experience or preparing for the experience or integrating the experience and on and on. And then the practitioner, the student, the trainee, whatever you wanna call them.

Joshua White: Interacts with them and provides support. And so it, it’s interesting to think about, so I said it was an emotionally intelligent, um, platform. Well, what does that mean? One way to kind of contrast it is with Chachi [00:18:00] pt. So when you talk to Chachi pt, it’s not hearing your tonality, your emotionality. What it’s doing is just translating your words into words within the system and then spitting back words at you.

Joshua White: Whereas Lucy is emotionally intelligent, which means that it can tune into your emotionality and, and, and respond in kind. So just like when you’re, you know, if you think about, for instance, speaking to a friend, um, some friends are really good listeners and you can feel them really attuned and they’re really present.

Joshua White: And with those types of listeners, you’re more likely to open up and, and let them go deeper and share more about your inner world. Other friends, um. Maybe tuned out and, and not really tuned into what’s happening for you and you may experience, uh, open up less to those people. And so the idea here is to be able to train practitioners how to be emotionally attuned, how to cultivate their skills in really like a low stakes [00:19:00] environment.

Joshua White: And the last thing I’ll just say for now, ’cause I know there’s so much to get into about this, is, you know, this is not a substitute for having, uh, a mentor. Having a supervisor. The idea is not to take humans out of the training process. It’s to give people a low stakes opportunity to keep practicing their skills so that they, that can, then they can get to a basic level and then really like, have a mentor, have a, have a teacher, have a supervisor to help you kind of cultivate those skills.

Joshua White: So I, I like to think of it as a bridge between like the classroom where often it can be very like dry and didactic, and how can we get you closer to where you can provide. Uh, support in the real world, not get you all the way there. ’cause that’s impossible. Right. A lot of time with humans is needed.

Joshua White: Humans with supervisors, with mentors, with [00:20:00] teachers and so forth is needed.

Joe Moore: Yeah, absolutely. Um, simulation is so helpful for so many reasons. I was just to, to bring it, um, to another analogy. I just spent Sunday with Kyle, my co-founder, doing avalanche rescue training. Mm. Like we did a lot of simulation.

Joe Moore: ’cause you know, the, you don’t want to just be freaked all the way out and frozen or run away when somebody maybe has 10 minutes. And, um, it’s quite, quite the harrowing thing and we, you know, it’s similar, maybe not similarly high stakes, but really high stakes and psychedelic stuff too. Like people’s future in a major way could be radically benefited to the, you know, have radical benefit if you do well here,

Joshua White: right?

Joshua White: Mm-hmm. And, and it can take, I mean, even if you’re a, a seasoned therapist or, or other type of clinician, you know, [00:21:00] to be interacting with someone, having a high dose experience of, of, of a psychedelic where material from their childhood maybe suppressed memories, maybe traumas are resurfacing, it can really activate your nervous system, you know, in a, in a similar way to, if you’re in an avalanche, it can activate your nervous system.

Joshua White: And so how do you kind of. Try to put yourself into similar situations, but that are lower stakes. So in a sense, you can start to train your nervous system to stay grounded. Which is, which is I think like, you know, upwards of 90% of psychedelic support. It’s how can you remain as, I love the rom dos expression, a loving rock while, you know, the psychedelic process is unfolding.

Joe Moore: Yeah, I love that. Um, okay, so let’s, um. Let’s talk about like, what are, what kind [00:22:00] of outcomes are you hoping from for, uh, to come from Lucy being implemented at at Fireside?

Joshua White: Yeah. That’s an amazing question. And you know, I, I think that, you know, core to our mission is, as I said, helping people reduce the risks of psychedelic experience in ways including training.

Joshua White: And so our hope is that Lucy can really be a, an accessible and scalable training tool to give people in, uh, you know, in the US and maybe beyond. Opportunities to really like cultivate their, cultivate their skills. So the hope is, for example, that this can be one of the tools that training programs use.

Joshua White: So for example, we’re talking with, um, there’s a wonderful nonprofit called uep, university Psychedelic Education Program. And they’re, uh, training professors at different universities, uh, [00:23:00] to teach their students about psychedelics, starting with nursing and social work, and then probably expanding outwards.

Joshua White: Now, wouldn’t it be amazing in our vision if a student, for example, reads a book chapter on let’s say, boundaries and consent, uh, which, which of course is a big topic in psychedelics, and then they could actually do a simulation with Lucy, where there are various types of boundary and consent issues that they’re, that they’re dealing with.

Joshua White: And not just that, but then to get feedback. Afterwards from Lucy about how well they’re doing now. Is, is that to say that professors are not necessary? Of course not. Is it to say that, you know, demos with fellow students is not necessary? Of course not. Does it mean that, you know, um, practicums on site at ketamine clinics or organ, uh, psilocybin service centers are irrelevant?

Joshua White: Of course not. The idea is how can we better [00:24:00] prepare practitioners for that first time that they’re in the room with, with the real patient? So I want to just be so clear about like what the, like the ambition is here. It’s to, it’s to, it’s to help practitioners be better prepared for when they’re in the room and for when they start working with mentors and teachers.

Joe Moore: Yeah. So I. Endlessly important to have, have this. Right. And I think your flight simulator was a great thing, uh, analogy, like you really do wanna spend a lot of time and, you know, think about, I, I, I learned recently that Aspen High School, you can graduate Aspen High School with a pilot’s license because they have a world class flight simulator.

Joshua White: Right. ‘

Joe Moore: cause they have too much money, which is amazing for those people going through Aspen High School if they choose to do that. But there’s a lot of time in cost savings by having that simulator. And, um, how many good? [00:25:00] How many, yeah. There’s just so many better outcomes once you have a simulation tool.

Joe Moore: Kyle and I were honestly looking at a simulator, um, build a year or two ago. Um, but you know, that requires a reasonable amount of cash to build that kind of thing.

Joshua White: Yeah. And I, and I think, you know, it’s interesting because like in the world of mental health and beyond there. An idea called simulation based training, right?

Joshua White: Which is basically using simulators in different contexts. You know, you’re in medical school, you do simulations, you’re a nurse, you do simulations. And now we’re at the point where the technology is such that we can really start to do, um, you know, simulations with, with, with, um, you know, uh, that, that are emotionally intelligent.

Joe Moore: Can you talk about that emotional kind of skill the software might have? [00:26:00]

Joshua White: Yeah. Abs, absolutely. So I know we’ll get into this, but you know, I guess one of the things that is, is, is true in the world of simulations is they’re only as good as they are lifelike, right? If you’re in a situation that seems fake, then probably you’re not gonna get trained as effectively and as, as you would in, in a very lifelike simulation.

Joshua White: And so there are, for example, now in the world of, in this, in this kind of world of mental health, there are like out of the box. Um, you know, models that you can work with. For example, if you were a call center, like a, like a Walmart or whatever, companies use call centers, you might want to train your operators how to be emotionally intelligent.

Joshua White: Now that’s interesting, but it has nothing to do with psychedelics. And so at Fireside, like one of the. Um, you know, the advantages that we have is we speak to thousands [00:27:00] and thousands of people, uh, during and after their psychedelic experiences. And so we can really draw on the, those conversations to create really lifelike, uh, to create really lifelike situations because they are drawn from, from actual situations or from kind of, um, syntheses of, of actual situations.

Joshua White: And I, I know we’ll talk about how we go, how we go about that, but, but you know, to really speak directly to your point, like the best way to create lifelike simulations is to base them as closely as possible on, on really like nuanced, lifelike situations.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Our, um, yeah, I think Harvard Business School is an example of that and maybe a lot of business schools teach from case study.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. And I think that’s, you know, super common in, um. Psychotherapy as well. Psychiatry probably as well. And yeah, so why not make really lifelike scenarios? So [00:28:00] let’s chat about that. So we, we chatted a little while ago, so I’m breaking long Colorado, I ate too much acid, you know, 20 hits. I’m like, uh, you know, I don’t think I can use this phone, but don’t let me try.

Joe Moore: And I call Fireside, right? And so I call somebody’s, you know, connected to me. Um, and I’m getting some help. Um, there’s, there’s a whole like recording function, right? Can we talk about that and how you all made the decision to, to record?

Joshua White: Yeah, that’s a great, it’s a great question and I wanna, if I could like, take a step back to a principle that I mentioned a moment ago, which is, which is.

Joshua White: Because of the nature of the conversations we have, people are reaching out to us really in, uh, some of their most, uh, you know, vulnerable times. Um, that creates for us a, a duty to keep doing better and better and better and to [00:29:00] keep learning a lot so that we can provide better support. So let, let me tell you, let me kinda give you a little bit of an overview of how the support line progressed.

Joshua White: Um, for our first, uh, three and a half years, the support line ran off of a hodgepodge of, of different systems, none of which spoke to each other. And what happened was we had almost no idea of what was happening on particular calls. Period. So a supervisor, a a volunteer would take a call and we literally would’ve no idea what was happening on that call, uh, unless there happened to be a supervisor who had bandwidth and who could, um, you know, listen into to some of the call so that they could provide feedback.

Joshua White: Now, that didn’t happen very often and it really left us in kind of a scary situation where volunteers are supporting people and [00:30:00] we don’t know how well they’re doing. We don’t know whether they’re improving and we don’t. We would’ve new supervisors come on and we would, it would be really hard to train them, um, because it was hard to communicate what was actually happening on the line.

Joshua White: And another problem that we had was we would have new volunteers coming in. We do about three to four cohorts a year of. 30 to 50 volunteers and new volunteers. We do a 50 hour upfront training and new volunteers would ask questions like, well, what’s it like when someone is in immediate danger? What’s it like when someone may be suicidal?

Joshua White: And we’re like, we would, we would have to just sort of use words to describe that and we would fail every time. Um, we would try doing role plays with the volunteers where they would split off into groups of two or three, and one would try to simulate. A person who was, uh, suicidal considering dying by suicide.[00:31:00]

Joshua White: And what would happen was volunteers just weren’t well prepared. Uh, and when they were then put in actual situations, uh, of having to support someone, it was absolutely terrifying. You know, kind of similar to your avalanche example, if your first experience of an avalanche was an actual avalanche as opposed to a simulated avalanche, you are in a way worse position to do avalanche rescue.

Joshua White: So that’s where we were for a really long time, and we believed that to really honor the, the trust that our callers have in. We just had to get better. Um, so we realized that, uh, you know, that recording conversations could be a way of training new and, and, uh, current volunteers, training supervisors, allowing supervisors to have one-on-one conversations with volunteers, allowing us to receive notifications from callers a day later, and then be able to circle back with the [00:32:00] volunteer and provide feedback.

Joshua White: So we knew that there was a really powerful reason why we needed to start, uh, why, why there was a need to have some kind of recording. But we also knew that we couldn’t honor the trust that our callers put in us if we didn’t have an over the top anonymization process, right? We needed to make sure that if a, for example, a subpoena came our way, we just wouldn’t be able to respond to it.

Joshua White: Um, or, or. O other efforts to kind of get our, get ahold of our calls from people outside of Fireside. And so we, we basically like built a state-of-the-art software platform that, that really does an over the top job of, of anonymizing the conversations and, and providing notice to callers beforehand and an opportunity to delete afterwards and, and, and, and, and various things.

Joshua White: And I can [00:33:00] walk through that step by step. So we sort of started, you know, um, recording conversations, anon, anonymizing them, obtaining, obtaining consent, providing the opportunity to delete. And I know we can talk more about this consent piece ’cause I think this is really, um, this, this is part of the essence of it.

Joshua White: And one of the things that we saw was. You know, that, that our training and the quality of support that we provided really could get better and better and better. And the conversations that we were saving were totally anonymized and un and untraceable. So then, you know, as time passed, we started really asking ourselves, well, what still, what are the needs within Fireside?

Joshua White: How can we keep getting the training better and better? Um, and what are we also seeing in the field? And this question of experiential training and the, and the real dangerous lack of it kept coming up. And so then this idea for an [00:34:00] emotionally intelligent flight simulator, if you will, kind of came to us and we said, okay, we could, we, we can explore doing this if and only if the conversations, the anonymized conversations that we have truly are untraceable.

Joshua White: And one of the things that we did. You know, there’s this, there’s this idea that the sound of your voice, even if it doesn’t have personal information in it, um, is like, can be like a fingerprint. And so what we did was we implemented this incredible voice distortion tool that distorts your voice beyond recognition, while preserving the emotionality.

Joshua White: And so, and so that. And so that additional layer, um, really means that like when, when, when Lucy, our simulator outputs, uh, plays the role of someone tripping or integrating [00:35:00] you’re, you’re hearing distortion, you’re hearing a distorted voice that’s not even like, um, uh, any human’s actual voice. So, um, so I think that’s a bit of the process.

Joshua White: I think we can go more into it, but I think that’s kind of an overview of. Where the idea came from, but also what we wanted to really do right. Within Fireside when we were exploring whether to actually build this.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Well that’s super helpful, thank you for that. Um, and can you tell me a little bit about how, um, like consent opt-in works?

Joe Moore: ’cause it’s a little hard to give consent, I guess, after you’ve consumed.

Joshua White: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a really, it’s a really great question. Um, and so I think there’s, there’s a couple of, there’s a couple of things here, right? The first I wanna say is, um, that, so there’s consent beforehand, right? So each person when they reach out to us is notified that, you know, calls may be recorded for, you know, [00:36:00] for training purposes or, or words to that effect.

Joshua White: And Lucy absolutely is a training purpose. It’s a foundational training purpose. It’s why Lucy exists. So Lucy is a training purpose, and then the conversation on the support line happens. It’s fully anonymized regardless. So there’s the, the phone, the phone number is thrown out, and then afterwards, the day after the conversation, the person receives a text message that informs them that, um, that we’ve recorded their anonymized conversation.

Joshua White: And to delete it, they can check a box. Uh, and if they check the box, the system automatically deletes the call. I, I do. And, and there’s been some active discussion, uh, Joe, as I think, you know, since we’ve launched and there’s, I think one of the things that I think is really, you know, important to point out is, you know, I think the nature of consent depends in part on what data you’re actually saving and the purpose for [00:37:00] which that data is used, right?

Joshua White: So to use, I’ll give you two extreme examples on opposite ends of the spectrum. One is. If the only, if you called in and the only data that we saved was the caller sounds like a guy, and he took mushrooms, if all we noted down was male and mushrooms, no consent is needed in that situation, neither legally nor ethically.

Joshua White: The opposite end of the spectrum would be that if we were recording conversations without anonymizing them and then selling them to Facebook or somewhere else, you know, I don’t even think anyone could consent period to something like that if, if they were on psychedelics. And so what we have here is sort of something I think that’s, that’s in the middle, which is.

Joshua White: We don’t save any personal information. The voices are distorted. The informa, the, the, um, conversations don’t leave fireside, meaning we don’t sell them, we don’t license [00:38:00] them, we don’t share them, period. What we have is a cluster of untraceable conversations and um, and those conversations are used to train our volunteers and to train others in the field.

Joshua White: And of course, if Lucy is used by someone outside of Fireside, what they’re seeing is the output. They don’t actually get access to the conversations themselves. So it’s a really tricky issue. I see the arguments on both sides and, um, and I really think we go, you know, a above and beyond to, um, you know, to, to do this.

Joshua White: And, you know, since the, since, since we have really heard like some. Powerful, um, you know, kind of, uh, feedback from the community about this. We we’re, we’re also going to be like implementing, I think like addit additional layers, including, you know, more detail about Lucy in the opening and more detail about the ability to delete the conversation before [00:39:00] it happens.

Joshua White: So to preemptively say that we don’t want it saved. Um, and, and, and other things like that. So we’re really not trying to hide the ball here. And, um, and so it’s, and also when people call in, they’re often tripping and need to talk to someone sued. And so a too many words can be harmful in, in and of itself.

Joshua White: And so that’s why we have this mm-hmm. Pre and post call, um, you know, uh, process.

Joe Moore: Right. Um, yeah. Thank you for that. It’s, it’s a, it’s a challenging but worthy thing to be digging into, and I think, um, if, if there’s no like real serious metadata around it, um, you know, not storing your phone number and social security number, that helps.

Joe Moore: Um, and it’s, uh, it’s, it’s definitely a complicated, I heard, I heard [00:40:00] one no. So I, I haven’t been tracking, so, but one person said one thing to me and I wanted to just bring it up just so I’m, I’m feeling honest. Right. So like in AI’s become an ongoing concern in the last year or two. Mm-hmm. Right. Um, you all have had training and consent on, on kind of like these models before.

Joe Moore: So that was really an ongoing concern. And it’s just like, kind of interesting. I, I feel like this is an unfair way to say it. Moving the goalpost, it, it feels like that’s not what you’ve done. There’s a new thing that came along that’s a really powerful educational tool and you know, you’ve adapted what you’ve had to that I find it, I find it interesting.

Joe Moore: It’s complicated. Um, but I don’t know any, anything you wanna comment on that then I got a slightly easier one.

Joshua White: Sure. Can I, can I, can I state the question back to [00:41:00] you to make sure that I’m understanding it?

Joe Moore: Go for

Joshua White: it. So it, it sounds like, the way that I’m hearing what you’re saying is that someone expressed to you that essentially when we initially started recording.

Joshua White: Lucy didn’t exist. And then after we started recording, Lucy did exist. And so does the consent that was provided beforehand really still kind of hold up to muster

Joe Moore: that. That was effectively what they were saying.

Joshua White: Okay.

Joe Moore: I was like, I was like too busy to sit with them to go any further.

Joshua White: Yeah.

Joe Moore: Um, than that.

Joe Moore: Totally. But that’s effectively what was po posed to me.

Joshua White: It’s a great, it’s a great question. I totally understand where that, that person’s coming from. It’s really, really valid. Um, and, you know, Lucy is a training purpose, right? There’s no, there’s no question that Lucy is a training purpose. And so the ques the question really is when we tell people, or when we started telling people in May, [00:42:00] 2024, and I think, you know, we, we put out a press release, like we pitched 50 or 60 news outlets to let them know we were gonna be doing this.

Joshua White: So we were never trying to hide the ball. But, um, you know, the, I think the question is like, is there something different about this training purpose, right? Um, that, that would require us to sort of separately call it out in consent. In, in, in, in our, in our disclaimer. Um, so the, the first thing I’ll say is like.

Joshua White: You know, I don’t, I don’t think so. The second thing that I’ll say is like, we are gonna be updating our, our disclaimer process to, to do that because we do really want to be as, as, as transparent as possible. But I, I, I actually think that for me, when I hear people like, is Lucy Ai, is Lucy a chat bot? Like, yes.

Joshua White: And the reason I don’t lead with we created an AI chat bot is because when people hear that, I think it provokes this like really [00:43:00] powerful and totally justifiable emotional response for reasons that have literally nothing to do with Fireside. Right. So I think that like, as a. As the public, like we, myself included, have been harmed and even traumatized by the way that big companies have, um, used our data, right?

Joshua White: Starting with companies like Meta that have not just taken our data but used it to divide us, to cater to our basis instincts to sell it and, and. Have it twisted and used to sell us products and services and on and on and on. So that was even before the big AI companies, right? And then you have the big AI companies come along and scrape the entire internet for content while destroying the environment and the process, not providing compensation to the artist whose copyrighted works that they took and [00:44:00] enriching their billionaire owners, right?

Joshua White: So that when people hear AI chatbot. Totally, understandably, that’s what they’re thinking of. Now, Lucy has literally nothing to do with any of those things, right? This is a minuscule little model that’s created by a nonprofit after obtaining, you know, consent beforehand, opportunity to delete after saving no personal data.

Joshua White: We use this incredible software to strip out the personal information, distorting the voices, using it to train our own volunteers, and then eventually others in the field. And importantly, right? Nonprofits don’t have owners like I’m the founder. I have no ownership stake in Fireside. This is a public trust.

Joshua White: We are trying to stay afloat in a very difficult philan, uh, philanthropic environment that I, I think you’re familiar with. And any money that we make from this is gonna go to help keep [00:45:00] the support line free. So, I, I, I think that. Because that is what we are doing. And because it literally doesn’t have anything to do with like some of these other big models, I really do feel confident that when we say this is, this is just one of many training purposes.

Joshua White: Um, that it, that it’s, that it’s really, um, that, that it is, that it is ethical. And, and it’s also interesting too because, you know, one, one other thing that I’ll say is kinda interesting is like, so our training purposes, we have a range of internal training purposes. Sometimes a volunteer will have a really, really poignant call or they’ll like a nine, eight, eight call or a nine one one call will come in and the volunteer will just do a superb job, right?

Joshua White: That call may become our call of the week. That we share with volunteers. So here we are taking a call, which we anonymize, of course, like all of ours, and sharing it with a hundred, 150 volunteers. Now, we don’t, we would never call that out in [00:46:00] our disclaimer. Calls are recorded for training purposes. One of them might be a call of the week that we share with 150 volunteers because it’s just, it just doesn’t make sense.

Joshua White: I think the question is like, what is really the scope of, of what training purpose means? And we also understand, as I said, that like we can do better. We’re always trying to do better. And that’s why in the next few weeks, like our upfront disclaimer will say, calls are recorded for training purposes. If you wanna learn more about what those purposes are, press one.

Joshua White: And if you press one, you’ll hear that one of those training purposes is to create this simulation tool that’s used to train our volunteers and others. And if you’d like to have your conversation deleted before it even happens or not saved, that would be more precise, um, then, then you can press what, so there will be a pre, uh, conversation opportunity for deletion, and then more, um, data on the [00:47:00] backend or more disclosure on the backend.

Joshua White: So I think for me, that really like highlights that from the beginning. We’re just trying to be as transparent as possible. And one of the things that transparency, like leads to, like in this situation is we get feedback. We incor, we hear the feedback, we incorporate the feedback, and then the, what that results in is a better disclaimer process among other things.

Joe Moore: Can you talk to me about like the legal, well, let’s call it, um, law enforcement and so say for example, you receive a subpoena mm-hmm. To provide all sorts of information. How, how does that work and what, what’s your plan? Around

Joshua White: that. That’s great. That’s a great question. Um, and you know, I should, as I mentioned earlier, like I’m a lawyer and used to respond to subpoenas and write subpoenas, uh, when I worked for the, the city attorney of San Francisco.

Joshua White: So I have some experience with this, right. So, you know, [00:48:00] subpoenas have to be specific, right? Um, so, so, you know, it could be, I want all calls involving Joe Moore. I want all calls that say Joe Moore. I want all calls from Joe Moore’s phone number or from this phone number or all calls from San Francisco and, and, and on and on.

Joshua White: And so those would be the things in a subpoena. And if we got that, what we would, what we would say to the person that provided the subpoena, whether it was in civil litigation or you know, a government agency, we would say. We’re unable to respond to that subpoena because we are unable to parse out which of our anonymized calls, whether any of our anonymized calls satisfies, uh, that, that particular, um, the description of the subpoena.

Joshua White: And then there’s process. You know, of course there are, there are processes, right? If someone comes to us and says, okay, well then give us all of your conversations. Um, you know, at that point you go to court, you, you file, you know, a motion, [00:49:00] uh, to quash the subpoena depending on where you are. And you go to the judge and you say, gimme a break.

Joshua White: Uh, you know this, we tried to respond to the subpoena, but we just don’t have the information. And we did this on purpose because it’s really important to us to protect the anonymity of our callers.

Joe Moore: Cool. Um. I’ve never had to write or respond to a subpoena.

Joshua White: Consider yourself lucky.

Joe Moore: Only been served papers, papers once, which is nice.

Joe Moore: So, um, yeah, this is a, it’s an interesting structure and it’s, it’s obviously an important exercise. Um, can you go through this like, training purpose concept one more time and then we can jump a little bit forward? I just wanna make sure I totally get it

Joshua White: right. So me meaning how do we use calls for training purposes?

Joe Moore: Well, no, no. What is, like when you were talking about like consent and [00:50:00] training purpose in like the same kind of structure. Like what is, what is that about?

Joshua White: Well, the notion is that if I, I think ethically, if someone is. Providing consent. The question is, what are they consenting to, right? And so if we said calls are used for training purposes, but what we were actually doing was selling the calls to Facebook, then we would be violating the terms of the consent because someone would’ve consented to one thing and we would’ve done another thing.

Joshua White: Um, and so here, when we say calls are used for training purposes, what that means is the only purposes for which we could use them are training. Now, there is a laundry list of training purposes that we, that we use them for, right? To train supervisors. To train volunteers. Lucy is one of those training purposes.

Joshua White: So to, just to give you a really, really specific example, um, you know. We, we haven’t built [00:51:00] out this module yet, but you know what I, as what I said earlier, new volunteers are gonna be doing their new volunteer training and they’ll spend time with Lucy, right? So for example, there will be a 9 1 1 module and there will be a 9 1 9 8, 8 module.

Joshua White: But not just that, the person will be literally given feedback afterwards that says like, you know, take for the caller told you. Lucy told you multiple times that she wished her life would come to an end, or she wished the pain would all go away. And you, as the volunteer didn’t ask the question that we instruct our volunteers to ask, which is, I heard you say that you were thinking of taking your life.

Joshua White: Are you thinking of dying by suicide? And if the answer is yes, then the call is outside of our scope and we transfer them. So there’s no question that like, this will make volunteers far more prepared, uh, to, to, to do, to do this work. And I think that’s really like when we’re thinking about this, like kind [00:52:00] of just candidly, it’s a complex and nuanced ethics analysis.

Joshua White: If you have the ability to create a tool like this and you don’t do it, that has an ethical consequence too, which is that our volunteers are less prepared to support people in high stakes situations just as we know that within the psychedelic field. It is dangerous to not have sufficient experiential training.

Joshua White: Like that’s not abstract. If you talk to any professor training program, they are clawing to try to find experiential training. But it’s hard, uh, because psychedelics are still illegal in most places. And so there is a real, like, I think part of the ethical analysis, I would say is the cost of not doing it, and the implications for our volunteers, for our callers, for the community.

Joe Moore: Um, yeah, I think that that calculus [00:53:00] is important to have there. Right? It’s, it’s kind of this like opportunity costs, like

Joshua White: right.

Joe Moore: And um, yeah, just how many people can, I think a metric is how many people can be diverted appropriately. From 9 1 1 and emergency rooms. Totally. For folks that, dunno,

Joshua White: that’s a great example.

Joshua White: If a, if a volunteer is not experienced and when they hear someone say, I’m, I’m panicking and I think I’m gonna die. Let’s just say if that volunteer connects the person to 9 1 1. That can be seriously harming the person. Right? The caller. But if the volunteer is able to say, I hear you. It sounds like you’re in a lot of pain and you’re in a lot of stress and I’m gonna be here with you for as long as you need.

Joshua White: How does that sound? And if the volunteer stays grounded, that’s, that is, that’s, that is a powerful, powerful moment [00:54:00] there that, that could have had a significant implication on the person’s life. And there’s no doubt that an experience in the same way, coming back to your avalanche thing, like if you, if you spend a bunch of time like pilots get, be, it’s not a, it’s not an abstract thing that well done simulators produce better outcomes than people who have no simulation experience.

Joe Moore: Right. And I, I keep thinking about like, call it like a, uh, a surgical simulator. Like of course I want the doctor to do 100 simulations perfectly before jumping into me. We had, you know. Yeah, so there’s, there’s plenty of things here around that, and I, I love it and I, I applaud that. I think there’s, um, I don’t, I don’t know what people are saying.

Joe Moore: I haven’t been following super carefully, you know, after so long, social media becomes like a little bit tiresome.

Joshua White: Totally.

Joe Moore: But, uh,

Joshua White: well, it’s, it’s interesting because like, it all [00:55:00] depends. There’s, I, I could give you a snapshot, right? So it depends on, it depends on who you’re talking to and where you’re talking to them, right?

Joshua White: So. Conversations with training programs, universities, researchers, organizations that need to train. Lots of people say, this is incredible. Um, it’s so needed. Many of our volunteers, the, the vast majority of our volunteers, this is amazing on LinkedIn, we, we do posts about this. And when people are commenting from a LinkedIn profile, which they have to, the results are very, very positive.

Joshua White: And this is exciting when people, this is so rich, right? When people go on a meta platform such as ig, where inflammatory posts are rewarded, where data is taken and repurposed, there is, there are people who have criticisms, some of which I think are, are. Not connected in any way to what lucid is, right?

Joshua White: Some people say it’s [00:56:00] messed up that you’re gonna replace humans with ai. Well, that’s not what this is. Um, you know, AI is gonna destroy the world. Um, that might be true. But Lucy, this minuscule little thing is not really that AI is bad for the environment. Totally. AI is bad for the environment, is this tiny little, you know, engine that could meaningfully contribute to environmental destruction.

Joshua White: Absolutely not. Um, and then there have been some, you know, people who have, you know, talked about the consent piece, but there’s no nuance that you can really have in that type of conversation. Um, and so I actually think that like in con in conversations like this one, in conversations with volunteers, you know, that it’s really, and staff.

Joshua White: I think the, I think our position is really, really strong, especially when you really hear like, so why are you doing this again? And what’s the cost of not doing it? And what are the anonymization and obfuscation procedures actually, but it’s [00:57:00] hard. It’s hard because just simply hearing AI chatbot, which, which is a term that I don’t really use anymore because it just precipitates this, this reaction that is totally justifiable, that really just has nothing to do with Lucy.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, what are you hoping for beyond training Fireside volunteers with Lucy

Joshua White: beyond training fireside volunteers?

Joe Moore: Yeah. Like do you, are there other kind of partnerships you’re looking at?

Joshua White: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I, I think like when we talk about this kind of. Critical and dangerous bottleneck within the field.

Joshua White: Um, like where is that bottleneck? Right? So one example is universities, right? Um, we talked about ep, which is training professors. We would love, you know, we’re in conversations with ep. We would love for every single student to have access to Lucy. Um, [00:58:00] we’re, you know, we hear from different training programs that say, Hey, this would be a great way to integrate experiential training into our program.

Joshua White: Um, maybe even as a way of, of, of supplementing a addition, uh, existing experiential opportunities. Um, you know, there are, you know, the VA is gonna need to train tens of thousands of therapists how to, if, if MDMA gets approved, which we hope it does. Uh, and so a lot of those therapists have no experience whatsoever with psychedelics.

Joshua White: Right? You wanna talk about a potentially dangerous situation, someone who has no experience with psychedelic. In an MDMA session, uh, trying to support a veteran. So I think that, you know, that would be a really exciting partnership. Um, so really just like pick an organization in the field that’s, that provides training and we’re, you know, really open to, uh, talking to ’em.

Joshua White: We’ve also heard, I mean, you know, I think it’s really interesting with, you know, you talk about, um, like first responders, [00:59:00] you know, there’s some great training programs out there like Maps has created to train first responders, emergency room doctors and so forth. So if you’re gonna be interacting with someone on psychedelics, some training is required.

Joshua White: And I think this can really, like, fit into a lot of those, is our hope.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Yeah. I think the first responder thing’s really special and interesting because, um. You know, looking at the DARE training, I, you know, if I’m, if I’m high, I am just gonna like flip over cars or something and like, you know, police don’t necessarily know better and Right.

Joe Moore: This is a cool way to kind of humanize it.

Joshua White: Yeah. And I think, you know, the beauty of this is that, you know, it, it really of Lucy is, it really can synergize with existing training programs. So, so ma like I said, MAPS has created a first responder training there. I think it’s, you, you would know better than me, but I think it’s been implemented in Denver or it’s on the way to being implemented.

Joshua White: And so this could be, you know, [01:00:00] part, part of that. Another first responder, you know, OHSU is working on a first responder training as well.

Joe Moore: I heard they’re gonna leverage a lot of the existing Denver training, which is cool, um, to make that a little bit smoother of a process. So I, I love that. And I think OSU did partner with maps on that.

Joshua White: Oh, got it. Yeah. So there’s,

Joe Moore: yeah.

Joshua White: Why not play well together? I mean, that’s the thing is I think like,

Joe Moore: right,

Joshua White: if you’ve already created substantive materials, great. Now you can just slide in a a, a simulation tool and everyone wins.

Joe Moore: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, what’s, what’s next beyond Lucy for Fireside?

Joshua White: That’s a great question.

Joshua White: Um, well, I mean, I think that we’re, you know, we’re coming up on our 1000th coaching session, which is really exciting. I think like one of the areas that I’m most passionate about is, you know, what, what does the continuum of care within the psychedelic field look like? In [01:01:00] other words. What types of people are providing support in a, in a wraparound way around the psychedelic experience.

Joshua White: And I think we’ve had an overemphasis on therapy. Like therapy is amazing for some people some of the time, and not everyone can afford therapy. And, and it may be an imperfect fit for some people. And so we really feel like coaching should be part of that continuum of care. And so our coaching program is kind of one answer to that.

Joshua White: And then the other thing is just awareness of the support line, right? Um, you know, I really want people to think, okay, you know, emergency medical is 9 1 1, suicidality is 9 8, 8 psychedelics, fireside. Uh, and I think that that awareness building takes a lot of time. And I would love for us to be able to get to the point where we’re just a kind of a household name where schools know about us and so forth.

Joshua White: So that’s, there’s no silver bullet for that. Uh, meaning there’s no one way to get the word out, but we’re [01:02:00] really trying.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Love that. Um, any calls to action for folks out there before we kind of wrap up here?

Joshua White: Yeah, I think the calls to action would be download our free mobile app. Uh, you can, it’s, it’s for iPhone and for, um, Google Play, whatever the Google, Android.

Joshua White: And, uh, it’s, it’s really easy when you open it up. It has two buttons, call and text. And, um, so that, I would say that, um, if you’re interested in volunteering, as I mentioned, we do three to four trainings per year. And you can learn about volunteering by signing up on our website, fireside project.org or through our social media, uh, at Fireside project.

Joshua White: And the final thing is just tell your community about, about Fireside and invite people to put our number in your phone so that it’s there when you need it.

Joe Moore: Brilliant. Joshua White, thank you so much. Thanks for being here. Thanks for all the hard work and hope we get to do it again.

Joshua White: I hope [01:03:00] so too. Thanks for a really great conversation.

December 27, 2025June 11, 2026

Chronic Pain, Illicit Markets, and a Preventable Pipeline to Addiction

Chronic pain is one of the most common and least discussed entry points into substance-related harm in the United States. Long before heroin or illicitly manufactured fentanyl appear in a person’s life, many people are simply trying to endure severe, persistent physical pain. Opioids have long been central to that effort. They are not a mistake. They remain indispensable in surgery, cancer care, trauma medicine, and some forms of chronic pain management.

The problem is not opioids themselves. The problem is how pain is managed, regulated, and constrained in the United States today.

I write in part from personal experience. I lived with chronic pain for many years, from my early 20s through most of my 30s. I also write from years of study and work in this field.

For many people living with chronic pain, long-term opioid therapy initially provides stability, functionality, and the ability to work, care for family, and participate in daily life. Over time, stigma, regulatory pressure, and fragmented care can erode that stability. Patients on chronic opioid therapy are increasingly viewed through a lens of suspicion and liability rather than continuity of care. Prescriptions may be tapered or discontinued abruptly. This is improving in some places, but clinicians still fear legal and professional consequences, and patients fear being labeled, abandoned, or criminalized. This is often where risk meaningfully increases. The evidence bears this out: a 2021 JAMA study found that patients on stable, long-term opioid therapy who were tapered had a 68% increase in overdose events and roughly twice the rate of mental health crises compared with patients who were not tapered, with the greatest risk among those facing faster reductions and higher starting doses. A 2022 follow-up found the elevated risk persisted up to two years after the taper began.

When people lose access to prescribed opioids, most do not immediately turn to heroin or fentanyl. Many first seek illicitly obtained pharmaceutical opioids: OxyContin and similar medications made by pharmaceutical companies but sold outside the medical system. These substances feel familiar and, relative to non-clinical drugs, safer. The limiting factor is cost. Illicit pharmaceutical opioids are expensive, and maintaining a supply can quickly become financially unsustainable.

As pain persists, tolerance increases, and access to consistent medical care diminishes, economic pressure intensifies. Cheaper alternatives become more attractive. Heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are far less expensive and far more potent. They are also far more dangerous in this illicit context. This transition is rarely driven by recklessness or a desire to “get high.” It is more often driven by price, access, desperation, and untreated pain. It is one of the clearest and most preventable pathways from chronic pain into high-risk opioid use and overdose.

These dynamics did not emerge in isolation. They are a predictable consequence of prohibition-based drug policy and aggressive criminalization of drug supply. In such systems, people managing pain are forced to navigate unstable and increasingly lethal markets rather than receiving long-term, adaptive care. Potency, unpredictability, and contamination become structural features of supply rather than exceptions.

Precision matters here. Opioids are not inherently the problem. Fentanyl is one of the most effective analgesics ever developed and remains indispensable in regulated medical settings. Risk escalates when people are pushed out of supervised care and into illicit supply chains that reward potency over safety.

What remains largely absent is a middle path: a pain-care model that treats opioids as valuable but incomplete tools, and that offers additional ways to reduce suffering without forcing patients into all-or-nothing choices.

This is where psychedelics warrant careful, serious consideration. Not as a fix for the overdose crisis, and not for everyone in pain. The evidence so far is narrow, and it is worth being precise about what it actually covers.

Psychedelics and Chronic Pain: What the Evidence Shows

The published work on psychedelics and chronic pain is still small: a handful of mechanistic reviews and individual case reports, with no large randomized controlled trials completed to date. Within those limits, certain psychedelics may influence pain intensity, pain perception, and functional outcomes when used carefully alongside adjunctive therapies. The proposed mechanisms are distinct from opioids and include modulation of central sensitization, emotional processing, inflammation, and the maladaptive fear-pain feedback loops that can entrench chronic pain.

A review by Castellanos et al. describes how classic psychedelics act primarily through serotonin 5-HT2A receptor agonism, initiating downstream processes associated with neuroplasticity, altered functional connectivity, and anti-inflammatory signaling. Chronic pain conditions, particularly centralized pain syndromes, are increasingly understood as disorders of maladaptive neural circuitry rather than purely peripheral injury. Psychedelics may temporarily destabilize rigid brain networks, allowing reorganization toward less pain-dominant patterns.

The review identifies conditions such as complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), phantom limb pain, and other centralized pain syndromes as candidates for investigation. The biological rationale is coherent and consistent with contemporary pain neuroscience, but it remains a rationale, not a result.

Case-Level Signals

A few published case reports illustrate what an integrated, non-opioid-centered pain-care model might look like.

In one documented case, an individual experienced severe phantom limb pain following amputation, a condition closely linked to cortical reorganization and central sensitization. After a structured program involving psilocybin alongside adjunctive therapies, pain intensity decreased substantially and remained lower over time. Similar outcomes have been reported combining psilocybin with mirror therapy for phantom limb pain.

In another case, a person lived with refractory complex regional pain syndrome for more than a decade, with pain consistently rated at extreme levels. Despite aggressive conventional treatment, including high-dose ketamine infusions, functional improvement was limited. Following a structured course involving psilocybin and adjunctive therapies, the individual reported meaningful reductions in pain and regained previously lost functions, including driving and fine motor control. These outcomes align with a 2024 case report describing substantial functional improvement in refractory CRPS following psilocybin use. Hear directly from the patient on the Psychedelics Today podcast.

These are signals, not proof. They suggest existing pain-care paradigms may be incomplete and that additional tools deserve rigorous study. They do not establish that psychedelics work for chronic pain at scale, and they say nothing yet about the much larger population caught in the opioid pipeline described above.

That gap is the point. Even if psychedelics eventually help a subset of patients with centralized pain, the people most exposed to overdose are not waiting on a new molecule. They are waiting on a system that does not push them off prescribed medication and into a contaminated illicit supply. The case for studying psychedelics seriously and the case for fixing pain care are related but separate, and conflating them helps no one.

One caveat worth keeping in view: this research is early and concentrated among a small, overlapping group of clinicians and advocates, several of whom are affiliated with the organizations now advancing the work.

This work is being advanced by organizations such as the Psychedelics & Pain Association, which supports interdisciplinary collaboration, research coordination, and responsible evidence-building around psychedelic approaches to pain. The goal is not to replace opioids or to romanticize psychedelics. It is to expand the clinical toolkit with rigor, ethics, and care.

The current system pushes people in pain toward the most dangerous drug supply available, then treats the result as a failure of character rather than policy. Any serious alternative has to start there. Psychedelics may turn out to be one piece of that alternative. Right now they are a research question worth funding, not an answer worth selling.

Donate to Psychedelics and Pain Association and join our newsletter here. The author is a founding board member of Psychedelics and Pain Association.

December 22, 2025June 11, 2026

Tricia Eastman: Seeding Consciousness, Ancestral Wisdom, and Psychedelic Initiation

In this live episode, Tricia Eastman joins to discuss Seeding Consciousness: Plant Medicine, Ancestral Wisdom, Psychedelic Initiation. She explains why many Indigenous initiatory systems begin with consultation and careful assessment of the person, often using divination and lineage-based diagnostic methods before anyone enters ceremony. Eastman contrasts that with modern frameworks that can move fast, rely on short trainings, or treat the medicine as a stand-alone intervention.

Early Themes: Ritual, Preparation, and the Loss of Container

Eastman describes her background, including ancestral roots in Mexico and her later work at Crossroads Ibogaine in Mexico, where she supported early ibogaine work with veterans. She frames her broader work as cultural bridging that seeks respect rather than fetishization, and assimilation into modern context rather than appropriation.

Early discussion focuses on:

Why initiatory traditions emphasize purification, preparation, and long timelines
Why consultation matters before any high-intensity medicine work
How decades of training shaped traditional initiation roles
Why people can get harmed when they treat medicine as plug and play

Core Insights: Alchemy, Shadow, and Doing the Work

A major throughline is Eastman’s critique of the belief that a psychedelic alone will erase trauma. She argues that shadow work remains part of the human condition, and that healing is less about a one-time fix and more about building capacity for relationship with the unconscious. Using alchemical language, she describes “nigredo” as fuel for the creative process, not as something to eliminate forever.

Key insights include:

Psychedelics are tools, not saviors
You cannot outsource responsibility to a pill, a modality, or a facilitator
Progress requires practice, discipline, and honest engagement with what arises
“Healing” often shows up as obstacles encountered while trying to live and create

Later Discussion and Takeaways: Iboga, Ethics, and Biocultural Stewardship

Joe and Tricia move into a practical and ethically complex discussion about iboga supply chains, demand pressure, and the risks of amplifying interest without matching it with harm reduction and reciprocity. Eastman emphasizes medical screening, responsible messaging, and supporting Indigenous-led stewardship efforts. She also warns that harm can come from both under-trained modern facilitators and irresponsible people claiming traditional legitimacy.

Concrete takeaways include:

Treat iboga and ibogaine as high-responsibility work that demands safety protocols
Avoid casual marketing that encourages risky self-administration
Support Indigenous-led biocultural stewardship and reciprocity efforts
Give lineage carriers a meaningful seat at the table in modern policy and clinical conversations

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Tricia Eastman?
Tricia Eastman is an author, facilitator, and founder of Ancestral Heart. Her work focuses on cultural bridging, initiation frameworks, and Indigenous-led stewardship.

What is Seeding Consciousness about?
The book examines plant medicine through initiatory traditions, emphasizing consultation, ritual, preparation, and integration rather than reductionistic models.

Why does Tricia Eastman critique modern psychedelic models?
She argues that many models remove the ritual container and long-form preparation that reduce risk and support deeper integration.

Is iboga or ibogaine safe?
Eastman stresses that safety depends on cardiac screening, careful protocols, and experienced oversight. She warns against informal or self-guided use.

How can people support reciprocity and stewardship?
She encourages donating or supporting Indigenous-led biocultural stewardship initiatives like Ancestral Heart and aligning public messaging with harm reduction.

Closing Thoughts

This episode makes a clear case that Tricia Eastman Seeding Consciousness is not only a book about psychedelics, but a critique of how the field is developing. Eastman argues that a successful future depends on mature containers, serious safety culture, and respectful partnership with lineage carriers, especially as interest in iboga and ibogaine accelerates.

Links

https://www.ancestralheart.com

https://www.innertraditions.com/author/tricia-eastman

Transcript

Joe Moore

Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Joe Moore with you again from Psychedelics Today, joined today by Tricia Eastman. Tricia, you just wrote a book called Seeding Consciousness. We’re going to get into that a bunch today, but how are you today?

[00:00:16.07] – Tricia Eastman

I’m so good. It’s exciting to be live. A lot of the podcasts I do are offline, and so it’s like we’re being witnessed and feels like just can feel the energy behind It’s great.

[00:00:31.11] – Joe Moore

It’s fun. It’s a totally different energy than maybe this will come out in four months. This is real, and there’s people all over the world watching in real-time. And we’ll get some comments. So folks, if you’re listening, please leave us some comments. And we’d love to chat a little bit later about those.

[00:00:49.23] – Tricia Eastman

I’m going to join the chat so that I can see… Wait, I just want to make sure I’m able to see the comments, too. Do I hit join the chat?

[00:01:01.17] – Joe Moore

Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t. I can throw comments on the screen so we can see them together.

[00:01:07.02] – Tricia Eastman

Cool.

[00:01:08.03] – Joe Moore

Yeah. So it’ll be fun. Give us comments, people. Please, please, please, please. Yeah, you’re all good. So Tricia, I want to chat about your book. Tell us high level about your book, and then we’re going to start digging into you.

[00:01:22.10] – Tricia Eastman

So Seeding Consciousness is the title, and I know it’s a long subtitled Plant Medicine, Ancestral Wisdom, Psychedelic Initiation. And I felt like it was absolutely necessary for the times that we are in right now. When I was in Gabon in 2018, in one of my many initiations, as as an initiative, the Fung lineage of Buiti, which I’ve been practicing in for 11 years now, I was given the instructions. I was given the integration homework to write this book. And I would say I don’t see that as this divine thing, like you were given the assignment. I think I was given the assignment because it’s hard as F to write a book. I mean, it really tests you on so many levels. I mean, even just thinking about putting yourself out there from a legal perspective, and then also, does it make any sense? Will anyone buy it? And on Honestly, it’s not me. It’s really what I was given to write, but it’s based on my experience working with several thousand people over the years. And really, the essence of it is that in our society, we’ve taken this reductionistic approach in psychedelics, where we’ve really taken out the ritual.

[00:02:54.05] – Tricia Eastman

Even now with the FDA trial for MDMA for PTSD. There’s even conversations with a lot of companies that are moving forward, psychedelics, through the FDA process, through that pathway, that are talking about taking the therapy out. And the reality is that in these ancient initiatic traditions, they were very long, drawn out experiences with massive purification rituals, massive amounts of different types of practice in order to prepare oneself to meet the medicine. Different plants were taken, like vomatifs and different types of purification rituals were performed. And then you would go into this profound initiatic experience because the people that were working with you that were in, we call it the Nema, who gives initiations, had decades of training and experience doing these types of initiatic experiences. So if you compare that to the modern day framework, we have people that go online and get a certificate and start serving people medicine or do it in a context where maybe there isn’t even an established container or facilitator whatsoever. And so really, the idea is, how can we take the essence of this ancient wisdom wisdom, like when you look at initiation, the first step is consultation, which is really going deep into the history of the individual using different types of techniques that are Indigenous technologies, such as different forms of divination, such as cowrie shell readings.

[00:04:52.18] – Tricia Eastman

And there’s different types of specific divinations that are done in different branches of And before one individual would even go into any initiation, you need to understand the person and where they’re coming from. So it’s really about that breakdown of all of that, and how can we integrate elements of that into a more modern framework.

[00:05:24.23] – Joe Moore

Brilliant. All right. Well, thank you for that. And let’s chat about you. You’ve got a really interesting past, very dynamic, could even call it multicultural. And you’ve got a lot of experience that informed this book. So how did this stuff come forward for you?

[00:05:50.02] – Tricia Eastman

I mean, I’ve never been the person to seek anything. My family on my mother’s side is from Mexico, from Oaxaca, Trique, Mixtec, and Michica. And we had a long lineage of practice going back to my, at least I know from my great, great grandmother, practicing a blend of mestiza, shamanism, combining centerea and Catholicism together. So it’s more of like a syncratic mestiza, mestiza being mixed tradition. And so I found it really interesting because later on, when my grandfather came to the United States, he ended up joining the military. And in being in the US, he didn’t really have a place. He’s very devout spiritual man, but he didn’t have a place to practice this blended spiritual tradition. So the mystical aspect of it went behind. And as I started reconnecting to my ancestral lineage, this came forth that I was really starting to understand the mystical aspect of my ancestry. And interestingly, at the same time, was asked to work at Crossroads Abigain in Mexico. And it’s so interesting to see that Mexico has been this melting pot and has been the place where Abigain has chosen to plant its roots, so to say, and has treated thousands of veterans.

[00:07:36.28] – Tricia Eastman

I got to be part of the group of facilitators back over 10 years ago. We treated the first Navy Seals with Abogaine, and that’s really spurred a major interest in Abogaine. Now it’s in every headline. I also got 10 I got initiated into the Fung lineage of Buiti and have really studied the traditional knowledge. I created a nonprofit back in 2019 called Ancestral Heart, which is really focused on Indigenous-led stewardship. Really, the book helps as a culmination of the decade of real-world experience of combining My husband, Dr. Joseph Barzulia. He’s a psychologist. He’s also a pretty well-known published researcher in Abigain and 5MEO-DMT, but also deeply spiritual and deeply in respect for the Indigenous traditions that have carried these medicines before us. So we’ve really been walking this complex path of world bridging between how we establish these relationships and how we bring some of these ancient knowledge systems back into the forefront, but not in a way of fetishizing them, but in a way of deeply respecting them and what we can learn, but from our own assimilation and context versus appropriation. So really, I think the body of my work is around that cultural bridging.

[00:09:31.07] – Joe Moore

That’s brilliant. And yeah, there’s some really fun stuff I learned in the book so far that I want to get into later. But next question is, who is your intended audience here? Because this is an interesting book that could hit a few categories, but I’m curious to hear from you.

[00:09:49.02] – Tricia Eastman

It’s so funny because when I wrote the book, I wasn’t thinking, oh, what’s my marketing plan? What’s my pitch? Who’s my intended audience? Because it was my homework, and I knew I needed to write the book, and maybe that was problematic in the sense that I had to go to publishers and have a proposal. And then I had to create a formula in hindsight. And I would say the demographic of the book mirrors the demographic of where people are in the psychedelic space, which It’s skewed slightly more male, although very female. I think sex isn’t necessarily important when we’re thinking about the level of trauma and the level of spiritual healing and this huge deficit that we have in mental health, which is really around our disconnection from our true selves, from our heart, from our souls, from this idea of of what Indigenous knowledge systems call us the sacred. It’s really more of an attitude of care and presence. I’m sure we could give it a different name so that individuals don’t necessarily have any guard up because we have so much negative conditioning related to the American history of religion, which a lot of people have rejected, and some have gone back to.

[00:11:37.06] – Tricia Eastman

But I think we need to separate it outside of that. I would say the demographic is really this group of I would say anywhere from 30 to 55 male females that are really in this space where maybe they’re doing some of the wellness stuff. They’re starting to figure some things out, but it’s just not getting them there. And when something happens in life, for example, COVID-19 would be a really great example. It knocks them off course, and they just don’t have the tools to find that connection. And I would say it even spans across people that do a lot of spiritual practice and maybe are interested in what psychedelics can do in addition to those practices. Because when we look at my view on psychedelics, is they fit within a whole spectrum of wellness and self-care and any lineage of spiritual practice, whether it’s yoga or Sufism or Daoist tradition. But they aren’t necessarily the thing that… I think there’s an over focus on the actual substance itself and putting it on a pedestal that I think is problematic in our society because it goes back to our religious context in the West is primarily exoteric, meaning that we’re seeking something outside of ourselves to fulfill ourselves.

[00:13:30.29] – Tricia Eastman

And so I think that when we look at psychedelic medicines as this exoteric thing versus when we look at initiatory traditions are about inward and direct experience. And all of these spiritual practices and all of these modalities are really designed to pull you back into yourself, into having a direct relationship with yourself and direct experience. And I feel like the minute that you are able to forge that connection, which takes practice and takes discipline, then you don’t need to necessarily look at all these other tools outside of yourself. It’s like one of my favorite analogies is the staff on the Titanic were moving the furniture around as it was sinking, thinking that they might save the boat from sinking by moving the furniture around. I think that’s how we’ve been with a lot of ego-driven modalities that aren’t actually going into the full unconscious, which is where we need to go to have these direct experiences. Sorry for the long answer, but it is for everybody, and it’s not just about psychedelics. Anyone can take something from this doing any spiritual work. But we talk a lot about the Indigenous philosophy and how that ties in alongside with spiritual practice and more of this inner way of connecting with oneself and doing the work.

[00:15:21.22] – Tricia Eastman

And I think also really not sugar coating it in the sense that the psychedelics aren’t going to save us. They’re not going to cure PTSD. Nothing you take will. It’s you that does the work. And if you don’t do the work, you’re not going to have an 87 % success rate with opioid use disorder or whatever it is, 60 something % for treatment-resistant depression or whatever. It’s like you have to do the work. And so we can’t keep putting the power in the modality reality or the pill.

[00:16:03.18] – Joe Moore

Yeah, that makes sense. So you did an interesting thing here with this book, and it was really highlighting aspects of the alchemical process. And people don’t necessarily have exposure. They hear the words alchemy. I get my shoulders go up when I hear alchemizing, like transmutation. But it’s a thing. And how do we then start communicating this from Jung? I found out an interesting thing recently as an ongoing student. Carl Jung didn’t necessarily have access to all that many manuscripts. There’s so many alchemical manuscripts available now compared to what he had. And as a result, our understanding of alchemy has really evolved. Western alchemy, European alchemy, everybody. Perhaps Kmetic, too. I don’t know. You could speak to that more. I don’t keep track of what’s revealed in Egypt. So it’s really interesting to present that in a forward way? How has it been received so far? Or were you nervous to present this in this way?

[00:17:25.10] – Tricia Eastman

I mean, honestly, I think the most important The important thing is that in working with several thousand people over the years, people think that taking the psychedelic and the trauma is going to go away. It’s always there. I mean, we We archetypically will have the shadow as long as we need the shadow to learn. And so even if we go into a journey and we transcend it, it’s still there. So I would say that the The feedback has been really incredible. I mean, the people that are reading… I mean, I think because I’m weaving so many different, complex and deep concepts into one book, it might be a little harder to market. And I think the biggest bummer was that I was really trying to be respectful to my elders and not say anything in the title about Iboga and Abigain, even though I talk a lot about it in the book, and it’s such a hot topic, it’s really starting to take off. But the people that have read it really consider it. They really do the work. They do the practices in the book, and I’m just getting really profound feedback. So that’s exciting to me because really, ultimately, alchemy…

[00:18:55.22] – Tricia Eastman

Yeah, you’re right. It gets used Used a lot in marketing lingo and sitting in the depth of the tar pit. For me, when I was in Gabon, I remember times where I really had to look at things that were so dark in my family history that I didn’t even realize were mine until later connected to my lineage. And the dark darkness connected to that and just feeling that and then knowing really the truth of our being is that we aren’t those things. We’re in this process of changing and being, and so nothing is is fixed, but there is a alchemical essence in just learning to be with it. And so not always can we just be with something. And and have it change, but there are many times that we can actually just be with those parts of ourselves and be accepting, where it’s not like you have to have this intellectualized process It’s just like, first you have the negrado, then you tune into the albeda, and you receive the insights, and you journal about it, and da, da, da, da, da Action, Mars aspect of it, the rubeda of the process. It’s not like that at all.

[00:20:44.15] – Tricia Eastman

It’s really that the wisdom that comes from it because you’re essentially digesting black goo, which is metaphoric to the oil that we use to power all of society that’s pulled deep out of the Earth, and it becomes gold. It becomes… And really, the way I like to think of it is like, in life, we are here to create, and we are not here to heal ourselves. So if you go to psychedelic medicine and you want to heal yourself, you’re going to be in for… You’re just going to be stuck and burnt out because that’s not what we’re here to do as human beings, and you’ll never run out of things to heal. But if you You think of the negrado in alchemy as gasoline in your car. Every time you go back in, it’s like refilling your gas tank. And whatever you go back in for as you’re moving in the journey, it’s almost like that bit of negrado is like a lump of coal that’s burning in the gas tank. And that gets you to the next point to which there’s another thing related to the creative process. So it’s like As you’re going in that process, you’re going to hit these speed bumps and these obstacles in the way.

[00:22:07.29] – Tricia Eastman

And those obstacles in the way, that’s the healing. So if you just get in the car in the human vehicle and you drive and you continue to pull out the shadow material and face it, you’re going to keep having the steam, but not just focus on it, having that intention, having that connection to moving forward in life. And I hate to use those words because they sound so growth and expansion oriented, which life isn’t always. It’s evolutionary and deevolutionary. It’s always in spirals. But ultimately, you’re in a creative process would be the best way to orient it. So I think when we look at alchemy from that standpoint, then it’s productive. Effective. Otherwise, it sounds like some brand of truffle salt or something.

[00:23:09.12] – Joe Moore

Yeah, I think it’s a… If people want to dig in, amazing. It’s just a way to describe processes, and it’s super informative if you want to go there, but it’s not necessary for folks to do the work. And I like how you framed it quite a bit. So let’s see. There is one bit, Tricia, that my ears really went up on this one point about a story about Actually, let me do a tangent for you real quick, and then we’re going to come back to this story. So are you familiar with the tribe, the Dogon, in Africa? Of course. Yeah. So they’re a group that looks as though they were involved in Jewish and/or Egyptian traditions, and then ended up on the far side of like, what, Western Africa, far away, and had their own evolution away from Egypt and the Middle East. Fascinating. Fascinating stories, fascinating astronomy, and much more. I don’t know too much about the religion. I love their masks. But this drew an analogy for me, as you were describing that the Buiti often have stories about having lineage to pre-dynastic Egyptian culture. I guess we’ll call it that for now, the Kometic culture.

[00:24:44.23] – Joe Moore

I had not heard that before. Shame on me because I haven’t really read any books about Buiti as a religion or organization, or anything to this point. But I found that really interesting to know that now, at least I’m aware of two groups claiming lineage to that ancient world of magic. Can you speak about that at all for us? Yeah.

[00:25:09.24] – Tricia Eastman

So first off, there really aren’t any books talking about that. Some of the things I’ve learned from elders that I’ve spoke with and asked in different lineages in Masoco and in Fong Buiti, there’s a few things. One, We lived in many different eras. Even if you go into ancient texts of different religions, creation stories, and biblical stories, they talk about these great floods that wiped out the planet. One of the things that Atum talks about, who is one of my Buiti fathers who passed a couple years ago, is Is the understanding that before we were in these different areas, you had Mu or Lumaria, you had Atlantis, and then you had our current timeline. And the way that consciousness was within those timelines was very different and the way the Earth was. You had a whole another continent called Atlantis that many people, even Plato, talks about a very specific location of. And what happened, I believe during that time period, Africa, at least the Saharan band of the desert was much more lush, and it was a cultural melting pot. So if you think about, for example, the Pygmy tribes, which are in Equatorial Africa, they are the ones that introduced Iboga to the Buiti.

[00:27:08.08] – Tricia Eastman

If you look at the history of ancient Egypt, what I’m told is that the Pygmies lived in Pharaonic Egypt, all the way up until Pharaonic Egypt. And there was a village. And if you look on the map in Egypt, you see a town called Bawiti, B-A-W-I-T-I. And that is the village where they lived. And I have an interesting hypothesis that the God Bess, if you look at what he’s wearing, it’s the exact same to a T as what the Pygmies wear. And the inspiration for which a lot of the Buiti, because they use the same symbology, because each part of the outfit, whether it’s the Mocingi, which is like this animal skin, or the different feathers, they use the parrot feather as a symbology of speech and communication, all of these things are codes within the ceremony that were passed along. And so when you look at Bess, he’s wearing almost the exact same outfit that the Pygmies are wearing and very similar to if you see pictures of the ceremonies of Misoko or Gonde Misoko, which I would say is one of the branches of several branches, but that are closer to the original way of Buiti of the jungle, so closer to the way the Pygmies practice.

[00:28:59.16] – Tricia Eastman

So If you look at Bess, just to back my hypothesis. So you look at Neteru. Neteru were the… They called them the gods of Egypt, and they were all giant. And many say the word nature actually means nature, but they really represented the divine qualities of nature. There’s best. Look at him. And a lot of the historians said he’s the God of Harmeline and children and happiness. I think he’s more than the God of Harmeline, and I think that the Pygmies worked with many different plants and medicines, and really the ultimate aspect of it was freedom. If you think about liberation, like the libation, number one, that’s drunkiness. Number two, liberation, you of freeing the joyous child from within, our true nature of who we are. You look at every temple in Egypt, and you look at these giant statues, and then you have this tiny little pygmy God, and there’s no other gods that are like Bess. He’s one of a kind. He’s in his own category. You’ve You’ve got giant Hathor, you’ve got giant Thoth, you’ve got giant Osiris, Isis, and then you’ve got little tiny Bess. And so I think it backs this hypothesis.

[00:30:48.27] – Tricia Eastman

And my understanding from practitioners of Dogon tradition is that they also believe that their ancestors came from Egypt, and they definitely have a lot of similarity in the teachings that I’ve seen and been exposed to just from here. I mean, you can… There’s some more modern groups, and who’s to know, really, the validity of all of it. But there are some, even on YouTube, where you can see there’s some more modern Dogon temples that are talking in English or English translation about the teachings, and they definitely line up with Kamehdi teachings. And so my hypothesis around that is that the Dogon are probably most likely pygmy descendants as, And the pygmy were basically run out of Bawiti because there was jealousy with the priest, because there was competition, because all of the offerings that were being made in the temple, there was a lot of power, connected to each of the temples. And there was competitiveness even amongst the different temples, lining the Nile and all of that, of who was getting the most offerings and who was getting the most visits. And so the Pygmies essentially were run out, and they migrated, some of them migrated south to Gabon and Equatorial Africa.

[00:32:43.07] – Tricia Eastman

And then If you think about the physical changes that happened during these planetary catastrophes, which we know that there had been more than one based on many historical books. So that whole area went through a desertification process, and the Equatorial rainforest remained. So it’s highly likely even that Iboga, at one point, grew in that region as well.

[00:33:18.00] – Joe Moore

Have you ever seen evidence of artwork depicting Iboga there in Egypt?

[00:33:24.17] – Tricia Eastman

There are several different death temples. I’m trying to remember the name of the exact one that I went to, but on the columns, it looked like Iboga trees that were carved into the columns. And I think what’s interesting about this… So Seychet is the divine scribe, the scribe of Egyptian wisdom. And she was basically, essentially the sidekick of Thoth. Thoth was who brought a lot of the ancient wisdom and people like Pythagoras and many of the ancient philosophers in Roman times went and studied in a lot of these Thoth lineage mystery schools. When you look at the the river of the Nile on the east side, east is the energy liturgy of initiation. It’s always like if you go into a sweat lodge or if you see an ancient temple, usually the doorway is facing the east. West is where the sun sets, and so that’s the death. And what’s interesting about that is that it was on the west side in the death temple that you would see these aboga plants. But also Seixat was the one who was the main goddess depicted in the hieroglyphs, and there was other hieroglyphs. I mean, if you look at the hieroglyphs of Seixat, it looks like she has a cannabis leaf above her head, and a lot of people have hypothesized that, that it’s cannabis.

[00:35:16.03] – Tricia Eastman

Of course, historians argue about that. And then she’s also carrying a little vessel that looks like it has some mushrooms in it. And obviously, she has blue Lotus. Why would she be carrying around blue Lotus and mushrooms? I don’t know. It sounds like some initiation.

[00:35:36.19] – Joe Moore

Yeah, I love that. Well, thanks so much for going there with me. This photo of Seixet. There’s some good animations, but everybody just go look at the temple carvings picturing this goddess. It’s stunning. And obviously, cannabis. I think it’s hard to argue not. I’ve seen all these like, mushroom, quote, unquote, mushroom things everywhere. I’m like, Yeah, maybe. But this is like, Yes, that’s clear.

[00:36:06.27] – Tricia Eastman

And if you look at what she’s wearing, it’s the exact same outfit as Bess, which is classic Basically, how the medicine woman or medicine man or what you would call shaman, the outfit that the healers would wear, the shamans or the oracles, those of the auracular arts, different forms of divination would wear. So if you really follow that and you see, Oh, what’s Isis wearing? What’s Hathor wearing? What’s Thoth wearing? You can tell she’s very specifically the healer. And it’s interesting because they call her the divine scribe. So she’s actually downloading, my guess is she’s taking plants and downloading from the primordial.

[00:37:02.00] – Joe Moore

Well, okay. Thanks for bringing that up. That was a lovely part of your book, was your… There’s a big initiation sequence, and then you got to go to this place where you could learn many things. Could you speak to that a little bit? And I hope that’s an okay one to bring up.

[00:37:22.22] – Tricia Eastman

Are you talking about the time that I was in initiation and I went to the different ashrams, the different realms in, like Yogananda calls them astral schools that you go and you just download? It seemed like astral schools, but it seemed like it was a Bwiti initiation, where you were in silence for three days, and then Yeah, that one. So there were several different… I mean, I’ve done seven official initiations, and then I’ve had many other initiatic experiences. And I would say this one was incredible. Incredibly profound because what it showed me first was that all of the masters of the planet, it was showing me everyone from Kurt Cobain to Bob Marley to Einstein, all the people that had some special connection to an intelligence that was otherworldly, that they were essentially going to the same place, like they were visiting the same place, and they would go. And so the first thing I noticed was that I recognized a lot of people, and current, I’m not going I don’t want to say names of people, but I recognize people that are alive today that I would say are profound thinkers that were going to these places as well.

[00:38:57.05] – Tricia Eastman

And interestingly, then I was taken into one of the classrooms, and in the classroom, this one, specifically, it showed me that you could download any knowledge instantaneously That essentially, having a connection to that school allowed you to download music or understand very complex ideas ideas of mathematics or physics or science that would take people like lifetimes to understand. So it was essentially showing this. And a lot of people might discredit that, that that might be a specific… That we as humans can do that. Well, I’m not saying that it’s not that. I don’t I don’t want to say that it’s anything. But what I can say is that I have definitely noticed the level of access that I have within my consciousness. And also what I notice with the masters of Bwiti, specifically in terms of the level of intelligence that they’re accessing and that it’s different. It’s got a different quality to it. And so it was a really profound teaching. And one of the things, too, that I’ve learned is I use it to help me learn specific things. I don’t know if I can give a positive testimonial, but I am learning French.

[00:40:55.00] – Tricia Eastman

And I noticed when I was in Aspen at the Abigain meeting, and I was with Mubeiboual, who speaks French, I started saying things French that I didn’t even realize that I knew to say. I’ve had these weird moments where I’m actually using this tool And I’m also using it. I have a Gabonese harp. I don’t know if you can see it up on the shelf over there. But I also went and asked for some help with downloading some assistance in the harp, then we’ll see how that goes.

[00:41:38.17] – Joe Moore

Yeah. So that’s brilliant. I’m thinking of other precedent for that outside of this context, and I can think of a handful. So I love that, like savant syndrome. And then there’s a classic text called Ars Notoria that helps accelerate learning, allegedly. And then there’s a number of other really interesting things that can help us gain these bits of wisdom and knowledge. And it does feel a little bit like the Dogon. The story I get is the receiving messages from the dog star, and therefore have all sorts of advanced information that they shouldn’t we call it. Yeah. Yeah, which is fascinating. We have that worldwide. I think there’s plenty of really interesting stuff here. So what I appreciated, Tricia, about how you’re structuring your book, or you did structure your book, is that it it seems at the same time, a memoir, on another hand, workbook, like here are some exercises. On the other hand, like here’s some things you might try in session. I really appreciated that. It was like people try to get really complicated when we talk about things like IFS. I’m like, well, you don’t necessarily have to. You could. Or is this just a human thing, a human way to look at working with our parts?

[00:43:20.15] – Joe Moore

I don’t know. Do you have any thoughts about the way you were approaching this parts work in your book versus how complicated some people make it feel?

[00:43:30.00] – Tricia Eastman

Yeah. I find that this is just my personal opinion, and no way to discredit Richard Schwartz’s work. But parts work has existed in shamanism since forever. When we really look at even in ancient Egypt, Issus, she put Osiris act together. That was the metaphorical story of soul retrieval, which is really the spiritual journey of us reclaiming these pieces of ourselves that we’ve been disconnected from a society level or individually. And within the context of parts work, it’s very organic and it feels other worldly. It’s not like there’s ever a force where I’m in the process with someone. And a lot of times I would even go into the process with people because they weren’t accustomed to how to work with Iboga or game, and so they would be stuck. And then the minute I was like, you know, Iboga, in the tradition, it’s really about… It’s like the game Marco Polo. It’s call and response. And so you’re really an active participant, and you’re supposed to engage with the spirits. And so the minute that things would show up, it’d be more about like, oh, what do you see? What’s coming up here? Asking questions about it, being curious.

[00:45:17.07] – Tricia Eastman

If you could engage with it, sometimes there’s processes where you can’t really engage with things at all. So everything that I’m talking about is It was organically shown up as an active engagement process that it wasn’t like we were going in. There have been some where you can guide a little bit, but you never push. It might be something like, go to your house, and it being completely unattached. And if they can’t go there, then obviously the psyche doesn’t want to go there, but it’s really an exercise to help them to connect to their soul. And then in contrast, IFS is like, let’s work on these different parts and identify these different parts of ourselves. But then let’s give them fixed titles, and let’s continually in a non-altered state of consciousness, not when we’re meditating, not when we’re actively in a state where we have the plasticity to change the pathway in the unconscious mind, but we’re working in the egoic mind, and we’re talking to these parts of ourselves. That could be helpful in the day-to-day struggles. Let’s say you have someone who has a lot of rumination or a very active mind to have something to do with that.

[00:46:57.01] – Tricia Eastman

But that’s not going to be the end-all, be-all solution to their problem. It’s only moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic because you’re still working in the framework where, I’m sorry, the Titanic is still sinking, and it may or may not be enough. It may or may not produce a reliable outcome that could be connected with some level of true relief and true connection within oneself. And so I think that people just… I feel like they almost get a little too… And maybe it’s because we’re so isolated and lonely, it’s like, Oh, now I’ve got parts. I’m not by myself. I’ve got my fire I’ve got my firefighter, and I’ve got my guardian, and all these things. And I definitely think that IFS is a really great initiator into the idea of engaging with parts of ourselves and how to talk to them. But I don’t think it’s… And I think doing a session here and there, for some people, can be incredibly helpful, but to all of a sudden incorporate it in like a dogma is toxic. It’s dangerous. And that’s what we have to be really careful of.

[00:48:23.25] – Joe Moore

So thank you for that. There’s a complicated discussion happening at the Aspen meeting. I think I was only sitting maybe 30 feet away from you. Sorry, I didn’t say hi. But the folks from Blessings of the Forest were there, and I got a chance to chat with a number of them and learn more about nuclear protocols, biopiracy, literal piracy, and smuggling, and the works. I’m curious. This is a really complicated question, and I’m sorry for a complicated question this far in. But it’s like, as we talk about this stuff publicly and give it increased profile, we are de facto giving more juice and energy to black markets to pirate. We’re adding fuel to this engine that we don’t necessarily want to see. Cameroon has nothing left, pretty much. From what I’m told, people from Cameroon are coming in, stealing it from Cabona, bringing it back, and then shipping it out. And there’s It’s like a whole worldwide market for this stuff. I witnessed it. This stuff. Yeah, right? This is real. So the people, the Buiti, and certain Gabanese farmers, are now being pirated. And international demand does not care necessarily about Nagoya compliance. United States didn’t sign Nagoya protocol for this biopiracy protection, but we’re not the only violator of these ethics, right?

[00:50:00.22] – Joe Moore

It’s everywhere. So how do we balance thinking about talking about IBOCA publicly, given that there’s no clean way to get this stuff in the United States that is probably not pirated materials? And as far as I know, there’s only one, quote unquote, Nagoya compliant place. I’ve heard stories that I haven’t shared publicly yet, that there’s other groups that are compliant, too. But it’s a really interesting conversation, and I’m curious of your perspectives there.

[00:50:34.04] – Tricia Eastman

I mean, this is a very long, drawn-out question, so forgive me if I give you a long, drawn-out answer.

[00:50:41.01] – Joe Moore

Go for it.

[00:50:41.26] – Tricia Eastman

It’s all good. So in reality, I do believe… You know the first Ebo, Abogaine, that was done in the country was experiments on eight Black prisoners at a hospital under the MK program.

[00:51:01.16] – Joe Moore

Pre-lutz off, we were doing Abogaine tests on people.

[00:51:06.00] – Tricia Eastman

Yeah, so pre-Lutz off. I have a hypothesis, although a lot of people would already know me.

[00:51:12.07] – Joe Moore

No, I didn’t know that. Thank you for sharing that with me.

[00:51:14.13] – Tricia Eastman

That’s great. I’ll send you some stuff on that. But the Aboga wanted to be here. The Abogaine wanted to be here. I think it’s a complex question because on one side of the coin, you have the spirit of plants, which are wild and crazy sometimes. And then you have the initiatory traditions, which create a scaffolding to essentially put the lightning in a bottle, so to say, so that it’s less damaging.

[00:51:51.13] – Joe Moore

It’s almost like a temple structure around it.

[00:51:53.16] – Tricia Eastman

I like that. Yeah. Put a temple structure around it because it’s like, yeah, you can work with new nuclear energy, but you have to wear gloves, you have to do all these different safety precautions. I would say that that’s why these traditions go hand in hand with the medicine. So some people might say that the agenda of Iboga and even Abogaine might be a different agenda than the Buiti. And ultimately, whether we are Indigenous or not, the Earth belongs to everyone. It’s capitalism and the patriarchy that created all these borders and all these separations between people. And in reality, we still have to acknowledge what the essence of Buiti is, which is really the cause and effect relationship that we have with everything that we do. And so some people might use the term karma. And that is if you’re in Abogaine clinic and you’re putting a bunch of videos out online, and that’s spurring a trend on TikTok, which we already know is a big thing where people are selling illegal market, iBoga, is Is any of that your responsibility? Yes. And if I was to sit down with a kogi kagaba, which are the mamus from Colombia, or if I were to sit down with a who said, Hey, let’s do a divination, and let’s ask some deep questions about this.

[00:53:54.01] – Tricia Eastman

It would look at things on a bigger perspective than just like, Oh, this person is completely responsible for this. But when we’re talking about a medicine that is so intense, and when I was younger, when I first met the medicine, I first was introduced in 2013 was when I first found out about Abigain and Iboga. And in 2014, I lived with someone who lived with a 14th generation Misoko, maybe it was 10th generation Misoco in Costa Rica. And then he decided to just start serving people medicine. And he left this person paralyzed, one person that he treated for the rest of his life. And Aubrey Marcus, it was his business partner for On It, and he’s publicly talked about this, about the story behind this. If you go into his older podcasts and blog posts and stuff, he talks about the situation. And the reality is that this medicine requires a massive amount of responsibility. It has crazy interactions, such as grapefruit juice, for example, and all kinds of other things. And so it’s not just the responsibility towards the buiti, it’s also the responsibility of, does me talking about this without really talking about the safety and the risks, encourage other people.

[00:55:49.10] – Tricia Eastman

One of the big problems, back in the day, I went to my first guita conference, Global Abogaine Therapy Alliance in 2016. And And then, ISEARs was debating because there was all these people buying Abogaine online and self-detoxing and literally either dying or ending up in the hospital. And they’re like, should we release protocols and just give people instructions on how to do this themselves? And I was like, no, absolutely not. We need to really look at the fact that this is an initiatory tradition, that it’s been practiced for thousands of that the minimum level at which a person is administering in Gabon is 10 years of training. The way that we’ve made up for those mistakes, or sorry, not mistakes, lack of training is that we’ve used medical oversight. Most of the medical oversight that we’ve received has been a result of mistakes that were made in the space. The first patient that MAPS treated, they killed them because they gave them way over the amount of what milligrams per kilogram of Abigain that you should give somebody. Every single mistake that was made, which a lot of them related to loss of life, became the global Abogane Therapy Safety Guidelines.

[00:57:28.19] – Tricia Eastman

And so we’ve already learned from our mistakes here. And so I think it’s really important that we understand that there’s that aspect, which is really the blood on our hands of if we’re not responsible, if we’re encouraging people to do this, and we’re talking about it in a casual way on Instagram. Like, yeah, microdosing. Well, did you know there was a guy prosecuted this last year, personal trainer, who killed someone And from microdosing in Colorado, the event happened in 2020, but he just got sentenced early 2025. These are examples that we need to look at as a collective that we need. So that’s one side of it. And then the other side of it is the reciprocity piece. And the reciprocity piece related to that is, again, the cause and effect. Is A Abogaine clinic talking about doing Abogaine and doing video testimonials, spurring the efforts that are actively being made in Gabon to protect the cultural lineage and to protect the medicine. The reality is every Abogaine clinic is booked out for… I heard the next year, I don’t know if that’s fact or fiction, but someone told me for a year, because because of all the stuff with all the celebrities that are now talking about it.

[00:59:05.20] – Tricia Eastman

And then on top of that, you have all these policy, all these different advocacy groups that are talking about it. Essentially, it’s not going to be seven… It’s going to be, I would say, seven to 10 years before something gets through the FDA. We haven’t even done a phase one safety trial for any of the Abigain that’s being commercialized. And even if there’s some magic that happens within the Trump administration in the next two years that changes the rules to fast track it, it’s not going to cut it down probably more than a year. So then you’re looking at maybe six years minimum. That whole time, all that strain is being put on Gabon. And so if you’re not supporting Gabon, what’s happening is it’s losing a battle because the movement is gaining momentum, and Gabon cannot keep up with that momentum. It’s a tiny country the size of Colorado. So my belief is that anyone who’s benefiting from all the hype around Iboga and Abogayne or personally benefited with healing within themselves should be giving back, either to Ancestral Heart, to Blessings of the Forest, to any group that is doing authentic Indigenous-led biocultural stewardship work.

[01:00:45.21] – Joe Moore

Thanks for that. It’s important that we get into some detail here. I wish we had more time to go further on it.

[01:00:54.17] – Tricia Eastman

I’ll do a quick joke. I know. I have a lot.

[01:00:57.17] – Joe Moore

Yes. Now do Mike Tyson. Kidding. Yeah. So what did we maybe miss that you want to make sure people hear about your book, any biocultural stuff that you want to get out there? You can go for a few more minutes, too, if you have a few things you want to say.

[01:01:20.03] – Tricia Eastman

I mean, really, thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you for caring and being so passionate about the context related to Buiti, which I think is so important. I would just say that I’ve been working with this medicine for… I’ve known about it for 13 years, and I’ve been working with it for 11 years, and this is my life. I’ve devoted my life to this work, me and my husband, both. And there isn’t anything greater of a blessing that it has brought in our life, but it also is it’s a very saturnian energy, so it brings chaos. It brings the deepest challenges and forces you to face things that you need to face. But also on the other side of the coin, everything that I’ve devoted and given back in service to this work has exponentially brought blessing in my life. So again, I see the issue with people doing these shortened processes, whether it’s in an Abigain clinic where you just don’t have the ritualistic sacred aspects of an initiatic context and really the rituals that really help integrate and ground the medicine. But you still have this opportunity to continue to receive the blessings.

[01:03:09.23] – Tricia Eastman

And I really feel in our current psychedelic movement, we essentially have a Bugatti. These medicines are the most finely-tuned sports car that can do every… Even more than that, more like a spaceship. We have this incredible tool, but we’re driving it in first gear. We don’t even really know how to operate it. It’s like, well, I guess you could say flight of the Navigator, but that was a self-driving thing, and I guess, psychedelics are self-driving. But I feel that we are discounting ourselves so greatly by not looking into our past of how these medicines were used. I really think the biggest piece around that is consulting the genuine lineage carriers like Buiti elders, like Mubu Bwal, who’s the head of Maganga Manan Zembe, And giving them a seat at the head of the table, really, because there’s so much I know in my tradition, about what we do to bring cardiac safety. And why is it that people aren’t dying as much in Gabon as they’re dying in Abigan clinics.

[01:04:37.28] – Joe Moore

Shots fired. All right. I like it. Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done here today, I think harm reduction is incredibly important. Let’s stop people dying out there. Let’s do some harm reduction language. I actually was able to sweet talk my way into getting a really cool EKG recently, which I thought really great about. If you can speak clinician, you can go a long way sometimes.

[01:05:11.20] – Tricia Eastman

Yeah. Oh, no, go ahead. Sorry.

[01:05:15.17] – Joe Moore

No, that’s all. That’s all. So harm reduction is important. How do we keep people safe? How do we keep healing people? And thank you for all your hard work.

[01:05:27.22] – Tricia Eastman

Thank you. I really appreciate it. We’re all figuring it out. No one’s perfect. So I’m not trying to fire any shots at anybody. I’m just like, Guys, please listen. We need to get in right relationship with the medicine. And we need to include these stakeholders. And on the other side of the coin, I just want to add that there’s a lot of irresponsible, claimed traditional practitioners that are running retreat centers in Mexico and Costa Rica and other places that are also causing a lot of harm, too. So the medical monitoring is definitely, if you’re going to do anything, Because these people don’t have the training, the worst thing you could do is not have someone going in blind that doesn’t have training and not have had an EKG and all that stuff. But we’ve got a long way to go, and I’m excited to help support in a productive way, all coming together. And that’s what me and Joseph have been devoted to.

[01:06:45.02] – Joe Moore

Brilliant. Tricia Eastman, thank you so much. Everybody should go check out your book Seeding Consciousness out now. The audiobook’s lovely, too. Thank you so much for being here. And until next time.

[01:07:00.14] – Tricia Eastman

Thank you.

November 28, 2025December 20, 2025

Michael Ryoshin Sapiro, PsyD – Truth Medicine, Psychedelics, and Living Your Truth

PT 642 - Michael Sapiro PhD - Truth Medicine, Psychedelics, and Living Your Truth

In this episode, Michael Sapiro joins Kyle Buller to explore truth, healing, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy through the lens of his new book, Truth Medicine. A clinical psychologist, ordained Zen Buddhist monk, retreat leader, and fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, he blends Buddhist psychology, trauma work, and consciousness studies. The discussion focuses on how people discover and live their truth, and why that truth becomes the core medicine in healing.

Early in the Podcast with Michael Sapiro

Michael describes how years of clinical work and retreat facilitation shaped his understanding of healing. Real transformation happens when people speak truths they have never allowed themselves to say out loud. These truths often relate to childhood experiences, identity, and how people learned to stay safe.

Key early themes include insight into:

• Truth as a physical and emotional “ring” in the body
• Personas formed in childhood to avoid rejection
• Depression and anxiety caused by living from those personas

The conversation explores how frightening it can be to challenge old roles and family narratives, yet how necessary it is for authentic healing.

Core Insights from Michael Sapiro

Michael outlines his model of preparation, psychedelic sessions, and integration, especially in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Preparation often includes discovering what he calls the “heart of the hurt” and building trust for the internal process.

Core insights include:

• Tracing patterns back to their origins in early experience
• Using guided imagery, breathwork, and somatic awareness to practice surrender
• Understanding healing as applying love to wounded parts
• Understanding growth as becoming who you would be without old limits

Additional points:

• Medicine sessions create real practice in letting go
• Defenses should be engaged with, not fought
• Sensations in the body offer essential guidance

Later Discussion and Takeaways with Michael Sapiro

Michael compares one-on-one psychotherapy with retreat work. In group settings he holds space and supports safety, while in individual sessions he uses a blend of silence and active therapeutic guidance.

He also shares personal truth work, including embracing his own “bigness,” understanding ethics as part of spirituality, and learning to endure anxiety without falling into shame. Listeners gain practical guidance for nurturing wounded parts, developing the ability to endure challenging states, and allowing their strengths to emerge.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Michael Sapiro?
Michael Sapiro is a clinical psychologist, ordained Zen Buddhist monk, psychedelic psychotherapist, retreat leader, and research fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

What is the main idea of Truth Medicine by Michael Sapiro?
Truth Medicine teaches that discovering and living one’s personal truth is the core of healing, with psychedelics serving as a tool that helps reveal and embody that truth.

How does Michael Sapiro use ketamine in therapy?
He uses ketamine within a structured model involving preparation, supportive dosing sessions, and integration focused on compassion, endurance, and meaningful change.

Does he only work in group settings?
No. He leads retreats, but much of his work is individual psychedelic psychotherapy focused on trauma, personal truth, and growth.

What can clinicians learn from his approach?
Clinicians can learn how to balance guided intervention with open space, work directly with defenses, and support healing as both love and action.

Closing Thoughts

This conversation with Michael Sapiro offers a grounded, practical view of how truth, compassion, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy can support real change in the current psychedelic resurgence. By blending body awareness, ethical clarity, and personal growth, this episode provides useful guidance for therapists, guides, and seekers who want to bring more truth medicine into their lives and communities.

https://www.michaelsapiro.com

Transcript

Kyle Buller: [00:00:00] Dr. Michael Sapiro, welcome to Psychedelic Today. Really, really excited to have you here.

Mike Sapiro: It’s good to be here. As always, I appreciate you taking time outta your day and talking with me about, uh, the work.

Kyle Buller: Oh, of course. I’m so excited. I’m so excited to dig in. So you have a wonderful new book out called Truth Medicine.

Kyle Buller: Um, and for those that are just tuning in and maybe haven’t heard it, definitely go check it out and I’m sure we’re gonna chat all about the book and [00:01:00] some of the lessons in there, but probably don’t wanna also spoil the book as well, so, so, uh, spoil it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So Mike, um, for those that are just kind of tuning in and, and maybe haven’t come across your work before, can you just do a quick little intro of who is Mike?

Mike Sapiro: Okay. Um, I’m a clinical psychologist by trade. I’m a ordained Zen Buddhist monk. So those two things are, are the kind of basis for my work. The Buddhist influences, Buddhist psychology, and then my clinical psychology training. And most of my work in the last, at least five years, has been focused on first responders and, uh, five years before that combat veterans.

Mike Sapiro: So I’ve been in the special operations community. I’m embedded in the police department and the fire department where I live. Um, and I bring psychedelic psychotherapy to that community. Of course, I also work, you know, with the regular community members as well. So, [00:02:00] uh, the, I, I’m also a fellow at the Noetic Institute of Noetic Sciences, which is an science institute that studies psychic clairvoyancy, tele telepathy, near death experiences, mediumship from a scientific perspective.

Mike Sapiro: So I bring a lot of consciousness science, uh, relevant, um, information into the work I do as well.

Kyle Buller: Wonderful. Yeah, you’ve been doing some really amazing work throughout the years and it’s been cool to see your journey. Um, I think you were probably on the show way back when, like 2017.

Mike Sapiro: Yeah. Quite, quite, quite a few years ago when you guys were just podcasting, you and Joe.

Mike Sapiro: Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. I guess we’re over nine years and I’m just kind of crazy and um, so it’s exciting. You don’t look

Mike Sapiro: older. You haven’t aged much at all,

Kyle Buller: buddy. Thank you. Thank you. Um, cool. So let’s kind of dig in. What is truth medicine? And, you know, I know you’ve been working this space for quite a while and you’ve probably seen so much stuff, but, [00:03:00] um, what was the motivation to write this book and, and get this out to the world?

Mike Sapiro: So I do a variety of things in the field. I’m a psychedelic psychotherapist, which means I do psychotherapy while people are on medicine. And of course dosing is very important so that we can have an in-depth conversation, but also allowing them to disappear, dissociate, um, explore this, their psyche and cosmos simultaneously sometimes, but then use that information for their healing and growth goals.

Mike Sapiro: I have also been leading retreats for 20 some years, and that’s a little bit different work ’cause I’m not really actively involved in doing psychotherapy while people are on retreat. But I do the prep work, trust building, and then integration work on retreat together. And so what I, what I’ve discovered overall of these years is that when people.

Mike Sapiro: [00:04:00] Find their own personal truth. Things they haven’t spoken before but want to, or parts of their identity, they’ve been repressing or sublimating or pushing down is when they really find themselves and finding themselves tends to be the medicine. You know, we think the psychedelic experiences. The thing that changes people, it really gives us information that changes people.

Mike Sapiro: And it’s the information we want to use to heal and to grow. So I’ve discovered that when people discover and speak and live their truth, depression elevates. Like they don’t, they’re not stuck in the mire of depression as much. ’cause they’re really discovering who they are and anxiety lessons because they’re not as scared to say what they need to say or to be the way they need to be.

Mike Sapiro: So I’ve dis, I guess I’ve found over hundreds and hundreds of sessions or more that it’s the truth that really sets us free. It’s the truth. I know we, [00:05:00] that’s such a cliche, but it’s it’s actually true. So I thought we could start there going, what is truth? How do people use it when they find it?

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And I know in the, I I know in the book you mentioned like, you know, you’re not trying to define truth, but maybe some examples of truth.

Kyle Buller: So Yeah. How, what is truth to you? How do people find it?

Mike Sapiro: Well, I, I guess I, I really had a hard time in some way being the one in a book to go, this is what truth is. I mean, that, that’s not my role to define what truth is for people, but I can tell you when people discover their truth, it rings like a bell inside themselves.

Mike Sapiro: And sometimes it’s as simple as going, I’m not okay with how my parents treated me. Mm-hmm. They might come in saying, you know, I’ve done that work. I, I, I’ve forgiven my parents and they’re really good people, and I go, interesting. You know, they may be very good people. I’m not here to. Tell them their parents are not good people, but when their things are hidden, when they actually have experiences that have been repressed or where they haven’t [00:06:00] been truthful with themselves and they’re on medicine and they go, I’m not okay with how I was treated.

Mike Sapiro: It didn’t, it didn’t feel right to me. It might not be, you know, abuse. It might not be to that level, but it certainly could be, you know, having been talked down to, or been told things about themselves that really hurt, that then formed an identity. So when people start talking about, that didn’t work for me, that wasn’t good for me, I don’t like that.

Mike Sapiro: I can see them relaxing and loosening the holds of defenses they have so that they could speak freely about their experiences without defending, um, themselves or other people. So that’s one v version of truth. Have you found that in therapy or the work you do on with psychedelics that people are starting to speak more freely and how does that impact them?

Kyle Buller: Definitely. And I think it’s also scary to get in touch with, and I wonder if you’ve noticed that too. Like, I’ve had clients where they confront it and I think you’ve kind [00:07:00] of alluded to it, maybe push it away. Um, that’s okay. It’s in the past, right? Yeah. Um, but you know, I’ve heard you also speak in the book of like, you know, what happens when we go a little bit deeper into that?

Kyle Buller: Right? Like, um, but it’s scary. It’s really scary because it also, I think then strips away who we are as a, as a person, our personality, our identity, everything we’ve shaped around is then at an existential crisis. If yeah, this is truth, and you start to step into that and who the hell am I?

Mike Sapiro: Yeah, it. It’s scary because there’s emotions we don’t want to feel.

Mike Sapiro: And it’s scary because, like you said, the persona becomes visible to us. The persona that we’ve developed to stay in good graces of our parents, teachers, clergy community, um, the persona we’ve developed to not be rejected and abandoned. We’ll do whatever it takes to be loved and not rejected and not abandoned.

Mike Sapiro: So we create a persona [00:08:00] based on need, right? We don’t want to get kicked out of our house, so we’re gonna kind of, okay, dad, okay, mom. You know, that’s the way it is. Even if it’s negative, I’m gonna take that on and build a persona around myself to live out so I feel safer where I’m living, or so I feel like I’m not afraid of being rejected.

Mike Sapiro: And then when we start accessing the truth. Which is, I don’t want to be those ways. I don’t like those ways I’ve been, I only did that to protect myself, but it’s not serving me. Yeah, that’s scary because we’ve built a life on those personas, and unfortunately that’s depressing as hell to build a life on a persona and not be ourself and not be able to express what’s true for ourselves.

Mike Sapiro: And so yes, we have to do the work around tending, nurturing, being compassionate toward ourself as those personas are seen, recognized, and then ultimately dissolved, which leaves us raw and exposed. And then what? What do we do? That’s the next step.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And I’m curious, you know, you mentioned that like [00:09:00] psychedelics can really kind of like amplify or speed this process up.

Kyle Buller: Um, how important is it to maybe confront some of this stuff before taking psychedelics? Like what does the foundational work look like or what does prep work look like for

Mike Sapiro: that? Absolutely essential because I don’t want someone dropping in and doing this work, um, and unexpectedly recognizing, oh my God, I’m really not who I want to be.

Mike Sapiro: Even though they kind of know that coming in, I do this prep work that I call discovering the Heart of the Hurt. And it is very fast work. And within one to three prep sessions, we’re discovering this stuff before we even get to the ketamine clinic, let’s say. And I’ve heard that those few sessions can, are rapid, people tend to feel like, wow, I’ve discovered something in myself that I’ve been in therapy for five years and I haven’t touched.

Mike Sapiro: It is because what we’re doing is, I’m asking when they get there what, what’s not working [00:10:00] for you in your life, right? And what do you want different? But then where did that start? We’re following what I call a thread to the heart of the hurt. And for almost all of us, it’s in childhood, sometime in early childhood or during adolescence where we start forming these personas.

Mike Sapiro: Or where we start our nicotine or our alcohol habits, you know, and I ask people, when did you start drinking? You know, maybe some of my first responders are like, I don’t wanna drink as much anymore. Well, when did you start? Well, I was 15 when I got kicked outta my house, or my dad and mom divorced and everything fell apart.

Mike Sapiro: Or I was getting hurt by somebody and I started using, and I’m like, well, we’re gonna have to touch that because that most likely is what’s gonna arise for you in session. So we start with those questions, when did you start doing that? And people can really trace the thread to that point where they were hurt and where they started.

Mike Sapiro: Either again, forming the persona or using, uh, substances to cope [00:11:00] or being promiscuous or whatever it is that that no longer works for them. And, and we touch the hurt. We don’t just identify, we’re like, it’s still in you. How does that feel to touch that hurt right now? And we’re doing this before we head into the session.

Mike Sapiro: So we’re already touching the deepest hurt. And then we’re also prepping for what’s it like to surrender, to let go, to trust, to be curious while you’re in session. So I’m doing two things in prep. We’re discovering the heart of the hurt, and then we’re prepping them for a psychedelic experience where you have very little control.

Mike Sapiro: And most people with trauma, that’s very difficult to give up, control and to surrender. Uh, one of my first responders, a a paramedic firefighter, we spent one whole ketamine session just letting go, getting scared, tightening up, letting go, getting scared again, and then letting the thing happen. So I, I prepare them for that as best as I can in the prep [00:12:00] session.

Mike Sapiro: How are you doing that? In the prep session? Mm-hmm. And it’s. It’s easier in the, the actual day of, because it’s, it’s happening, right? The, the tension mm-hmm. In the release. The tension in the release. But I do, uh, there’s meditations I do where we guide as a guided visualization, we’re guiding people to an edge of a cliff.

Mike Sapiro: Standing backward at the cliff and imagining falling backward. I’ve done this in our vital classes too, and people get this visceral, ugh, shiver up the spine. Yeah, it’s

Kyle Buller: already giving me anxiety.

Mike Sapiro: See, right there. Yeah. Now, what happens if you fall backward? I mean, it does it all right up my spine. It just tingles, like, ugh.

Mike Sapiro: You know? So what happens when you’re, you’re going backward, but then the hand of God, or an angel, or an eagle or a feather or wind lifts you and holds you up, you know? So if we can visualize that we’re supported by the universe or the divine, or however the, the client conceptualizes [00:13:00] that, I’ll use that language, not mine, and then they’re, they’re lifted, and all of a sudden you feel this freedom to fall freely.

Mike Sapiro: Without as much fear, ’cause you know you’re gonna be held and even though the falling might be scary, if you feel lifted or, or supported by a hand, you can really, and another version of this I do, uh, lying on a river with your eyes closed, imagining being taken by the current, anywhere the current takes you.

Mike Sapiro: Um, and learning to just surrender to the flow. Even if there are eddies or the current is strong or there are rapids, can you just let that thing be? And we’re training the body to, to release the tension and the hold it has over itself. So we’re doing as much prep work. We can also do breathing, deep breathing and breath work.

Mike Sapiro: So I’m doing psychological inquiry, psychological digging to get to the heart, and, and then we’re also preparing them to relax and release as best as they can. And then I have them practice that [00:14:00] for some weeks before we start doing sessions. So I’ll send them home at the meditations.

Kyle Buller: That’s awesome. Yeah, I think that’s so important, and I think you already raised this point, that like letting go, trusting and surrendering is a very hard thing to do for a lot of folks.

Kyle Buller: Um, and I think it does take time to like slowly kind of build that up and like build that trust. Um, and you work with some pretty intense populations, right? Like first responders, people with like pretty significant trauma. Um, I know special ops vets and police and all that stuff. So, um, you know. And I, you said this in the book, like hypervigilance isn’t, or vigilance isn’t bad.

Kyle Buller: It’s hyper vigilance. That’s that’s bad, right? Because that kind of keeps us stuck and like, you know, folks in those fields really have to be hypervigilant at times, right. Because their safety’s on the line. Totally. Um, and so that trust and surrender from a somatic perspective is actually really threatening to the nervous system.

Kyle Buller: Mm-hmm. Right. Totally threat, um,

Mike Sapiro: to

Kyle Buller: let

Mike Sapiro: go. For sure.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. [00:15:00] Yeah, yeah. And so how, like, do you use some of those, that language, I know sometimes people in the psychedelic world like get a little nuanced with like that language of like surrender and stuff like that because bad things may have happened to somebody and that might be really triggering.

Kyle Buller: Like how do you approach that to like create that safety with folks?

Mike Sapiro: We talk about it. Outright, what’s your experience like in your life in terms of being on guard, in terms of protecting yourself and your family? What’s it like in a restaurant? What’s it like in the movie theater? What do you notice in your body?

Mike Sapiro: What do you notice in your mind? We’re gonna bring this to the forefront. It is appropriate to have vigilance. All of us need vigilance. It keeps us safe and healthy. The hypervigilance is a chronic state of arousal that, uh, depletes our adrenals. It increases cortisol and adrenaline. It’s, it’s an unhealthy state of being that many of us with PTSD and chronic trauma experience in our bodies.

Mike Sapiro: I know I [00:16:00] do. If there’s a sound that happens behind me, I will jump. That’s a startle response that’s built into my nervous system, unfortunately, into the brain. And so the surrender, and I know we’re talking about language of how do you use the language of surrender with a combat veteran, where surrender is opposite of what you do in a mission.

Mike Sapiro: Um. So let’s talk about what that means then. What would it be? To soften and surrender. A lot of dudes don’t like that language. Okay. Let’s talk about why you don’t like that language, and what does it mean for your identity as an alpha male or as a first responder. I mean, it’s okay to bring that up. It’s okay to say, yeah, it’s, you don’t like that.

Mike Sapiro: Maybe we choose another word, but also while you’re in the session, it really is a true letting go, softening, surrendering. And by the time we get there, that’s usually not the thing that we’re worried about. The language of surrender. It is nuanced. They might bristle, but [00:17:00] ketamine, you’re already onto the next thing.

Mike Sapiro: Right? It’s not like you’re sticking with it. Well, Mike, Dr. Mike, you know, I hate that fucking word. That’s honestly not what comes up. It’s usually like, I am really struggling to surrender. I know I want to, I know I have to. And so then we just keep working gently on what does it mean to just let go a little bit, just a little bit.

Mike Sapiro: A lot of times they’re like, I’m a, I’m a, I’m gonna die, and I’m also, I write this in the book. I’m like, well die then. Then, and actually my first responders like that because it’s a challenge to them to really, to really do something different in their life. Mm-hmm. Can you die in this moment and see what comes of it?

Mike Sapiro: And often they, the vistas, the scenery, everything changes when they allow that to happen. The colors, the textures, the constriction to expansion. We know that we’ve been in this field doing this work. You know, when you surrender, usually things open up. Knowing that, and they trust [00:18:00] me, I can kind of guide them into that experience of letting go.

Mike Sapiro: And that is so important for their regular waking lives. Yeah. They can practice it in session now they can do it outside, in their, in their homes.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And it’s, I think it’s an important part of healing too, right? It’s like developing that trust. I remember I had somebody, um, once tell me, they’re like, how do I trust myself and trust this process when the universe is shit on me multiple times.

Kyle Buller: You know, and it’s a very hard thing to then develop that trust again. Yes. But you know, I think like what you’re pointing to in the book is like, that’s where the healing starts to happen is like when we trust that process, we start to let go and we start to tap into truth and start seeing these things that like, yeah, maybe we push away.

Kyle Buller: We have a hard time confronting, um, you know, kind of confronting a little bit of that fear and anxiety. Um, that’s, that’s where that healing really is. But it’s like all those defenses that stop us from getting there. Right.

Mike Sapiro: And those defenses are useful. [00:19:00] And we, we, we don’t make an enemy out of them. We invite them in to see them, and then we have.

Mike Sapiro: Dialogue with them. Hey, I don’t, I don’t need you the same way anymore. I can take care of myself. And sometimes that defense will go, no, you can’t. You drug me all the time. Or you, you, you, you overuse alcohol all the time. Yes. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I’m also working on that too. You know, it’s an, it’s an ongoing relationship we’re developing with our defenses in that parts of our psyches and the ego that are really trying to keep us safe.

Mike Sapiro: Even, even when it’s derogatory and hurtful to ourself. You piece of crap. Why are you doing this to me all the time? We’re gonna start working with that part lovingly too. I see you. Thank you. I know I’ve been hard on me. I know. I haven’t been great to myself. I am working on changing that. So there’s content that we’re working on, therapeutic content.

Mike Sapiro: Let’s say we’re working on someone’s childhood abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, [00:20:00] and it’s caused to them to be distrustful of themselves and other people and the world around them that we, we might not get to that in a few sessions. We might just be working on. What’s it like for you to trust the experience right now in the moment, and like you said, doing that in the moment actually is real time healing.

Mike Sapiro: If someone spends one or two sessions with me, just learning to let go, to trust the medicine, to trust themselves, that’s a huge shift in their own psyche for the rest of their life. And we’re doing that in real time. Where I can’t talk them into trusting themselves. There’s nothing we can do in talk therapy really to get them to trust themself in the moment.

Mike Sapiro: But while they’re on medicine, those defenses are dissolving and they don’t have to use the same defenses anymore. They can try something new like trusting or surrendering or letting go in the moment that changes their life forever.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. I guess since we’re on this topic of [00:21:00] like transformation and healing, how do you define what is healing?

Mike Sapiro: Big question. I think the answer for me is bringing love to the parts that hurt the most. I, my work is divided into healing and growth, and the way I look at healing is when we bring our own love through our hands, our tenderness, nurturance, and compassion. To the parts of us that are wounded the most, we become the loving presence of our wounded self.

Mike Sapiro: And in bringing, loving attention, bringing loving presence to ourself, that is what heals. It’s a healing or salve. It’s a healing bal. Love is a salve that we put on our wounded parts and the [00:22:00] infection underneath the, the scab. We rip the scab off. It hurts. We clean out the wounds, literally and figuratively, and we apply love and it, it, it literally tends to itself.

Mike Sapiro: Love is the medicine we’re using in session. To repair the wounds that have, uh, not been, um, re repaired throughout her life. Then growth is how do you want to expand? What active things do you want to do in your personality, your belief set, your psyche, your behaviors that you want to expand your life.

Mike Sapiro: Now, once, and, and they could be simultaneous, we could do healing and growth simultaneously in sessions or one after the other. They’re definitely different. Healing really is applying that love as a self to what hurts the worst in us by being honest and talking about it, bringing the pain forward, and then [00:23:00] tending to it, and then growth is now what, what would you do if you didn’t have that wound restricting you or limiting you?

Mike Sapiro: What would you do if that belief wasn’t there? How would you live differently? What would be authentic to you rather than what was conditioned? So I do both of those things. In my work, we’re doing healing, which is applying love, and then we’re doing growth, which is what would you do if you didn’t have this restriction, limitation, or condition?

Kyle Buller: Beautiful. You know, since you brought up this like, um, analogy of like the SAV and um, like ripping off the scabs, um, and differentiating between like healing and growth. I’ve heard this like quite a few times from different people and maybe it’s a conversation we’ve probably had in the past, like through different communities, but like what happens when somebody is just constantly on that healing journey, constantly ripping, open the scabs, ripping open the wounds, tr feeling like there’s something there and they just need to [00:24:00] keep digging more and more and more.

Kyle Buller: And it’s like, how do you see that process? And like, do you, do you draw a line there? Like how often do people need to just keep going back in and ripping open those wounds versus, wow, maybe I need to actually stop this. Put the bandaid on, let it heal and start focusing on on the growth process.

Mike Sapiro: Interesting question. So it’s really individualized, I would imagine, because. People are coming with different, um, relationships to their pain. What I’m hearing you ask is what happens when someone has kind of a compulsive or addictive nature of continuingly looking at themselves is not good enough maybe, or not done, or not healed enough?

Mike Sapiro: Um, that, I mean, possibly that’s one of the ways I’m hearing in, in one way, we’re kind of addicted to our, our, our addicted to, we’re addicted to our shame or our self pity. I know I have that in my life where I haven’t worked through the shame of things I’ve done that it hasn’t moved from shame to remorse where [00:25:00] I’m like, oh, I’m really sorrowful for the things that I’ve done.

Mike Sapiro: Uh, rather than I’m a piece of crap for what I’ve done. And I kind of stayed in the cycle of shame. Where I’m like, no, I deserve to feel bad for what I’ve done in my life, so I’m gonna keep looking at it, but I’m looking at it from a lens of, I’m bad, I’m not good enough. And so there’s never an end to the healing I have to do because I’m chronically bad and chronically not good enough.

Mike Sapiro: I mean, that’s an issue in itself that I start noticing in people, oh, do you think you’re bad? Do you think you’re, you know, do you have a lot of shame around who you are? And people end up again, cycling that over and over. It’s not like, and that needs to be addressed. Where did you learn that? Why are you stuck on that?

Mike Sapiro: Because if you’ve really done the healing and the scabs off, you’ve tend, you’ve scrubbed out the hurt, you’ve applied the salve of love. Usually you’re not stuck [00:26:00] there anymore. You can look back and go, that was a very hard time. Whether I did something bad or somebody did something bad to me, that was a terrible time.

Mike Sapiro: But I, I really feel closure around that. And I’m not stuck there anymore. I don’t feel shame or I don’t feel hatred, you know, or resentment. I’m feeling like I, I don’t like it happened, but it’s clean.

Kyle Buller: Mm-hmm. That

Mike Sapiro: they don’t, there’s no, the scab is a scar. There’s no scab left on it. So if people are still keep picking and picking, it’s ’cause they have a view of themself that they have to keep picking.

Mike Sapiro: And it’s not really done yet. You know, when you’re done ’cause you’ve moved forward. This is for everyone listening for you and me. You know, when you’re done a certain thing ’cause you’ve moved forward from it. If you haven’t, it’s not done yet and there’s a reason it’s not done. So let’s look at that.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. It’s fascinating. I’m just kind of like going off these analogies and you started to move away from a scab to a scar. Um, and I just think about like. A recent experience I had within the past [00:27:00] year, um, getting body work done on this huge scar I had on my abdomen for my snowboarding accident. ’cause I’d always like, you know, chronic, like pulling tension, my fascial stuff.

Kyle Buller: And, you know, it’s been, I don’t know, 20 plus years, 30 years, I don’t know how long it’s been. Um, and uh, so just finally starting to address it. And I noticed when I was working on it, like pretty weekly with like a pt, it actually just felt like. Constantly agitated. And then I notice, like since I stopped going, I haven’t been noticing it as much.

Kyle Buller: Mm-hmm. I’m like, hmm, that’s really fascinating that like, once I stopped like instigating it, um, it feel, it feels like it’s kind of like I don’t notice it as much and it doesn’t bother me as much. Not to say it’s not completely, like, it’s not completely gone. Like I do notice it still mm-hmm. With like certain little things.

Kyle Buller: But, um, yeah, I just noticed that it’s like I was going through a lot of that treatment. It was just constantly like, it maybe inflamed or like, you know, a lot of just like, uh, [00:28:00] irritation. Mm-hmm. Um, versus like letting it just sit and almost like letting that experience integrate into my life a bit more.

Kyle Buller: And then, yeah. Uh, just seeing how

Mike Sapiro: something I’ve learned through my own therapeutic process is learn is endurance. How do we e endure, endure? And I’m not saying active abuse, you don’t need to endure active abuse or active, you know, um. Complete discomfort with people. You, you can move away, but you know, can you endure?

Mike Sapiro: I have PTSD and I have flareups of PTSD. I have anxiety and I have flareups of anxiety. I noticed when I first started doing my own therapeutic process on certain topics five years ago, I would text my therapist a lot more often going, ah, I’m being flooded, I’m flooded. Little Mikey in me is flooding me with these thoughts.

Mike Sapiro: He wants me to do these things. And all these years later I feel the flood and I know I can be with it and I know I can tolerate it. I know [00:29:00] it will dissipate. I also know where there’s a valve of release. There are certain things I can do with it. I’m not, never, I am, I’m not never gonna have anxiety. I’m gonna have some anxiety in my life.

Mike Sapiro: I’m gonna have discomfort, I’m gonna have depressive stuff, I’m gonna have trauma responses. Can I endure them while they’re here?

Kyle Buller: Mm-hmm.

Mike Sapiro: And not get attached to the what’s coming up and not. Not spin out or cycle down into shame or, you know, cyclone out into terror or despair, whatever it is that I, I end up doing.

Mike Sapiro: Can I tolerate this, soothe myself, be here for myself. And I notice I don’t need to text my therapist. I don’t have to, you know, see guy, if I’m feeling I’m gonna be, my insecurities are coming up in a relationship, I can tolerate them and not have to text the person a million times. Are you still there? Do you still like me?

Mike Sapiro: Mm-hmm. Like, I, I understand those impulses, but I don’t have to do anything [00:30:00] about them. And, and people that I’m working with learn to do that as well. Learn to, uh, to first understand what’s arising, how to tend to it, how to endure it, and then watch it dissipate on its own. Nothing lasts forever. That’s, that’s, that’s a truth for, that’s a natural truth.

Mike Sapiro: Nothing lasts forever. When we talk about truth, that’s a universal truth, not even a feeling. Not a, not a, not a thought. Nothing lasts forever. How do we accept it? Welcome it as Pema children says, and then tolerate it. Endure it, and watch it dissipate. This is a practice people do in psychedelic psychotherapy all the time because they’re having lots of information coming.

Mike Sapiro: Some are very distressing information, whether it’s sensational information, it’s um, maybe intellectual or visual information. Some is blissful in awe and full of wonder. Some is very disturbing and distressing, but they learn to tolerate it and they also watch how it disappears. [00:31:00]

Kyle Buller: Yeah, as you’re saying that, it just has me reminded of somebody that I was working with, uh, years ago where they had that anxiety come up and it, they told me when it came up in their real life, they already had practice in the ketamine session.

Kyle Buller: And it was almost like they were able to endure it during that session. So they were able to then endure it in their real life. It was like, oh, okay. I’ve practiced this multiple times before of like dealing with the discomfort, dealing with the anxiety, um, and now actually when it arises in real time, I’ve already done it multiple times, a hundred

Mike Sapiro: percent.

Kyle Buller: Um, yeah. I

Mike Sapiro: find that almost in every, almost, not every, but almost every client who comes and we do, we endure, we tolerate, we welcome, we investigate and nurture. Remember, we still need to nurture and tend to ourselves. That. This is why I call it real time transformation because it’s very hard to talk someone into doing that in a normal waking life.

Mike Sapiro: ’cause they’re [00:32:00] super attached to those states and they’re also defending those states. It’s strange, we don’t want it, but we still defend it. We’re like, I don’t want to give that up. Even though you’re here to give that up, that whatever way of being that’s not working for you. In the ketamine session, people are much more fluid and adaptive and adjust to what’s happening.

Mike Sapiro: ’cause it dissipates and they can see it arising and dissipating. They can tolerate it. We talk about it. And then we can go backward and look at where it started in their life and, and they can imagine the child in them having the experiences that caused the depression, anxiety, trauma, whatever beliefs they’re carrying.

Mike Sapiro: So we’re doing a couple things simultaneously. We’re learning to endure and tolerate distressing emotions. And we’re also learning to heal the origin of those original emotions. And we’re doing it in real time right there in the, in the session. And so when they leave, they know what to do differently in their [00:33:00] life.

Mike Sapiro: It’s a huge, huge gift they’re giving themselves.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. When you talk about like, getting to the origin, and I think I’ve heard you talk about that a lot in the book too, like the root cause. Is that always the case or have you seen, um, cases where people don’t get to the quote unquote origin of like the roots of their, their psychopathology, their trauma and still continue to move into that growth pattern?

Kyle Buller: Like do people always need to, you know, dig up those roots or can people heal without that?

Mike Sapiro: I’m sure they can. There’s no one way for anything. Um. I think more than not, people do tend to identify, it’s interesting, they self-identify, you know, even if we’ve, I’ll give an example of, it’s in the book too, of a, a first responder, a firefighter who thought they were coming in to process some terrible pediatric calls.

Mike Sapiro: And so we prepped around the trauma of seeing, um, a child be significantly harmed and also [00:34:00] killed, uh, on, on scene and what that did to them. ’cause they’re a parent and it made them freaked out about their own kids. They have no control. You can’t protect your kids from going into a crosswalk and getting hurt.

Mike Sapiro: And so they, they, they’re terrified. They’re controlling at home. They’re angry. So we’re, we’re processing those things. But then in session. All of a sudden something comes up about their father and and grandfather from their childhood. You know, it’s something that is an origin to the way they control an origin to the way they handle distress.

Mike Sapiro: I didn’t know that was there, ’cause we had not targeted that in our prep session. But their heart knows it’s there. So sometimes the origin is different than what we think. Mm-hmm. And we have to leave a ton of space in our sessions for the person, for their hearts to identify what’s more important. So it’s not like we don’t, the core root issue might be different than what we think and we leave a ton of space for the [00:35:00] medicine and them to work together and then it presents itself and I’m like, whoa, tell me, what are you talking about?

Mike Sapiro: What are you seeing? What are you, what are you remembering right now? So something usually will come up from them, uh, and it’s sometimes not what we think and we have to leave. And it would be bad for me to go, no, no, you came in here to talk about that pediatric call. Let’s stay on that. That would be naive and also controlling of me.

Mike Sapiro: To do that, I have to be adaptive as a therapist to go, let’s follow what’s coming here. Everything is presenting itself for a reason. My job is to skillfully follow that to its origin, to help them identify what needs to be healed.

Kyle Buller: Reminds me of some conversations that we were just having in vital, uh, two weeks ago about like intentions versus expectations.

Kyle Buller: Uh, um, and like, and I know that you, you’ve written about this as well, like the difference between expectations and and intentions. And sometimes people have that expectation that they’re gonna, you know, relive that certain [00:36:00] thing that’s gonna, um, you know, get to the origin or the roots of it and they have an idea what that is.

Kyle Buller: And then the medicine and that inner healing intelligence, or whatever we wanna call it, higher self, might lead us somewhere else, right?

Mike Sapiro: Um,

Kyle Buller: it often

Mike Sapiro: does. Uh, first of all, yeah, I do talk about this in the book because I see the difficulties that happen when people are bringing expectations into their sessions.

Mike Sapiro: They might have expectations of ego, dissolution of meeting God or angels of the Divine. They might have expectations of healing certain wounds, um, specific ones, and that never arises in the session. And the problem with expectations is we then become disappointed, resentful, embarrassed. Maybe we blame ourselves, the medicine, or me, Hey, this isn’t working.

Mike Sapiro: You’re not doing it right. I’m not doing it right. But for me, I can work with that. ’cause I can go, Hey, where [00:37:00] else in your life do you seem to have expectations where people fail you, where you fail you, where circumstances fail you? How do you relate to people failing you? What do you do? Do you isolate? Do you blame it?

Mike Sapiro: For me, everything is is fodder. Everything is grist for the meal. Everything that arises in session points to something in their life that we can use to help them heal something or help them grow. So. It’s not great for them to have expectations ’cause they can end up being disappointed and resentful, but it’s also useful mm-hmm.

Mike Sapiro: For us therapeutically, um, intentions are much, uh, gra are much more relaxed. It’s more pointing in a direction that we’re hoping we go, but it’s not something we’re holding on tightly to demanding. The expectations are very demanding. Intentions are very openhearted and, uh, with curiosity.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. I like how you mentioned like, everything’s kind of fodder.

Kyle Buller: Like, you know, I think some of the challenging experiences that come up for [00:38:00] folks is like the no response, the disappointment, the frustration that nothing’s happening. Um, and you are like, oh, you know, and immediately possibly wanting to write that off. And I’ve been there too, you know, like gone into a session, not much is happening.

Kyle Buller: Oh, well I wasted that. But it’s like, if you’re able to sit with that frustration, sit with disappointment. Like, yeah. When else did you feel that way in your life? Is that a big theme, uh, in your life? You know, is it something that keeps coming up? Coming up? Um, and that can really open up a lot of doorways for folks that maybe you’re not necessarily always thinking about.

Mike Sapiro: I mean, I don’t wanna ever discount what’s happening in session. Not all of it is useful and it does point to how people are in their regular waking lives. It’s just more maybe dramatic or expressed, maybe more than in their normal life ’cause they’re on medicine. But the truth is, we bring in everything with us and all of our behaviors and our personality [00:39:00] traits are there in session that we wanna work on.

Mike Sapiro: Um, I think when I’m training, I train people and the newer therapists often want to just work with psychedelic material. Mm-hmm. Stuff of the psyche archetypes and cosmic material images, metaphors of the universe of stars and stardust and dragons and you know, things that are like psychedelia. And so when that doesn’t appear, I know my students feel like they’re doing something wrong or the medicine’s not working or, and then they kind of project that on, oh, nothing’s really happening.

Mike Sapiro: You’re not really seeing much. And then there’s this, like, even the therapist has a little bit of expectation and some disappointment. The client is like, am I doing it wrong? Is the medicine not working? And it creates a kind of cycle of something’s wrong, something’s not working, somebody’s wrong. The more experienced therapists will go, well, tell me what you’re, [00:40:00] what do you feel in response to this nothingness?

Mike Sapiro: Yeah. What’s coming up for you now? About yourself. What do you think about yourself? This isn’t working. You’re not working. Tell me more about that. And you often will, you’ll find the thread. I’m not good enough in my daily life. I’m not good enough here. I’m already messing this up. Oh, I’m disappointing Dr.

Mike Sapiro: Mike. They, I’m worried about disappointing you. I go, wow, I have no expectations of you. How often do you try to please people? And they’re like, all the time. I please people all the time. I’m like, well, yeah, you’re doing it right here, right now in this session. You think I want something from you and I don’t.

Mike Sapiro: And that’s awesome to use instead of like, oh, you know, oh, we don’t have the psychedelia showing up. So what, what we have here is the habit of pleasing people. And that’s more important to me ’cause we wanna work on that.

Kyle Buller: Or what I’ve seen and, and heard a few times is like, when nothing’s happening, maybe like introducing more [00:41:00] medicine or other medicines.

Kyle Buller: I remember being at a retreat and, uh, somebody just saying, well, just use cannabis to like induce the visions, you know? Um, and it’s like, yeah, we’re just a, such a visually oriented culture and I feel like when we think about psychedelics, it needs to be a visual experience, but there’s so many different ways of processing information and the way that, you know, information comes in.

Kyle Buller: And sometimes I feel like we dismiss a lot of it, especially when it’s more kind of like intuitive somatic when, you know, it’s just like these feelings in our body versus like, I’m not having, you know, the fractal visions and, and you know, reliving certain things. It’s like, well, that little whisper in your ear or that, that sensation in your body I think is just another valid way of processing and knowing.

Kyle Buller: Um, but sometimes we’re just very disconnected from it.

Mike Sapiro: We’re mostly disconnected from our bodies. A lot of my work is body centric. Of course I do. Um, appreciate and use the psychedelia, the, the cosmic stuff. We [00:42:00] use that when it comes in and I’m, it’s great you’re having now a the more traditional psychedelic experience of seeing your ancestors sitting around a campfire and they’re talking to you or you’re watching them.

Mike Sapiro: Amazing. You were here to help heal the lineage of women and your family. That’s in the book too. You know, that we’re gonna use all of that information for their goals. Um, but the truth is we live in our bodies more than we live in the, we do live in the cosmos constantly, but we’re not always connected to it the way we are to our bodies.

Mike Sapiro: So it’s a great. Uh, gift. It’s a great boon when someone comes in and starts connecting to their body, to the wisdom of the body, to sensations, to memories that are stored in the body to pain and pleasure in the body. Uh, we want to, we wanna have this relationship with our body. So that would be an amazing session for someone to come in.

Mike Sapiro: Maybe they don’t get the visuals, but they’re connecting to the wisdom of their body, and they’re starting to create a relationship with this thing they’re living in. [00:43:00] That’s a, that’s a very good session for somebody to have because they’ll leave here starting to recognize SI signals and signs.

Mike Sapiro: Something’s right. Something’s not right. This relationship doesn’t feel right. I’m gonna start listening to my body, as it says. I don’t like how I feel in this person’s presence.

Kyle Buller: That’s

Mike Sapiro: an indication. Something’s misaligned. Um, that’s a great way to use a session. Of course, we could spend a whole hour talking about how to use the archetypes that arise and symbols and signs of the universe.

Mike Sapiro: But I, I like the more practical stuff. ’cause that’s what they’re living in mostly.

Kyle Buller: Right. Um, I’m just looking at time and I’m wondering, you know, you’re kind of talking about like the psychotherapy aspect of psychedelics and there’s a lot of folks that might be tuning in, maybe they’re doing retreats, they’re taking more.

Kyle Buller: Of this sitting approach, whereas like you’re taking a psychotherapy approach. And I wonder if you could [00:44:00] explain kind of the difference in the work there of like when you’ve worked with groups in more of like a group container versus more of this like psychedelic assisted therapy model. Like what is different here for you?

Mike Sapiro: Great, thanks for asking. ’cause yes, the book is really more on psychedelic psychotherapy. That much of my work is doing individual work with people during their journeys. But as I said in the beginning, I also, uh, have been leading retreats for 20 some years. And that’s a completely different model. There is the ceremonial model, which comes out of indigenous traditions.

Mike Sapiro: Um, I have some training in some indigenous traditions, but that is really not the basis of my work. And so, uh, that, that, you know, my colleagues and friends have spent some 30 and 40 years in, in traditional settings learning to do traditional medicine ceremonies. So that is not really my background and I don’t pretend to be a shaman or medicine person.

Mike Sapiro: That is not, uh, [00:45:00] how I’ve been trained. I’ve been trained as a Buddhist monk and teacher for almost, you know, 25, almost 30 years. And so my retreats are very much Buddhist oriented, where we’re having meditation and, um, deep inquiry and we’re having, um, e experiences with the group themselves where we’re building trust and rapport.

Mike Sapiro: And then the medicine. The, the student, the medicine, the participant, really work together. And my job is to hold space, keep everyone safe, help people to the bathroom. Um, and if they’re in distress, they raise their hand or they get up and they’re showing distress, maybe they’re even screaming. And I become a caretaker.

Mike Sapiro: My job is not to interpret what they’re experiencing in that moment. My job is just to help them get back into it so that they are having an internal experience with their psyche and the cosmos. My job is to make sure they’re, um, safe, physically and in [00:46:00] distress. We might take them aside and help them breathe, um, help them regulate, and then encourage them to go back into the internal world.

Mike Sapiro: So in those settings, I’m not doing any psychotherapy at all. Um, I might be sitting next to them if they’re in distress or they’re asking me questions, how to help relate to what’s happening. But I am in no way making therapeutic. Like interpretations at that time. ’cause that’s not my role. My role becomes sitter and, and space holder.

Mike Sapiro: Um, now afterward we can do lots of processing in a group setting as well as individual in those retreat settings. That is something I am offering is like, let’s process what just happened for you. How do you make sense of it? And it’s always best in a group because people are hearing each other’s experiences and, and they get a chance to actually, uh, mingle with each other.

Mike Sapiro: I love group settings. It’s very powerful, especially for veterans and first responders [00:47:00] who do very well in group settings so they don’t feel so alone. That was long-winded answer, but there’s a lot, there’s so much to it on retreats so much.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And um, you know, just thinking about like the psychotherapy aspect, right?

Kyle Buller: Like, uh, and we, we did a whole kind of presentation on this a bit, um, through psychedelic support. People can probably find that on YouTube. Um, you just type in our names and, uh, but it was about the directed. The non-directive and directive approach to psychedelic assisted therapy. And I think most people like have this non-directive approach.

Kyle Buller: ’cause that’s usually what’s taught in a lot of programs, right? To like, kind of sit back and really put the driver’s seat in, in the, the client or the participants, um, hands. But it sounds like some of what you do is more directive. And I wonder if you could kind of talk a little bit about that, around the difference of like when to be a directive, when to be non-directive, like in [00:48:00] the psychotherapy work.

Kyle Buller: Um, with psychedelics particularly,

Mike Sapiro: I think I have a, what I would hope is a balanced mix of both. There is time during sessions where I am very quiet and where the client is just internal working with the, the messages symbol, signs, memories. And I might just say, what are you experiencing? And they might say, I’m seeing my childhood house and I’m walking through it.

Mike Sapiro: Or they might say, I’m, I’m in the stars right now. And there, there’s planets that are coming in and out. And I might just say, explore that. And I go back into quiet space. And they are exploring that. That’s a, I would say, a non-directive approach. I mean, I’m saying explore that. So in some way it’s directive and I’m like, Hey, do this thing.

Mike Sapiro: But I’m not really interacting. I’m not asking them questions about the space they’re in. I’m simply suggesting spend more time in that. [00:49:00] Okay. And so I’m backed off and they’re doing that. Um, other times they, I’ll step in, what are you experiencing? And they go, I’m in, I’m in my childhood home right now.

Mike Sapiro: I’m seeing, I’m seeing, I’m seeing something and. We have already discussed that they want to process their childhood trauma. They are in my room to process childhood trauma. I’m going to say are, are, do you wanna do the work? Do you wanna start processing? And they, they can say, no, I don’t feel I’m scared.

Mike Sapiro: And we can work on fear. Um, then we might start, I might start asking, what’s happening in that room? What are you seeing? What, what, what is he feeling? Or what is she feeling right now? Now I’m starting to direct a little bit more of the, the therapy. Let’s work on that together. ’cause this is what you’ve come to me for.

Mike Sapiro: I’m gonna start processing. We might start bringing your future your, your present self into the past. If that kid needs somebody, oh, I was so alone. I was hurt and I’m so alone. Would you like to show up and tend [00:50:00] to yourself? That’s directing it. Now I’m asking them to do something that I know is therapeutic.

Mike Sapiro: Bring your loving attention to that part of you that’s wounded. In the form of that kid. Now I’m starting to work with their images in their, in their psychedelic state versus just going explore that, see what happens. So I am using kind of a therapeutic skillset to determine, Hey, should I just be quiet and let them explore?

Mike Sapiro: Or is this time where I’m gonna, I’m gonna come into the picture and start working therapeutically with them. I ha we have skill sets. If those of you listening are therapists that have a skillset that you want to do therapy with the person, and that’s your agreement, then you have some say in what you’re doing.

Mike Sapiro: And also recognize there are times to be quiet and just simply let the medicine work and their psyches do the work. So it, it’s really up to our discretion, and that’s something we need to learn more in the field. How do you do psychedelic therapy? When do you let it be [00:51:00] and when do you step in?

Kyle Buller: Yeah. On that of like, you know, the evolution of the field, what are you seeing?

Kyle Buller: Like, I know you kind of wrote this book about trying to maybe evolve the psychedelic like assisted therapy model a little bit more. And, but like, how are you gonna, like how are you seeing like the field evolving? Like what’s missing, what needs to be included? Um, what are some of your thoughts around that?

Mike Sapiro: I think if we’re going to be doing more psychedelic psychotherapy in the field, more ketamine clinics are having psychologists or therapists do work. Um, we want to have trained therapists. I don’t, I’m not proposing a model to follow Dr. Mike’s model. I’m proposing we get better at learning how to work with a client on medicine to use the, the information of their psyche and the cosmos.

Mike Sapiro: For their benefit. And I think IFS is doing a good job. Rick Schwartz is, is doing, you know, parts [00:52:00] work while you’re on ketamine. That’s a cool precedent. I think more and more, um, training opportunities will present themselves for people to learn how to use psychotherapeutic models during psychedelic experiences.

Mike Sapiro: I do wanna say that is not the only way we should do it. The ceremony is a powerful way. The retreat is a powerful way, but this is one modality we want to get better at. And we do need training. So therapists and clinicians know what to do during these states. Know when to step forward, step back, when to help regulate, when to just let them endure.

Mike Sapiro: Like these are all nuances that, um. People new to the field are gonna wanna understand. And in my book I do describe all of those, uh, ways of being with the client. Um, but I think the field is going to have to evolve to train us more to be, uh, working with altered states of consciousness for the therapeutic goals that people are [00:53:00] bringing to us.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. If somebody is, not to give advice, but just kind of teasing apart these models a little bit, like who would you like, think, need, like, would really benefit from like a retreat or say like a service center model in Oregon, right. Where they’re a little bit more, probably hands off, non-directive. Not doing psychotherapy, but maybe some group work versus Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Doing more individualized psychotherapy, more intensive type of work like. Yeah, who, who, who fits into like what category? Obviously it’s like very individualized, but Yeah. I can make some generalizations here.

Mike Sapiro: Yeah. I can’t answer that. I think, you know, for, for people who are, are, are already used to bonding in groups like veterans and first responders, there are some great.

Mike Sapiro: SBO Foundation Mission within Heroic Hearts Project, uh, vets, uh, these are different groups that have already set up retreats for [00:54:00] first responders and for veterans. So because that they speak the same language, they’re, um, they, they have kind of same ideals and values. I think there’s great benefit in going to a group, um, especially if you’re already kind of used to being in a group setting.

Mike Sapiro: Um, that doesn’t mean of course I see individual firefighters and police and veterans, but I often ask them, Hey, you guys should probably go to a group and do this with other, other men and women who know what your life is like. Um, but I often get people who have done therapy for five years and really have not seen the changes they’re hoping for or looking for.

Mike Sapiro: I often get people who are, feel stuck in their lives, that they want to go deep. Into their psyches, into their own consciousness to explore what is it that they’re stuck? Why haven’t they made movement in traditional talk therapy? In those cases, I would say doing individual psychotherapy, psychedelic psychotherapy would be called for.

Mike Sapiro: I think people looking just to [00:55:00] explore their psyches and have a relationship with the greater universe can do more of those guided experiences without the psychotherapy. I think that would be appropriate for someone looking to expand their relationship to the greater universe, maybe to their own potential.

Mike Sapiro: You don’t have to do psychotherapy for that. There are really good programs or, you know, you can just go and have an experience and see what happens inside you. But I would always recommend make sure you’re vetting where you’re going. Make sure they’re, they’re, they have good ethics and integrity in place.

Mike Sapiro: They have good prep and integration. Programs in place. They have good medical attention. If you have a medical emergency, what are their safety guidelines? What are their procedures? I always recommend to people make sure you’re doing your, your research on the places you’re going to work with so that you’re safe.

Mike Sapiro: That’s the first priority is your safety.

Kyle Buller: A hundred percent agree. Yeah. I’m wondering [00:56:00] since, as we’re starting to wind down here at the hour, um, how are you living your truth out? What, what truth have you, um, you know, touched in, in your work and how are you living that out?

Mike Sapiro: I was a, a teenager. I was an unruly teenager, and I think what I’m discovering is that it’s because I wanted to do it.

Mike Sapiro: I wanted space to express myself. Mm-hmm. I am hopelessly romantic. I am incredibly adventurous and take too many risks and. Some of those have hurt me and other people, and some of that has, has made a life of complete grandeur and mystery and romance. I think I’ve always, I shamed the bigness in me for so long.

Mike Sapiro: ’cause I, I, I sometimes got shamed for it, for being so big and, and I was hurting myself with that. And, but when I really allow myself to be true and express [00:57:00] myself and know that it’s not always gonna work for everybody, I might offend people. People won’t dig this guy. And, and I have to be okay with that.

Mike Sapiro: I think when I really started to, I think, admire those traits, I originally shamed, I started living a fuller, richer life. Mm-hmm. That, that, that I’ve noticed about myself and. Even though I get overwhelmed and I burn out ’cause I serve so many populations and I work so much, um, the value of service is such an important piece of my life that I, I wanna continue that.

Mike Sapiro: And that’s a truth that I’ve discovered that if I don’t serve people, I don’t feel well. When I serve people, I feel like I’m thriving. So that’s something that’s also guided me. And also one other thing I’ve learned throughout my life is that, and something I failed at for a long time is that a spiritual life is an ethical life.

Mike Sapiro: And I think I thought a spiritual life was mostly about enlightenment and awakening. Uh, but I wasn’t [00:58:00] always as concerned about my behavior. And now I know it’s actually the opposite, that an awakened life is a life of ethics and integrity. And it took me a long time to put those into place and to, to really repair the, the damage I did not living in integrity.

Mike Sapiro: Um, so that’s a truth I’ve learned and discovered at this point in my life. Beautiful.

Kyle Buller: Beautiful. I would imagine there’s probably quite a few people that are listening that can probably really resonate to that shame around the bigness. And, uh, gets also kind of like wrap that up in what we call like the golden shadow.

Kyle Buller: Um, it’s like dealing with those parts that like, are actually really great. Um, and they shine really bright sometimes, but actually really hard to embody and integrate. So what have you been doing to embody that bigness? Like when like, the shame might come up or you wanna work with that? Because I think that’s a, that’s a, that’s a hard one.

Kyle Buller: I think a lot of people struggle with that and every time I’ve like presented on golden shadow stuff, [00:59:00] um, people, uh, yeah, it seemed like they really struggle with shining their light.

Mike Sapiro: Yeah. Because we’ve been taught it’s sinful, uh, prideful to acknowledge. The, the beauty in us, like, oh, I can’t, I can’t do that.

Mike Sapiro: It’s selfish, or it’s egotistical or it’s narcissist that those are, that they, that’s not, that’s not true. Narcissism is very specific way of being. It’s a very embedded personality disorder. That, that is, we can’t, we just don’t want to throw those words out toward ourself. What we wanna do is commit to who we are and what wants to be expressed.

Mike Sapiro: Commit to supporting and encouraging ourself. It took me a very long time to stop dimming myself to, to, to live up to some awful moralistic viewpoint of my father. You’re sinful. If you think you’re good at anything, you, you, you know, I’m not saying we should be [01:00:00] boastful. Humility is, has confidence built into it.

Mike Sapiro: It doesn’t have, it’s not humility can say, I’m really good at what I do, but I also have faults. I’m also. I’m also working on myself too, but I also know that I have gifts and skills that I want to bring out in the world. I want to encourage people to be humble. Not braggadocious and overconfident, but not shameful and, and belittling and invalidating.

Mike Sapiro: Those are opposite extremes For me, humility is both acknowledging what my gifts are and also what my weaknesses are equally, and being okay with both. And then encouraging myself to live as big as I can, as much as I want to with these skills. And then work on my weaknesses as much as I want to. Um. I don’t know what else to say.

Mike Sapiro: I just want people to and support, encourage what’s good in them to come forward and embolden themselves to live, uh, bigly as big as they [01:01:00] can. Bigly live Bigly

Kyle Buller: as a, as a teacher of mine once said, uh, yeah, try not to dim your light to make others feel comfortable. You know, it’s, I think it’s easier said than done, but I think it’s an, an important thing and it’s, you know, I’ve struggled with it too.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. It’s sometimes like hard to step into spotlight or step into the work, or, or truth and, ’cause there’s, there’s always those voices in the back, right? So like, you’re, you’re your worst self critic. Um, but yeah. Where does it come from? Is it you or is it the others around you that have kind of like infiltrated your, your thoughts?

Mike Sapiro: We can be humble and live a big, bold life. What I, what I’ve discovered in all of the work I’ve done is most people who leave my, the clinic or the sessions we do. Are so much, uh, lighter. First of all, they’re less tense because they’re finally seeing themselves and they’re learning to love themselves.

Mike Sapiro: But love is a verb. [01:02:00] It’s an action of encouragement, support, and nurturing. So the healing side is nurturing, tending compassion. The growth side is support and encouragement. So a lot of the people who leave our sessions start making decisions to do things that are better for them, more in like more vital to who they are.

Mike Sapiro: They may change their job, they may change career paths. I mean, not the day after. They do sessions that’s not ever recommended, but they actually end up going, this is who I want to be. This is who I want, this is what I want to do. And that’s where change really happens. And the, you know, they, they might come for, I don’t wanna feel so depressed, but that doesn’t give us an indication of what they really want.

Mike Sapiro: By the end of their sessions, what they really want is to live a full life, be themselves and to thrive. And when we finally land in our authenticity is when I see people doing that. So that’s why my book is about truth and authenticity more so than the psychedelic experience. It’s how people use the [01:03:00] psychedelic experience to speak their truth and to live authentically.

Mike Sapiro: And that is where healing and growth, uh, ultimately come from.

Kyle Buller: I agree. Yeah. So beautiful. And thank you for being a beacon of light. For those that you serve and for the world and stepping up and to your truth and, you know, sharing this work with the world, you know, it’s, it’s really impactful.

Mike Sapiro: Thank you. I can’t help it.

Mike Sapiro: I wish I could, I’d rather be a hermit, uh, living on the seaside, just writing. But I I, I, I am also just a dude with the dog doing my best to correct mistakes I’ve made and to be the best person I could be. And that’s how I help others do, do that for themselves. And, and I do hope if you’re listening, you might get the book and I hope it might be enjoy, uh, enjoyable to you, and it might actually help you heal as you read it.

Mike Sapiro: I did have it here just to show what it looks like.

Kyle Buller: I love it.

Mike Sapiro: Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Well, thank you. Well, Dr. Mike,

Mike Sapiro: thank you, man. Yeah,

Kyle Buller: thank you. Really appreciate it. Always enjoy ripping and, and chatting with you. [01:04:00] Um, any final words that you wanna close with for today?

Mike Sapiro: I think the best anybody doing listening could just be learning how to love yourself fully and that you’re super worthwhile putting in all the effort you can and do your own healing and growth because we all need you, every one of you listening us.

Mike Sapiro: Two, we need each other in this world. So put the time and effort into caring for yourself. That would be the best gift you could give, uh, all of us and yourself. That’s all beautifully

Kyle Buller: said. And for those that wanna learn more about your work, any offerings, where can people find the book, any of that stuff,

Mike Sapiro: uh, truth Medicines on Amazon or any of the stores, you know, Barnes and Noble, uh, Dr.

Mike Sapiro: Mike Boise on Instagram, and then michael sapiro.com is my website.

Kyle Buller: Awesome. Well, Dr. Mike Sapiro, thank you so much and thank you everybody for taking the time on this Thursday to, to tune in.

Mike Sapiro: Thank you guys. Thank you everybody.

Kyle Buller: Thank you. All right, we’ll catch everybody [01:05:00] later.

November 25, 2025November 25, 2025

Navigators Film Club – Last Journey

Last Journey - Film Screening Navigators Community

Join us for a film screening with one of the subjects in this short film by Arthur Nazaryn. The film was created for Reason TV. Join Navigators today to attend!

The screening will be followed by discussion with the film maker Arthur, along with the subject Heather Lee from the film.
https://www.heatheralee.com/
https://www.medicinewomanretreats.com/about-heather

November 14, 2025November 25, 2025

Kyle Buller – How to Stay Grounded in Chaos: Breathwork, Psychedelics & Presence with Kyle Buller (Ep. 127)

Released Nov 14, 2025. In this episode of The Vital Point, I’m joined by Kyle Buller: co-founder of Psychedelics Today, breathwork facilitator, and educator specializing in integration and spiritual emergence. Kyle has spent nearly a decade training and teaching in the psychedelic and somatic fields, helping people work skillfully with expanded states.

We begin with a grounding guided meditation led by Kyle to help you connect with your body’s intelligence – specifically tuning into the awareness of the mind, heart, and gut.

From there, we dive into the heart of the conversation: what is spiritual emergence, and how is it different from spiritual emergency? We talk about the risks of destabilization when altered states aren’t properly integrated, and why having the right support and frameworks can make all the difference. Kyle breaks down practical ways to recognize where someone is in their process and how to meet them — or yourself — with clarity and care.

We also explore Kyle’s “GPA” model (Grounding, Processing, Action), the importance of embodiment for facilitators, and why discernment and boundaries are essential for sustainable practice. If you’re navigating a period of rapid change — or helping others who are — this conversation offers tools, perspective, and reminders to stay connected to the present moment.

The vital point is this: transformation doesn’t end at the peak. It begins in how you return.

Connect with Kyle at https://www.psychedelicstoday.com

How to Stay Grounded in Chaos: Breathwork, Psychedelics & Presence with Kyle Buller (Ep. 127)

November 11, 2025

Genesee Herzberg — Ketamine Truths, MDMA Hopes, and the Work of Integration

Clinical psychologist Dr. Genesee Herzberg joins Kyle to reflect on two decades in trauma work and 15 years inside the psychedelic ecosystem—from early MAPS conferences to running Sage Integrative Health. She traces how personal psychedelic experiences set her on a path of service, research at CIIS on MDMA-assisted therapy, and hands-on roles with MAPS: Zendo Project harm reduction, adherence rating, and ultimately serving as an MDMA therapist in clinical trials. Today she leads Sage, an integrative clinic (psychotherapy, psychiatry, bodywork, acupuncture, and functional nutrition) focused on ketamine-assisted therapy while preparing for MDMA’s eventual approval. She also co-founded a sliding-scale KAP nonprofit (now Alchemy Community Therapy Center), co-edited Integral Psychedelic Therapy, and is helping to launch the International Alliance of MDMA Practitioners.

In this episode

From counterculture to mainstream: What’s been gained—and lost—as psychedelics scaled.
Accessibility vs. corporatization: Why cutting corners (prep/integration, therapeutic time) undermines outcomes and safety.
“Myth of the magic pill”: Psychedelics can catalyze change, but healing is an ongoing process anchored by integration.
What good care looks like: Preparation → medicine sessions → robust integration, individualized cadence, and adding bodywork and functional medicine to address gut-brain links, mineral status, sleep, and somatic tension.
Ketamine realities: Differences between psycholytic (talk-forward) and psychedelic (eyes-closed, inner-directed) dosing; why some need multiple sessions to build relationship with the medicine; risks of mail-order models (high dosing, poor screening/support), daily prescribing, addiction potential, cystitis, and safety concerns.
Sitting, not guiding: The therapist’s task is to follow the client’s process; intervene sparingly and with consent—especially in trauma work where attuned co-regulation is essential.
Multiple access pathways: Support for regulated clinical care and community, peer, and ceremonial models—paired with education and harm reduction (Zendo’s SIT peer training and new crisis-responder training).
The MDMA pause: Initial devastation at the FDA decision gave way to seeing benefits: time to strengthen ethics, accountability, training standards, and to temper hype-driven investment.
Pace and ethics: Lessons from burnout; moving at the speed of trust; exploring “psychedelic business models” (stakeholder focus, distributed decision-making, employee ownership, public benefit structures).

Resources & organizations mentioned

Takeaway: Thoughtful preparation, right-sized dosing, and committed integration—held within ethical, community-minded systems—turn powerful experiences into durable change.

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors or inaccuracies.

Kyle Buller: [00:00:00] Dr. Genesee Herzberg, welcome to Psychedelics Today. Really excited to have you here today, and I was going on our backlog and I, for some reason I thought we’ve already had you on the podcast, but I guess this is the first time. So really excited to dig in with you today.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Yeah, thanks Kyle. It’s so great to be here.

And I think I was maybe on one of your courses around ketamine and trauma, perhaps.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. You and Jason.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Yeah, that’s

Kyle Buller: right. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So, we’ll, I’ll have you [00:01:00] kick off, uh, give a little background so listeners and audience knows a little bit more about you, and then we’ll dig into some topics.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Okay.

So yeah, I am a clinical psychologist. I’ve been doing that work for about, geez, I mean, I’ve been in the field of working with trauma for almost 20 years now. And then, uh, specifically a psychologist for the past 13. And I have been also just really immersed in the psychedelic field. Uh, ever since I stepped into my work as a psychotherapist, I was, uh.

Kinda profoundly impacted by my own experiences of psychedelics, and that really opened me up to the path of service that I’m currently on. It helped me to find my purpose in the world and feel like I could make meaning of life by being of service. And so [00:02:00] it’s what, uh, instigated my search for, uh, grad school.

And I, I found CIIS where I ended up doing my, uh. Doctoral research on MDMA assisted therapy. And uh, then I went on after graduating to found Sage Integrative Health, which is the integrative psychedelic therapy clinic that I currently own and run. And so we’ve been around since 2018. We’ve got a team of.

About almost 20 practitioners, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, uh, body workers, acupuncturists, nutritional functional therapists. And, um, yeah, we focus primarily on ketamine assisted therapy right now, but we also offer this range of other integrative services, and we’re setting ourselves up to offer MDMA therapy as soon as that’s legal.

And meanwhile, I also plugged in with a variety of different, uh, [00:03:00] kind of psychedelically oriented positions through maps. So that included everything from working with the ZENDO project, doing harm reduction work at festivals, to working as an adherence rater for the MDMA, for PTSD trials, and then ultimately as a therapist for those trials as well.

Um, so that gave me a. Uh, a foot into, uh, getting to do MDMA work legally, which has been such an honor and a privilege. And, uh, yeah, I’m very passionate about that work in particular and have since been working with a group of folks to found a professional organization for MDMA therapist. Which we’re calling the International Alliance of MDMA practitioners.

Um, and then the last really, I guess a couple other, uh, sort of big chunks of my, my work in the field. One of them is that I’ve always been passionate about accessibility and accessibility to psychedelic therapy in particular, you know, it’s an expensive [00:04:00] treatments, uh, with all of the therapist hours that go into it.

And so back in 2019, I co-founded an organization that at the time was called Sage Institute, and now is called the Alchemy, alchemy Community Therapy Center. And their focus is sliding scale, ketamine assisted therapy.

Kyle Buller: Sweet.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: And then the last piece is that my partner and I co-edited a book called Integral Psychedelic Therapy, which brings together a number of different, uh.

PR practitioners and researchers in the field who write about how to do psychedelic therapy from a variety of different approaches.

Kyle Buller: Wonderful. And we’re probably gonna hit all these topics a little bit more in depth as we get going here. So excited to, to dig in. Um, I’m curious, since you’ve mentioned, you know, you were impacted by some of your own experiences early on, um, you know, I feel like even.

Yeah, even a few years ago, some therapists might have been like, uh, a little bit more cautious in talking about their own personal use, um, [00:05:00] and maybe how they got involved in the field. And, um, I wonder if you could share a little bit about that. Like, you know, what, how did that open you up and, you know, should professionals be a little bit more open about their personal experiences if they’re starting to get involved in this field?

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Yeah, I’m happy to share about my experience and I always have been, uh, I tend to be less risk averse than many, and I do think it’s important for us to share about our own experiences so that others can, um, can learn and also can relate and can potentially see like, oh, maybe this is for me. Uh, so, so yeah.

In terms of my experience, I, this was really early on for me, actually. I was about 20 years old and was, uh, going to school at Georgetown at the time, studying international relations. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer or a diplomat and was, you know, just kind of doing the typical college life, enjoying myself, um, doing a little bit too much drinking, uh, that [00:06:00] kind of thing.

Then all of a sudden when I was studying abroad in Madrid, uh, a good friend from high school died in a drunk driving act, and that just turned my whole world upside down. I. I’d never lost someone suddenly like that. And unexpectedly, you know, I lost grandparents, but, but that this was just completely different for me, that someone so close to me could suddenly just disappear off of this earth.

And so it spun me out into a pretty deep existential crisis of like, why are we here? What are we doing here? Just waking up and doing these routine, you know, getting up, going to work, coming home, doing the same thing the next day, if we could just die at any moment. And so I really sat with that question for a long time.

I was in Madrid. I had the space to just kind of be with it. And, uh, this friend who had died had also, uh, been talking to me [00:07:00] about his psychedelic experiences, and he had introduced me to cannabis. And so I, I felt, uh, drawn to exploring them to see if they could support me in my process. And so I went up to Amsterdam and I had.

Two or three experiences with psilocybin that were incredibly profound for me. They first of all, opened me up to sensing my friend Ben’s spirit. Um, it was almost as if he was communicating with me and letting me know it’s going to be okay. I’m actually still here. You can access me anytime. I started to kind of see him in the sunsets at times and just like find little ways of accessing him and my grandmother who had passed as well.

And also through that process, I started to find meaning in life, started to find, uh, [00:08:00] just a deeper connection to. The kind of my reasons for being here. And ultimately what that led me towards was a path of service. Um, the sense was if I can do something that’s helping this world become a better place, then it makes sense that I’m here.

And so since then I’ve been really driven to just do whatever I can to create a more beautiful world, and ultimately actually by, uh, uh, starting my own therapy during that time, I, I. Moved in the direction of psychotherapy and, and actually through my psychedelic work, I, I didn’t do psychedelic therapy, but I, I was working with friends in very intentional settings, paying attention to the set and setting, and I started to think, well, why don’t they combine this with, with psychotherapy?

It just made so much sense. And then I did some research and found out that they had been for decades and, um, so that’s actually what helped me to find [00:09:00] CIS as well, is they had a, a scholarship that funded psychedelic research.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Wonderful. I’m sorry to hear about your friend, and it sounds like it’s been a journey, but it’s also propelled you, um, to be of service and to, you know, share all this, all the gifts that you are.

Working on, uh, to the world and the community that, that you’re in. So thank you for your service. Um, yeah, I think it is important for folks to open up and I have noticed a shift, like some folks like way back when I would hear them, like say, can’t confirm or deny it, or, you know, afraid of professional suicide.

And then in, in the past, like years hearing them come, come out, um, and talking about their personal experiences a little bit more. Um, and I think that just helps to normalize it, right? It’s like a lot of us probably got into this because we’ve had our own personal experiences and they were really profound.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Absolutely helps to normalize it. And I think, you know, by telling our stories, people who’ve been through similar experiences can potentially relate [00:10:00] and see that there is a path, you know, towards healing.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. So we titled this 15 years in the field, um, and thinking about some evolutions, some things that you’ve seen, um, and so yeah, being involved in the field for, for such a long time, um, what have you noticed?

Like any themes, any kind of Yeah. Things that emerged throughout the years.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Yeah, so my first uh, conference, my first maps conference was in 2010 in San Jose, and it was a small group of people, I dunno how many exactly, but it felt very intimate. Uh, you know, there are maybe two or three tracks happening simultaneously, uh, as opposed to, I don’t know, dozen that they had this last year.

And it. It just felt like a more tight-knit counterculture community, which I really loved at the time. You know, I kind of felt like I finally found my [00:11:00] people and, um, and it was nice to be able to connect with others who were passionate about this thing that wasn’t accepted by the mainstream. And I really felt a sense of, uh, kind of passion around, uh, you know, how do I help this become more widely accepted?

And, and that felt really kind of a, a common experience with those that I was, uh, meeting. And so, you know, fast forward 10 years later, it, you know, feels very mainstream at this point. Probably not in some places, but it certainly is much more widely accepted. Psychedelics in general and psychedelic therapy in particular.

And I, I think that’s a beautiful thing, you know, that it, it. Really provides a lot more access to people who might otherwise be scared or turned off by it. I think people are learning that it’s safe and can [00:12:00] Poten has the potential to be very healing safe when held in the right conditions. Um, and also that there are pathways, many, many pathways to accessing it.

And so I’m, I’m very grateful for the movement in that direction. Uh, the, there have also been some shifts that have left me feeling somewhat disheartened, and that has a lot to do with the corporatization of the field and the ways in which some companies are coming in with a strong drive to profit off of, uh, you know, everything from creating new chemicals.

To, um, the psychedelic therapy itself, to retreat centers and everything in between. And there are many players who are in it for the right reasons, um, but there are others who are not, or others who are maybe in it for the right reasons, but also trying to make a profit. I’m personally a believer that, you know, healthcare should [00:13:00] not be for profit.

Like people should not be making money off of healthcare and like, you know, not beyond like, you know, kind of providing for the people involved so that they can, you know, live a comfortable life. But, um. I see healthcare as a basic human right, and it is just concerning to me. You know, as you, we watch certain companies, like Field Trip was a really good example of this.

You know, they’re no, no longer around, but at first it seemed like, okay, this, this could actually be a good thing. You know, creating multiple clinics across the country, opening up access. On the other hand, we started to see over time that they were cutting out some of what I see as the most essential parts of the work, which include the, the therapeutic process, so the time with the therapist, um, and the time for preparation and integration.

Um, so, and, and [00:14:00] we, we kind of see that across the board, just companies cutting corners basically, or not tending to appropriate set and setting. When we look at some of the, um, you know, mail order, ketamine, clinics that are, or ketamine companies that are out there, um, over-prescribing in terms of dose, I, yeah, I just think that there’s a lot of potential risk on the one hand and also, uh, diluting of the, of the effectiveness of the therapy and all of that alongside, um, something that I call the myth of the magic pill.

Mm-hmm. Like, you know, especially after Michael Pollan’s book, suddenly people are calling Sage. Uh, really excited to do psychedelic therapy, but thinking that they’re going to be able to have one or two experiences and be cured and yeah, that’s not been my experience. Yes, you can have incredibly profound psychedelic experiences that do lead to major healing, and also more often than not, uh, it, it, [00:15:00] it’s healing is a lifelong process.

And yes, psychedelics can speed that up, that process, but still, uh, uh, we, we are constantly growing and evolving and there is no landing place. And, um, beyond that integration is just an incredibly, incredibly important part of, of healing through psychedelics. And if you skip over that, it’s likely not to be all that impactful.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. So many points I want to touch on here. Um, and feel like yeah, we could go over all over the map. Um, when, you know, I. The corporate corporatizing, everything is, it seems complex, right? Because there’s parts of it that helps, like with the evolution of the field in a way, right? Like maybe we need a lot of money to do the research and you know, stuff like that.

So how would you see, like in your ideal world, like what does psychedelic therapy look like? Access to psychedelics, what does that look like? Like if you were able to [00:16:00] like say, this is the ideal model and I don’t know if there is an ideal model, but you know, it’s, it’s fun to explore.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Sure, sure. And I love that question.

I do think there’s some great companies out there, Tigen, for example, I, I really respect, you know, looking at novel analogs to MDMA and, uh, you know, Matthew Bagget has been in this field forever. And, uh, yeah, I, so there are companies out there that I think are doing it well. Um, and I’m actually currently in a program with through, uh, the North Star, uh, the, you know, Liana, Golis nonprofits.

It’s called the True North Guild. And it’s a group of, uh, executives in the psychedelic field who are looking at how do we integrate ethics into our work and into our, our companies no matter where they fall, kind of in terms of our particular area of focus or our focus on profit, et cetera. Um, so that aside the ideal [00:17:00] model, um.

Yeah, I mean, I personally think that some level of preparation, psychedelic session and integration is essential for, you know, for anyone doing this work. And in terms of the number of session sessions, it, it, it’s so individualized. So some people I think, actually can benefit from just one really profound deep session, and that’s good for them for some time and they can set it down and move on along with integration support and for others, particularly those with chronic PTSD, for example, or complex PTSD, uh, the it, there’s just so many layers to unpack and to work with.

So for those folks, you know, we found in the MDMA for PTSD research, and this was more just anecdotal, there hasn’t been specific research on this yet, but all of my colleagues seemed to notice that when folks had complex [00:18:00] PTSD, they needed more sessions afterwards and they would’ve benefited from my estimate is, you know, anywhere from six to 10 over the course of years.

You know, this isn’t all happening in a matter of months or even one year. Um, but for some people it, it really, uh, does need to be more long-term work. Uh, I don’t necessarily think that there’s any right cadence. It depends on the medicine, it depends on the person and their needs for integration. So for some people a session once a month or three months, like the maps studies entailed, it makes a lot of sense to me and for others, a lot more time for integration I think is appropriate.

And we’re looking at ketamine. It’s even more, some people benefit from twice a week for a while while others, you know, once a month or even more spread out is great. And then we’re also finding at Sage that bringing in integrative practices, including, uh, functional medicine is a big one. So looking at what is happening for [00:19:00] people on a biological level alongside their psychological process because the, there’s so interconnected and a lot of times through the, the therapy piece or the psychedelic therapy piece, we’re, we’re missing certain essential elements.

That could actually help move the needle a lot. For example, we talk a lot about the gut brain connection and the ways in which our digestive system really impact our, our mood and our sense of wellbeing. And when you look at what’s happening there, it can make a big difference for people. And there’s so much else in terms of mineral levels and nutrition, um, et cetera.

So a lot to be exploring there. And then the body too, the ways in which we hold tension in our body, um, or, uh, the ways in which, yeah, trauma impacts how we, you know, how we move, how we stand, where our chronic pain is, uh, you know, that can be really well supported and addressed through body [00:20:00] work or acupuncture, craniosacral therapy.

Um, so yeah, in an ideal world, we would include those modalities as well. Now what I’m talking about does not include any consideration for cost. So when you get into many prep sessions, as many, you know, medicine sessions as you need integration plus all of these integrative services, most of that is not currently covered by insurance.

You know, the psychotherapy prep and integration sessions, if it’s done by a licensed practitioner is usually the only thing that’s currently covered, um, with the exception of, of a company named in Thea that’s really working to change that. But right now they’re very like small in scope. We work with them, but we just have a couple referrals a year at this point.

So, yeah, I mean, honestly, I think all of this should be covered by insurance. And there are people who are working towards making that happen. I’m not sure what the timeline looks like at this point, but um, you know, certainly the psychedelic sessions needs to be [00:21:00] covered. And then I am a personal believer that these integrative modalities are actually in many ways more effective than conventional medicine, particularly when you’re looking at.

Preventative medicine and ultimately preventative medicine is going to save costs in the long run. So my hope is that over time, the right people can start to show insurance companies that we are saving money in the long time through these modalities and that coverage will start to shift.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, that seems to be the big thing, right?

Accessibility. Um, and how do we make this more accessible to, to folks, um, especially when it comes to costs and it, um, yeah. It makes me wonder like, what are some of your thoughts around like various use context and, you know, I know we’re talking about like psychedelic assisted therapy models, but like, um, you know, thinking about community models, um, peer models, ceremonial models, like Yeah.

Do you feel like that’s also part of the evolution of the field as well for [00:22:00] accessibility?

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Absolutely. Yeah. I, I believe in all of the various routes towards legalization, whether it is ceremonial religious contexts or whether it’s in more community-based contexts, uh, decriminalization, legalization, certainly we need proper regulation and guardrails.

And also I, I truly believe in, uh, you know, people’s right to explore their consciousness. And with that comes the need for education. And it’s one of the reasons that I have been connected with the Zendo project for over 10 years now. Uh, it just is. I, I think they’re doing a lot of good work in festival spaces, but they’re starting to expand that.

So they currently have a training called the SIT training, which is really around peer support. It’s not for practitioner, it’s not only for practitioners. So it’s to help people learn to sit for each other. [00:23:00] Um, that’s not going to work for everyone. If you’re trying to do deep trauma processing, you likely should be working with a therapist or if you have a, you know, a, a.

More severe or even, uh, you know, kind of run of the mill diagnosis. Like, you know, if you have chronic depression, for example, or OCD or bipolar disorder, um, and most of those are, are rooted in trauma on one level or another. If not, you know, acute trauma, then early relational developmental trauma. Um, so there, there are times and places where it’s important to be working with a therapist.

And there are also other instances where having a friend sit for you is perfectly acceptable, especially when that friend is trained to do that work. And it’s actually how I, you know, first got started was, um, reading. I came across actually at that first. Psychedelic conference that I went to in 2010. I, uh, someone, I won’t name this name, uh, was who’s been in the field for quite some time, was passing around these little cards [00:24:00] with a link to what they call at the time, the En theo Guide.

And it was a, uh, that I think is now published now under a different name, but basically just described, it’s like a, a guide for sitters and Voyager. And I was. So comprehensive and so helpful for me and my learning in terms of how to be with people in a good way. Um, so I, I absolutely support that. And then the other thing that Zendo project is doing right now that I just wanna name or about to do is that they’re also moving into supporting crisis responders and how to respond, how to support people in more of a kind of harm reduction, uh, relationship focused way.

So, very excited.

Kyle Buller: Just so important, right? Because you get called, they don’t really know what to do. I mean, I’ve seen some of those videos online of, you know, first responders responding to people having like, really difficult experiences or doing something erratic in public. And also like the trauma that, that probably causes that person, like once they’re in the midst of a, an experience, [00:25:00] right?

Seems traumatizing, like geez.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It really puts therapists in a challenging position when, you know, suicidal ideation or imminent suicidality shows up. Like if you make a call, which you’re mandated to do, it’s likely going to, or there’s a good chance it’ll be traumatic for the person involved because of the ways that law enforcement is trained to deal with those situations.

So I’m so excited to see that start to shift.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And thanks for also mentioning like, yeah, being with friends and stuff like that. I just think about like my early years too, like sitting with friends and then becoming more intentional and kind of like, you know, holding that container for one another and like with that intention and just how impactful that was.

Right. Um, and it sounds like you, you’re also doing something similar in those early days.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Absolutely. In those early days. And then also, you know, that was a big part of what I see as my own training was actually with, with colleagues. Um, [00:26:00] we kind of, early on there were a group of different ketamine assisted therapy clinics who, um, we were all launching at the same time, Sage and Polaris and Healing Re realms and Temenos all clinics in the Bay Area.

Um, we were supported by Raquel Bennett of Korea who had trained us all. And so we came together and, uh, had a consultation group and also a practice group, and started to, um, kind of practice using these medicines in kind of novel ways and, you know, understanding better how to sit with folks before stepping into actually doing the work.

And I’m very passionate about this personally, that you really should only be holding space, um, and guiding people in realms that you know yourself. And I realize that that’s complicated. I realize that, you know, there some people have medical reasons for not being able to, yeah. Um, you know, delve into certain realms or explore certain medicines.

And there are also many, many ways to [00:27:00] access altered states of consciousness. And, you know, personally, I only work with the medicines that I have a deep relationship to. And so I, I just yeah. Think, think that that’s an important part of training.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And I guess on that note, like, um, and maybe it’s like so personalized and individual, like what does that relationship look like?

Like should that be ongoing? Like, is it okay to take breaks and kind of like, you know, not have experiences for a while? Because I know yeah. Some people are like, no, you should really be doing this all the time to develop that relationship with the medicine. Mm-hmm. But I also know people that have had those really profound experiences in the past and they’re really deep in integration for months, years, and they’ve kind of like put it aside and they’re showing up to, to do their work.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Yeah, I, I think it’s, it’s important to take breaks sometimes. Actually, what I have found with medicines over the years is that they show up and are important medicines for me for a while, and then at a certain point [00:28:00] I just kind of get to a place where it’s, it’s not right for me in this moment. And either I shift to a place of, you know, taking a break from.

Medicines in general, or there are other medicines that are calling to me. So I think that, you know, different medicines have their time and place in our lives at different times, and we can’t predict what that will look like or, um, and definitely shouldn’t hold expectations that others have any particular trajectory with medicines because it’s, it’s so unique and individualized, and often integration takes years.

And, uh, it, it’s important to respect that. I remember with Ayahuasca, I was sitting in this really sweet, um, monthly gathering, closed group, small group that was intended to support folks in accessing their creativity. And it was very, very helpful for me for some time. And then I kept getting the same message over and over again.

And at that point I was like, okay, I need this. Stop until I can [00:29:00] really integrate that message. The message was to slow down, and at the time I was running both Sage and Alchemy and working on a book, and I was like, I can’t slow down. Can’t do it

Kyle Buller: all. Yeah, I’m

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: gonna need to just pause, get to a place where I can, and then maybe I’ll return to that medicine if it feels right.

And honestly I haven’t yet.

Kyle Buller: Hmm. Yeah.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Better in terms of my, my life being slower and more manageable. So I’ve integrated the lesson, but I haven’t felt the call.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And I think that’s an important message. Um, and I always come back to something, uh, one of my colleagues and friends, Deanna Rogers always mentioned, it’s like, you know, are you in a place where you’re able to shake the ground?

Um, and there’s. You know, I, I had a similar experience where it was just like, I kept going back into that space and getting the same message. And it’s like that classic quote, once you get the message, hang up the phone. And, I mean, that’s the message. It was, it got, it’s like you’ve been here, go do your work in the world.

Yes. And that was like a really challenging, I think, message to hear, but um. That kind of all started around the time I think we started this, this project and I was starting [00:30:00] grad school and doing all sorts of stuff and I was like, yeah, I think I just need to take a break. But it didn’t mean I took a break on the inner work, right?

Mm-hmm. It was like breath, breath work was still involved, still using like cannabis in a somatic way to deepen that experience. Um, therapy and like all those other modalities. But it was like, oh yeah, I think I just need to sit, you know, I keep getting the same message and I think I just need to press, press the break a little bit.

And yeah, as like you’re saying, like it comes in waves and I feel like that’s been my journey too. It’s like it’s here then maybe I need to really sit with the integration process for a while while utilizing other modalities to help me integrate that. Um,

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: yes, and I love the modalities that you named there too.

Those are definitely on my. Your kind of top list of, of integration tools? Psychotherapy for sure. Um, for me, meditation as well. Breath work is great. Time and nature and, and yeah, sometimes other medicines too. Ketamine and cannabis in particular. And for me, ketamine, cannabis and movement have bit like [00:31:00] dance movement have been such an important integration tool.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. So good. Um, we’re talking a little bit too about the like therapeutic process and when you mentioned the myth of the magic pill, um, you know, I’m wondering how are you managing expectations when people are coming in? Uh, because I noticed, like that’s always been a challenge for me too, when like clients have come in, they’re like, I’m gonna have this like profound experience and I’m like.

I know you’ve read Michael Pollan’s book, I know you’ve read the research, but that’s not always how, like, you know, these experiences always go and it’s always hard to kind of manage that expectation. It’s like you wanna be optimistic and hopeful and hold kind of like the potential for those mystical, transformative experiences, but also be realistic too, um, and what could possibly occur with somebody.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Yeah. I love how you framed that. It really is holding a pretty delicate balance there, um, of, of those two pieces, both, you know, planting the seeds for the potential for something really powerful [00:32:00] and transformative on the one hand, while also helping people to get, get, portray a realistic picture of what what could in fact happen.

And with ketamine, this is especially important because, um, it’s possible and there are some. Uh, I wanna say Eli Culp is one of them. Past researchers who, or it may have been Kapinsky, who, uh, would do a level of preparation, like six weeks of preparation for one very high dose ketamine experience, which he just kind of.

Supported people in envisioning will be profound. And it was specifically to treat addiction. And so there, you know, there is a way to go about it like that, but more often than not, ketamine actually takes time to develop a relationship to too. I know that was true for me, and it’s true for many of my clients, not all of them, some of them, the first experience, they’re like, oh wow, yeah, this is, this really works for me.

Yeah. I, I’m feeling better than I have in years or, [00:33:00] um, wow. It just really brought me to this place that I needed to go. Um, but for many others it’s. It’s a little bit of a, like a weird place, like

Kyle Buller: weird

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: medicine. Yeah, yeah. What do I do with this? What is this realm? How do I make sense of what just came through?

And so I really wanna let people know, you know, that we don’t know how this is gonna go for you. Um, it’s, it could be, uh, a clearly beneficial experience right off the bat. It also may take, I tell people, it may take up to three sessions to really get us good sense if this is gonna be the right medicine for you.

And, uh, generally people find it to be helpful to their process one way or the other. Um, but for some people it has more obvious biochemical effects where it, you know, shifts your mood pretty immediately. And for other people, it has more to do with the content that comes up, which we can then work with in the integration sessions or process during the session if it’s a lower dose psych psycholytic session.

And so. Uh, [00:34:00] just, just letting them know that it’s, um, it, it may be very profound. It may be something that we need to work together to other understand, and for some people it’s not their medicine. And so just to let them know that right off the bat.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. Um, and there’s another question that came up around like the therapeutic process a, a bit ago.

I don’t know if you’ve been digging into any of the research that’s, that’s come out. I’ve kind of dug in a little bit here and there, but not super versed in it about, I don’t know which company is like, looking at just the effect of the medicine and suggesting like, maybe we don’t need like that therapeutic support there the whole time.

Um, or like how impactful is therapy versus like just the medicine. Mm-hmm. Um, since, and since you brought up like there is a biological aspect of, um, you know, ketamine. Being an antidepressant at times. Right. Um, like what’s your take on that? Like, do you feel like with some of that research, like biotech and some of these companies might want to [00:35:00] completely remove the therapeutic process if they have data that the medicine is just as effective?

Um, without that, that therapeutic support?

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Um, it depends. It depends so much on the medicine and the person. Uh, but I do think there are certain, uh, trends or patterns that, that I would, uh, comment on. One of them is that when we’re looking at high doses of either more classical psychedelics, uh, the tryptamines like LSD or psilocybin and also high doses of ketamine, yes, the sitter.

Um, I think it’s, in my experience, having a sitter there, uh, just to make sure that you’re safe. To make sure that, uh, you know, especially with high-dose LSD or, or psilocybin, people sometimes get paranoid. They get scared, they don’t know what’s happening. Mm-hmm. High-dose ketamine too. So having someone to ground you and remind you that you’re okay, that this is what’s happening, [00:36:00] um, are really important, but there’s not necessarily as much of a therapeutic process that happens at those levels, you know?

Right. If you look at the John Hopkins research, people are for a big chunk of time, uh, they’ve got eye shades on and they’re really having an internal process. So I, I could see an argument for, with those medicines, at those doses having highly trained sitters rather than licensed psychotherapists being okay.

I still think the prep and integration is important. Um, but whether it needs to be with a licensed therapist or with someone who’s very trained and you know how to hold prep and integration, I’m open. When it comes to trauma processing, again, I cannot see removing the therapist. Um, it just, you know, people do in their MDMA sessions, some people anyway have moments, maybe an hour at a time where they’re going inward and having deep [00:37:00] experiences, but then that coming back out and talking with the therapist about what’s coming up and having someone there with you.

To be in the emotion with you rather than being alone in these overwhelming feelings that initially caused the trauma, I think is an essential component of healing. In fact, this is something that’s been coming up a lot with a current client of mine who has a severe trauma history, like very severe childhood trauma.

And, uh, part of our work recently has been just her coming in and going back into these young parts of her who experienced, you know, devastating sexual and physical abuse and being able to express what, you know, just the intense fear, shame, uh, devastation, isolation with me there. And she said time and time again that these things are coming up when she’s at home, [00:38:00] but she just.

She’ll cry and like it’ll just be a looping kind of cry. Uh, and it doesn’t lead her to kind of feel better afterwards, where when we go into those places together, she comes out the other side as if she’s just released something major and she feels, you know, almost like a different person or like she can go back into her life and navigate it in a good way.

So yeah, I just cannot see removing the therapist from any psychedelic work focused on, on trauma therapy specifically. And I worry about it for, for other things too. You know, I think there are specific cases where, you know, say you have someone who’s a little bit more. I don’t know. I hate all the terms for this.

Yeah. Higher functioning or, you know, healthy, normal, um, whatever, who doesn’t have a lot of trauma in their background. Um, this is what Tigen is trying to do, where, you know, just having an MDMA experience can be hugely beneficial. Or like me, you [00:39:00] know, mys Ivan experiencing, I have complex trauma. Um, but I was in a situation where I had the right support, um, that psilocybin experience with, you know, with two friends there, um, without a, you know, full on therapist was very, very healing for me.

So, um, I think there are times and places and people where that may be. Okay.

Kyle Buller: And as you’re talking. And as you’re talking about this, it just reminded me of a session that I had one time with a therapist and asking this question like, could the therapy actually disrupt somebody’s process? Um, and where I’m coming from is I was, uh, doing academy and session with a therapist and it was almost like they were putting on their therapist hat and really wanted to know what was going on.

They wanted to guide me through an experience and I was just doing my work, right. I was like, I, I am doing it. Let me just be internal. And I had to like tell them to like back away. And it was almost like maybe they had to like unlearn in that moment of like, how do I just be a sitter and not a therapist in this space?

And really like, you know, give somebody like [00:40:00] agency to, to work through that. Um, ’cause I know sometimes, yeah, maybe, you know, we’re trained to want a dialogue and get in there and, and understand, but when could that not be so beneficial at times? And just let somebody have their experience

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: such an important point.

And that is one of the most important things that we try to convey. Convey in our training, we offer what we call Integra Integral Psychedelic Therapy Training, um, for practitioners at Sage. And uh, I’ve also been an educator for the Maps MDMA for PTSD training. And we saw time and time again, especially in some of those bigger maps trainings when we had 500 people virtually, um, that there were many folks, especially those who are trained in more.

Active or directive psychotherapies like CBT or DBT, um, that really had to [00:41:00] unlearn their therapeutic method, um, because it in a psychedelic session. It’s so essential to follow the client’s lead and what Zendo calls it, it’s one of their four principles sitting, not guiding. Yeah. So you are not guiding the person’s process.

You’re not directing them. You’re really sitting back and making space for their experience. If they want to engage, then you engage. If they want to share what’s happening for them, you take notes. Um, but I am rarely, you know, kind of leading people in any particular direction. Occasionally, if I notice that someone seems to be kind of bypassing, like staying on a more surface level, this happens semi-frequently with MDMA especially, um, I will try to find a gentle way to.

Redirect their attention inward really is the, the most likely thing there. [00:42:00] And then occasionally, if they’re not talking about their trauma, we may have made an agreement beforehand that I can bring it back to that if, if they have consented to it previously. Um, so there are times and places for direction in medicine sessions, but they’re rare more often than not, particularly during the peak of the medicine experience.

I think it’s so important for therapists. To unlearn, um, their directive tendencies and to really sit back and hold the space. The last thing I’ll say about that is that I think one of the things more than anything that motivates therapists to step in in those moments is their own discomfort, right?

Either they feel like to be useful or they’re feeling uncomfortable with the emotional content that’s present, and they’re trying to soothe themselves by engaging with the client. And so, uh, uh, an important practice for therapists in those moments is really noticing what’s coming up inside them, being with that, processing it internally, and then using the [00:43:00] acronym, uh, weight.

Why am I talking before? Before stepping forward?

Kyle Buller: Yeah, it’s so important. And I know I’ve been there quite a few times and like having to listen to my own advice where I like want to intervene or do something and I have to pull back. I’m like, who is this for? Uh, this is actually for me ’cause I’m like feeling anxious and I wanna be useful.

Or maybe I’m like, quote unquote feeling bored because I’m not doing anything and I feel like I, I need to do something. Um, and yeah, I think that’s a really important reminder. Yeah. Wait, why am I talking, why am I treating, why am I, you know, if we’re talking about therapeutic touch, like why am I touching?

Mm-hmm. Um, you know, that weight acronym is really great. Um, and you know, something else that comes up as we’re talking about this topic is, you know, is it dependent on like, obviously the medicine, the dosing, so like, you know, psycholytic therapy, um, you know, a little bit more engaging than high dose therapy.[00:44:00]

And like, you know, I feel like we’re still so early in this field where we’re like, what is the best protocol, right? Like, how do we like approach this? Like, you know, if somebody with significant trauma, are we doing more kind of like psycholytic dosing where there’s a little bit more engagement and relationship building then going into high dose where we could maybe sit back and, and be that sitter?

And so yeah, it’s interesting as, as the field evolves and like. How protocols are gonna be developed and then, um, applied.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: That’s really what we found with our, our ketamine work so far, is that when someone’s coming in with trauma, we, in fact, we start all of our clients at a psycholytic dose, whatever that is for them.

And just to see how that, you know, how that works for them. Typically, it’s around a hundred milligrams sublingual for ketamine and. Uh, for some people they wanna stay there. They find, oh, this is really great. It puts me in a place where I can better process my work. Uh, so the therapist is quite engaged often in psych psycholytic work, but even so you’re still following the client’s lead?

Yeah. [00:45:00] They’re maybe a little bit of direction, like bringing their attention back to their body, for example, noticing how whatever they’re talking about is showing up there. Um, but more often than not, you’re still kind of following the client’s lead and then, you know, only moving to psychedelic therapy to higher doses if people find that it’s helpful.

And in those cases, yeah, more often than not, it’s more eye shades, music and the therapist sitting back and just available if anything’s needed and as they’re coming down.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. So you’ve been involved in the ketamine space for a while, and I’m curious to hear some of your thoughts on how that’s evolved because I, I think before we, yeah, before we got rolling, I was just mentioning like I was hearing last night, um, during class, that a lot of people actually got interested in this through ketamine and.

You know, years ago that might not have been the case and how maybe popular or accessible ketamine has become. And you know, we’ve seen all sorts of different things like, you know, there’s lots of different models, lots of different theories and application with ketamine, whether you’re go, you’re going into like an IV clinic and just getting that type of treatment, you’re going into get [00:46:00] more psychedelic assisted therapy model.

We have the at home male, uh, ketamine. And so yeah, just curious to hear like your thoughts on how it, how it’s been evolving.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: It certainly has changed. We started offering ketamine in 2018 at Sage Ketamine assisted therapy and at the time. It was pretty much, uh, you know, a handful of clinics like ours and a bunch of infusion clinics that existed, but many people didn’t know about.

And we would semi-regularly get referrals or people coming in for ketamine assisted therapy who had previously tried an infusion clinic and had a pretty challenging experience for one reason or another. Uh, I’m thinking of one person in particular who found the ketamine itself useful, uh, but who had been placed in a kind of busy waiting room type area.

She could hear the [00:47:00] receptionist talk. She was just kind of on her own in this reclining chair and, you know, just had a nurse kind of check in on her at the beginning and the end of the session. And then they just let her go to drive back on her own. So at a certain point when they up the dose enough.

She had a, you know, a full on psychedelic experience, had a, an encounter with death. She then was just kind of unhooked from the IV and told to go home and drive herself home. And this was just,

Kyle Buller: she

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: devastating for her,

Kyle Buller: drive herself home too. Wow. Not even needing a ride. Wow.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Yeah. And, and she was, you know, about 40 minutes from her home.

Um. Yeah, so she was really, really disturbed by that experience. No integration support whatsoever. So she found me and we were able to do some, you know, trauma work around that experience, um, and then step [00:48:00] into more of a, you know, ketamine assisted therapy treatment. And that was ultimately healing for her.

Um, but yeah, there are a number of people who ended up having this. We also ran an integration group in the past for just anyone who worked with ketamine, and a lot of people from integration or from infusion centers ended up joining us and. Many people had faced challenges like that. So I am, you know, so glad that there are many different alternatives at this point and that I think at least some infusion centers are starting to catch on to the need for more properly held work.

Um, but still, you know, I hear about people using s bravado and often it doesn’t have much in terms of support. And so, yeah, I, you know, it’s, it’s great that there are lots of options out there. I, you know, one thing I’ve been thinking of doing is, uh, you know, reaching out to infusion centers to see if they would like some consultation around how to hold the work in a good way.

’cause I think there is still a lot of work to do there. Um, I don’t think we should get rid of infusion [00:49:00] centers. They certainly are helpful for some people. Um, s bravado is covered by insurance, which is amazing. Um, you know, really ideally. Generic emmic, ketamine would be covered as well. We’ll see if we get there.

Um, and then the mail order companies, yeah, I have a lot of mixed feelings about that. Yeah. Again, I think for, you know, kind of the typical person that, or doesn’t have a lot of trauma in their background and doesn’t necessarily need a lot of support, it’s not a bad option for people to have access to a medicine that can be very helpful.

Uh, on the other hand, it’s. You know, from what I understand, there’s a little bit of preparation and integration support, but it’s, it’s just not the same as working with a therapist ongoing. There is not a therapist present in the session. They say you should have a, a support person present, but they’re, they don’t really monitor that, and so many people [00:50:00] don’t.

They prescribe very high doses. The reason for that, as I understand it, is because they ask people to hold it in their mouth for less time. So sublingual lozenges are, you know, generally held in the mouth for 10 to 15 minutes. It’s a somewhat lower dose. I think they have people holding it in the mouth for five minutes at quite high doses.

But if people confuse that, it’s so easy to just, you know, have a, you know, fall into a deep K hole that you don’t know you’re going into and feel totally overwhelmed and discombobulated with no one there to support you. You know, it can lead to incidences like, um. Matthew Perry, for example, it can also lead to addiction.

You know, I, I’ve been hearing recently that some companies are prescribing daily ketamine, which is super concerning. Ketamine can be, uh, you know, can be used improperly. It can be misused. It’s, um. While it’s not necessarily psychological, or sorry, physiologically addictive, you [00:51:00] won’t necessarily have severe withdrawal symptoms.

It’s certainly psychologically addictive and there are many people who have become addicted to it and even have died because of it. And so it generally not in therapeutic. Settings. Mm-hmm. Um, as far as I know, and like ketamine assisted therapy session settings. Um, but when someone’s being sent a prescription of ketamine and told to use it daily, you know, it, why not just have it, you know, either in the morning or when you’re having a hard time to change your state.

You know, that’s really how things become addictive when you start to grab for it whenever you need to change your state and you lose your other coping strategies. And, uh, yeah, I’m, I’m kind of just concerned about the direction that’s going to head. I think it’s too early to know exactly what that will look like, but it has the potential to turn into something like the opioid epidemic.

And, uh, yeah, I, I don’t know, opiate, you know, opiates are way more physiologically addictive, so I don’t think it’s quite the same. Um, but [00:52:00] yeah, I do have my concerns.

Kyle Buller: Well, when you say, you know, you’ve heard of people dying, is that mostly due to like getting up, falling, hitting their head or in like Matthew Perry’s case drowning, like doing things that like aren’t necessarily appropriate or from like overdosing or, or something like that.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: yeah, it’s really hard. Thanks for naming that. It’s really hard to overdose on ketamine. Yeah, yeah. They use way, way, way higher doses in surgical settings and anesthesiology and you know, not a problem. It physiologically it helps to have your heart rate monitored, but yeah, high dose ketamine is not going to kill you on its own most likely, however.

Yeah, either it’s, you know, probably the biggest risk is getting up and moving when you’re too high and falling and hurting yourself some somehow, or drowning. Or the other possibility is, you know, getting addicted to it and then finding out you can buy it on the street for much cheaper. Getting a source and starting to use powder ketamine and then getting some that’s placed with fentanyl.

That’s actually where I’ve heard of a lot of the deaths happening too. [00:53:00]

Kyle Buller: I’ve heard of that too. Yeah. And do you know if we have any data around like long, like for these folks that might be prescribed daily, like long-term bladder issues? I know it’s mostly like the data that I’ve read seems to be more kind of like in the recreational world where they’re taking like up to a gram all the time and like, you know, doing very high doses.

But, um, is that a concern for you within like daily dosing? Within like a therapeutic

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: It is. And you know, it’s not common. Um, but it’s something that we look out for even in our, you know, therapeutic setting, our clinical setting where we rarely. Dose people like our prescribers rarely prescribe more than a twice a week ketamine experience.

And even then there are some people who start to experience pretty quickly, uh, you know, urinary issues. Uh, so frequent needs to urinate pain and urination, which could be an indication of cystitis. So for those people, we generally just ask them to stop and say, this may not be the right medicine [00:54:00] for you.

You know, let’s see what else. You know, what else is possible? Try to work just with therapy. That kind of thing. I have heard of the occasional person in a clinical setting using not that much developed cystitis and actually contend with the issue of ketamine is so helpful for me that I’m not sure I wanna give it up.

And on the other hand, you know, it’s just really alleviating my depression or whatever it is. And on the other hand, the cystitis is a long-term chronic. Painful issue. And so not really knowing how to manage that, but yeah, more often it’s gonna show up in recreational daily use.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Do you fear of any sort of like crackdown on like ketamine, and I know this has been going on for a while, like, you know, people not being able to get ketamine because of like manufacturing and distribution hangups and DEA oversight and stuff like that.

Um.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: I do, I do. Yeah. I think that’s one of the other potential risks as well, beyond people getting hurt, is that there’s some kind of [00:55:00] crackdown, maybe it’s reclassified as a schedule two medicine and just made harder to access for one reason or another. I don’t, you know, it’s on the World Health Organizations list of essential medicines and it’s used in so many different settings.

Everything from the battlefield to surgical settings to, um, you know, sur surgery with children and animals, that it is most likely never going to be criminalized completely. Um, but I, I could see a situation where it’s, it’s much harder to obtain, which would be a real, um, just really unfortunate for the many, many people who are benefiting from it.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. So I guess on this topic, and I’m just seeing the time is flying by here, I’m like, oh. Um, so it feels like ketamine has really exploded in, in the past few years and, you know, lots of different kind of modalities, the way people are using it. And then the whole thing with like mail, uh, at home, uh, ketamine use.

And then [00:56:00] we had, um, you know, the MDMA decision last, uh, last summer with the FDA, and we’ve been talking about this like slowdown, this hangup with approval and, you know, it’s, yeah, you’re just talking about like potential crackdown, you know, is that on, on the horizon for ketamine? Is there a benefit of like, you know, maybe that, that MDMA decision, um, you know, getting denied for right now and, and talking about a slowdown in revaluation of how psychedelics are, um, you know, maybe becoming more mainstream.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: So when I first learned about the FDA decision, and in fact the, the group that I mentioned earlier, the International Alliance of MDMA practitioners, we were working and we’re basically, uh, the founding group is about 40, uh, trainers and supervisors from the maps research and, uh, training program. Uh, we were devastated by the decision.

We’d done so much work around advocacy [00:57:00] when, um, you know, people started speaking out against MDMA and, and the, the research itself in ways that, uh, largely didn’t make sense. Some of it did, you know, there certainly were. Um, a couple of ethical violations, one in particular that was very problematic, very disturbing, um, and also that kind of ethical violation happens in every field.

Um, so it’s, it’s not outside of the norm as much as, as it is a problem, and as much as we, we do need to do whatever we can to prevent, you know, therapists from crossing sexual lines with their clients. Um, but yeah, a lot of what was being said about the research was, uh, unfounded and, uh, ultimately the decision itself.

The FDA’s decision itself went against a lot of what they had specifically recommended to maps as they were developing the protocol. [00:58:00] Um, so the FDA had worked really closely with maps to develop this research protocol, and then they were coming back with all of these critiques of the protocol they had helped develop.

So it was very confusing to and disorienting to all of us. And it also made some sense in that, uh, based on some of the criticisms that were coming up, I think the popular opinion was starting to shift around this medicine. And so it was important for the FDA not to make a decision that would be unpopular to the mainstream.

So I, I kind of get where they were coming from on that level. Nonetheless, I was very disheartened, primarily because I’ve just seen how powerful that work can be for some people, especially those with trauma. And I have. A number of clients who had been waiting for years to be able to access that medicine legally and now will have to wait longer.

And yeah, just watching some of them, uh, really, really [00:59:00] struggle and not be able to find something that really gets to the core of what they’re struggling with. Despite, you know, the deep experience that I have and my colleagues have in working with trauma and the, you know, the power that, that ketamine has to support people as well.

MDMA just brings something different to the table that, for some people is needed. So I was, I was, uh, really upset to see the decision and it took me and my colleagues some time to recover from it. And over time, I am starting to feel a little bit differently, particularly after going to the psychedelic Science conference in June of this year and seeing the ways in which there were less folks attending.

And, uh, the people that were, there were, many of them were people who had been in the field for a long time or who had a personal relationship to the work and are deeply con committed to bringing it out in the world in a good way. And then it seems like a lot of, or a number of [01:00:00] the kind of larger companies who were in it mostly for profit.

Had kind of stepped away or seen that this isn’t necessarily going to be as quick moving and profitable and imminent as they thought it was going to be. So it felt like a little bit of the kind of, uh, riffraff, for lack of a better word, was um. Was not there. And it was more focused on those who are, you know, truly in it for the right reasons.

And you know, on top of that, I’m also feeling like this is giving us more time to really get some good, uh, guardrails and systems of accountability in place to protect people and to ensure that the work is held in a good way. And you know, that’s something that we’re doing with the MDMA alliance right now is working on a set of clinical and ethical standards and, you know, considering what other organizations we can work with to support systems of [01:01:00] accountability and, uh, you know, thinking through what training is going to need to look like for folks.

And, you know, we don’t know. What, uh, Lycos, or I guess they’re now calling themselves Resilient Therapeutics, is going to, um, ask for, or the FDA is going to ask for in terms of the rems or the requirements in terms of how the work is, uh, prescribed. So, you know, kind of training may depend a lot on what that ends up looking like.

And at the same time, we can set standards as a group of professionals and, uh, you know, help potential clients find ways to access folks who are, you know, truly trained in, in how to hold the work in a, a good and robust and ethical way.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting that you brought up, um, the MAPS conference.

’cause I was having a lot of conversations with colleagues and it did feel like, I [01:02:00] think for those that have been working in the space for a while, there was a different energy there and it, it was almost like maybe two experiences I was hearing. It was like the people I’ve been in the space for a while, it was like a little bit of like, yeah, there’s like a shift in energy and then the people, it was like their first time, it was all the excitement there still.

But for like, operators were like, yeah, something feels different. And I did hear that from quite a few folks where almost like this decision and, and maybe there’s other factors at play too that may have like shaken up like investment and corporations a bit more around this stuff and like has. Kind of contracted the height bubble.

Um, and I do think that there is a benefit in that contraction, right? Maybe it’s helping us to like, ’cause it feels like, you know, if anybody’s been working in this space, it feels like a rocket ship. Like, you know, it’s just been like so crazy over the past few years and all the developments and, and things and it, it has felt like it’s been moving fast.

But there’s also that like. Sense of urgency that we need to get this to market. And I, you know, I just, I skimmed through, uh, the [01:03:00] letter that maps just published, um, around, uh, the, the letter that the FDA just, uh, made public, um, that that urgency is still there, right? Like people are, are dying. We need new tools in mental health, but um, like how are we doing that in an appropriate way and, and maybe kind of slowing down and having a little bit of that reflection time can be really important.

Um, so I don’t know, do you feel that urgency that we do need to like speed this up to get it out for new mental health treatments or, you know, yeah. Do we really need this time to maybe sit and reflect and see like where the field and wants to develop and go?

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: I have had a real trans inner transformation around that sense of urgency.

I stepped into the field with just being driven by it intensely, and that led me to found two businesses, one after the other, and write a book and just to everything I could, not just to create a, you know, a psychedelic [01:04:00] clinic that holds the work in a way that I think is, um, you know, ethical and truly going to help people, but also create access and also get my model out there.

And, um, and, you know, glad glad that I did on some level and also it. There’s a number of things I learned from that process. One is that I totally burned myself out in the process and it led me to be, you know, kind of much worse at what I did for some time period, particularly in terms of running the organizations.

And, um, I, I really, you know, I ended up burning myself out and needing to go through some, um, it’s, it’s how I got really interested in functional medicine actually, is learning that there are, you know, one of the many kind of issues that’s not recognized by western medicine, adrenal fatigue, um, but is deeply supported through functional medicine.

And, and so ultimately ended up being helpful for me, but it also, um, I think led me to make some decisions that I [01:05:00] would wouldn’t have or I would’ve done differently otherwise. And to, um. Yeah, I, I think that had we moved at a slower pace and let go of that sense of urgency, things would have been built in a much more sustainable way.

You know, we’ve been able to correct course and Sage is doing great and I’m, you know, just really happy with the organization and the direction that we’re going. Alchemy as well. And also it, uh, I, I just, as much as there are many people out there that need to be helped also, when you move too quickly into something, mistakes are made.

And when you’re able to take it more slowly, move at the, the speed of trust, right? That may be Adrian Marie Brown’s term, I’m not sure. But, um. Just really take things one step at a time. Make sure you’re understanding best practices before you dive in head, you know, head first. It, it really makes a [01:06:00] difference.

I remember a common phrase at the time had to do with building the plane as we fly and we were all building the plane as we flew and it was like, that’s never a good idea. That plane is not gonna fly.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Let’s make sure we have landing gear and all the safety stuff in, in place. First. I had an old, uh, I worked at a company and, and they used to use that term all the time ’cause they were like kind of in startup.

They’re like, oh, we’re just, you know, flying the plane building. And I’m like, that seems really dangerous.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Totally. Totally. And then the other piece that I think is, is helpful here is around ethical business practices. You know, it’s so easy to go into. The, the known to just keep going with what we know, you know, this kind of hierarchical corporate profit-driven structure, because that’s what’s most common.

That’s what folks are used to, where I am really excited about, uh, psychedelic businesses. Really using, you know, what I think Dave McGuffey called the, the psychedelic business model, you know, in which we’re, you know, we’re, we’re holding things differently. [01:07:00] We’re really thinking about how can we change and refine business so that it’s truly supportive of all stakeholders involved, of the employees, of the folks we’re serving, of leadership of the community itself.

And so integrating things like, um. You know, more distributed decision making. For example, I’m very excited about the, the teal model of, uh, organizational structure or, um, you know, purpose-driven, uh, companies, uh, you know, benefit, uh, public benefit companies, um, employee ownership as something we’re really exploring right now.

So, how to help everyone, uh, to participate in the success of the organization and everyone feel empowered to do the work they’re most passionate about and to make the decisions that they’re most, uh, you know, informed to make.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Um, and thanks for sharing that vulnerable part about burnout.

Um, you know, I, [01:08:00] that was I think a consensus I was hearing too, amongst a lot of colleagues when we all got together that people did, yeah. And feel really burnt out with like, how fast things have been going. Mm-hmm. And I think that’s really important to be honest about, like, how much are we taking on? Can we continue to move at that speed?

Because if we’re all burning out, then we’re not gonna be able to show up for our clients for the development of everything. Um, and to really, yeah. Maybe, and I, I feel like I’ve heard this too. It’s like, it, it’s really been a time of like self-reflection the past few months for a lot of people. They’re like, how do I wanna show up?

Um, like, where do we want to go? And it’s. Sounded like a, a bunch of people were like, yeah, coming back to basics, like, why did I start this? Why did I get involved here? Um, and where do we want this like ship to go? And so in some sense, I think this kind of self-reflection period is really helpful for a lot of the folks that have been involved in a bid and feel like, yeah, we’ve been on a rocket ship and like.

Okay, like, let’s, let’s slow down and self-reflect and, and see, and also [01:09:00] maybe hold a little bit of that urgency, right? Like we do have like this mental health crisis. What are new tools and interventions that we can have to help people? ’cause that is a very real thing. Um, but yeah, also just balancing the reality of like, yeah, moving too quickly.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Definitely, definitely. And I would say self-reflection and healing. You know, one of the things that burnout does is it leads us to, it can often lead to mental fog. We don’t think as clearly it can lead to fatigue. We just aren’t able to show up as much. And it can also lead to loss of passion and motivation.

So we’re not, as we lose track of why we got into this in the first place, or we, we don’t have things that we’re really excited or inspired about. So, you know, a big part of my healing has been regaining all of those things. And it’s, it’s so good for me to feel this renewed sense of passion around, you know, how to continue to steer the field in a good way and bring forward treatments that are truly gonna help people.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. Beautifully [01:10:00] said. Well, we’re getting at time here. Um, I feel like we could go for another hour and digging into all these wonderful topics. Um, do you wanna talk a little bit about the book that, uh, you guys published a while ago before we wrap up here?

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Great. So it’s called integral psychedelic therapy.

The, let’s see, I have been ordinary art of psychospiritual healing and uh, yeah, it’s, it was really a passion project that was developed with my partner Jason Butler at Wilber Hot Springs is where we first started thinking about it. And it initially was gonna take the form of a conference there, kind of like an unconference of gathering together a bunch of psychedelic practitioners to think together about how to continue to evolve the work.

You know, at the time it felt like the conversation around psychedelic therapy was not very nuanced and was really, you know, kind of staying it like kind of. Top level, just the basics. And we wanted to [01:11:00] get more deeply into what does this therapy actually look like and

Kyle Buller: mm-hmm.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: How do you hold these more nuanced and challenging moments that people aren’t really talking about at this point?

You know, it, it, while there is either, you know, there are certain circumstances where someone without a psychotherapy license, you know, can hold space. There are also, it can be really challenging in certain moments. And so, you know, how do we work with erotic transference? How do we work with the body? How do we work with this really delicate topic of touch and consent?

How do we work with the imaginal realm and what comes through on that level and really help people to ground and integrate. The images that come through, what is real true integration actually look like, and what are the challenges that can come up around integration? Um, what is decolonizing therapy and how do we hold the space from a, you know, culturally humble and, uh, decolonizing lens?

So yeah, it’s, it was, uh, really [01:12:00] the, the, the conference itself ended up getting transformed into a book because of COVID. We had the conference all ready to go. Tickets were sold out. Bummer. And then COVID happened two months before, so we canceled it, but we invited a number of folks who were going to speak to write chapters, uh, including about music.

We had just so many amazing minds contributing to this book. And, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s now available. Uh, just an amazing resource for psychotherapists or for guides doing psychedelic work, but also it could be interesting to anyone who’s interested, interested in psychedelic therapy in general. And yeah, it was just a real honor to get to put this out there into the field and start to deepen the conversation.

And we’re actually now working on a, a second related book that’s going to be more of a, a handbook, like talking about a little bit more of the basics, but also from a more nuanced perspective. So that one gets into specific, our, the currently published book gets into more specific, uh, topics. And this one’s more like, what are the [01:13:00] basics of holding, uh, psychedelic therapy in a nuanced and effective and, uh, heartfelt relational way.

Kyle Buller: Wonderful. Yeah, I was skimming through some of the chapters, um, before and yeah, there’s some really great, um, essays in there. Um, so I’m excited to, to dig into it more. Um, sweet. Well, we’re getting at time here, so anything that you wanna close with, where can people find your work? Um, how can people learn more about Sage and, and yeah.

Genesee Herzberg PsyD: Great. Thanks so much, Kyle. It’s been such a pleasure to talk with you. Yeah, I just feel like our conversation’s go in so many fun directions. Um, yeah. And in terms of finding me, so I’m at Sage Integrative Health, and, uh, the website for that is Sage integrative health.org. I’m sure that’ll be in the show notes.

We also have an Instagram and Facebook page. Um, you can also find, uh, alchemy Community Therapy Center, uh, by googling that. And, um, the m let’s see, the International Alliance of [01:14:00] MDMA practitioners. I believe the website for that is MDMA alliance.org. But yeah, we’ll add all of these to the show notes. The book itself, integral Psychedelic Therapy by myself, Jason Butler and Richard Miller are the three editors.

Um, so yeah, hope that you are able to explore those various resources and, uh. Get some benefit from them. And then again, thanks so much, Kyle. It’s really

Kyle Buller: wonderful. Well, thank you Dr. Herzberg. Really appreciate all your insights here and for the wonderful conversation. And thank you to everybody that’s listening today.

So we’ll catch you next time. All right. Take care.

November 4, 2025

Dr Ros Watts – Building Communities and Connection

Clinical psychologist Dr. Ros Watts joins Psychedelics Today to share insights from her decade of work with psilocybin therapy and her evolving focus on community-based integration. As the former Clinical Lead for Imperial College London’s landmark psilocybin-for-depression trial, Dr. Watts witnessed how psychedelic experiences can foster profound feelings of connection— to self, others, and nature — yet also how that connection can fade without ongoing support.

In this conversation, she reflects on what years of research have taught her about connectedness as both a healing mechanism and a human need. She explores how integration work can transform fleeting psychedelic breakthroughs into lasting change, and why community is not just a “nice-to-have,” but a core part of psychological and ecological resilience.

Dr. Ros Watts also discusses her “Twelve Trees” framework — a nature-inspired model for personal and collective growth that helps participants translate insight into action through values, embodiment, and mutual care. Her current project, ACER Integration (Accept, Connect, Embody, Restore), is a 13-month, co-created journey that guides people in weaving psychedelic insights into everyday life while deepening relationships with self, others, and the living world.

Named among the Top 50 Most Influential People in Psychedelics and Top 16 Women Shaping the Future of Psychedelics, Dr. Watts continues to advocate for integration, harm-reduction, and inclusion in the psychedelic space.

Together, we explore what sustainable healing really means, how organizations can embody the same principles they teach, and how the psychedelic movement can root itself in care, connection, and community.

Learn more about ACER Integration: https://acerintegration.com

Find Dr Ros Watt’s webpage here. https://www.drrosalindwatts.com/

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors or inaccuracies.

Kyle Buller: [00:00:00] Dr. Roslyn Watts, thank you for joining us here at psychedelics today. Really excited to have you back on the show. I think it’s been a while.

Ros Watts: It has been a while. It’s lovely to be back.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. For those that don’t know you, could you do a quick little introduction on who you are and, and some of the work that you do?

Ros Watts: Yes. Um, so I am a clinical psychologist and I started working in the psychedelic field about 10 years ago now, and that was. Working in psilocybin for depression trials was really lucky to kind of step into that stream. Just was in it when it was a little, little mini river. Um, and [00:01:00] yeah, had some incredible experiences, um, supporting people through psilocybin for depression journeys.

And then went on to be the clinical lead of a big randomized control trial and learned so much about psychedelics and how they support people and how they help people become more connected. So most of my research was about connectedness to self, others, and world and how psychedelics can catalyze that.

Um, but then I kind of realized that that connectedness tends to fade if it’s not nurtured afterwards. And so then all of my focus for the last five years has been around creating a community, um, kind of founding a community that’s now kind of co-created community of people who are. Walking the path together to really maintain their connectedness to themselves and others and the world around them in a long-term way.

So it’s a psychedelic integration community.

Kyle Buller: Wonderful. And I’m sure we’ll get more into the program, like towards the end. Um, I would love to hear more about that, but you bring up community. We, we were kind of going back and [00:02:00] forth on some topics, um, to, to chat about today. And so yeah, maybe I would love to dig into that.

You know, you’re talking about this connectedness and community and you know, what we’re dealing with in the world right now. Just, I mean, it feels like since the pandemic, right? It feels like since 2020 things have really not been the same in a lot of different ways, and now we’re dealing with all the.

Kind of geopolitical stuff that’s going on in the world and a lot of isolation, loneliness that’s going on, not being connected, even though we’re so hyperconnected. You know, we were kind of talking about all these, the platforms that were on social media, the internet, but also this like lack of connection that a lot of people feel.

Um, and so, yeah, I would love to maybe just hear some thoughts, like what’s been going on in your mind, thinking about community and connection.

Ros Watts: Mm, it’s such a good point. I mean, it’s thinking back to like 2020 when the pandemic first began and there was that sense of like, oh wow, everything’s [00:03:00] suddenly change, but.

Will it kind of go back to normal? And it, it really never did. And I had lots of hope about COVID and how it might change our consumer behavior and make us more local focused and have more time for connecting. But I think in many ways, quite sadly, and like as I reflect back now, just as you say that, I think a lot of the things I’d hoped for, um, haven’t really come to pass.

And I think that the, there’s a longing in us, there’s a deep, deep longing for something that is our birthright that maybe we tasted a bit in that first COVID year, which was time slowing down, being with the people close to us without the stress and pressure and overwhelm of incr. I mean, modern life is so unbelievably lonely in so many ways for most people, and.

There was [00:04:00] something about coming back to some memory of what it is like to be really connected to ourselves and others and nature and Yeah. And unfortunately it’s, for most people, it’s kind of hard to hold onto that with all the challenges of work and the fact that our time feels so, so kind of pressured and squished.

So yeah, I think there’s a disconnectedness epidemic. I think it underlines not only most mental health difficulties, or at least is a, a huge part of most mental health difficulties, um, that are prevalent in the western world right now, but it also underlies the ecological crisis and all the different kind of aspects of the poly crisis really.

If you really, if you really drill down, there is this kind of absolute disconnectedness and yeah, it’s. Sometimes I think people, things have got to get really bad before things change. And my sense now is that we are [00:05:00] reaching a time where people are so overwhelmed with how overwhelming and stressful life is at the moment.

That there is this absolute, now it’s like community, like real community and belonging and real connectedness is becoming more and more urgent to the point that people are, we need it now. We can’t even survive without it. Like the Amazon packages are not gonna cut it anymore. Like, we need to find something that helps us.

’cause when we are going through crisis times, and obviously psychedelic experiences are great teachers in this, when we are going through like the dark, dark phase of greatest fear, greatest grief, when we are really facing the, the, the, the scary bit. You need that hand to hold. You need that person to be with.

And actually, if you have that connectedness. Almost all situations are so much more bearable. We can be so much more resilient when we have somebody that we care for, that cares for us by our side. And things that we can manage when we are feel held in [00:06:00] community are impossible to deal with on our own.

So I feel like although it’s scary what’s happening, it is calling us to connect with each other, and that has political implications as well as mental health implications too.

Kyle Buller: Definitely, I know the, there’s like this popular meme or saying that’s going around like the isolation and disconnection like has such an impact on our mental health.

But physical health, and I forget what the equivalent is. I think it’s around like the loneliness epidemic is like equivalent to smoking, like 15 packs of cigarettes a day or something ridiculous like that. Yeah. Um, and yeah, just thinking about the amount of stress that, you know, ’cause we’re hu like human beings are social creatures, right?

It’s like we need that connection. Um, and what happens when we feel so disconnected and isolated, um, all the time. Yeah. So I’m curious, you know, you’re talking about real community and community I think is something that’s tossed around a lot these days. And I know I tossed it around and I talk a lot about community within our vital program, and it does feel like we have a very solid community.

I’m sure you [00:07:00] feel that way with your Acer program mm-hmm. As well. Mm-hmm. Um, how do you, how do you define what a real community looks like? What, what is that too? You?

Ros Watts: Oh, I need to, interesting question. Well, I think I’ve, I’m clear on all the things that it’s not, than the things that, I mean, it feels like what it is is always evolving.

Um, it’s safe. I think number one, it’s safe and there has to be freedom within it. Um, I think a community where there is kind of g group think or dogma about the way we are being is, is quite common actually for communities to fall into that. Like, this is our belief system. You have to believe this in order to be with us.

I think that kind of dogma is really dangerous. Um. And that, yeah, a community is something that holds diversity. Um, but with a safety and a respect and a wi a curiosity to hear from each other because [00:08:00] a community is a place where you meet other people with different ideas. Like in our silos on our social media platforms, we see all the people with the same ideas, and we see the kind of vitriol and violence when those ideas clash.

Like when somebody from one side sees a comment from somebody from the other, you know, we see the kind of the, the animosity that a community is a place where people, I think of it as like a village, whether it’s a kind of virtual village or a real village, it’s like a place where people are going about their things.

But there’s a kind of meeting place in the middle where you, you come to learn and you come to connect and you come to understand about other ways. And so there is that curiosity and. Real interest in other people. Other people are so fascinating. And I think at the moment it’s easy to feel like other people are so scary.

And because when we see the things that are happening with our governments and we know that kind of majorities of people are voting for them, it’s easy to look around and say like, you know, who, what’s, what’s, like there’s something wrong with [00:09:00] humanity. Um, and you know, I’ve even heard people talking about the ecological crisis saying like, well, you know, we’re be, the earth is better off without us.

And so, you know, humans are, and you know, we are very, we have a lot to learn, but also humans just amazing. Like sometimes in our kind of group we have so many different kind of workshops or ways of connecting, but just the feeling when I open up my Zoom screen and I see a, a collection of humans and we all kind of, you know, we, we have the same broad interest, but there’s so much diversity within that.

And when I look at their faces, the embodied feeling of just. Relaxation is, is so great because humans are amazing. So community is a place where we can curiously, um, with curiosity and with respect, enjoy connecting with people in a way that helps us be more of ourselves.

Kyle Buller: I love that when you say, um, dogma, like, you know, and I think we get into those group thinks in certain communities.

It just had me thinking, [00:10:00] is it important to have guidelines in communities and like, where’s that line between like, guidelines versus like dogmatic thinking around a certain way of creating a community or group.

Ros Watts: Yes. Such good points. So many of these things are so kind of nuanced. Yes. Yeah. Um, so having a value statement I think is so important.

And having a value statement about what matters when you really put that into writing, and actually loads of communities and organizations don’t have that. Um. Someones I, I looked into you recently. I saw a few kind of organizations that seemed to kind of go a bit wonky and I was like, do they have a value statement?

And they didn’t. And it was so interesting to me because it’s such an important foundation to have that because then you know where you are kind of veering away and it makes it clear. Everyone understands. And I think if you have a value statement, then you know, people can agree to a broad set of values.

And if people don’t agree to those [00:11:00] values, then they can shoot, decide that that community isn’t the right one for them. So in AA we have a value statement, which is all around the idea that we are an interconnected web like a forest, and the thinking about the ways our actions impacts on other people.

And essentially there is this agreement that because it’s a peer support community that we. We hold it in a way that allows for co thriving. And if the actions of us, and it could be me, it could be anyone in the team or anyone in the community are having a negative impact on any, anyone for any reason, then it, we have a discussion about that where somebody that feels impacted upon can say, this is how this is impacted upon me.

This is what I need. Which is kind of nonviolent communication style skills, um, which allows for conversation and debate and human-focused, heart-centered, real honest conversation about what’s hard about being in community with each other and how we can try and make it easier. So it’s a kind of value [00:12:00] statement with a, with a rationale for why rather than a kind of very dogmatic list of like, you must not do this, you must do this right kind of thing.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. I think having that diversity is important. Right. And I think, you know, I, I know in the psychotherapy literature, like ruptures are really important for therapeutic relationships and, and the healing process and like having a little bit of that friction can be really important for us to like, maybe see some of our blind spots to invite some of those like, diverse opinions in.

Um, and I guess, yeah, how do we hold that? Because I think some people just like, yeah, wanna push it away, which I get right? ’cause that can be really scary. It can be really overwhelming to, to maybe face some of that stuff. But, um, I think in those ruptures, that’s where, you know, we can really come together at times.

Ros Watts: Yes. I’m such a believer in this, such a believer in the absolute beauty of rupture and repair, the power of it, and how as a culture we have not been taught these skills. And so we can be really compassionate with ourselves and [00:13:00] each other when we aren’t able to do that. ’cause we haven’t been taught how to do that.

We’ve been taught so many useless things in school. Like the list of useless stuff we’ve learned is so long. And the, and the, the, again, the longing, the aching for the things that we, we needed to know that we can try and teach ourselves now and teach each other. But, but one of those things is rupture and repair and how.

I really have seen in the psychedelic world, a real lack of, in many, many places a real, um, kind of avoidance of that, you know, like rather than a willingness. And I think it’s because whenever you get a field that’s like a kind of pioneering field, and there’s that sense of like, you know, we’ve gotta do it, we’ve gotta do it for these reasons, the dream is really important.

There can be that sense of like, we’ve just gotta get there and we can’t allow for the nuance, you know? So I think we’ve, we’ve, as a psychedelic community, there has had to be a lot of discussion around how, yeah, we haven’t let in, we haven’t kind of like, we haven’t repaired the [00:14:00] ruptures enough because we’ve pretended that the ruptures weren’t there.

Mm-hmm. And I, so I think smaller communities give us a chance to develop those skills in smaller sections and then take it into our families and our places of work and hope that it kind of ripples out, um, and has a positive effect on the fields at large.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, you bring up the field at large in the psychedelic community.

I’m hearing maybe Joe in my head going like, what is the psychedelic community? Right? Because there’s so many different perspectives and so many kind of like ways people are approaching this. Um, and you know, you brought up maybe some of those ruptures. Like where are you seeing maybe some of those tension points that maybe we’re not addressing?

Ros Watts: Well, I think the kind of corporate, the, I mean there’s, I, I do understand why that, you know, why the huge amounts of money that are required to develop a drug to, to be brought, to market, to, to be accessible for huge groups of [00:15:00] people require sums of money that require it to be done by kind of corporations.

But some of the like, um, some of the shareholders and some of the. The kind of associations and practices of, of some corporations, um, who’ve been in right from the beginning, like they are so at odds. I would say with the value system that most people who are kind of people that are interested in the psychedelic field because of therapeutic benefits for people, the value system that most people would ascribe to is around healing and around connectedness and around, um, bringing more access to something that can be hugely ho um, helpful and opening for people.

But I suppose there are also people that are in it for the money. Mm. And so the, there is just obviously such a, a huge clash because, um. The, it’s always going to be, the most powerful organizations are gonna be the, like, [00:16:00] the, the people with the money focus are probably going to be more powerful and probably going to kind of that value system in, in the end is gonna dominate, get more, um, monopolies and, you know, crush out competition.

That’s what capitalism does. And so I suppose as that carries on, there’s literally no interest in even looking at ruptures. Ruptures, there’s no interest. Whereas I think if. If the field had developed in a slightly different way, and I think it’s still not too late, I still believe that it can still, yeah, it can still turn into a psychedelic field that offers so much healing for people.

Um, but I think that if some of the kind of corporate interests hadn’t become so powerful, then I think there might have been more of an ability of the field to slow down.

Both: Mm.

Ros Watts: Think about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and recognizing that if we don’t deal with ruptures, then the, the set and [00:17:00] setting is not optimal and in fact sometimes kind of dangerous and sometimes psychedelics can amplify the, the, uh, toxicity of this, of the dominance system in which they are inserted.

So yeah, I think sadly at the moment there are many parts of the psychedelic field where there is simply no space for discussion of anything other than how do we make money for that from this?

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And, um, something that. I was chatting with a lot of colleagues and friends at Psychic Science, and it seemed like a lot of folks said there seemed to be a little bit of a different energy this year.

Um, and it’s almost like there’s a bit of a, a maturing that’s happening in the field right now, um, with a little bit of like some contraction. Um, and I think somebody made a statement. It was like Rick’s opening, um, talk in 2023 was like. Obviously we were on track to get MDMA approved, right? It was like, that was the summer [00:18:00] it was gonna happen.

And then we, we ended up getting that news that that didn’t happen, um, last summer. Um, and then this year it was like, you know, maybe hearing him take a little bit more of a longer game approach of like, this is gonna happen, but maybe it’s, it’s gonna take a little bit more time. Um, and, you know, I wonder if we are kind of going through a little bit of this maturing process because it really boomed very quickly.

Um, and a lot of people I think came in very quickly thinking this was like cannabis 2.0. Um, and it’s a totally different field, right? Like totally different kind of substances. People maybe besides like microdosing where people might use it pretty often, people aren’t using psychedelics every day like they’re using cannabis, right?

And so like, and you know, the whole conversation around accessibility, we’re seeing like how maybe, um. Not accessible. Some treatments are in states where, like Oregon and stuff like that, where, you know, the price for some of these sessions are, are really expensive. [00:19:00] Um, and so I think I, I was chatting with somebody that’s like maybe shaking up some, some of the investors of like, whoa, let’s slow down here and really look at it.

But then again, who knows what’s gonna happen? Like this whole thing that I just saw with like RFK trying to promise psychedelic therapies for vets in the next 12 months, it’s like, how is that gonna maybe like, boom things again or, you know, we just heard about the $50 million for Ibogaine in Texas initiative that that’s happening.

And it’s like, but I think, yeah, this, this maturing we’re, we, I think we really need to take a deep look at it, um, and look at the field and how it’s growing, how it’s expanding, um, and also the diverse like opinions. Um mm-hmm. Really important, you know, and people approach psychedelics in so many different ways, right?

You have the indigenous, you have more of the recreational or celebratory use. The therapeutic use, I mean, people are using it for so many different reasons

Ros Watts: and, and I think, yeah, absolutely. Um, and it’s, yeah, it’s nice to hear about the, the, the sense of maturing. Um, and I think maybe also there is a sense of [00:20:00] kind of as we slow down, kind of coming together a bit more, taking a bit of a pause and thinking about how do we do this together?

And I think it does come back to value systems like the, all, all the different communities you mentioned. We may have shared value systems. And I think if we can really get behind like the why of why we’re doing this, um, then and for, for the kind of value system around healing, um, to, to come together and the value system around like a different value system, which may be more around kind of profit or power.

Um. I, you know, I think the, the Elon Musk example of like ketamine use has been such a powerful visual image for a lot of people around, certainly ideas around, you know, psychedelic use. Um, bringing connectedness and bringing healing. It’s like we have a very strong visual image of what unintegrated ketamine use can do.

And it’s like, I’ve seen this [00:21:00] happen to so many people in the psychic field, like people who become so much more power drunk, really? And, and like the ego inflation just becomes so huge. Just seems to be with ketamine, I have to say that I’ve seen it.

Kyle Buller: That’s interesting with ketamine, huh?

Ros Watts: Mm. Seems to be, I don’t know whether it’s because people can use it more, get more addicted.

Like it’s, it’s shorter acting so people can just like do it every day, whereas they wouldn’t be using ayahuasca every day, for example, or, um. You know, maybe it’s becomes more like a kind of cocaine habit, you know, people doing little bits of kein regularly and the kind of impact that has on their, the whole way of seeing the world.

But yeah, I think kind of recognizing that we can come together with people with a different value system and a different kind of, I don’t like the word mission, but like, what are we trying to do? What, what are we trying to bring together here? Let’s all get together with the same, um, value system and [00:22:00] those with a different value system.

Sure, you can do your thing over there, but we are not gonna work with you because we are gonna work with people with the same value system. So it’s, it’s like, it’s the same with communities. I think. Really important to find community with the same value system where difference is completely celebrated, but the foundation is coming back to, you know, this is why we’re doing it and this is what, um.

This is what we’re doing it for. So if you are at odds to this, then you know, another community might see you better. So I think we could do that in a kind of deep, fundamental way with psychedelics. Mm-hmm. And see much more coming together across really diverse groups. If we, if we really vocalize the why.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, the has me reminded a a, um, a conversation I had with a colleague about like building inclusive communities and actually getting clear on that why, and those values actually makes it more inclusive because those that don’t align. [00:23:00] As you’re saying can go find another community. And I think about it in like some of the like healing practices, right?

Like maybe we approach this from like this non-directive, psychedelic csit therapy model. And then there’s folks that do some neo shamonic stuff. And, you know, the way that I approach this maybe isn’t, isn’t that way, right? If I’m maybe hosting something but doesn’t necessarily mean I’m dismissing that, right?

For some people they actually might really need a healing technique, some sort of intervention that I might not agree with in a way, but maybe that’s what somebody’s looking for and it’s like maybe that community is actually gonna serve you better than, than this community. Um, and, and how we’re approaching stuff and it’s like, and then I guess how do we, yeah.

As, as communities form, how do the communities then like, I guess, like honor some of those differences at times and maybe recognize that maybe that it, it’s there for a function. Um, for, for, you know.

Ros Watts: Yeah. And I think that’s where the gold is because when you come together with other people from diverse kind of groups [00:24:00] and you say like, Hey, we’re all here for the same thing.

Like we all really care about whatever it is, there’s something really beautiful about that because you’re not just in the, in the kind of echo chamber of the people from the same life experience, but you are coming together to say, this really matters to us. This is really important. Like, I think, you know, there’s a lot of people that feel.

I mean, I’ve been really, I’ve been really loving the work of, um, a guy called Rob Hopkins who has written a book called How to Fall in Love With the Future. Um, and it’s all about the power of visualization and about how, um, you know, when we are imagining something, our brain doesn’t differentiate between it really happening and it being imagined, which is why athletes, when they’re preparing for events, they will visualize in, in advance.

And a lot of there are exercises and practices in Acea all around visualization, guided, effective imagery. And it’s so powerful and I think we spend a lot of time imagining doom, doom outcomes, imagining the worst, [00:25:00] imagining, you know, all sorts of kind of scary outcomes. And this is for like the psychedelic field as well as just the world in general.

But there’s something he talks about, which is imagining that you’ve gone into the future and that, and it went the way we wanted it to go. And this works for all sorts of different things. So like, if you’re in the psychedelic world, um, like, so my, my dream would be. I’d go 10 years into the future. And I’d find that like in most places, there was a center with nature and there were local people who were offering really beautiful, facilitated sessions.

There were multidisciplinary people, there were local people, there were nurses, there were, you know, there were people from all walks of life. There was art, there was, you know, multidisciplinary, kind of creative ways of integrating. There was tree planting there. Like I’ve got this kind of, maybe it sounds like utopia, but this vision of how

Kyle Buller: sounds beautiful

Ros Watts: ceremonies could, thank you.

Um, could be, I mean, it’s a bit [00:26:00] similar to Bennet Zelner’s idea of pollination, uh, the pollination approach, which is where you do have these like local centers where people come, have experiences and then they learn about how to get connected with the local ecosystem. So it’s basically about local care, having a local, um, intervention for people that can then bring all the kind of nectar back to their community.

So, so I, you know, on the Rob Hopkins kind of, um, strategy of going to the future, I would imagine going there and seeing it actually happened. Like, it, it wasn’t just that the corporations had clinics that were really expensive and that, you know, underground facilitators were all put in prison and, you know, like the doom vision that I sometimes have, it’s like, no imagining that it went the way you wanted and, and kind of like really visualizing that and imagining it and smelling it and tasting it and seeing it and then kind of working your way back from there and, and keeping going without vision of, you know, what could it be [00:27:00] and, and not giving up on that.

Kyle Buller: That’s beautiful. And I think it’s like a really important reminder. ’cause I think a lot of us get caught up in the doom scrolling. Um, and I wonder. Why we do that? You know, I think there is, I don’t know. As you’re talking, I’m like kind of analyzing why do I get caught up in doom scrolling? Um, and there’s a part where it’s like.

I think we see how messed up things are and I think maybe like the psyche goes towards destruction and wants to see kind of the worst of things. So it can rebuild, but do we always need to do that? And I think about like Bucky Fuller, right? It’s like if a system’s not working, you necessarily don’t need to destroy it.

Just build another system that makes it obsolete. Um, and it’s like, how do we then yeah. Change that way of thinking, um, and really maybe focus on more of this like positive mindset visualization, but, and also hold the duality of there’s really shitty things happening in the world right now. Um,

Ros Watts: yes. Yes, [00:28:00] absolutely.

And thinking of like, what is our part to play? What’s the bit that we can offer? Like there’s a beautiful thing in the book. This is the Rob Hopkins book again, where they did some kind of like. The workshop Imagination exercise, where they had this imaginary brewery in this town where people took on these, like role play different parts in a brewery.

Um, and like something like 10 years later, it actually happened. Wow. And the people that had taken on the parts actually did those parts in real life. There was something so powerful about rehearsing it. So if we really think about what we wanna create and what our role is and what we could be part of creating, and then make it like we, we have to, we, because of all the awful things that are happening in the world, like it’s, you know, we, the, the need for healing, the need for connectedness, and the need for us to come out of our automaton consuming of Amazon and Spotify and all these other things that are just like, and we feel so depressed when we do it as well because we see what’s happening.

[00:29:00] And you know, it’s like, I. We see the damage of this tiny group of people, and yet we’re so kind of under their control and it makes us feel so hopeless and it makes us feel so kind of sick and nauseated. But if we, we are choosing where we spend our attention and we can create all the alternatives to those things that we need.

And, and we must, because we can, we still can.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Uh, just wanna highlight this, um, this comment here, relentless put, um, on, on YouTube here, it’s easier to get a dopamine hit, uh, from, from watch destruction than to take accountability for change. And I think that’s so true, right? There is like, and you know, we know from like the technology from social media, right?

It’s like we’re really addicted to the dopamine hits. Um, and I think like, when we see stuff like that, it’s just so much easier to get caught in that cycle than like, I think coming back to the why, [00:30:00] um, because when we find our passion, we find that mission. It’s like how do we, you know, keep that fire alive to actually create change?

And it was a question I wanted to ask you, like, what’s your why? Of why, why are you doing all this? Hmm.

Ros Watts: Oh, sometimes I ask myself that same question. Um, well, I think, yeah, I really. I had such a, such a kind of strange experience in a way of, of, um, the Psilocybin for Depression trial, the second one. You know, on the one hand, the absolute total privilege of witnessing those people’s journeys most amazing job in the world, ever, in many ways, never stop being grateful for that.

Learn so much amazing people. And at the same time, you know, I was still part of a corporate system and I was still part of a, [00:31:00] um, I was part of the machine and I kind of got, you know, I I, I felt this kind of strange paradox of kind of the heart, the heart that wants to offer care and all these people wanting to offer care and the way systems kind of distort and co-opt and it’s nobody individual’s fault.

It’s just the way the system is set up. You know, it’s the way kind of structure, structures of academia, structures of corporate like companies. And I just, my own experience of it was so deeply lonely and I felt so unwell at the end of it. ’cause we’d been working so hard, you know, far too hard and push, push and I think.

At the end of it, I just felt like, God, this is like, I felt like I was living in a world I didn’t wanna live in. You know? I was like, I have to, there has to be a world I wanna live in. There has to be a way, and it’s like it’s a forest, even [00:32:00] if it’s a metaphorical forest and it’s gentle and it’s kind and it’s slow and it’s, there is connection that feels compassionate and where I can be vulnerable and have that witnessed and not be shamed for that.

Um. And I think, yeah, the value system of kind of corporate capitalism is really sick and I just couldn’t function in that anymore. And so I had to create something which was asa for people after psychedelic experiences, but also just for me, like I needed to know that that place could exist beyond, you know, my friendships and beyond my family.

Like, you know, that I needed something that was more, ’cause you know, we have community of place and then we have community of purpose. And I needed to connect with other people that had the same value system. The same why, but in a way it was like all about the way we connect. And I needed there to be a safe place [00:33:00] where I didn’t feel like I was going crazy and.

Um, compassion was, was real. I like, I, I needed compassion essentially. And it’s kind of crazy to think that I would myself has in the position of being the therapist on the trial that I would need that. Mm-hmm.

Both: But

Ros Watts: I think we all need it. We all, all of us that are alive right now, like, you know, we are going through a collective psychedelic experience.

It’s a very challenging, psychedelic experience, just being a human right now. And I think we all need places where we can be slow, where we can be fully witnessed and where we can Yeah. Just be, just met with compassion.

Kyle Buller: How do people find those places? Um, I know there’s been like some articles that I’ve read throughout the years, like, um, my generation and younger generations don’t have like this quote unquote third place, um, to go mix and mingle as much as maybe like older generations did, where they would find, I’m guessing that would [00:34:00] be community of place, right?

Like more local communities, place friends, peers, stuff like that. Um, where it’s like feels harder for some folks and a lot of our communities are now online. Um, and so people are just like finding communities on social media platforms or you know, maybe through Acer on Zoom and, and stuff like that, which I think has its value, right?

Like having people come from all sorts of different walks of life. It really creates accessibility. But like, I think again, we’re these human beings and we’re social creatures and having that human in-person connection Yeah. Can be really important. And I think a lot of people struggle with trying to find that.

Ros Watts: Mm, so true. I mean, I suppose they used to be like the pub. Like in the UK anyway, like people used to go to the pub and then all, they’ve all turned into apartments. Mm-hmm.

Both: Um,

Ros Watts: yeah. It’s really, it’s the, again, like I said at the beginning, like the longing, the longing for that kind of connection is so desperate.

Um, and there aren’t that many places. But again, it’s like we have to [00:35:00] create this because if we expect, like we are realizing all of us, how we have been manipulated on mass into like we have, we are consumers and how we are realizing the intentions and the value systems of the people that have been controlling the way things go.

And, you know, I suppose we’re all coming around at our own pace, but like realizing more and more like. Right. Okay. So the systems of governance really don’t want what’s best for the majority of people. Like we can’t trust the systems of governance, I think in most countries now that we can recognize that people in positions of extreme power, mostly pretty psychopathic.

And that’s like, okay, this is a trend around the world, so we can’t actually look to, and also just looking at the system with the, with the climate and with the, with the, you know, the, the, the kind of like, just absolute, I. Like [00:36:00] lack of just looking at the media, like we used to believe what the papers would say, and then we’re like, okay, we get fed a completely warped version of events.

And meanwhile all this is happening, government’s consistently failing to meet any of the targets that we need to meet in order for species to survive. And so I think when you realize that, you realize that the systems of, um, happiness that we’ve been given, the systems of self-regulation, the systems of like meaning shopping, online, gambling, watching tv, eating, food, drinking, alcoholic, there’s all numbing, numbing, numbing, and it’s all consuming and giving profits to people.

So we have to say like, okay, we, we are not gonna just continue to do that. We see where this ends up. We need to create local community, like garden food, growing groups. We need to start growing our own food anyway. Um. And like this is, I think, one of the most [00:37:00] rewarding, useful connecting. And, and like you say, it needs to be in person, like meeting other people locally.

Um, even just to start thinking about something like that. Even just finding a kind of community growing scheme. Even just putting the feelers out for the first thing. You know, you’re gonna meet lovely people doing something like that. But it is like the comment from somebody before, like the dopamine hits are easier than making change.

It takes a lot of effort and we are all overwhelmed, exhausted, depleted, depressed, and fearful. But we have to at some point say, okay, I’m gonna go and do this as a radical act of rebellion and a radical act of hope. Because every time we start a book club in our living room and invite our neighbors to come, or any local, you know, clothes swap that we might hold somewhere where we can swap clothes with each other rather than buying new ones.

Like there are so many ways of. Of, of organizing little local events [00:38:00] and make, making new friends, um, like we, we do loads of them with Asa and it’s where people actually get so much of the joy is from holding those local in-person events and they’re radical. And we, we, we, we have to, we have to commit to them.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, I think that’s, I don’t know. I definitely saw that a lot like during the pandemic, like the amount of people that got into gardening was like really crazy around me. And it was like, what else is there to do? And you know, something that was like really interesting about that was that when you grow your own food you realize like how much of it you actually get, depending on like how much of a garden you have.

And you can’t use it all unless like you are, you know, using like, you know how to preserve it and, you know, create things that are, are more shelf stable. But a lot of people would just start sharing stuff. Like, we had our neighbor that like had chickens. I think he started doing more chickens during the pandemic and the amount of eggs he would just give us ’cause he had too many to, to eat.

Or like, I would start giving out like, you know, vegetables. I was [00:39:00] growing ’cause I’m like. I don’t dunno what to do with this stuff. Right. Um, and just like the, the sharing that happens when, when you, when you do that and Yeah, I agree. Like, get out there and what is something like you would need in your community.

Um, and you know, how could you maybe start that? And I know that’s, um, it’s tough, right? I think it’s tough to put that first stuff forward, um, to try to start something, but I think it’s important.

Ros Watts: It’s so important and I think it’s, yeah, as you say like that kind of like the sharing ethos, the Abu the feeling of abundance is such a beautiful, and that’s powerful.

That’s a powerful story to, to hold and in mind, you know, the naturally we will given the right circumstances, want to share with each other, just, just to remember that, and that that’s our natural default setting in situations where we are not in artificial, um, scarcity. And because there doesn’t need to be that scarcity.

And I think that. If we, if people are interested in psychedelics, [00:40:00] then, you know, so many interested in psychedelic therapy, the psychedelic session. Um, but I don’t feel that introducing psychedelics into our culture, whether it’s through clinical trial, like medical, you know, licensing or through state access programs or however it comes about.

It’s not gonna be safe to do it at scale unless we have community networks of support. Mm. ’cause we need that. You need community. You need places that you can sit and talk it through. You can’t just be having one or two integration sessions that a clinic that costs X amount of money. You need a community of people around you.

And so even if you start small with starting a book club where you talk about psychedelic books or you start a whatever it is like that little tiny step. Is nurturing a fabric of care that has been eroded by neoliberalism, which will ultimately, that fabric of care that we can all kind of stitch together is ultimately what’s gonna make [00:41:00] psychedelics safe and effective.

So it might not seem as sexy as the kind of, I wanna be a trip sitter, or I wanna, you know, do the research or whatever. That actually creating those fabrics of care, I think is probably the number one priority for psychedelic work and also just for humanity right now.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Um, I a hundred percent agree with you.

And there’s something I say like within our vital program, it’s like, I’m not really interested in like really training guides. I am, but I’m not. Um, I’m more interested in creating the safety net, um, for these experiences and the more people out there. Creating impact in their communities, it’s gonna have a much like bigger impact on the mainstreaming of psychedelics.

And I’m curious, like what’s your thought about that? Like, you know, creating this, you know, fabric of care, cultural safety net, however we wanna define that, versus people just having experiences and scaling psychedelics. Like why is that so important in your mind? [00:42:00]

Ros Watts: Well, I mean, for psychedelics particularly, they are just, I mean, we still know relatively little about them and we will con, they will always be quite mysterious and they’re.

The one where there are medicines that you, even with the same substance, with the same person over three different sittings, they will have vastly different experiences. So there is a mystery within psychedelic experience that is part of the process. It’s always gonna be there. We are never gonna fully understand it fully unless the company’s take away all the psychedelic elements, which I hope won’t happen across the board.

But, you know, there’s, there’s always gonna be that kind of volatility and mystery. And because people become so vulnerable and sometimes quite suggestible and because of the, inherently in the psychedelic experience, people become so vulnerable and they can be so overwhelming and so like, like really quite traumatizing as well at times.

Like, you know, they can be harrowing within [00:43:00] that, that quality it requires of us to have really, really solid networks of care. So like the medical system that we have. I mean, there are lots of issues with the medical system, but for kind of like medical approaches that are easily quantifiable, they know if you give drug A, it will lead to outcome B.

The medical system is set up around that to work in that way. But with psychedelics, we absolutely need a much more responsive, much more human, much more creative way of, of working with it, because they are so, you know, they, they grow across different, um, areas of, of understanding. You know, it’s about, um, spirituality, it’s about kind of artistic expression.

It’s about psychology. There are so many different domains that they cross. So it requires a [00:44:00] holistic and very flexible approach because they are so varied and complex.

Kyle Buller: That that is a very true statement. Right. So, so complex. Um, yeah. And I think something when I think about this is like, it’s psychedelic related, but when I had my near death experience when I was 16, like that was really hard to come back from.

And it was mostly kind of like the societal. Integration of like, I don’t have anybody to talk to about this. Right? And it’s like the culture isn’t maybe literate of like mystical experiences. Um, and people are telling me how to show up, how to like live my life after something like this. And so when I think about that, that is like the most important thing.

It’s like, how do we have more literate, competent people out there that can support somebody, right? Like I went to therapists, doctors, my, you know, my friend, I was young, I was 16, so most of my friends aren’t like, you know, thinking probably more philosophically, spiritually at that point [00:45:00] about like the nature of, of reality.

Um, but that was, I think one of the hardest things and it actually created more isolation. And I think it’s the same thing with psychedelics, and I’m sure you see this too, like, some of those integration challenges when it’s easy to have an experience, right? Um, but it’s much harder to, you know, find that community, find people that can support you through that because the isolation.

That one can really go through when they go through a really powerful experience. I mean, that will drive you insane and into deep, dark depression. And that was me when I was like 16 to really, I think up until like maybe 22, 21, until I found a community where I’m like, oh, whoa, okay, there’s other people that think this way that understand this stuff.

Um, but I, I felt so alienated from the world at times where I’m like, how the hell do I come back, um, from something like this? Um, but it’s easy to have experiences, right?

Ros Watts: Yeah. And it’s, and like yeah, you are so that, that, [00:46:00] that place you go to afterwards, like the relief when you find people that get it, is so huge.

But in that period of time beforehand, you’re so vulnerable to somebody saying something maybe in a well-meaning way that actually has such a negative impact on you because. When you are kind of like, yeah, you are like lost in the woods and you’re like looking for, for home, for safety and you can so easily come across bad advice and I think mm-hmm.

There’s so much you can so easily find like bad advice or people that make a comment that actually ends up just end not just hurting you but actually making you go down a rabbit hole that’s not good to go down as well.

Kyle Buller: You need

Ros Watts: to be careful.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. When I got in trouble, uh, one time I think it was like maybe my junior, senior year, ’cause I, I just hated high school going back after this.

And, um, it was in the principal’s office and she’s like, I don’t understand why you’re so upset. You should just be thankful you’re alive. That like [00:47:00] really set me off where I’m like, yeah, I am. But like, I don’t think you are understanding like this psychospiritual crisis that I’m going through. I didn’t have the term psychospiritual crisis, but um, you know, I was like, I don’t think you understand this, this bigger thing that’s unfolding.

And that one, you know, pushed me over the edge a bit where it’s like a lot of people just said, oh, you should be thankful. You’re alive. Um, and yes I am, but at the other time there’s like this bigger thing that was like unfolding that I needed support around. And it wasn’t until I did my undergrad in transpersonal psychology, one of my teachers, I went up and shared the story with him and he just looked at me and said, you know, if you lived in a traditional culture, the elders would’ve stepped in and taught you this new way of being in the world and the new way of seeing.

Um, and he is like, unfortunately you didn’t. So you had to like figure it out on your own. But that was like the first time I ever felt heard or seen where I’m like, oh, somebody else gets it. Um, somebody else like understands and how important that is, um, for when you have these really big experiences [00:48:00] to just feel heard, feel seen, um, because yeah, little comments like even though it was a nice comment, you should be thankful you’re alive.

You know, we, we don’t always know like how that’s gonna land with somebody.

Ros Watts: Yeah. And, and like we were saying before about the, how we haven’t learned in our culture about, um, rupture and repair and the skills for that. Another thing we haven’t learned in our culture is how to truly listen without expectation or judgment or our own idea of thinking we know what someone is going through.

And that example of like that teacher, like if she’d really asked you what happened and why you, what struggl, what are you struggling with right now? With, you’d have told her, you’d have said, well, you know, it is not about the thing. It’s the fact that now I feel like I’m holding all of this and the confusion.

And then she would’ve understood, but she didn’t ask the question because she thought she already knew. And it’s about like not having the time. To really listen to somebody else’s worldview. [00:49:00] But we’ve really don’t have that skill of like how to, you know, in our, all of our sharing cycle facilitators, like the, the training is all, ’cause sometimes people are therapists, sometimes they’re not.

But especially for the therapist, it’s all unlearning.

Both: Yeah. How

Ros Watts: to listen. Because so often as therapists we like, oh yeah, I know what this person should do. I can formulate this person saying, it’s like some of our best facilitators are not therapists because they are so good at hearing someone’s experience and just fully listening.

Being with it and the experience of people having that kind of holding and listening is, you know, people cry so much in our circles. Like there’s so much of that sense of just weeping. And it’s become so normalized now, like everyone expects, like they’re, you know, it’s time to cry and it’s fine for other people to cry.

It’s like we all just need to cry. But I think sometimes that, that, that kind of melting comes from like the deep relief of somebody maybe for the first time actually saying, you have this [00:50:00] time. Tell us your experience. Like you say, being seen and heard, like truly, truly, it’s quite a rare thing in our culture.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah. And just how healing it can be. So thank you for creating those spaces for, for folks, for, for landing. Um, do you have any other advice for folks that like, you know, maybe they don’t have a community around, but they have that passion and maybe they are thinking about that why, um, and they want to, you know, start to maybe create community.

Like how could somebody go about doing that?

Both: Hmm.

Kyle Buller: What are some blocks that, you know, you see people like battle up against?

Ros Watts: I think often. There is, people feel like they’ve either gotta do it fast and big or not at all. But I think, you know, the nature codes going slow, being cyclical, you know, like is really helpful.

So the most important thing about starting community or joining community is about trust and resonance with the people. Because the experience of [00:51:00] joining a community or setting up a community and then there being like a real, like lack of trust can be really heartbreaking because you want, you know, you’ll go there with all the right reasons and you really want it to feel safe and then you realize that actually you are a bit too fast and a bit too hasty and it maybe wasn’t the right people for you.

So I think finding one other person, fir first of all working out what do I love? What is my joy? What do I think is important to create in the world right now? Is there a way that, is there a part in the Venn diagram where those two things mixed together? Something I love, um, and something that I think is important.

It doesn’t have to be a big lofty thing, but to tie, you know, you can kind of almost like imagine a funnel, like the big lofty idea of something that you’d want it to be in 10 years time. Imagine the funnel of, like, right now, what’s the very first, first thing I could do? And so when, you know, the kind of first thing, um, [00:52:00] and it could just be something in the service of creating more glue around local community, which is just so, like getting to know our neighbors is radical and creating anything that’s local, na like local support in our local community.

Given that there’ll be so much diversity and polarization of opinion and intensity, starting something gentle and inclusive and kind and. Slow for people to come and do and to turn their phone off. That’s also epic. You know, something where they are doing something in person with their hands or whatever it is, figure out what it is that you like, and then just find one other person that likes that too.

And even if for the first year it is just the two of you talking about it and maybe, you know, you do one little pilot of it and just tiny, tiny, tiny sowing of seeds and going super slow. Um, rather than being like, wanna do this? This is the [00:53:00] person, yep, it’s gonna be great. And then it all like fractures and fragments because it was, there wasn’t enough trust.

Kyle Buller: I think that going slow is important, right? Like small little steps. And also I think something I’ve seen, and I’ve noticed it myself too, is just like showing up. Um, and it’s like, I remember when I started doing like small little breath work, uh, workshops. Like I would get either one person there or somebody one time nobody showed up and I’m like, oh, maybe I’m not gonna do this.

’cause I’m like losing money on like the space rental, you know? It’s like, this sucks. Um, but kept showing up and saying no. Like I feel like this is like really important, uh, to keep offering and just having that consistency to keep showing up even when it’s hard, um, to do even when there’s like some self doubt.

And I love that, you know, you’re bringing like that visualization aspect in like, how do we. Continue to visualize that, even if we have some of those [00:54:00] bumps, right? Everything is a rollercoaster ride, right? Like that, that’s life. Um, and we’re gonna have those ups and downs. But I think when you said, you know, the why, like how do we keep coming back to the why?

’cause the why is really gonna help drive us. Um, and so really maybe taking time to think about that. If you are thinking about creating community, think about that. Why, what is that passion? What’s that fire? Mm. Uh, that you wanna keep alive.

Ros Watts: Yes. And then you meet other people with the same why? And then that in itself is an incredible thing.

And, and just an absolute joy to meet somebody else who cares broadly about the same kind of thing that you do. Even if they’re very different. Yeah. Can be really? Wonderful.

Kyle Buller: I would love to hear what you’re up to with Acer, um, and maybe describe what Acer is. I know we’ve kind of talked about it a little bit, but for those that might be hearing this for the first time, what’s the community that you’re creating?

Like, what are you offering to the world?

Ros Watts: So it’s, it started off, um, after the [00:55:00] clinical trial, um, COVID happened, the clinical trial kind of ended, and I was like, okay, time for creating a place for the people from the trial. So initially it was for people that had been in the clinical trial and they didn’t have any integration because it was COVID and so they were all stuck at home.

So it started off, this was five years ago now as a weekly Zoom group for the people in the clinical trial. So we would meet once a week on a Monday, and they got to meet each other, other people from the clinical trial. And they just talked about how they were doing, and I loved. I mean, I didn’t really need to facilitate it.

It was became just like a sharing circle of p people. I mean, I

Both: just

Ros Watts: divert divided at the time. Um, so like, right, your, you know, you’ve got three minutes kind of thing. But that was all I was doing and it was wonderful to hear people’s resonance and support of each other. So then it was like, okay, this is a valuable thing, but it felt like it needed a framework.

It needed a, a kind of structure. And [00:56:00] I had found that in the psychedelic clinical trials, many people described this incredible connection to nature. And they talked about realizing that they are nature, not just like looking at nature like a thing, like a painting or a tv, but actually I am nature. And this seemed to have quite powerful impact on people.

And so I obviously, ’cause it was COVID, was had all this time in nature that I didn’t have before. So having been in know in a clinic room with no windows. To like 12 hour days for like a year and a half running the trial. I was suddenly roaming around looking at trees, and I became very, very fascinated with trees as a archetype of connectedness.

Because trees are connected with each other underground in the most amazing ways. They share resources, they, they look out for each other. And they’re also, they’re, they’re a symbol of connectedness to each other, but they’re also a [00:57:00] symbol of connectedness to our own roots and transmuting all the kind of messy roots, like all the stuff our roots have had to grow around.

All the stuff in the earth, the kind of shadow, the challenge, the difficulty, trees transmute that into growth. Like they literally suck at the mud and they turn it into sap and they turn it into leaves and flowers and fruits. So from the difficulty from the challenge, they create their growth. So they’re an amazing archetype, not just of our own process of turning suffering into growth and like, what do we stand for, what do we grow towards?

Um, and resilience as well. You know, they go grow through so many storms and they keep pro, you know, producing fruit, but also these, you know, this connectedness with each other at the roots. So I became really interested in trees and I became interested in the Celtic tree calendar, which is a kind of

Kyle Buller: mm-hmm.

Ros Watts: System for. Every, every month there’s a different tree and every tree has a different kind of lesson or teaching. And I, [00:58:00] I adapted that and that became the framework that our zoom sharing circle did. So that was five years ago. And since then we’ve grown, we now, every, every year we take 60 people approximately, although we’re gonna start growing now.

So we’re gonna be able to start taking more. But groups of about 60, um, from all around the world. And it’s people that are integrating psychedelic experience. Some, we have some people who are integrating long COVID, so they’re integrating extreme illness. We’ve had a few people coming that haven’t had psychedelic experiences either, but are integrating experiences of like real identity change and rupture and grief.

Um, so it’s anyone that’s been through a kind of deep experience and wants a community of people to, to walk together for a year. It’s like a whole year around the tree calendar. And every month we do, um, these guided imagery visualizations, which are set to music. And then we have sharing circles and breath work and just, we have loads of different things.

We have dance, [00:59:00] we have wood whittling. That’s cool. Yeah. We, um, we, there’s, there’s the community’s evolved in line with what people have wanted. And it’s just, it’s, I think the, the people with an interest in psychedelics or at least deep working with al big, deep altered states and nature just seems to bring people who are very grounded.

So there’s a really lovely mix of kind of the sparkle of psychedelics and the kind of hope and the, the optimism and the transformation that’s possible with its very grounded kind of, um, deep intention to be part of creating more connectedness with, with nature as well as with each other in ourselves.

So. Yeah, it’s a, it’s a really vibrant, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely community. They’re some amazing, amazing people. Um, and we, we have a, uh, we have this thing called integration. So we have [01:00:00] integration, which is your first year you go through the trees. Um, and it’s online, but you know, people meet up with each other in person because, you know, there might be ACEs that live near you.

People also travel and have little gatherings in different places. We had, I think, like seven of our ACEs at psychedelic science all hanging out together. Nice. So like, we find people, you know, people find each other, but. Most of the first year is online, but then some people stay on for a second year. And for that, the idea is once you’ve done the integration, so you’ve brought like harvested the gifts from the community, from the trees.

’cause we do a lot of like nature contact and stuff actually with the trees in nature, but also from your psychedelic experiences and insights and the breath work that we do. Like you’ve harvested the gifts and you’ve understood yourself really deeply. The second year, if people want to, they can repeat the cycle and then they, after the integration of year one, they can do integration, which is where people set up little local [01:01:00] gatherings.

So we give them one of the tree journeys and the the materials needed to run a kind of workshop for free.

Kyle Buller: I love that people

Ros Watts: just put it on in their living rooms or you can hire a hall and their neighbors come. People they don’t know and they just. Have this sharing circle together, like whatever the, the theme of the tree that month is, they’ll have a sharing circle, they’ll watch a film, they’ll, they’ll do the tree guided imagery journey and yeah, it’s all about creating community locally for ’cause.

Exactly as you said before, it’s quite hard to know how to do it, but this gives people the tools to really without, and also all the materials, you just press play, so you don’t actually have to facilitate it, you just press play on the film. Oh,

Kyle Buller: okay. Nice press

Ros Watts: play on the tree journey and then just open up a sharing circle.

So it’s like an easy way to hold a workshop that brings local connectedness.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And I love that idea of like, just how do you lessen the barrier of some facilitation, right? Because that is definitely like a big hurdle. Maybe people [01:02:00] don’t feel confident enough, but like making it accessible where people can bring that to their communities.

That’s really beautiful. Yeah. I didn’t know about the outer integration that that’s really awesome that you’re supporting, you know? Um, I don’t know what you’re calling them, they’re not students, but, um, integrities or,

Ros Watts: yeah. Yes.

Kyle Buller: ACEs.

Ros Watts: ACEs. Yeah. I mean it’s, it’s, um, as you say, like the, the barriers, the facilitation, it’s so, like, it could be so overwhelming like running something like that.

And so we need so much more of it, but it can be a lot to ask people to step up. But

Both: yeah, if you

Ros Watts: give people something, they just have to press play. As long as the quality of what they’re pressing play like is good enough that it leads to a rich discussion and people enjoy it, then it just, yeah, it makes it so much easier.

Kyle Buller: And when people sign up, are they, they’re committing for the full year, correct?

Ros Watts: Yeah. So people, um, people sign up for the first year. I mean, we, we didn’t, we just, it was created as a year long process because I just liked the idea of the, the, the 12 month kind of [01:03:00] cycle. Um, and it was a, I, I really enjoyed writing it and thinking all the different, I, I don’t, I changed it from the original Celtic Tree calendar and focused on different topics that I thought were more relevant for psychedelic integration and brought some international trees.

So we’ve got like redwoods and Douglas fur, so it’s not all like native UK trees, but, um, but it was really, it was a really kind of fun process writing that and like really, yeah, just finding what a, a really full year could look like. And I never expected anybody would want to repeat it because it was like.

We give you the tools, you learn the framework, you stay in touch with the people you do it with. You continue doing the trees in your own way. I thought people would just do a year, but we’ve, I think we have like 30% of people repeat the cycle and we’ve had

Kyle Buller: That’s amazing.

Ros Watts: Quite a lot of people are still repeating, like some of our first initial ACEs are still with us.

Like they’ve repeated it like three. They’ve done it for like three [01:04:00] years. So I think, I think

Kyle Buller: that shows the, the power of community that you’re creating, right.

Ros Watts: They make really solid friendships and they want to like, and we make it more and more financially accessible for people. So like, it becomes, you know, it gets cheaper and cheaper.

And we’ve just started something which is a, uh, financially supported, uh, arm because we were having lots of people getting in touch saying, you know, we really, we really want to do this, but it, the, the, the money is a barrier. So we’ve, we’ve for a limited number of people, but, but a solid percentage of our cohort.

Um, so our next cohort is starting in October and I think for half, like we’ll be looking at nearly half that cohort will be people on financially assisted places where it’s half the price. So yeah, we are, we’re, we’re at the place now where we can start kind of experimenting more and opening it up more and, um, bringing more, bringing more people from more walks of life in as well.

Kyle Buller: Amazing. This is something I’ve noticed, and I [01:05:00] wonder if you’re noticing it too, but like for a year long program, like. At what point do you see the relationship start to change or there’s more safety in the group container?

Both: Hmm.

Kyle Buller: I don’t know if you see that. I, I see it. It’s like usually at like six months or so, people like really start to bond in a different way and the group dynamics really start to shift.

Ros Watts: That’s interesting. Yeah. How many year, like, ’cause I guess you’ve seen this many, many years in a row. Like how many, how. How many years have you seen the same kind of pattern, would you say?

Kyle Buller: We’re finishing up our fourth cohort, so I would say like almost every time, like for those past four cohorts, like there’s like that initial kind of like, you know, phase of getting to know each other.

And then it’s usually around like this six month time period where like there’s a lot more trust that starts to build. Um, and I just think about the power of like long group experiences like that and cohort based learning and experiences where it’s [01:06:00] like you can’t always do that in like maybe like a short like say nine week or three month program you can.

Um, I think like maybe depending on like the intensity of it, but I’ve also just noticed like, you know, sometimes it takes a long time to build those relationships and you know, you mentioned in the beginning around trust, right? Like a lot of people have. Issues with trusting other people, right? Because we’ve been hurt so many times when we put up those barriers.

And sometimes it does take a really long time to build that trust and safety, um, in a, in a group container. And groups are scary, right? Like

Ros Watts: Yeah.

Kyle Buller: People are terrified of of groups. Yes. I was too. I hated it. I’m like, oh, I don’t wanna expose myself to a group.

Ros Watts: Do you find, it’s interesting, I, ’cause I was always really interested about the idea of like online groups and whether, whether people would bond and feel real connection.

And I’ve been amazed by how deep, and I think in some ways almost, well, it’s nice to have a combination of like online and then meet those people in real life as well. That’s the best. But like when there’s something about [01:07:00] having online connection where there’s less barriers, so you can do it more.

Because I think when you have to like meet people in real life, realistically with our lives, you don’t get to do it that often because. How busy

Kyle Buller: travel or you gotta go. Yeah.

Ros Watts: But doing it online, you can actually really nurture those relationships. So like over the course of a year, you’ve really spent a lot of time with those people, but also you are kind of in the safety of your own home.

Both: Yeah.

Ros Watts: Sometimes I feel that people are more open and more able to really share, like stuff that. They may never have told anybody and they may have had group therapy and you know, one-to-one therapy with a therapist. But there’s something about, there’s something about the, the online thing that amazed me.

’cause I was always a bit against it. Like many years ago I thought it was just like a, a shadow of what real intimacy could look like.

Kyle Buller: It’s, it’s been amazing to see the connections that form and the, and like the friendships that form over that time period. And [01:08:00] it’s like, you know, it’s always like interesting too when you meet people, like in person after like seeing them in line and you start seeing like their three dimensions and you’re like, oh, you look a lot different.

Or it’s like, oh, who are you? But there’s that instant connection. And I’ve noticed that so many times when I’ve seen some of our students come together, whether at a retreat or like we had like a bunch of them at Psychedelic Science and you have this mixing of like cohorts and people just instantly click because I think it’s that shared values of being in like a similar community and like that’s been really beautiful to see.

And it’s kind of challenged my, also like ideas around like online work and like how deep can you go in, in some of these online sessions? And I think you can go really deep and you know, something that you bring up about like the safety of your own home. I had a supervisor, very somatically oriented, so everything needs to be done in person, which I get, you know, I think to do some really deep somatic work, it’s really important to be in person.

Mm-hmm. But she was doing, um, some cap work with [01:09:00] folks and had like, it was like a group cap thing and one person. Couldn’t attend last minute. So, uh, she allowed them to, to do it at the comfort of their own home. I remember, uh, chatting with her, she’s like, I’m actually really surprised they went so deep and they felt so safe because they were in the comfort of their own home.

Um, and that really changed her belief around like, um, or maybe not completely, but like, you know, it really opened her mind to. Oh, maybe this can be done online virtually because people do have that comfort and safety within their own home. Um, and like, so that it’s, it’s interesting. It’s really interesting.

I think maybe at this point, like a lot of us are used to it. Like I’ve been working online pre pandemic I think since like 2016. So like when the pandemic happened, nothing really changed for me. I was doing online school, me and Joe were doing this and we were pretty much like online all the time. But, um, yeah, I [01:10:00] think like a lot of us have also gotten used to it pre pandemic or post pandemic, um, of like just being online, developing these relationships.

Ros Watts: Hmm. Yeah. It’s nice, it’s nice to have a combination, isn’t it, as well. Like if you can use your like, online community to be like your, your kind of charging spot, like your. Close buddies that know you and root for you and like they can kind of empower you to go out in the world and make connections where it’s a bit scarier.

Like when you’ve got your people, um, then it can help you feel comforted to go back. ’cause you know that no matter what you do, so say like you set up something locally and you know that your online community are gonna be really interested in what you are doing, you can go there. And then as you said with your breath work experience where no one turns up, sometimes stuff like that happens or like, you know, like this full of like embarrassing moments or this happens or that happens or we feel that we did said the wrong thing or whatever.

Or. [01:11:00] Whatever happens, you know, that you’ve got your community of people to tell about it later. Like it’s that thing about like going on a date, like when you are like, you know, you know that if you go on a date and it’s really terrible, like at least it’ll be a good story to tell your friends. It’s a good thought to have when people are doing that.

Like, put yourself out there because you’ve got your people who no matter what happens, are gonna be there for you with you, support you and, and tell you. Well done for trying, you know, it’s so important to have that. And that’s why we need community of place and community of purpose because it’s our community of purpose.

Our kind of online people, those are the people that can give us that kind of support because they can be there like a lot of the time and they have the same value system. It’s like we are finding people with that same like, you know? So yeah, we need, I think we need both and using our online communities to enrich our in-person connectedness and our willingness to set up projects.

And I think that’s a [01:12:00] really nice balance.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, I’m seeing some comments, um, just around like, um, yeah, somebody said, I, I, uh, always respected online and rejected the notion of in life as if online isn’t real. And, um, it’s scary how great online is in teleconferencing. And, you know, I, I, I agree. You know, I think over the years, like it has kept me grounded and really sane.

Um, especially like during the Pandemic, ’cause I think I already had that community of purpose online here, and I’m like, oh, like, you know, these things are keeping me engaged. I’m grounded. I have like, connections that I’m able to, yeah, I’m participate in like all the time and, Hmm. Um, yeah, it’s really interesting.

Um,

Ros Watts: and it’s beautiful and sometimes I, I dunno if you find this as well, but like sometimes when I’ve, ’cause I have like online calls all the time, like all hours of the day and night because we have lots of people in America. And sometimes when I can see, like this call, that call, like in my diary, I have a slight feeling of like, ugh.

And like, like I’ve gotta open my laptop [01:13:00] again and like before a call I can start feel that feeling of like, oh, another thing on my laptop. But then every single time when I leave that call, I feel so invigorated, full, full of good feelings. And same what are we gonna do otherwise? Like it’s also reframing, like another thing I think is so important is we spend so much time on watching TV and we spend so much time on social media and like we are all just most of us, so addicted to that, but making a real conscious choice of thinking about what you are consuming and what you’re spending your time doing and saying, I’m not gonna go on social media and scroll.

I’m not gonna spend all this time watching TV shows made up stuff that it’s like. Other people’s made up lives that mean nothing are often, you know, it’s like how can we choose where we put our attention? And so even though being part of an online community where you feel like, oh, I’ve gotta do this thing [01:14:00] online, it’s like, well you, otherwise you’d probably be watching a movie or doom scrolling anyway.

Both: Right, right. So

Ros Watts: like it’s, I just think it, wouldn’t it be so amazing if there was this like mass movement off Meta and Amazon, and I dunno if I, if I get into trouble from saying all these like names of things, whether I’m allowed to even talk about ’em, we’ll probably find ourselves with some kind of like terrible, terrible thing happening.

But, um. Spotify. Spotify is a big part of ASA has been ’cause we do loads of dance playlists. We do a dance every month to integrate the month theme. And I found out the, the, the CEO of Spotify is putting 700 million of profits into an AI military German AI military startup.

Both: Hmm.

Ros Watts: Um, so I was like, okay, well we’re not using Spotify anymore, but it’s like, it’s obviously really difficult to disentangle ourselves from these platforms that we spend so much of our time doing, but we are just gonna make all of our playlists using, um, my [01:15:00] partners just gonna DJ them all and make them into like,

Kyle Buller: that’s awesome

Ros Watts: playlists that we can just have that don’t need Spotify.

’cause he’s just gonna buy each tune, DJ them together and make a playlist so that we don’t use Spotify, but like we really need to stop being part of these like, platforms that are really like, like their agenda is pretty. Frightening and vote with our feet and and find other platforms that are not part of that.

And also independent because as you were saying before about our accounts getting shut down and things like that, it’s very vulnerable to have our socializing and also our kind of communication at the whims of the guys that run meta. Like we need to find alternative platforms and ways of communicating and ways of entertaining ourselves that have nothing to do with those.

Corporate behemoths.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. I’ve been having lots of these feelings lately, especially since like the bands that were happening, like our, and our whole meta [01:16:00] backend was completely shut down and banned from October to December. So like we couldn’t really do anything. And then our Instagram was like being attacked and so like, we were afraid to even make posts over there from like October to December.

And then this whole band started happening around like, uh, it was, I think it was like Memorial Day weekend, end of May at some point where like. All these accounts in the psychedelic space started getting shutting shut down. And then sometimes, uh, people since like it’s tracking IP addresses, sometimes personal accounts are shut down.

And it’s like years of effort that you are creating an online community, um, and interacting with folks. And it’s been wonderful, right? Like I’ve met so many wonderful people on these platforms and I always come back to something I, I’ve, I’ve heard over and over again by, uh, Gary Vanerchuk, who’s like a marketing person, but he is like, you know, we live in this attention economy and wear are people’s eyeballs.

And unfortunately everybody’s eyeballs are. On Instagram, meta TikTok and and these social platforms. But I think something [01:17:00] that I’ve been feeling, it’s like, you know, if you’re the consumer of the platform, it’s almost like you don’t own your stuff. And it’s like our Instagram was looking at being permanently deleted.

So like almost over nine years of content on that. And like the effort of building that community over there could have just been completely taken away from us. And I’m also hearing that. It’s happening outside of the psychedelic and cannabis space. It’s happening across the board with folks, um, because of their AI moderation.

It’s like, it’s just banning people left and right. And like, I felt that where I’m like, do I even wanna participate in this anymore knowing that like, this stuff could just be taken away from us at, at any point. It’s like, and I’ve been coming back thinking like, yeah, what communities are really important and how do I like, you know, start to foster those And is it in person?

Is it the communities that we’re building? Like, you know, within our, you know, we have like an online, uh, community called on that’s hosted on Circle, but again, another platform that it’s [01:18:00] like, if they don’t like what we’re doing, could it get taken away? People’s Facebook groups are getting shut down. I think ours got suspended a few times, or Facebook’s still suspended and it’s just like, you know, years of, of community building on a platform to get it.

Taken away from you and then you can’t engage with folks, which is, uh, which is a bummer. And so I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Like where do we put our energy when we kind of all that are interested in this space live on the fringes, even though it feels mainstream and very accepted, I always have to remind myself that we’re still on the fringes a bit.

Right. Still taboo. It’s still federally illegal. Um, and, you know, some of these platforms can kind of do whatever they want to do and you’re, you’re the consumer and they could just take it away from you if they don’t agree with it. So,

Ros Watts: absolutely. And it is terrifying. And that’s, I’m so sorry that’s happened to you because that’s, that is devastating and exhausting to have something like that just suddenly happen.

Like it just gets shut down and kind of shocking and kind of like really like devastating that that can happen. It’s [01:19:00] like, yeah, but also it’s, the thing that also scares me is that. These, those that are there, there is so much control over the narrative that it’s not just about things like psychedelics being vulnerable, but also

Both: so much.

Yeah. Literally

Ros Watts: what gets shut down, what gets shadow banned. What gets amplified and the kind of nonsense that I’m seeing, I’m like, what? Like I just, every time I go on Instagram, ’cause I do sometimes still go on it, I still have a bit of an addiction. Um, like, you know, I’ll just see like trad wife content.

I’m like, why did anyone ever think that I wanted to learn about like how I can respect my husband better and cook him better meals? I’m like, that is

Both: not

Ros Watts: me. But there’s just this really strong kind of. Obviously agenda at the moment happening in, in the States and like with the Heritage Foundation, things like that.

I’m like, wow. It’s trickling down into what gets, what gets amplified. And I follow [01:20:00] a, a really lovely podcast called The Guilty Feminist, which, um, the woman running that has been saying a lot recently that like their reach has just, they haven’t been banned, but they just can’t get any posts under to be seen by anyone.

They’re basically just shadow banned the whole time. So that just really frightens me that certain messaging is being shut down certain, like feminism is being shut down. Like, that just makes me wanna say, okay, I, I just wanna chuck my phone out the window. But it’s difficult to do it.

Kyle Buller: It it is, and it’s a, it’s a really hard balance, right?

Because it’s like, again, it’s like that’s where a lot of people’s attention is. That’s how people have built communities. That’s like, kind of like what we know. And then it’s also like, yeah, I feel like we’re really battling up against a lot of freedom of speech stuff with like, yeah. All this moderation that that’s starting to happen.

And yeah, I just keep coming back to how do we form communities outside of these platforms as well. Um, because I think that’s gonna be more sustainable. Um, [01:21:00] and, you know, I think sometimes Yeah, better than all of a sudden you’re, you’re gone, right? Because just decided that, you know, yeah. Your stuff goes against community guidelines or, or whatever.

Um,

Ros Watts: yeah, I mean it’s, up to this point, our kind of platform feels like it’s kind of like pretty safe or Yeah, it feels like it’s kind of like we, we control it, we run it, we can, you know, it feels safe. Um, but I do think that it makes a lot of sense in the times that we’re in to use online community as a way of finding people, but then very quickly using that to find the people locally from that and, and make local community, not just for support and meaning and everything else, but because we really need.

To really nurture those networks of support and communication because we just have no idea what’s gonna be happening in the next however many years. But we can be sure that having people in our local area that we [01:22:00] know, that we trust, that we like, um, to do good things with is like. That this, there’s never gonna be a problem with doing that.

It’s only ever gonna be a good thing. And the sooner we start the better.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. And I guess something that comes to my mind is just like building that resiliency. Um, I haven’t studied permaculture too much, but I know Joe has, and he is mentioned this, but like, how do we build more resiliency in the ecosystem?

And again, it’s like having, you know, strong networks, having diverse networks, um, and diverse ecosystems. So there is that like, you know, ongoing resiliency and support, which I think is needed. And how does psychedelics play a role in that? Right? I know you’ve worked on the, the connectedness scale, and I think you’ve talked about it on our podcast in the past.

So if anybody’s interested in kind of digging into that, you go back and listen to it. But also I think you also worked with, uh, Sam, right, on the, uh, nature connectedness stuff as well. And

Ros Watts: Yes.

Kyle Buller: Um,

Ros Watts: we can get, so I mean, plugging [01:23:00] into nature. Is one of the most incredibly powerful ways of feeling resilient, because when we plug into Nat, I mean life force, energy of nature is the most powerful, incredible resilient thing.

Um, and so I did a, I made a film and a guided imagery journey recently called Super Blooming the Aftermath, which is a bit of a wordy title, but it’s basically about forests that have burned down and how they restore the cells. And it’s this process of ecological succession. So when a forest burns down, it looks completely charred, but the mushrooms come and they detox the waste.

And then all these different stages of ecological succession, all these different, um, the, the fire seeds come. There are certain seeds that only get opened up in the fire. They release the seeds. Certain plants that come the, the forest is encoded for regeneration. And it’s really amazing to just [01:24:00] remember that, that we are too, and that if we can have an image in our heads of that resiliency and, and not just have an image of it, but actually regulate our nervous systems by going into nature and.

Sitting with our feet on the ground, grounding with our back against the tree, breathing, like calming a whole nervous system as well. Then our bodies become supported by nature and we can also have a vision of the hugeness of it and how much bigger it is than, than any of the structures that we’re currently struggling with.

Nature is bigger than it, and I love seeing the images of Ville, which was this nuclear site, and how. You know, the mushrooms came and detoxed all the nuclear material. And now churnable is one of the biggest, like, like the third biggest nature reserve in Europe. They are, wow.

Kyle Buller: Oh, I didn’t realize that.

Ros Watts: Oh, maze and diversity, nature, just, you know, fights

Kyle Buller: that took over and,

Ros Watts: and if you think about the psychological, like [01:25:00] metaphors, ’cause all of my work is looking at nature metaphors and thinking of this kind of psychological metaphors.

It’s like, it’s all about community. So when the forest burns down, the mushrooms come, they create networks between each other. They create this structure that brings structure to the soil and it’s this mycelial networks, they come together and they compost what is toxic by creating these networks of mycelium.

So it’s like we are, there are so many of us that will have the same value system. There are so many of us that want fairness and life to flourish on earth. And for standard of living to be equal and shared if there to be respect for each other and for us to be able to live a healthy life. And sofa, sofa, everybody else as well.

There are so many, I mean the percentage of humors on this world that want the same thing must be like, I don’t know, 99.5% or something. It’s such a tiny number of people who unfortunately have been brainwashed by power and money and whatever it is, [01:26:00] you know, that they would, they would choose that. But when we can be like the mushrooms and when we can come together and compost what’s not working and create the networks of care and of support, like it’s, we can do this.

We can definitely do this. Yeah. It’s just a question of like. How to remove, how to remove the threats. That’s the bit that I still haven’t quite figured out. Like, and

Kyle Buller: the distractions, I think too, right? Like I come back to something, um, the difference between like George Orwell and Huxley, whereas like, Orwell’s vision was like the, what we fear is gonna destroy us.

And it’s like those powers that be, or is it from Huxley’s, like vision, like taking the Soma and it’s like what we love ends up destroying us. And I just think about this, you know, being the Soma. Um, and a lot of us just become really distracted and just like, you know, don’t wanna do anything about it.

’cause we’re just like, oh, can’t, and we’re overwhelmed, right? Like, the amount of news and [01:27:00] bad news that we see on a daily basis, it’s like, I know I feel it sometimes I go into shutdown, like I can’t. I need to like step away. Like what do I do? You know? Mm-hmm. But it’s like, you know, I think also how do we get.

Not so distracted all the time and try to make, um, actions in, in our communities.

Ros Watts: Mm. One really great thing I think is dancing.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. ’cause

Ros Watts: we get so sedentary and so overwhelmed, but shaking is so good for release and dancing is just such a huge part of our, you know, human experience. We need to dance like we need to, to.

Humans need to dance. And it’s not like the kind of dancing that people feel embarrassed about because at the school disco, we felt like we didn’t dance in a cool way. It’s like, not that kind of dancing, it’s like, just move

Both: your body. You know? It’s like, yeah,

Ros Watts: the drumbeat and not carrying what you look like, but just moving your body and letting the emotions come.

Like, we so need to do that. So I really feel like dance is something that we can do via our computer screens, [01:28:00] and it’s a really good way of helping us when we’re in that state of overwhelm, slowly, gently coming. Especially with other people like coming back into our bodies and like, yeah, it’s, and it brings up those endorphins.

’cause when we are feeling that sense of overwhelm and just like dopamine sickness from too much scrolling, letting the natural endorphin rush that comes from exercise, um, is like that can break the cycle and can help us switch into something much more joyful and hopeful.

Kyle Buller: I agree, and maybe that’s a nice encouragement for those that are listening right now.

Shake your body, you know, move a little bit. Shake it.

Ross, this has been awesome. I realize we’re well over the hour, but this has been so fun. I’ve been really enjoyed chatting with you, so, um, anything that you wanna close with for today? What’s,

Ros Watts: I’ve really enjoyed it too. You, thank you so much. Um, yeah, always, always a pleasure chatting with you. I love roaming [01:29:00] around the different, different topics and, um, yeah, just to say to people, have a look at our website.

We’ve got lots of free events, um, for that community building and we have a danceathon coming up in October, nine hour Danceathon, a charity fundraiser, nine

Kyle Buller: hours, nice

Ros Watts: nine hour dance playlist. Um, it’s gonna be like a music journey going through like different phases, but, you know, we are always doing different things, so like if people get on our mailing list and they’ll hear about the different kind of community events we are running and yeah, just, I, I love the fact that we’ve talked so much about community ’cause it feels so important and yeah, I hope that people have.

Some good moments finding beautiful things that they didn’t know existed.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. It’s such an important topic. And is that acer integration.com Acer? Yes. Yeah. Awesome. Acer integration

Ros Watts: do com. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. And we’re also, uh, on Instagram after our conversation feels, I feel like I inevitable

Kyle Buller: for all of us, but, um,

Ros Watts: but yeah, mainly [01:30:00] our, mainly our website is the best way to find us.

Kyle Buller: Awesome. And then you just started a cohort, so do you have another cohort coming up for that or?

Ros Watts: So we have, our next cohort is in October. Um, we’ve just had the applications for, um, financially assisted places. I’m not sure if there’s, I think that might be closed now, but I’m not sure there. Yes, I think they were still coming in, but I think they may have closed.

Um, but the website will have UpToDate details on that. It’s my lovely, um, colleague Lee. She manages all of that. Um, the amazingly, um, so yeah, the cohort will be, we’ll have applications like all the time from now, um, for the October cohort. Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Amazing. And

Ros Watts: also actually we have a free event, the super blooming, the aftermath event that I mentioned.

The imagining the forest coming back after fire. Um, we have an event coming up where you can just attend that workshop, do the visualization, see the film having sharing circle. Um, and we also do pearl dive workshops where these are for [01:31:00] people preparing for psychedelic experience. We do this visualization called the Pearl Dive.

It’s all about preparing for a deep journey and diving into the body and finding the spiky shells and looking for the treasures within. And they’re really nice workshops. We have sharing circles as well. So yeah, they’re all on the website. People can come along to those.

Kyle Buller: Awesome. And if you’re listening to this again, uh, during the podcast, we’ll put everything in the show notes as well so people can check that out.

But acer integration.com, check out what Dr. Rosalyn Watts is up to and the beautiful community that you’re creating. So I wanna just thank you again for taking the time to talk about this important topic, and thank you everybody for spending time listening to us today.

Ros Watts: Thank you. Thank you so much, Kyle.

Thank you everyone.

October 14, 2025June 11, 2026

Megan Portnoy MS – Ontological Design, Psychedelic Spaces, and Integrating Rigor

In this episode, Joe Moore talks with Megan Portnoy, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Antioch University New England, about how ontological design can reshape the environments used in psychedelic-assisted therapy. Megan explains how physical space is not just a backdrop but an active participant in the therapeutic process, influencing emotion, cognition, and healing.

She recently won an award for her presentation on this topic at PsychedelX.

They explore how design principles that foster awe, play, and flexibility can deepen integration and expand what’s possible in clinical settings. The conversation also examines how psychedelic communities can balance openness with discernment, apply more psychological rigor, and avoid falling into ungrounded or high-demand group dynamics.

This rich discussion bridges psychology, philosophy, design, and culture—inviting us to think critically about not only how we use psychedelics, but the spaces, systems, and stories that shape our collective evolution.

https://www.intercollegiatepsychedelics.net/psychedelx

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors or inaccuracies.

Joe Moore: [00:00:00] Here. Hi everybody. Welcome back to psychedelics Today, we’ve got Megan Portnoy on today. How are you today, Megan?

Megan Portnoy: I’m doing well. Thanks for having me on.

Joe Moore: Absolutely. Um, we had a lovely conversation a while ago, um, and I’m just, uh, excited to finally get you on the show. Um, so you are a doctoral candidate working towards PS D at Antioch, um, in New England.

Joe Moore: Uh, can you tell us a little bit about what you’re up to there?

Megan Portnoy: Yeah, so I am, um, in my fourth year of academics, so four out of a five year trajectory here. Um, I’m getting my mys D in clinical psychology and, uh, you know, there’s no formal specialty area for psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, but if the regulations shake out, that’s the direction I’d like to go.

Megan Portnoy: Um, in the meantime, my clinical work is with adult. Focusing on, um, relational issues, personality disorder, um, and then, you [00:01:00] know, depression, anxiety, those sorts of things.

Joe Moore: Hmm.

Joe Moore: Love

Joe Moore: that. And we got connected, I think, through the psychedelics organization. You won a presentation over there, you kind of got a, did you get first prize?

Joe Moore: Like how, how does it work over there?

Megan Portnoy: I did, you know, I signed up for it, um, because I had this idea for a talk that didn’t really fit in my academic space and they’re very open to kind of creative merging of different disciplines. And so, um, I submitted it and then found out that I got it and that it was a talk competition.

Megan Portnoy: I didn’t know when I submitted that. And, um, so yeah, they do, um, some kind of talk coaching and mentoring and you produce your talk and mm-hmm. Some, um, folks judge it and I won.

Joe Moore: Outstanding. That’s great. Um, can you give us a little understanding of what you were working on there? What is that presentation?[00:02:00]

Megan Portnoy: Yes. So it’s, um, set and setting through the lens of ontological design. So it’s taking this, um, kind of design theory, um, grounded in ontology and if you want me to get into the definitions of things I can. Um, but applying that to developing psychedelic assisted psychotherapy settings, um, moving away from what I see now as very solution oriented design, kind of this pyramid structure where we’re trying to control for outcomes.

Megan Portnoy: And the peak of the pyramid is to get someone to an internal experience. Um, and my argument is that, uh, you know. Based on what we know is happening in the brain on a psychedelic, based on what we know about how environment impacts psychology, that we should be designing through a lens of the environment being a feedback loop and interactive, um, relational process with the experience rather than a lay on the couch eye shades, go inside yourself.[00:03:00]

Joe Moore: Hmm. I just, um, saw a bunch of photos from a clinic that used to be operational in New York that looked like, um, looked like an art project, the whole thing, but they were actually using it as a clinical ketamine space. And I thought it was really great to like have, um, something that just felt really playful and engaging as opposed to like, you know, hyper sterile walls.

Joe Moore: Um. Mm-hmm. But this is a spec, it’s like kind of a spectrum. And it might not even be a spectrum. It might be multidimensional too, right? Like there’s, there’s a lot to it. Um, so yeah. Can you, can you kind of like back us into this like, uh, concept of ontological design a little bit further?

Megan Portnoy: So, um, if you think of ontology as kind of like a conceptual framework, um, or system of defining entities and relationships, uh, within a particular domain.

Megan Portnoy: So how things relate to each other. Um, so ontological design is that, um, is [00:04:00] kind of this idea that what we design, the spaces we design, design us back. So you go into a cathedral, it is designed to elicit awe. You feel awe when you walk in. And so can we design the psychedelic space to be able to resonate with what is coming up in the psychedelic experience?

Megan Portnoy: Is it adaptive? Um, you know, when somebody. Gets to the place where they are feeling very, um, boundaryless and open. Can the space accommodate that? Can the space accommodate movement, um, tactile stimulation, auditory, um, all of the, you know, kind of sensory input. And then when it’s time to ground the person is their responsiveness in the environment to allow them to do that.

Megan Portnoy: Yeah. So this creating this feedback loop where the environment is actually an active participant in the experience, not just kind of this backdrop. [00:05:00]

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That’s great. And I think, um, it’s really important to talk about space design and, and like what are we actually bringing to the table here and, um.

Joe Moore: A thought I had recently, and I wanna hear your kind of thoughts on this before we kinda rewind the tape on you and your history is, um, I’ve been chatting a lot about how even IV ketamine is often performing better than standard of care for a lot of psychiatric situations, even if it looks really subpar and executed poorly by our standards.

Joe Moore: And I think like just there’s a lot of upward trajectory here and, and it sounds like you’re saying this kind of new framework could really help improve things, right?

Megan Portnoy: Right. Yeah. I’m not necessarily pointing out something that’s wrong. Um, and it’s not about aesthetics as much. You know, there are a lot of beautiful spaces being created, um, a lot of clinical spaces too, uh, that can appear very sterile, [00:06:00] but people have meaningful experiences in there.

Megan Portnoy: Um, I just think that we can enhance it and it can be done, um, better.

Joe Moore: Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So, um. How was the talk and presentation received at psychedelics?

Megan Portnoy: Uh, I think, well, surprisingly, um, if I looked, I haven’t checked in a bit, but I didn’t, you know, I had a pretty average number of views from the YouTube, but, um, you know, I got some good questions, uh, from the audience, but it was a kind of a prerecorded virtual conference.

Megan Portnoy: Mm-hmm. So it wasn’t so much a direct interaction, um, with folks, but, uh, if folks go to watch it, I highly recommend doing it on 1.25. Uh, speed. ’cause I was, I was very tired that day and talking quite slowly. So, little tip.

Joe Moore: Well, great work. Um, excited to, you know, [00:07:00] dig deeper, learn more about that and, and, um, see where we can expand.

Joe Moore: Uh. That topic into our education and media to, you know, help people become more aware of that kind of thing. So let’s kind of rewind the tape for you. How did, how did you kind of end up in psychedelia and working on a Id, like, what, what’s your path been to get here?

Megan Portnoy: Um, non-linear for sure. Uh, so I’m an older student.

Megan Portnoy: Um, I went to undergrad 15 years ago, which is kind of, uh, anomalous in my program. It’s a lot of folks coming right outta undergrad. Um, and had I had careers in politics and, uh, yoga teaching. I owned a yoga studio in Chicago for a few years. Um, and then I worked with, um, a podcaster, an author in Austin, Texas for a brief period.

Megan Portnoy: Um, but it was really after the pandemic lockdown moving to [00:08:00] New Hampshire, uh, which was a big change for a city girl. Um.

Joe Moore: Where were you initially from trying

Megan Portnoy: to, so grew up in the bay area of San Francisco. Briefly lived in Indiana, then moved to, uh, Chicago, and then to Austin. Great. So most of my adult life and childhood cities.

Megan Portnoy: Uh, so now I live in a teeny tiny town where the demographic is pretty much 65 and up, uh, in New Hampshire and uh, on 50 acres. So it was a change, but it was kind of, um, you know, this question of what next? Um, what makes sense? And, um, you know, I had come to psychedelics in my early twenties through my own personal experiences, my own personal heal healing journeys.

Megan Portnoy: Um, and then kind of going into the wellness world and in Austin and seeing [00:09:00] some red flags about how these were being. Utilized for healing, um, made me really think about applying rigor to, um, applying rigor to the use of these. So I decided to apply to a doctoral program, um, and then got in and a week later found out that I was pregnant and then found out my due date was the first week of classes.

Megan Portnoy: So, uh, my, my little guy is three now, but I did it all at once.

Joe Moore: Um, yeah, so I wanna kind of like expand on this kind of misuse, um, and rigor kind of concept a little bit. Like, I think it’s really easy to become a sloppy thinker around psychedelics. It’s a little bit more challenging to actually say, oh.

Joe Moore: Yeah, like maybe those assumptions weren’t accurate. Maybe set and setting or what I’m bringing to the table were more ingredient than like, you know, the fundamental ground of being or something like [00:10:00] that. Um, mm-hmm. Yeah. So can you expand on kind of like, what were some kind of tricky things you were seeing that kind of made you wanna apply more rigor?

Megan Portnoy: Um, definitely, uh, stories of, of harm and abuse when facilitators are also using at the same time. Um, uh, none of my own personally, but stories of others in that environment. And then kind of, I had this question of my, my assumptions about psychedelics, uh, making people better, more open, more compassionate, uh, kinder, those sorts of things.

Megan Portnoy: And. That wasn’t universal. And so I began to start to see psychedelics as, uh, an amplifier of one’s internal experience and internal [00:11:00] world, and saw the importance of integration. And I think folks getting into chasing the insights without integration can get to some pretty, um, self inflated, self absorbed places.

Megan Portnoy: So, uh, grounding in, in real world, real life, real problems, um, and some form of integrating and putting it into practice, uh, whatever it is that happens to us when we get to see the world in a radically different perspective.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um. And there’s all sorts of harms possible, right? From physical to emotional, spiritual, and financial, and probably other things too that I don’t even know about yet.

Joe Moore: Um, but, um, you, you saw a decent spectrum of those kind of harms

Megan Portnoy: Yeah. And, um, harms, but also [00:12:00] just

Megan Portnoy: folks who had become untethered.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Megan Portnoy: From reality. And, um, you know, as I learned more about the mind and psychology and psyche and school, um, understanding that these seem to create more flexibility in the brain. So they work really well with rigidity, but you get into too much flexibility and now there’s a problem.

Megan Portnoy: Um. Practically speaking on, on the importance of day-to-day living, um, and just kind of daily living activities. And then moving into, you know, things like psychosis, that’s a highly flexible brain. So when you push too much into one direction with, without any kind of grounding, I just saw folks that, like I said, [00:13:00] felt very, um, untethered and malleable in ways that could, that could lead to harm for them.

Joe Moore: Yeah, I think, um.

Joe Moore: There’s the line I like, you know, have an open mind, but don’t have your mind be so open that your brain falls out. And I think that kind of like mm-hmm. You know, is, is key here. You know, because we can’t say, oh, there’s so many interesting possibilities. Like, uh, what I was taught about reality isn’t really real anymore.

Joe Moore: So is everything that, you know, this new stranger is telling me true? Or can I have a little bit of rigor? Like, how do you, how do you see bringing rigor into this kind of thinking, um, in these spaces? Like, I, I find Western philosophy helps a little bit, but that can also be a weird trap, I guess people a little screwed up to.

Megan Portnoy: Mm-hmm. I’m very much, uh, [00:14:00] everything in moderation and, uh, everything to me is a both. And, uh, I’m, I’m very much not, um, one who lives in extremes, but, um. From my, you know, clinical mind. I say that therapy, um, skilled therapy is really helpful in grounding the experience and applying the insights. Uh, but you know, I didn’t have myself therapy in conjunction with my psychedelics, but, um, for me it was, um, a lot of my background in studying philosophy.

Megan Portnoy: I know, like you said, the kinda the western traditions of that. Um, but who was it? It might have been Alan Watts that said something about peoples think that enlightenment is, you know, when you, when you see, see God or whatever it is, but it’s really in. Peeling the potatoes and taking out the trash. It’s [00:15:00] in that sort of stuff.

Megan Portnoy: And I’ve been lucky enough to have people in my life that provide that contrast. And I did, um, you know, get to places, especially in places like Austin that are real echo chambers. Um, I met my, my now husband who is not from that world and could hold up a mirror to how bizarre, uh, some of the things and some of the ideas could be.

Megan Portnoy: Um, where, you know, if you’re outside of that world saying the things you say or behaving the way you behave, you forget that the vast majority of the world and society would look at you like, are you okay? Um, so I, there was a poignant moment where, excuse me, I was going to to work and I had moved in with him and he just very casually from his computer as I’m walking out the door, said, uh.

Megan Portnoy: Sometimes it doesn’t feel like you’re gonna work. It feels like you’re going into, uh, indoctrination. Just, just [00:16:00] drop that little MindWar casually as I bounced out the door. And, uh, that really opened up some, some deep inquiry for me.

Joe Moore: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Moore: I, you know, I’ve been around the psychedelic space long enough where I’ve seen a number of cults go rise and fall.

Joe Moore: Some, some have been able to last a long time and, you know, I wanna be a little bit careful here. I wanna call them high demand groups. ’cause like, you know, cult, it’s not that useful of a term, it’s a kind of sensationalist term. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, capturing kind of a lot of the weird, I don’t know, moonies, um, the, the assorted alien religions from the eighties and nineties and um Right.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Just a lot of really interesting things there. But, you know. So what if somebody has a religion? Like, I’m not necessarily gonna wanna confront your religion, but if it’s like ruining [00:17:00] your life and your relationships in ways that aren’t, you know, beneficial for you, then maybe something’s up. Like you gotta pay another 80 grand to go to the next level up to clear out the, um, the infestations that, you know, whatever Didi gave you when you were incarnated.

Joe Moore: You know? And so like there’s a lot of interesting and funny organizations. There’s also helpful ones and you know, um, there’s a thing that happened recently around a kind of American politics where people are getting like really entrenched in like really weird views. And by being ashamed of the view and having that kind of alienation amplified, then they don’t want to actually backtrack.

Joe Moore: It’s kind of an interesting cult dynamic that happens where they have to like stay with it to save face or feel good about themselves. And it’s like a relatively well-documented kind of playbook. How to manipulate people like that. Have you, you know, I, any thoughts on any of that?

Megan Portnoy: Yeah, there’s [00:18:00] definitely that double down.

Megan Portnoy: Um, but, um, you know, I’ll, I can, I can tie that a bit to my clinical work, which has opened my eyes to how minds change. Um, and it’s, it’s such an emotional process and we think that it’s logical and we think that it’s facts and we think that it’s, um, shaming or making one feel dumb or ostracized. But the flip side of that is if somebody’s in a high demand group, what folks who, um, run those or who lead those types of groups do is they, they, they toggle between.

Megan Portnoy: This button of love and terror. So you’re in grouped and you’re out grouped. You’re in grouped, and you’re out grouped and you never know where you belong. [00:19:00] So if you have some extreme ideas and then someone is challenging those by out grouping you, it’s gonna try to re, it’s gonna kind of reinforce you back into, well, this ingroup believes these things and when I believe these things I’m accepted.

Megan Portnoy: Um, and so they retreat further.

Joe Moore: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Yeah. And it makes it difficult, more and more difficult as you’re kind of sh providing more shame or like mm-hmm. Guilt or bad feelings. You’re making it more difficult for them to come back. So this is like a really interesting dynamic that we’re seeing play out at scale right now domestically, and it’s, um, it’s, mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: It’s fascinating and, uh. You said you were friends with Matthew Reky earlier, who’s a really great thinker. Um, and I, I really appreciate his work. And, um, do you think he’s been [00:20:00] helpful here in kind of illuminating some of these problems?

Megan Portnoy: Yes, and I, I use friend loosely in that we’ve, we’ve had a number of really great discussions, but we’ve never met in person ’cause he lives in, in Toronto.

Megan Portnoy: Um, but I was connected with him. Um, I worked very briefly for Jamie Wheel and was working to get him on the Cons Spirituality podcast, um, and connected with, with Matthew then. Um, but yeah, I absolutely love his work. Um, and he, yeah, I’m, I’m a big fan of the things that he is calling to light and, um, and highlighting about the zeitgeist in both.

Megan Portnoy: This merger of political and wellness spaces, which is a really odd and unique thing to me because my background in politics and then moving into wellness, those used to be so distinctly different. [00:21:00] Um, totally different communities. Mm-hmm. Totally different interests, totally different concerns. And now there’s this merging of what I see as like two, two past lives for me.

Joe Moore: An interesting ants. So. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think there’s just so, so much to get into like it, have you been exposed to any kind of clinical data looking into kind of high demand groups and like, um, kinda like how people, I don’t know, like what, what have you seen in, in the psychology world around this kind of topic?

Megan Portnoy: Yeah. It’s not a primary focus of, um. Of what I do. I don’t have anyone, uh, that’s a client that’s in a high demand group, but there’s oddly a lot of overlap with, uh, clinically with, um, reactions to things like intimate partner violence and [00:22:00] domestic violence and the kind of really disorganized attachment that can happen in relationship.

Megan Portnoy: Um, and then seeing when, when clients of mine come into therapy and have kind of similar disorganized attachment and, uh, kind of a parasocial relationship with famous people, influencers, podcasters, that sort of thing. Um, I haven’t studied, I actually made a conscious decision not to, to choose not to use my academic work to go far down into the, the cult stuff.

Megan Portnoy: I kind of wanted to. Put those experiences behind me and not let them define my career. So, um, but I, there, there are corollaries there with, um, the attachment that you see in abusive relationships. Um, and then, you know, I’m, I’m loosely familiar with some, some research around, um, [00:23:00] what, what types of basically, um, organizations of mind calls someone to be attracted to those types of groups.

Megan Portnoy: Um, and how when you’re facing things that feel like existential risk, which I think that a lot of us are feeling in many different ways, um, that you’re more. Inclined to find belonging in a rigid, in group, in a high demand group, in a strong man, um, and a leader that’s gonna give a sense of safety and direction.

Megan Portnoy: Uh, and that’s what folks who lead high demand group try to do.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, the terror concept is really interesting. I’ve, I’ve been seeing it in kind of like a, some relationships where one person is, uh, kind of deeply narcissistic from, you know, probably from real [00:24:00] reasons, but then like similar manipulations are happening, right?

Joe Moore: Like the, the love and wonder and then the terror. Um, and it’s like, mm-hmm. It’s really interesting, you know, destabilization, I liked how you called it like disor disorganized attachment earlier. I think that was a really good turn of phrase. Um, yeah. Um. Cool. Kind of wanna talk about like, um, flipping back, unless there’s anything on this topic we wanna cover before going back into like environments and spaces.

Megan Portnoy: Um, no. Yeah.

Joe Moore: Cool. Um, so I wonder, like, so say, say you’re talking to an anesthesiologist who’s about to build a new ketamine clinic, um, for psychiatric conditions. Again, anesthesiologist spent most of his time doing kind of surgeries, um, prepping folks for surgeries, not really familiar with psychiatry, um, to any like, you know, substantial degree.

Joe Moore: Um, what kind of things might you say to a psychiatrist to say, Hey, maybe you [00:25:00] really want to invest in a space. Um, and like really thinking about how this thing looks and how it interacts with people and, and to your point earlier, feedback loops and, and things along those lines.

Megan Portnoy: Mm-hmm. Um, well, to appeal to.

Megan Portnoy: Kind of a probably more medical model, scientific mind, I would talk about what is happening, um, on a psychedelic very broadly. Each one is kind of different, but you have in general, um, somatic amplification, so mm-hmm. Heightened body awareness, um, emotional resonance, everything starts to kind of feel, um, very intense and sometimes profound.

Megan Portnoy: Um, that there’s alterations to default mode network. Uh, so ego dissolution and a blurring of boundaries between self and environment. So more susceptibility to environmental cues, um, that increased [00:26:00] neural entropy and hyper plasticity. So, uh, the ability to make new connections. And then this, uh, kind of going on Dr.

Megan Portnoy: Gold Dolan’s research about the potential for these to reopen. Critical learning periods. So social learning, emotional learning, those sorts of things. Um, and all of that to say that it’s this kind of, um, very unique mapping of the brain where, uh, it’s highly akin to what we see in a child or a baby. And you would never, um, I think I used this example in my, in my talk, but you would never, um, take a baby with a highly sensitive neuroplastic brain.

Megan Portnoy: Everything is very stimulating ’cause it’s all novel. Um, and put eye [00:27:00] shades on them and put them in a crib and say, okay, now learn about yourself. But that’s what we do with Brains on a psychedelic. They’re in a very similar state and there is definitely, um. Benefit to going into one’s in internal world, um, but to create a space that engages play and exploration, novelty seeking creativity, um, divergent thinking and spaces that can elicit awe and mystical experience, which we know from studies is one of the biggest indicators of, um, of positive therapeutic outcomes in a psychedelic, is that, that they had a sense of awe or mystical experience.

Megan Portnoy: Um, and so I would, I would kinda give the science to that doctor about why it’s important. Um, and I, it’s, it was a tricky presentation to make because what I’m trying to, what I’m not trying to do is create another checklist. I [00:28:00] think that spaces are currently designed by checklist, you know? Okay, so we have a room.

Megan Portnoy: Is there a door? Is it safe? Is there medical equipment? Is there a place for them to lay down? Is the lighting low? Um, and then maybe let’s, you know, I heard plants are good. Let’s put, uh, some plants over here, make sure we have a Buddhist statue and, and you know, eye shades. Um, but it’s this kind of checklist, solution oriented, um, mitigating risk type of mm-hmm.

Megan Portnoy: Design. Um, and, and driving toward a therapeutic outcome of relaxed and internal relaxed and internally oriented. Um, and I would say that there’s so much more that’s possible in the psychedelic experience. Um, if we can engage in play and. Sensory stimulation and movement and, [00:29:00] um, and awe. So I’m trying not to make another checklist of here’s how you ontologically design things.

Megan Portnoy: I think that there is certainly a bespoke nature to it that’s important, allowing people to bring in sacred objects, reflective symbols. Um, even the potential for inviting relationships into the room with, um, important people in their lives or animals. Um, but also, um, I’m thinking about having the space kind of resonate with, uh, the psychedelic experience.

Megan Portnoy: So looking at how ritual contains something. So the entering in the, there’s a, a threshold, there’s a process of entering, there’s a plot process of containing and closing that. Seals the, the space in a way that, um, that allows the person [00:30:00] to conceptualize it as this, this kind of special transformative container.

Megan Portnoy: Um, rather than it be kinda like a doctor’s office. You know, you walk in, you do the thing, you walk out. Um, I just think there’s so much more room to have more impact on the experience. Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: I was at a talk last night, um, by some people who’ve been in, uh, the iboga space for a long time and they, they also brought up play and playfulness and like, um, the sense of improvisation.

Joe Moore: Like, you know, not coming to this sterile. Room because you have something wrong with you and you need to go to a mental healthcare facility. It’s, versus like, let’s make it a little bit more playful, a little bit more like playing improv with your situation, whatever your kind of psychiatric situation is that you’re trying to look at.

Joe Moore: And then they also had this really good, um, in my mind, good concept of, you know, extending the [00:31:00] stay. So in increasing liminality, um, in a way by saying, oh, your appointment’s 2.25 hours and you gotta get the hell out ’cause we got the next person coming in. But like, figuring out how to allow folks to linger and mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: You know, nice spaces that are actually really designed for this.

Megan Portnoy: Yeah, absolutely. And um, you know, I think that how we got to a solution oriented way of designing these places, um, is largely, you know, medical model. Thinking, uh, Western medical model thinking, but these studies are trying to measure outcomes on symptoms.

Megan Portnoy: We’re measuring symptom reduction. But I think, and this goes into more of like my actual dissertation, um, topic and that I’m working on is that I don’t think that’s the measurement we’re running into this, [00:32:00] um, this issue where folks who aren’t familiar with psychedelics in the academic and medical world are saying, well, how is it that these work on, they work on everything.

Megan Portnoy: Right. Okay. So it’s working on depression, on anxiety, on, um, personality, on all of these different things and how well, it’s not treating the depression, it’s reorganizing the self such that depression is no longer needed. And so I think more interesting questions are, um, not, you know, how is your anxiety now, right?

Megan Portnoy: This one to 10, but how is your relationship to yourself in the world different? And I think that orienting towards an ontological approach to designing these spaces are going to, um, elicit more interesting answers to those types of questions rather than, you know, rating Likert scale, how, how your mood is doing.[00:33:00]

Joe Moore: Right. I, I think that’s a really important way of reframing the whole conversation. And I, I think we’re getting there. I think people are understanding that more and more. Um, but. We have this kind of, you know, alleged, uh, hyperplastic window. Neuroplastic window, two weeks with psilocybin, four plus with hypo gain.

Joe Moore: So we’re like, you know, really interesting, you know, what is it? 72 with ketamine, which is a little subpar, but it’s still helpful. Um, and, you know, how do we actually leverage those things in a way that we can reorganize the self and, and our relationship to the world? Um, and I think that’s really, really a clever way of putting it.

Joe Moore: Um, are you finding any kind of analogies in other parts of psychology for this kind of framing?

Megan Portnoy: Um, I think, I don’t know if it’s analogies. I think that there’s, you know, in psychology, clinicians kind of [00:34:00] come from a certain theoretical framework. Right now, the dominant framework is CBT, you know, behaviorist, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectic behavioral therapy.

Megan Portnoy: Um. Acceptance and commitment therapy. But these are all under this kind of umbrella of behaviors. Like if we can just change beha people’s behaviors, they can alleviate their symptoms of whatever’s bothering them. Um, and I think there’s a place for that. There’s a place for learning how to regulate your emotions and have coping skills and that sort of thing.

Megan Portnoy: But, um, the way I practice is from a psychodynamic lens, and that is more interested in transformational change, characterological change, um, insight. It’s an insight oriented approach. So I guess that would be the closest kind of analogy. In terms of, um, mechanism of change, I think that it’s very similar [00:35:00] to, uh, the mechanisms of change in, in psychedelics.

Megan Portnoy: I think that psychedelics could be an accelerant. In psychoanalytic or psychodynamically oriented therapy because I think the biggest critique and why it’s not, um, used as much anymore is that it, it’s a long, drawn out process. It’s that Freudian hours long on the couch at least once a week, hopefully sometimes more, um, exploration of self and uh, reorganization of self.

Megan Portnoy: And that’s a long, slow process when it’s in relationship between therapist and person. And I think that, um, psychedelics can kind of throw gasoline on that fire and, um, I think we could look at changing the person more holistically [00:36:00] rather than, um, symptomatically rather than just disorder oriented.

Joe Moore: Um, so psychodynamic worldview, can you, can you kind of explain that a little bit more? I like, I like the, we, we talk about depth a lot. We do once in a while talk about psychodynamic approaches. Um, but yeah. What do, how do you like to frame that when you kind of explain it to folks beyond what you’ve already said?

Megan Portnoy: Yeah. Um, so I guess I can say the way I frame it when clients come in and I talk about the type of work, um, is that a lot of our, um, relational problems, um, um, almost all of our stuff, it’s either relationship to work, relationship to self, relationship to others. So we’ll just say relation relational problems that folks come into therapy to, to get help for, um, are from a psychodynamic lens, [00:37:00] largely unconscious conflicts and patterns.

Megan Portnoy: Ways of being that are ingrained over time. So this is why the classic, you know, Freudian approach. Are you gonna talk, are we gonna talk about my mom? Yes. Um, because, uh, you know, these things get ingrained and patterned in our brains, in our neurochemistry, into our personalities, into our behaviors, and thus then into our character over a long period of time.

Megan Portnoy: And it’s the exploration and excavation of that where I as a clinician can get to know the person and start to analyze and see where there might be unconscious conflicts, where they might not be able to see themselves. And then I can hopefully hold up a nice mirror, um, to help them gently explore what, what that might be and bring it into consciousness.

Megan Portnoy: And when something is in your consciousness, [00:38:00] you have agency. To choose what to do with it. If it’s just operating on unconscious patterns, you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t have the agency to change anything, you’re just running on autopilot. So that to me is, um, psychodynamic work versus more CBT manual treatment where someone comes in and they’re like, I’m anxious.

Megan Portnoy: It’s like, okay, let’s pull out the manual. You’re anxious, so we need to work on increasing your window of tolerance. Let’s talk about, you know, taking deep breaths. And I know I kind of trivialize it in a way. Um, but I do, I do utilize those kinds of approaches and, and help someone develop coping skills.

Megan Portnoy: ’cause a lot of times, um, not a lot of times, I’d say sometimes, um, folks just are not ready for insight oriented work. They don’t have the distress tolerance, they don’t have the, um, awareness of self yet. And you can kind of build up to that. And, [00:39:00] um, so that’s, that’s how I see the work I do.

Joe Moore: Hmm, that’s great.

Joe Moore: Um, yeah. So how would, let’s see, um, if you had kind of like a, a bit of a magic wand, what, what kind of, um, immediate changes would you kind of like to see in spaces and psychedelic se settings? Like more Buddha statues or, um, more incense?

Megan Portnoy: I, I love, do you know you’re using like a classic therapeutic technique, the magic wand question.

Megan Portnoy: I love that you’re giving that to a therapist. Um, if I could use a magic wand and change anything about

Joe Moore: like, the setting.

Megan Portnoy: The setting. Okay. Um,

Megan Portnoy: well, understanding that. We’re also constrained by the systems of, um, [00:40:00] incentives and resources and things like that. So, but in my, my world where we just had unlimited resources to create anything, I think that, um,

Megan Portnoy: I would like to see the field really engage in disciplinary, um, communication and effort and work creativity, reimagining what this could be, rather than trying to cram psychedelic assisted therapy and, and settings into, um, clinical medical models. I think that we have the potential to create something radically new and different.

Megan Portnoy: Um, if we can break outside of the box of if it can’t be measured, it’s not. Effective if it’s, if it can’t be measured, it’s not real. [00:41:00] So that’s what my hope would be.

Joe Moore: Um, so I’m kind of like, the subtext I’m hearing is kind of like, how can we create, um, s effective but not necessarily, well, I guess we’d have to even reframe effective whatever, effective two and four.

Joe Moore: But like these new containers that aren’t in a clinical facility that aren’t necessarily even led by clinicians, um, could be religious professionals of some kind or, you know, some sort of professional, fun person or what it, like, can you, can you give an example of what that might look like?

Megan Portnoy: I have seen too many professional fun people in, in Austin.

Megan Portnoy: I don’t recommend that. Um, but so I think for me. I’m obviously gonna have my, my bias towards clinicians doing this kind of work, [00:42:00] but it’s because there’s accountability built into being a psychologist or, um, any kinda mental health clinician in that we have, um, regulations, we have ethics to adhere to, or you can lose your licensure.

Megan Portnoy: And we have a system of what’s called supervision, um, where we are constantly not like supervisor in that I have somebody that dictates my schedule and things like that, but, um, supervisory experiences built into therapeutic work and you have somebody with much more experience, um, to go over your cases with, um, to help you find your blind spots to make sure that you don’t have any unconscious processes coming into the room here.

Megan Portnoy: Um, and you know, with. Life coaches, shamans, uh, that don’t actually [00:43:00] come from a, a, a trained lineage, like an extensively trained lineage. They don’t have accountability structures, religious leaders, possibly. We’ve seen how accountability works in a lot of large religions, so maybe not. Um, but that would be my, my argument and bias for, you know, clinicians and also recognizing that that does come from a kind of medical model mind.

Megan Portnoy: Mm-hmm. But like I said, I’m, I find the middle path. I think it’s a both and I think that there are areas where that kind of structure, um, is, is important to protect from harm. And then there are areas where we could be much more flexible.

Joe Moore: Totally. I find, um. I find a lot of clinicians are actually getting frustrated with the clinical model because they’re not able to actually do the work they want to do and find would be actually most ethical, which is [00:44:00] really interesting, including physicians and prescribers in a lot of cases, which is bonkers to me that they would just give up.

Joe Moore: They’re licensed, but they’re doing it. And, um, I find it’s wild to me. Um, I’ve also seen cases where people aren’t, um,

Joe Moore: they’re getting in trouble with their boards, but they’re not necessarily seeing penalties, you know, getting reported to their board and Hmm. Well, you know, in my mind, I don’t know that you should be a therapist anymore and, or for a few more years, but you know mm-hmm. You just like got told don’t do it again or something.

Joe Moore: Or if that. So, you know, I’m, I’m with you that we want to see some sort of, like, I’m, I’m seeing a world in which we get out of prohibition, hopefully, where we can then have accountability in these underground spaces where it’s not like, you know, you’re, you’re calling the cops on your drug dealer that also like, gave you your session and you know, that’s not gonna go great for anybody if anybody even gets any attention.

Joe Moore: Um, [00:45:00] and mm-hmm. Yeah, I think I’d like to see clinical inclusion in almost all of it. Um, if possible, like for safety screenings at the least. But then how do we Yeah. Do better accountability for the cases when it might not need to be a therapist, you know? ’cause it’s not necessarily the case that the therapist is the best person for that job.

Joe Moore: I, I think, but I think there’s a lot we have to explore here and. I think we do need an open mind to some degree or another for like, what is, what are, what are some optimal ways that this can get rolled out and do you agree that there’s not gonna be like a one size fits all solution?

Megan Portnoy: Yes, and I think that, um, I think that, you know, getting rid of prohibition and, you know, recreational use can coexist with clinical, therapeutic use.

Megan Portnoy: I think that, you know, I know lots and lots of [00:46:00] people that are interested in trying psychedelics, but they don’t want to go to a psychedelics dispensary and get it and do it. They want guidance, they want, um, and, and I know folks who would feel safer with a clinically trained person there. Um, and then there are folks who don’t want that.

Megan Portnoy: And I’m a big, um, believer in. Freedom of consciousness and our ability to tinker with and toy with our own consciousness. Um, and there’s definitely a public awareness and education role in how to do that, um, and harm reduction role and how to do that safely, um, that, that the mental health professionals can play a role in, in the recreational space.

Megan Portnoy: But I think that they can exist side by side and that, um, you know, what’s good for one person is not necessarily great for everyone.

Joe Moore: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it’s, uh, it’s tricky. One, one thing that I always like [00:47:00] ran into, um, and it’s kind of like informed how I’ve chose to play, play in the space is, uh, working away from a psychia psychiatric dominant.

Joe Moore: Kind of position with psychedelics because we’re seeing, you know, I’m a found founding board member at the Psychedelics and Pain Association. I really saw that as a hedge saying, oh, we need other clinical specialties here. Psychiatrists shouldn’t be the only ones holding the prescription pad here. Um, mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Maybe they need to, you know, be part of the formula for pain patients or for, um, even non nonclinical applications of these things like betterment of the well and creative problem solving and whatever else. But, you know, it’s not that they should hold the keys. Um, but yeah, the pain stuff is gonna look, you know, I guess in a design sense, very different from what a psychiatric situation might look like, or a psychospiritual situation or maybe not.

Joe Moore: Like all, all of my chronic pain went away dancing at jam band shows. So like [00:48:00] very different, um, very, uh, zero clinical supervision. Maybe I should have had some, but, um, could, couldn’t find anybody that was helpful at the time.

Megan Portnoy: Yeah, and I mean, that opens up the question of is there, I mean, some of my own most profound body work, um, and releasing of pain and things like that, uh, with the aid of psychedelics has been my own yoga practice and foam rolling and working things out.

Megan Portnoy: Um, and if that’s what someone needs, is there a place for, you know, physical therapists to be in the room and help folks get through things? Um, yoga teachers that can do, you know, safe adjustments and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I don’t think that the answer is that, well, this is, I I also don’t think it’s the answer that [00:49:00] psychiatrists should be the only prescribers of any kind of psychiatric meds.

Megan Portnoy: I think. Psychologists. Um, and again, I’m biased, but we have also have five years of training and we are closer to, um, closer to the clinical presentations in that we are with folks on a weekly basis seeing how things are going for them. A lot of times psychiatrists are med management. They prescribe and then they’ll send you to someone like me to talk about your stuff.

Megan Portnoy: And then you check in with them, you know, every three, six months, how are your meds doing? All right, great, here’s your prescription. Um, but you know, I have had cases where, um, you know, full disagreement with psychiatrists on, um, what was being prescribed. ’cause I would see the day-to-day impacts on folks.

Megan Portnoy: And, um, and so I think that, [00:50:00] that it’s not just psychiatrists that should have prescribing ability.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, for sure. And, and we’ve seen this play out in a few states, right? Like there are states where psychologists are prescribing in the US

Megan Portnoy: Yes. Um, I am hoping after I get done with school to kind of lean on my political background to start rolling the ball up the hill for New Hampshire on that.

Megan Portnoy: It was tried in 2014 here, um, and it was shot down by a lot of lobby money. But, um, I think that there’s, you know, the, the mental health crisis, whatever that means, but there’s a greater need and, um, not enough access, especially in places like New Hampshire and more rural communities. Uh, but it is, um, [00:51:00] it is.

Megan Portnoy: In some states, just not widely, and it does require more training. It requires, um, I think it’s two more years of a psychopharmacology master’s, which I think is perfectly valid and, and worth it. Um, but it would increase access greatly and put prescribing rights in the hands of people who are closest to the patients.

Joe Moore: Mm. Yeah. I love that. Um, do you see any kind of, um, interest in the state of New Hampshire around psychedelics? Right now,

Megan Portnoy: New Hampshire is such a funny place to me ’cause, you know, it’s like it’s live free or die. Uh, but,

Joe Moore: and everybody should know that I’m from there.

Megan Portnoy: Um, yeah. I hope, I hope we can meet when you come back and visit. Um, but yeah, it’s this kind of. On its face, surface [00:52:00] level, freedom, loving, live free or diet. And yet we can’t even get marijuana legalization.

Megan Portnoy: Um, you, you know, you can, you can drive without a seatbelt. No one’s gonna bug you, but you can’t go, go, you know, have a, you know, smoke a joint in your house or whatever it is. Um, so it’s a, it’s a tricky kind of quirky place with a lot of inconsistency from what I can see. But I don’t, given how I’ve seen, um, the state legislature react to marijuana legalization, probably not, um, probably not, but Vermont, Massachusetts, maybe.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Yeah, I think those places need to go first. Um, there’s been, um, a lot of activity in the Massachusetts legislature [00:53:00] recently around psychedelics. Mm-hmm. I’ve seen a little bit less in Vermont, but it’s so much smaller of a state. Um, so we’ll, we’ll see. Do, do you know if there’s a huge veteran population in New Hampshire proportional to like other states?

Megan Portnoy: I don’t know how it is relative to other states, but I know, I mean, just kinda anecdotally and, and I’m looking at, uh, VAs for my, my internship, which is kinda our version of the fifth year residency where you get, kinda get matched and placed. So I’ll be applying to that, um, match process this fall. Uh, but I’m looking at, at VAs, so I’m a bit familiar with the kind of things they’re seeing there, but they don’t have, um.

Megan Portnoy: Like, they’re not doing ketamine and stuff even, but I know a lot of VAs, you know, in New York and stuff like that are, um, but

Joe Moore: there’s a strong interest group at the va. Um, generally not any [00:54:00] specific location where people are actually having really robust psychedelic conversations with a lot of folks who are also employees at the va.

Joe Moore: So. Mm-hmm. You know, even Rachel, kudos making moves in, in the, um, the New York scene and, and you’re right, there are some places that do cap, um, was it White River Junctions? Kinda like the only kind of one nearby in New Hampshire, I think. In terms of VA facilities or is there in New Hampshire based facility?

Megan Portnoy: There is, there’s one in Manchester. Okay. White River Junction is technically Vermont, but it’s, it’s right on the border. Mm-hmm. Um, but neither of them are doing, um, ketamine. Assisted therapy, unfortunately. Uh, and I do think that, I think I was told that there’s a VA in New York, maybe Brooklyn, that is doing MDMA research, I think, but I

Joe Moore: can’t reach, they got a bunch of cash recently to do it.

Joe Moore: I, I forget which facility, but it is New [00:55:00] York based. Um, I think Rachel Yehuda had had some involvement in that. So thank you Rachel, for pulling that off. Um, yeah, it was, it was like a slightly disappointing amount of funding for the MDMA pilot, but also it was happening. I chatted with, um, oh, who was it?

Joe Moore: He’s like the head of psychiatry at, uh, Walter Reed, and he was very interested in figuring out how to bring it into, um, active duty populations, which I think is interesting. And a lot of people are like, that’s bad. That makes we’re cheaper. It’s like, well, these are humans and they’re suffering really bad.

Joe Moore: And like, we’ve gotta do our best to help humans not suffer so bad. Like, you know, it’s not, it’s not really our place to say, you don’t get access to these treatments. Mm-hmm. Because of the, the job you signed up for. Um, and I’m like, I just, yeah. It’s, and I think they’ll make better decisions. Have you got a chance to bump into Sarco yet?

Joe Moore: The Boston Cop, who’s an MDMA therapist? [00:56:00]

Joe Moore: No.

Joe Moore: Oh. So I’m happy to introduce you. Um, he’s got a number of podcasts. I just was with him in Santa Fe at a conference the other day. Um, he speaks really skillfully about how first responders are just like not getting the care they need to make the decisions they need to make with the kind of care they need to make.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Um, and how, um, MDMA and or ketamine could really help people, um, become better operators, more authentic operators when they’re in the field and, and make better lifesaving um, life and death decisions. Mm-hmm. And I think that’s a really cool conversation that’s unfolding. Um, and he’s, he’s usually pretty available.

Joe Moore: He was recently on Rogan, which is fun. Um, and they landed at a really cool place at the end of the show apparently. Um, okay. Yeah. Which is like, you know, harm reduction, safe supply, that kind of thing. But also, obviously we need to fund this research really, really well. So we actually know what we’re doing here.[00:57:00]

Megan Portnoy: Um, can I ask you a question?

Joe Moore: Go for it.

Megan Portnoy: Pedal out. No, no. Oh no. What

Joe Moore: do we got? What do we got?

Megan Portnoy: I’m curious what you think of. Um, I view it as attention, maybe it’s not attention, but the tension between um, what our current, excuse me, HHHS secretary has said about promoting psychedelics and legalizing psychedelics.

Megan Portnoy: Um, and is support of that. And then an administration that I am doubtful would be supportive of that. How do you think this is gonna do? You see, Rick

Joe Moore: Perry recently came out as an ibogaine user, um, which is like astonishing to me, um, in the last couple weeks. And I hear you totally. Um, well, so. Like part of the sales pitch to us on, on this, um, RFK [00:58:00] character is like that.

Joe Moore: Yes. Oh, we’re gonna get psychedelics. Cool. Like, we’re gonna really put attention on that. And, you know, I, I’ve yet to see the movement in the energy there, you know, we’re certainly doing a really good job pulling back attention and resources from vaccines and other lifesaving things. But we’re, you know, woke mob here talking about vaccine.

Joe Moore: I just got one earlier today. Um, no, I just, you know, yeah, I know. You can see it in my eyes. Right? Um, so the, the whole, um. Whole thing about like, where is the attention going and like why. And it’s, it’s not clear to me even inside HHS what’s going on. And I think it’s kind of, I don’t know. I, I get the sense things like House of Cards and Game of Thrones is like, kind of like the reality of the situation there.

Joe Moore: It’s like, did your thing get enough attention? Is it supportable? And like, [00:59:00] in what ways is it supportable? Like, am I gonna lose my job if I support this? Like there’s a lot of really interesting energy that, and, and, and stuff that the general public doesn’t get about politics. I’ve only kind of vaguely learned things just by being part of the psychedelic Medicine coalition group in DC over the past few years.

Joe Moore: And it’s, um, it’s astonishing. Is the administration doubtful to support it? Um. I think the administration will do a number of interesting things to, to, to try to work towards reelection. Like what are those things, you know, there’s been a reasonable amount of losses, um, but I I, I haven’t seen super many wins yet.

Joe Moore: Right? So like, what are those things that could go down in the next year or two that could look like a win? It could be things like cannabis, it could be things like, let’s actually hyper fund psychedelic research or just let’s just straight up make it prescribable, which I think could be a little [01:00:00] awkward right away.

Joe Moore: But I, I don’t like, I don’t think we’re linked to historical precedent anymore in a lot of ways. So like, what, what could happen could just be totally untethered from the past. Um mm-hmm. So yeah, like all of a sudden there could be a $50 billion. Um, Walter Reed. Psychedelic clinic, you know, there could, there, there’s so many things that could be possible.

Joe Moore: Um, but it’s really hard to say where it’ll go. Is there tension? A little bit, but I, you know, like, where do I want to go so I don’t get canceled by a, B, C, uh, like, I don’t know. I saw, I saw this thing the other day where, where like the, the leadership, um, was asked about grieving and then like, oh, but we’re gonna have the best ballroom in the world.

Joe Moore: I’m so pumped. And like, you know, that [01:01:00] it, there’s like, um, there’s some sort of detachment from the actual issues that I don’t, I don’t really know how this thing works anymore. And I’m, I’m, I don’t, I don’t know where to put faith or hope as an individual and let everybody make that up for themselves. But like, I just, you know.

Joe Moore: Is that where we’re gonna see the action? Perhaps what I think we might see is states actually pushing things forward in a way like Texas, Arizona, I heard Mississippi might jump in, um, to this like funding state level iboga research, which is obnoxious that the states have to do it, but it’s also a possible thing and it’s a possible thing that could say, um, in a way hopefully embarrassed federal lawmakers to say, yeah, we actually need to be leading here.

Joe Moore: Like it’s inappropriate for the states to be spending on this when we should be the leadership that actually should be saving lives. But, you know, there’s so many things like we haven’t even solved the Sackler problem [01:02:00] yet, which is in like totally tied to the IBOGA funding thing. Um, and the, um, the opiate.

Joe Moore: You know, uh, settlement money and all that kind of stuff that Hubbard talks about a lot. So there’s a lot here. Thanks for teeing me up for, for Grant that hopefully will get me in too much trouble. Um,

Megan Portnoy: that was, that was pretty pc.

Joe Moore: Um, yeah, I don’t know. Like,

Joe Moore: I think the tension’s more gonna come from states. I don’t know that like HHS is gonna get shot down if they start making suggestions. Like Matt Zorn is there. I kind of trust his judgment and hopefully leadership. But like, you know, there has to be, there has to be some excitement and momentum and I think that excitement and momentum’s building.

Joe Moore: But, um, I think we’re just seeing a lot of skepticism too, of like, are you guys actually here for us? Like, show us?

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Megan Portnoy: You mean momentum and [01:03:00] excitement for psychedelic research?

Joe Moore: Right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, like it’s, it’s growing. It’s like, you know, I think the two biggest bipartisan issues right now are psychedelics and, and drum roll, please, Epstein.

Joe Moore: And like, I think, you know, it’s fucking horrible. Those are the two biggest bipartisan issues right now. Like, we should be working on a few other things, but I, you know, bipartisanship is not really important at the federal level right now, given the dominance of GOP. So like, what do we do and how do we, how do we get this on GOP radar?

Joe Moore: I think people just gotta call their lawmakers and say, Hey, I’m really interested in this. You know, write the letters, do the phone calls. There’s a certain kind of math, and you would, you would know this maybe better than me, but like, every phone call is kind of like, it’s not just a phone call. There’s a certain math to say, like, this many phone calls on these topics indicate voter sentiment.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. And there’s a certain kind of math around like, how, how sh what should I include in my, um, votes for my constituency, or my work for my constituency? [01:04:00]

Megan Portnoy: Right? Mm-hmm.

Megan Portnoy: Yes. And I think that we have, um, that sort of system works with rational actors. We are dealing with a lot of new, um, irrational actors, so we’ll see.

Joe Moore: So yeah, I think in time, hopefully we’ll see some movement here. Um, I’m, I’m not really waiting for any big changes from HHSI would hope it actually comes from the NIH corner. We’re actually start funding this stuff. Um. In terms of research and HHS could say, yeah, like let’s do that. Or a bunch of senators could say yes, like we believe in this.

Joe Moore: H-H-S-N-I-H go for it. Like, we need to fund this stuff and move forward. Um, I don’t necessarily think we’re gonna hear those words outta the [01:05:00] president, like we could hear it out of RFK. We’ve heard some, you know, nods in that direction from RFK. Um, I know he is aware enough of the topic. I think, you know what, what would get me excited Megan, is actual attention on psychedelics and chronic pain and funding that research because there’s an intimate link between opioid addiction, chronic pain conditions.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. And if we can actually treat the chronic pain condition as opposed to like use these opioids as like, um, some sort of palliative, we can then radically address opioid addiction through the normal medical pipeline, which is a substantial portion of addiction. Mm-hmm. Um, so I’m, I’m trying to see it as like a, a cyclical thing and how do we actually then, you know, address the thing that is, you know, feeding a lot of, um, uh, negative cultural stuff around [01:06:00] people not being able to get housing and addiction and, and people dying from fentanyl.

Joe Moore: Like if we, if we bring it all the way back to the Sacklers, like there’s a lot of really good stuff there that we need to address, and nobody’s really kind of talking about it. And I did. They, they might have got some sort of part in. Mm-hmm. Um, but

Megan Portnoy: yeah, I mean, but we did, we did randomly take a boat out off the coast of Venezuela, so really winning the war on drugs here, did it God,

Joe Moore: good God.

Joe Moore: Mission accomplished.

Joe Moore: Yeah. So I think, you know how. If we want to make meaningful change, we have to look at data. We have to like look at what is, what are the things that we actually value? I don’t know. Truth maybe could be one of ’em. And then, you know, rational moves towards making people better rational moves towards spending tax dollars better.

Joe Moore: Um, ’cause you know, like that missile is probably really [01:07:00] expensive and could have housed people for 20, 30, 50 years and like fed people. Mm-hmm. Gave them medicine and instead killed 11 people or whatever. I’m like, you know, how do we, how do we kind of like. Do this more appropriate math on like weapon spending versus like betterment of the country and, and kind of like, um, some sort of more egalitarian approach here.

Joe Moore: Like when everybody’s doing better, we’re all doing better. And, um, yeah, I, I see interesting movement in places like Utah where we’re actually like seeing them as a conservative government spending to house people, um mm-hmm. As opposed to jail people, you know? ’cause it’s like, if you look at the whole economic situation, Mormon culture’s quite, you know, fiscally smart and like, oh, mm-hmm this is actually better for the culture we wanna build here in Utah.

Joe Moore: If we could have learn lessons from like, what they’re doing there in other states, we could, you know, make some serious moves on mental health. ’cause mental health is very linked to [01:08:00] economic stuff.

Megan Portnoy: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I find, um, there, there real therapeutic limits. Um. To what I can do to help someone with their mental health.

Megan Portnoy: When, you know, their housing is insecure, their ability to eat is insecure. Um, you know, I did, um, part of my clinical work was in neuropsychological testing and who got kids coming in, being tested and assessed for, you know, A DHD, oppositional defiant disorder, autism. Um, and, you know, I’ve had kiddos in front of me that I’m spending four hours of testing with, and it’s like, well, are you, are you oppositional?

Megan Portnoy: And, or have you not eaten in 24 hours because you can’t? And yeah, I’m diagnosing based on what I’m seeing on these numbers, but, you know, [01:09:00] the person had a, a proper diet and, um, you know, routine and consistency and safety. Would we be seeing these? Would there be mental health issues? Probably not.

Joe Moore: I was listening to, um, uh, to Harvard trained kind of nutritional psychiatrist, um, the other day.

Joe Moore: Um mm-hmm. Talking about kind of even, um, sugar and like adolescents and like what mm-hmm. What kind of behavior looks like four hours after 32 grams of HCFC and like, it’s wild, you know, cortisol spikes really bananas behavior and it’s. Nutritional. And I think like there’s so much left for us to look at and, you know, huge win that we put real sugar in something.

Joe Moore: It’s like, you know, so what, like that’s, you know, um, or, you know, got trans fats out of [01:10:00] Smashburger or whatever the fuck they’re doing. It’s like, you know, like what I, I was watching all these kinda like Maha wi wins and at the same time watching all these things like, like orders of magnitude more losses in like, in terms of like Maha agenda items that they, you know, don’t talk about.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. I’m just like, oh, okay, cool. Like now we can’t sue pesticide companies like for willfully killing us. Like what on earth is that? And you know, like, why are we, why, why are we not able to think holistically here? And you know, sure. We want our winds. But we also need to critique these losses and, and is this part of that kind of like high demand group dynamic we were chatting app or where we don’t, our heels are dug in and we can’t admit losses or can’t admit we’re wrong.

Joe Moore: Um, I admit I’m wrong all time. I’m a lunatic. I’m like, you know, I make a lot of mistakes. I say the wrong thing, but I’m always ready to fall on the sword. You know, like [01:11:00] it’s part of finding what the higher truth is of like, what is our mission here? Is it truth? Is it mm-hmm. What is it? I don’t know. Being right, I guess is, that’s, is a, um,

Megan Portnoy: that’s, uh, I think in indicative of proper psychedelic integration, right?

Megan Portnoy: The ability to, um, to take an afront to what might be your identity in stride and hold the openness and flexibility enough to. To see that, um, a position that you disagree with, but that is pro-social and beneficial at scale is not a threat to who you are or the group you identify with, or, um, you know, it’s, it’s just interesting, you know, the Maha movement, Maha moms, yeah, we got this die or whatever out of food, and yet we’re defunding school lunches.

Megan Portnoy: So you’d [01:12:00] rather like it, children can go hungry as long as they’re not eating the specific die.

Joe Moore: Right. And the down term, like developmental consequences of that are dire for the country. Like, we want everybody to be as smart as possible. My opinion, you know, I’m, I think that’s a really cool aspirational goal, but yeah.

Joe Moore: Um, you know, it’s not for everybody, I guess.

Megan Portnoy: Yeah, I’d say smart is harder to control.

Joe Moore: I didn’t say it. Um, yeah. Um, yeah, so study philosophy, everybody, um, you know, uh, David Hume isn’t, um, all that bad. Uh, be skeptical, you know, I kind of like love to bring leery back at the end of this kind of stuff where it’s like, think for yourself and question authority being kind of like a fundamental thing.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. And, um, it’s always [01:13:00] important to. To do that. Like, um, Socrates identified as what, being a gadfly of the state, like a, a bug that would just keep biting the horse’s ass to keep it moving. And you know, Bertrand Russell, who’s not exactly my speed, but I loved his politics. He’s like, you know, kind of identified as a gadfly for the state constantly.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Kind of working towards peace and, you know mm-hmm. The anti-nuclear stuff and all of it. So, you know, there’s a lot there, everybody. Um, and, you know, what are you here for? Why are you here in the psychedelic movement? Um, we had an article a while ago Megan called, um, harming While Healing, and it was kind of very similar about being very pro psychedelic policy, but against, um, any kind of other meaningful drug policy changes.

Joe Moore: So you’re like, no, those people should still continue to get harmed, um, because they’re doing bad things and we’re doing good things over here. And it’s kind of like this kind of [01:14:00] weird ideology that helps create a, a subspecies of human, um mm-hmm. For you to look, feel better than, and it’s not. Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: It’s, feel some alignment there.

Megan Portnoy: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds to me like very poorly integrated, um, or the wrong things being amplified in in psychedelic use.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Cool. Well, I’ve kept you for over an hour and thank you for your patience with me. Um, and thank you for asking me a question that kind of set me off on a tirade.

Joe Moore: Sorry. It’s all good. It’s all good. I, um, I obviously like talking too much, but it’s, um, it’s fun. So, um, where can people maybe find your presentation that you did at psychedelics? Where can people find, um, other parts of your work?

Megan Portnoy: Uh, so presentation is on YouTube, on the psychedelics, um, [01:15:00] YouTube site. Uh, you know, I knew this question was coming.

Megan Portnoy: No, I don’t have a good answer for it ’cause I’m not, uh, I’m still a student. I’m not doing a whole lot of public work yet, and I’m really hesitant on whether or not I’m going to do a whole, uh, professional, um, social media presence. I have my personal one, but it’s private. But I, I, I think that there’s enough noise in that space.

Megan Portnoy: Um, and I prefer my real world work. So we’ll see if I end up on social media in a, in a professional way. But my, my talk is on YouTube. Um, and on that talk there’s an email if anyone wants to contact me for some reason when you keep it old school. So.

Joe Moore: Outstanding. Um, and are we, like, I assume when you’re kind of done school will, some folks will be able to kind of catch up on your dissertation [01:16:00] work or catch some of your presentations from elsewhere?

Megan Portnoy: Yeah, at that point there will probably be a website, um, and stuff I intend to go into private practice. Um, so there will be some, some things pointing my direction in that way and the ability to work with me.

Joe Moore: Fantastic. Um, and anything you didn’t get an opportunity to mention that you, you’d love to share or you kind of covered it all?

Megan Portnoy: We covered a lot. A lot more than I, I knew we would cover. I don’t, I, we were over an hour, but I did wanna ask how was Burning Man?

Megan Portnoy: I know it

Megan Portnoy: was your first, is this your first podcast since you rega integrated back into Uh,

Joe Moore: no. I’ve done a, I’ve done a handful. Do you fall? Okay. You know, I haven’t chatted about it too extensively.

Joe Moore: It was really hard. Um, it was, uh, my first time kind of running a camp, I made a mm-hmm. Tremendous amount of mistakes. I worked really hard. Um, I [01:17:00] broke my circadian rhythms where I couldn’t sleep. Yeah. Um, it was my most sober of Burning Mans too. Um, yeah. Like to the point where my, my Ambien wouldn’t put me down, and I’m like, oh no, this is gonna get really uncomfortable.

Joe Moore: Uh mm-hmm. Um, yeah. But I, I eventually figured out how to regulate and I, I just like, um, tried to get a lot of sleep by the end of the week once I kind of, you know, was able to normalize and reintegration was not that bad. Um,

Megan Portnoy: okay, so this wasn’t your first, my worst. I wasn’t under the impressionist. With your first, your first time?

Megan Portnoy: No. Running a camp. Got it.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Okay.

Joe Moore: Um, but it’s, it’s definitely quite the thing. I, I don’t really know that I suggest anybody does it. Um, I, you know, if you feel called amazing, but it’s not something I, I think, you know, people should be like, this is the, this is the next big thing I need to do kind of moment.

Joe Moore: Like a lot of people are like, oh, it’s that and Ayahuasca and Costa Rica or [01:18:00] whatever. I’m like, yes. You know, it’s cool if you like, if, if it appeals to you, amazing, but I’m not gonna be selling it to you. Um,

Megan Portnoy: that makes sense. That’s fair.

Joe Moore: Yeah. I wanna, I wanna show you my, um, art project. Uh, I’ll throw it up on screen here for everybody.

Joe Moore: Um. This is what we brought the big crab car. That’s cute. Crab with a cakes. It’s not a real crab. Um, minivan. We turned into a art car, mutant vehicle out there. And um,

Megan Portnoy: I’m so glad you told me that was not a real crab. I was very concerned.

Joe Moore: I’m glad, uh, I could appease that. Um, yeah, so the spelling’s important.

Joe Moore: K crabb everybody. Um, k crabb and campus probable clause. Oh my God. But we’re relatively discreet in the camping area. I love that. Um, e except we’re not very discreet ’cause we have that thing out front. We, so, um, if you see that, that’s where we’re probably, um, but yeah, it’s been, it’s been fun. It’s a, it’s a good time.

Joe Moore: [01:19:00] I, uh, it was my hardest of years. Um, can’t wait for next year because I’m gonna, I learned from a lot of mistakes and it’s gonna be a lot better for me regardless of weather. Mm-hmm. I do really good in like 120 degree heat. I don’t do great when it’s rainy and you can’t walk around. Um, I’ll figure that out next time.

Joe Moore: Just plan for it in some way. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I was joking at the Santa Fe conference that it’s like, it’s like iga but longer. You never wake up, you never can get out and you’re just like stuck there for, for like 12 days. You’re like, oh my God, I’m gonna go for longer next year too, hopefully, if I’m lucky.

Joe Moore: Oh, wow. Yeah. Just as soon as they let me in, I hope to be there. And then, uh, like 14, 15 days would be nice. It’s just when you can calm your pace down, when you don’t feel rushed, it’s a lot better of a situation. Um mm-hmm. That was a big lesson for me. Um.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Yeah. By being rushed, I feel like I lost a number of days.[01:20:00]

Joe Moore: Not ideal. Yeah, I already don’t even take speaking arrangement engagements out there because I don’t wanna like, have to hang out with colleagues too much out there. Come hang out, come hang out in the crab car, everybody, but I don’t necessarily wanna like go to the talks.

Megan Portnoy: Yeah, that makes sense.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Well, thanks for asking.

Joe Moore: Have you been out there? Mm-hmm.

Megan Portnoy: I’ve been twice, yeah.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Megan Portnoy: So still a rookie at it, but

Joe Moore: it’s, it’s, it’s like a, it’s like a mirror of the world. It’s so bananas. There’s so many like haves and have nots. There’s so much like ridiculous behavior both like in terms of weird psychedelic stuff and then just weird kind of like power dynamic stuff.

Joe Moore: It’s so crazy. And you see the people who are like totally clean and then you see the people who are just sleeping in a tent who are just like haggard as hell. I slept in a van. It was mostly sweaty, sweaty and dirty most of the week. And I’m like, Hmm, I wonder how the other side lives. Um, yeah, I have, [01:21:00] uh,

Megan Portnoy: it, the, the second time I went, I took my husband for the first time and, um, we were biking way out and then we stopped to rest at a, um, at, I don’t know, some art installation.

Megan Portnoy: We were kinda sitting down, leaning on it, kinda getting outta the sun. Um, and a group on some e-bikes, pristine, no dust, of course, sparkly, um, literally drove by us and like, kind of turned the wheels to kick their dust at us sitting there. And I looked up, I won’t, I won’t say his name, but I looked up and it was, um, a friend of somebody that I worked for who’s rather famous.

Megan Portnoy: And it was just this funny juxtaposition of like. You know, here you are. Oh, they, they kind of kicked us on [01:22:00] us and went Hi. And drove by, and they’re very sparkly, clean fanciness. Um, and it was just interesting that they had no idea that we were connected in the same community.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Megan Portnoy: But, right. Yeah.

Joe Moore: I know exactly what you mean.

Joe Moore: You think you’re anonymous and you’re not anonymous out there. Everybody, like, you can’t, there’s a little bit like, I’m certainly not anonymous out there. I would love to be, but like, yeah, there is accountability and like, you think you’re just shitting on some of the pos and it’s, yeah. What are you doing?

Joe Moore: Like, why would you do that? Mm-hmm. And like, you know, um,

Megan Portnoy: I think, and this is a deeply spiritual person. Of course, of

Joe Moore: course. Yeah.

Megan Portnoy: Love and light.

Joe Moore: Oh God. Uh oh, man. Amazing. Yeah, I just, I don’t, it’s, it’s, uh, like, it’s everything. It’s like the world with the volume turned [01:23:00] really high up. Mm-hmm. And it’s, you know, sometimes it’s easy to hide out there, sometimes it’s not.

Joe Moore: Um, and I don’t really know, um, the solution other than, you know, keep trying to show up with the right values and the right ethics and, you know, try trying, you know, to help help others do it the way they want to do it. And you keep doing it the way you want to do it. Um, and if you see people kind of being assholes, call it out.

Joe Moore: Make it loud. Mm-hmm. Um, and you know, if you know, like there’s a whole, I don’t know if you saw this, there’s a whole email that they set up. Um, doing it wrong@burningman.org. So if you see camps of these wealthy folks that just like paid a bunch of money, like they just can roll in and like mm-hmm. They got, you know, luxury RVs and whatever, like you can actually report them and like,

Joe Moore: what

Joe Moore: really make it so that organization can’t come back the next year.

Joe Moore: Like, they’ll do it again. They’ll find another way. Nature finds a way [01:24:00] in Jurassic Park, but like it’s um, you know, make it a little more inconvenient. And there’s the, these gigantic arc cars out there. Like, you know, we get a little crab, we can, we can get some people on sometimes from, you know, strangers and like new friends and whatever.

Joe Moore: And I love giving people rides. It’s so fun. But also mm-hmm. There’s these huge cars that are, it took many millions of dollars to build, like you’re not allowed on unless you’re part of their camp or something. Like you need a special bracelet to get on radically against the rules. Like you can get those folks in trouble too by reporting them to the Department of Mutant vehicles and like, you know, but it’s a also like, do you wanna spend your time ratting on people, you know, depends on how mad they made you, I guess.

Joe Moore: Um, but also there’s no legal consequence, right? It’s just you screwed up at the party and somebody’s going to hopefully talk to you about it. Mm-hmm. Or maybe you, are you familiar with to take a year off?

Megan Portnoy: Are you familiar with, uh, swing City? Have you [01:25:00] visited them?

Joe Moore: Oh God. Um, they

Megan Portnoy: have the big, they go every year, the big rig set up with, um, a lot of Cirque de Soleil and acrobats and, uh, they have, so they’re doing the huge Likek Yeah.

Megan Portnoy: The swing.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Yeah. A camp next to them last year it was awesome.

Megan Portnoy: Okay. That’s my camp.

Joe Moore: Oh man, my shoulders not, not in mine, but That’s right. Are not into that. I, I want my shoulders to do that, but I, they don’t want to do that. Um, but it looks so fun. A couple of my friends we were with, who were like really, really strong acro types and they were killing it on it.

Megan Portnoy: Mm-hmm.

Megan Portnoy: Yeah. It’s a, it’s a really good camp. It’s a fun place. But that, it was just this funny, um, that experience I shared is just this funny juxtaposition of like, I could through connections, resources, whatever, go to the plugin plays, but I choose to stick with my, my camp that I feel like does it right.

Megan Portnoy: Um, but there’s, there’s definitely a, a [01:26:00] spectrum of, of how people burn

Joe Moore: bananas. It’s, uh, it’s such a weird cultural phenomenon. Like I, I don’t know that I can quit, but it’s such like a.

Joe Moore: Endlessly. Interesting thing to think about. I don’t, I, I’m trying to be like quiet about it, so I’m not one of the obnoxious Burning man people. It’s like only he talks about, it’s all I think about, but I try not to talk about it, you know, I, you know, spend all year thinking about it and planning for the next one and, um, you know, trying to do better and bring more heat and all that.

Megan Portnoy: I had a, a funny experience where I was in kind of a peer consultation with other mental health clinicians and they just kind of brought up this icebreaker topic and they’re like, talk about, you know, something that really transformed you. And then Burning Man came to mind, and then I like kind of said that and then realized the company I was in and everybody was looking at me like, oh God, it’s one of those.

Megan Portnoy: And I was like, oh, [01:27:00] okay. Yeah, I would need more time for more context, but we’ll just, I’ll be burning man, girl now.

Joe Moore: Right. I, you know, this is my work. Yeah. Like there’s reasons to criticize it. Everybody, like, feel free. Mm-hmm. But I realize that it’s like, it’s not a, it’s not one thing, it’s, it’s like 80,000 things every year.

Megan Portnoy: It’s literally anything you want it to be. And that I also don’t enjoy doing that talks, there’s something that seems so wrong to me about the positioning of a person on a stage, talking at a, an admiring group of people and calling that community. Like to me, community is. When I’m with the crew helping raise the rig, and I’m doing my shift at the kitchen and, you know, I’m helping out a friend who’s struggling with an experience.

Megan Portnoy: Um, not the, you know, looking at your high demand [01:28:00] group leaders in their pristine costumes teaching you about life and relationship. And, um,

Joe Moore: I’m doing a great job biting my tongue. Um,

Megan Portnoy: I’m not, well kind of am, but Yeah.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, yeah. Well, how about we wrap it up here? Um, yes. And thank you so much and, um, thank you all for tuning in out there.

Joe Moore: We’re up to 138 people watching right now, so thanks everybody.

Megan Portnoy: Oh, wow. Don’t tell me that. I’m glad you told me that at the end.

Joe Moore: Oh, it’ll be thousands once we actually air it. But thanks everybody for tuning in. Thank you, Megan for making it. Um, and I hope we get to do more.

Megan Portnoy: All right. Thank you so much, Jeff.

October 9, 2025October 9, 2025

TK Wonder & Cipriana Quann on Sisterhood, Survival, and Psychedelic Healing

Identical twins, writers, and culture-shapers TK Wonder and Cipriana Quann join Joe and Anne for a frank, generous conversation about identity, resilience, and the long arc of healing. Cipriana recounts launching Urban Bush Babes in 2011 to center women of color in beauty and fashion—work that led to a Vogue “day-in-the-life” feature and collaborations with couture houses. TK shares the parallel path of her music career (opening for artists from Sting and Nas to Erykah Badu and Queens of the Stone Age) and the sisters’ ongoing writing, public speaking, and mental-health advocacy.

They reflect on the fashion industry’s policing of natural hair, how those daily microaggressions erode self-worth, and why legal protections like the CROWN Act matter. The heart of the episode is their survival story: a decade of abuse by their father, endured separately yet witnessed together. Seeing one another live through it—“a physical manifestation of survival,” as they put it—kept them alive. As adults, daily check-ins remain their core practice.

Enter Psychedelics

Psychedelics entered their lives years later. With careful set and setting, education, and professional support, psychedelic sessions—especially ibogaine—helped surface grief, release shame, and reframe entrenched coping strategies. Cipriana’s first extended session unlocked tears she’d been forced to suppress as a child; TK Wonder describes a transformative ibogaine experience that catalyzed a decisive shift away from refined sugar and ultra-processed foods toward sustained movement, earlier mornings, and mindful nourishment. Both emphasize that psychedelics are not “magic pills” in isolation: integration, therapy, community, and lifestyle design make insights durable.

The conversation also tackles safety and access. The sisters stress working with experienced facilitators and medical oversight, naming that these modalities aren’t for everyone. They call for more affordability and BIPOC representation in a field that can still feel exclusionary, while holding a wide tent vision—everyone deserves the chance to heal. They note how narratives are changing (from early-2000s panic to mainstream book-club conversations), and how stories alongside science move culture and policy.

New

Episode Highlights

Fashion, hair politics, and the CROWN Act’s importance.
Sisterhood as lifeline; daily check-ins as grown-up therapy.
First sessions: somatic release, grief, and reframing shame.
Ibogaine’s role in behavior change; why integration is the bridge.
Safety, access, and representation: making healing containers truly welcoming.

If you’re exploring this work: educate deeply, choose qualified support, prioritize integration, and remember—your past is a chapter, not your whole story.

October 6, 2025December 3, 2025

MDMA-Assisted Therapy for the Wounded Healer: Help fund a pioneering study!

Ivar W. Goksøyr - MDMA-Assisted Therapy for Therapists

Start with the patterns many wounded healers know well: Parentified at home, helpers at work; old burdens resurface. We overfunction, detach, control, or rescue to manage our insecurities and the weight of responsibility. Beneath it sits guilt and shame of not reaching our patients in the ways we would like. Further down, our own original pains are hidden behind the role of a helper.

This upcoming two-part online training puts those themes on screen. A series of long, evocative video clips from an unfiltered MDMA-assisted therapy case of a wounded healer showcase a range of clinical phenomena and therapeutic attitudes and techniques in MDMA-assisted therapy. They also trigger self-reflection, sharpen interoceptive tracking, and bring you closer to your own patterns and preferences as a therapist.

Ready to deepen your skills and support cutting-edge research? Sign up for the two-part live training now!

Prior cohorts rated the format 4.84/5 across more than 260 reviews. It includes some basic learning on how to prepare, navigate, facilitate, and integrate MDMA-catalyzed states. What sets it apart is the wealth of authentic clinical footage and therapist-centered inquiry into wounded-healer dynamics. Importantly, by enrolling in this training, you also help fund the development of a pioneering protocol for Empathogen-Assisted Therapist Development (EATD).

What is empathogen-assisted therapist development?

EATD integrates MDMA-assisted therapy within a structured personal and professional development (PPD) framework. The protocol enrolls psychotherapists whose work involvement profiles indicate distress, disengagement, or overactivation. Over five months, participants complete three individual MDMA sessions nested in group-based preparation, dosing support, and integration. The design is intentional: it braids learning across personal and professional domains, fosters continuous reflection to ensure transfer into moment-to-moment clinical behavior, and ensures standardized safety and ethics. This is method-independent therapist development—aimed at the therapist variables most predictive of patients’ process and outcome.

Why this frontier matters now.

Mental health disorders impose high existential and financial costs. Solutions require better implementation of existing, evidence-based treatments, the development of new treatments, and the cultivation of more effective therapists. EATD touches all three dimensions, focusing primarily on the latter: By providing therapists firsthand experience with MDMA-AT in a group setting, this project addresses key challenges related to the optimal development and implementation of MDMA-AT as an emergent treatment. This includes providing therapists with a self-experience training module in a scalable group format, potentially enhancing both the quality and accessibility of safe and ethical care. However, its primary innovation and focus lie in integrating MDMA-AT within a broader personal and professional development (PPD) framework for method-independent therapist development. As such, this project pioneers a new frontier in therapist training, Empathogen-Assisted Therapist Development (EATD).

Pioneering deeper ways to assist therapists in developing their intrapersonal and interpersonal capacities is important, as the center of gravity in the psychotherapy research field has shifted from “Which method works best?” to “Which therapist is in the room?” Evidence-based relationships instead of evidence-based methods, since research clearly shows that therapist effects outsize method effects. Yet training systems still underweight therapists’ personal growth.

Converging evidence from early pioneers, retrospective reports, preclinical studies, modern experimental research, and a range of clinical trials points to the potential for MDMA to act as a catalyst for trust, introspection, psychotherapeutic processing, new learning, and ultimately for a deeper connection with oneself and others (Stocker & Liechti, 2024). Psychedelics are often viewed as nonspecific amplifiers that deepen access to unconscious material, enabling study of the psychological currents shaping experience and behavior in ways few tools match. Precisely because psychotherapy demands high levels of self-awareness and integration to navigate intense affect and complex relational dynamics, psychedelics may be uniquely suited to support therapists’ own self-exploration and healing.

How does this training contribute?

This training advances EATD on two fronts. First, it provides funding for further protocol development. Second, it provides a demonstration: the workshop operationalizes the EATD principle with a concrete wounded-healer case presented with clinical granularity.

You will see how fear attenuation and oxytocin-mediated safety enable direct contact with unresolved, embodied feelings. How protective compulsions are recognized rather than rationalized. The documented downstream effects seem practical: a rapid drop in previously unconscious anxiety and defensive overfunctioning in sessions; less exhaustion; more receptivity, exact presence; cleaner timing; and renewed embodiment of Rogers’ core conditions—authenticity, empathy, and unconditional positive regard. The endpoint is not an exalted experience. It is a more relaxed and authentic presence with fewer unseen drivers, more trust in the client’s healing forces, and greater enjoyment.

The format of this training matters. Real footage compresses learning cycles. Role-plays rarely reproduce the somatic signature of actual therapy. Participant reports from earlier cohorts converge on the view that this training indeed was a profound, both personal and professional experience. The high ratings reflect a combination of evocative material and analytic clarity. The outcome is both inspiration and usable learning.

The presenter, Ivar W. Goksøyr, is a clinical psychologist and founder of Psykologvirke. Within MDMA-assisted therapy, he has participated as a client, therapist, assistant trainer, researcher, and educator, including roles in the world’s first MDMA/depression trial. He integrates empathogen work with psychotherapy process science and ongoing ketamine-assisted therapy implementation at his clinic. This training is independent of MAPS.

The field needs disciplined exposure to reality-level clinical processes and a credible pathway for developing therapists who are safer, steadier, and more effective. Empathogen-Assisted Therapist Development may be one such pathway. This workshop both illustrates the principle and helps fund the protocol work required to move from a promising concept to an operational standard.

Enroll now for the two-part live training, secure your seat, and direct a portion of your fee to EATD protocol development. Commit, show up, and translate this material into a cleaner presence and safer, more effective therapy.

October 6, 2025October 9, 2025

Ivar Goksøyr — Wounded Healers, Inner Intelligence & Bringing MDMA Training to Mainstream Care

Recorded October 1

In this candid, practice-focused conversation, Joe is joined by Norwegian psychologist and researcher Ivar Goksøyr to explore how therapists’ own healing journeys can measurably improve client outcomes—and why MDMA-assisted experiences, used thoughtfully, may be a uniquely powerful catalyst for professional development. Ivar shares lessons from Norway’s psychedelic research team (PTSD and the world’s first MDMA-for-depression trial), his clinic Psykologvirke in Oslo, and his online course, “The Wounded Healer,” which uses authentic footage from his FDA-approved MAPS volunteer MDMA sessions to illuminate real clinical processes, countertransference, and the “inner healing intelligence” as a working metaphor rather than dogma.

The discussion ranges from implementation realities (laws, ethics, and conservative regulatory cultures) to the pragmatic: how an MDMA experience helped Ivar resolve chronic anxiety reactions in the therapy chair, reduced burn-out, increased receptivity, and improved attunement—changes he believes many clinicians can cultivate when personal growth is prioritized alongside methods training. He outlines a developing collaboration with the University of Oslo on Empathogen-Assisted Therapies Development—not to “dose for certification,” but to support therapists’ self-awareness and resilience in legally sanctioned research contexts.

They also compare compounds: why MDMA may be easier to integrate into mainstream psychiatry than classic tryptamines (fewer projective processes, more biographical focus, smoother affect regulation), while acknowledging the immense promise—and higher demands—of psilocybin and other psychedelics. Throughout, they emphasize humility, guardrails, and the need to keep learning as the field scales (with frank reflections on ketamine’s mixed rollout and avoiding idealization/devaluation cycles).

Highlights

Why therapist factors often outweigh modality—and how personal work translates into better outcomes.
Using real session video (with Ivar as participant) to normalize vulnerability, illuminate process, and train pattern recognition.
Regulatory and ethical nuances of self-experience in training; building consensus before policy change.
Inner healing intelligence as a clinical metaphor aligned with Rogers, Rank, and psychodynamic concepts (unconscious therapeutic alliance).
MDMA vs. classic psychedelics for implementation; sequencing with ketamine in public systems.
Global classroom: 270+ clinicians from every continent; course structure centered on reflection, discussion, and live analysis.

Training Dates

November 2 & 9 (two consecutive Sundays, 3 hours each, online). Interactive, footage-driven, method-agnostic—useful whether or not you practice psychedelic therapy.

If you’re a clinician interested in deeper self-work to strengthen your therapeutic presence, this episode offers a grounded path forward—equal parts inspiration, ethics, and hands-on learning.

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors or inaccuracies.

Joe Moore: [00:00:00] I think yeah. Hi everybody. Welcome back to Psychedelics today. Joe Moore here joined by Eva. Eva, how are you today?
Ivar Goksøyr : Pretty good, thank you. Thank you. How about yourself?
Joe Moore: Oh, I’m doing lovely, beautiful Autumn day here. It’s a peak foliage in the mountains of Colorado right now. Mm-hmm. It’s glorious, glorious beautiful.
Joe Moore: Yeah. And, um, I think I’m fully recovered from Burning Man. Um, so
Ivar Goksøyr : it’s like a month ago or something. Oh my gosh.
Joe Moore: Yeah. It takes a long time emotionally, at least it’s,
Joe Moore: yeah. So I’m excited to talk today. You’ve been up to some really interesting things around advocating for new forms of, um, I guess new additions to, uh, MDMA psychotherapy training and, um. Yeah, can you give us like a high, high level overview of, of what these changes are and then we can [00:01:00] start talking about you.
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah, sure. So, you know, I’m a member of the psychedelic research team here in Norway, and we’ve done a couple of MDMA studies, one on PTSD and the world’s first on MDMA for depression. And then I’m also running an online, uh, training in MDMA assisted therapy, uh, and the wounded Healer, that’s what it’s called.
Ivar Goksøyr : And. In this training, I show authentic, uh, footage from my own MDMA sessions and, uh, focusing in on, on, uh, the professional development I gained from the personal growth, from the trauma healing I experienced as part of that, uh, uh, MDMA, uh, therapy. Uh, uh, so, and, and building on those experiences, how, how much that MDMA therapy helped me in, in my role as a therapist.
Ivar Goksøyr : And also reading up on other literature and, and looking into that this is, you know, something that so many people report. We’re in the process now, uh, incorporation with the University of Oslo to set up an EM Pathogen Assisted Therapies Development project. So, uh, not, uh, giving [00:02:00] MDMA, uh, to therapists to train them as MDMA therapist, but to, uh, help them with their professional growth.
Ivar Goksøyr : Through personal growth. So that’s the main, uh, project that I’m leading right now, and that I hope that we can, uh, you know, get some attention to, and maybe some more funding from, from our conversation today.
Joe Moore: That’s, you know, amazing. Uh, it’s like, so. Uh, needed in so many ways. And, you know, it’s, it’s the general conventional wisdom.
Joe Moore: Um, and so to be clear, you are, you, you used footage from your session, so it’s you on the videotapes.
Ivar Goksøyr : That’s right. So I’m the patient and I’m also kind of the, uh, the host, uh, analyzing my own, uh, experiences as a, as a patient in, um, this is also important to say from a legal trial, FDA approved trial, uh, healthy volunteers.
Ivar Goksøyr : So it was part of my training, uh, to be in maps, uh, therapist. So [00:03:00] yes, so, uh, so a range of clinical phenomenon will be shown and, and you get to show, you know, uh, how MDMA therapy is delivered and you get the benefit from looking at live, uh, photos. And, uh, and then also we keep the focus on themes that is probably relevant for, if not.
Ivar Goksøyr : Most wounded healers, uh, because, you know, most of us come into this strange profession. You know, while most people would like to have other people’s pain at a, you know, at a certain distance, there are some of us that really seeks to, you know, get closer to, to transform it. And most often that’s because we’ve been, uh, forced to, you know, traverse certain complex emotional terrains from we were kids and many of us have.
Ivar Goksøyr : Taken on certain roles, and, and I believe that, uh, we are very much triggered on some of the core wounds, uh, at a daily basis in our jobs. And of course, we, we all, this is nothing new and we all work on those things. [00:04:00] Uh, but many of us, myself included, even though a lot of supervision and therapy is really helpful and you get, uh, you know, uh, more consciousness on some issues you have, and you also overcome some obstacles, then it is hard to change these more ingrained patterns.
Ivar Goksøyr : Mm-hmm. So, MDMA known as a catalyst for therapy just stands to reason that it might help, uh, us as, uh, therapists as well as patients. Of course.
Joe Moore: Yeah. So let’s, let’s kind of talk about your professional path. How, how did you kind of take this professional route and end up, um, curious about MDMA and, and, uh, seemingly passionate about it?
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah, well, so, you know, ever, I would say since I was a kid, I, I kind of had this perspective that I, I don’t know, most, most children have maybe a close connection with the light. And I grew up and watched the adults in my life and they seem to be suffering and they seem to not understand their own or [00:05:00] each other suffering.
Ivar Goksøyr : And they were judging each other. So I felt from an early age that there was so much unnecessary suffering going on, and I was kind of shocked that they couldn’t see how beautiful things could be in this world in a way. And so when I started my psychology studies, I was always more interested in the transformative changes instead of symptom management, uh, which is also important.
Ivar Goksøyr : I was always looking for the more depth oriented work. Did my specialization in, uh, in terms of short term psychodynamic therapy. Basically psychoanalytic theory, but with a more humanistic core and a more active approach. And I was very pleased, you know, to be able, uh, with more experience, more training, more self-healing, to reach more people, more deeply.
Ivar Goksøyr : And I got this confirmation that, yeah, this deep transformative healing is possible. However, I also experienced how extremely difficult it can be to release this inherent potential. So, [00:06:00] and the, the more I could help some people deeply, the more it hurt to not be able still to help the majority of my patients that deeply to see the potential and feel helpless.
Ivar Goksøyr : So searching for new strategies and then, you know, a couple of patients told me about psychedelic experiences and then somebody close to me, um, uh, came forth and that’s when I started to really dig in and open up. And, and then when you see all the literature and, and this whole tradition and wisdom tradition that is buried underneath all the stigma, then I really knew that we were onto something important.
Ivar Goksøyr : So that’s how it started.
Joe Moore: Yeah. That’s amazing. And, um, I, I assume, and I don’t want to, well actually tell, tell me this, I, from what I understand, the um. The culture in Scandinavian nations is a little bit conservative around drugs generally in a lot of countries, like UK for instance, MDMA was everywhere, United States, it was very common.
Joe Moore: Um, [00:07:00] but is it, was that somewhat similar, uh, for you?
Ivar Goksøyr : I mean, for sure there’s always been an underground scene under rave scene. Uh, but yes, I mean, it’s quite different from like Colorado where you’re at, for example. So I think I, I, I am not sure, but I think that maybe the, the rate of people that has tried MDMA now is around 5% or something.
Ivar Goksøyr : I believe it’s around 20 in the us So, so there’s a big difference in the baseline levels and their attitudes, uh, for sure. Uh, but you know, this, the medicalization track that we’re on here in Norway has really helped, uh, to change public perception these last few 10 years. Um, since I started getting involved.
Ivar Goksøyr : So, uh, yeah, it’s definitely opening up and, you know, more and more, you know, other others and, and, uh, psychologists and even, not yet any doctors, but people come out of the psychedelic closet and speaks openly. So, and that’s kind quite new, I would say. Um, it’s just a handful [00:08:00] of people have done it, but it, it’s quite impactful still, so, yeah.
Joe Moore: Hmm. Yeah. Okay. That’s, that’s important to know. 5% to 20%. Um, it’s really a big, big shift. So in terms of, um, like were there any kind of organizations where you were paying, paying attention to, were you paying attention to maps in the early days as that was coming along and was that kinda influential for you?
Ivar Goksøyr : Well, yeah, sure. As, uh, as soon as I started ReadUP, uh, of course maps is, is what, what’s what stands out in the MDMA therapy field. So they’ve been incredibly important and they were also our collaborators, uh, on our first trial, uh, and made it also, then we gained experience that we could create our own investigator trial here.
Ivar Goksøyr : So they’ve been really important to us, for sure.
Joe Moore: Yeah. And, um, have you received any kind of pushback in your interest in [00:09:00] developing, um, MDMA assisted psychotherapy and also, you know, for therapist to improve therapists?
Ivar Goksøyr : Well, you know, I mean there’s, uh, there’s been a lot of pushback. I mean, when, back in 2017, my first, uh, psychedelic conference in Oakland, and when I started speaking publicly here in Norway, I mean, my friends took me aside and asked me if I knew what I was doing, like this career suicide, uh, thoughts and, and of course I think, uh, yeah, most people had a very, you know, stigmatizing view on, on what we were up to.
Ivar Goksøyr : But I think also there is a certain, you know, a an intellectual, uh, honesty and openness. Uh, so if you can show some numbers and you can show that you’re serious and you, you know, your intention is right and you, it comes from the right place, and that you’re not an activist, uh, pushing things, uh, because you have your [00:10:00] own agenda and preferences, but that you’re actually, um, looking into exploring this in a, in a very vigorous way, then that gains respect for sure.
Ivar Goksøyr : And I think, uh, we’ve, you know, we’ve been able to gain that respect, uh, as, as, uh, you know, um, a serious, uh, we’re, we’re in a serious endeavor here. And when this idea of the, um, pathogen assisted therapy therapies development has been launched, there has really not been that much pushback, uh, I must say. Uh, however, we, we, the first university program in psychedelic, uh, therapy, uh, was, uh, just launched and the plan was to have ketamine as a self experience.
Ivar Goksøyr : Part of that program, uh, that got shut down, uh, of legal reasons, uh, by the health authorities, uh, since there was no legal way to actually do that. So that will probably be a, a longer process to, to gain the necessary, uh, knowledge to understand that this might be a fruitful thing to do. So, but within [00:11:00] clinical studies, it is, uh, totally legitimate.
Joe Moore: That’s interesting. And yeah, there’s probably all sorts of permission. We have a similar structure and issue here in the United States with experience with ketamine. Uh, physicians will prescribe for things like adjustment disorder or, you know, a lot of people legitimately have depression, so for their experiential component on their training, um, they can do things like that uhhuh, but I see how like integrating that with the university would be really hard and you’d need special permission.
Joe Moore: So
Ivar Goksøyr : do you need the diagnosis to be able to get the Ketamine as part of the training?
Joe Moore: Yeah, Uhhuh generally so, but there’s usually a doctor on staff that kind of understands that most people have conditions that would benefit from it. At least one or two doses. Mm-hmm. And, you know, we’re actually addressing clinical benefit, not experience, which is interesting ’cause I like, I do like the idea of giving somebody the experience of the drug despite clinical situation, their clinical status.
Joe Moore: So it’s [00:12:00] complicated though. Regulators are gonna have, you know, I guess their job is to be very conservative.
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah. I mean, first of all, do no harm and, uh, you know, it’s possible, totally possible to respect that and, and to follow the laws that society has laid down and, and, and all that. So I really think just takes time to build up the consensus, uh, in, in the, in the field of psychiatry.
Ivar Goksøyr : And when that is reached, then we can approach the politicians and health bureaucrats and, and make, uh, um, you know, new laws.
Joe Moore: Yeah, absolutely. New allowances, licenses, permits. Mm-hmm. Whatever it is. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So that’ll be cool, and I’m glad you’re working on that. Um. So let’s dig into this training. This training comes up in about a month.
Joe Moore: What, um, what made you want to develop this program?
Ivar Goksøyr : Well, so, um, you know, as, uh, therapists, uh, we don’t get to see a lot of the, that other therapists do. I mean, if you’re [00:13:00] co-therapist, yes, but individually you don’t get to see much. And, you know, throughout training, um, there is little also focus on personal development.
Ivar Goksøyr : It’s really, uh, under underweight in, uh, professional, uh, development programs. And this is quite serious because what the psychotherapy research is showing now is that, you know, the, the person as a therapist is much more important for patient process and outcome than what method is being applied. So now, instead of studying which method is most effective, because all seem to be more or less equally effective with nuances.
Ivar Goksøyr : Then, uh, we look into what are the relationship qualities that, uh, that could be called evidence-based. So research is showing therapies as a person is really important, but training, uh, as a general rule and estimates, uh, uh, uh, personal growth. And so I, I just saw when I, what happened for me was that I, I [00:14:00] discovered in that MD MA therapy, you know, I went to the route basically of my, of my interpersonal adversities leading me to become a psychology psychologist in the first place.
Ivar Goksøyr : And, um, you know, I, instead of as a kid, I, I hid, uh, you know, behind this role as a helper and I, nobody kind of tuned into me where I were at. So I developed the ability to find people where they were. And that was also, uh, you know, an epiphany to understand that this was also, you know, out of compassion.
Ivar Goksøyr : But also, you know, because, uh, I needed contact, so a way to avoid being alone. So that’s when I realized, oh, how deeply dependent I was upon my own patience, you know, that I, basically, it was part of my own needs for contact and, uh, you know, and, and also how dependent I was upon a certain progress in their therapy.
Ivar Goksøyr : Like how much [00:15:00] responsibility I felt and, uh, how much I took on. And I, I had this soreness in my, uh, solar plexus, um, more or less, uh, like in most therapy sessions. So when my day at the office was over, I, I really felt a certain level of exhaustion and, and I had this soreness and, you know, uh. Basically overworking.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, and the more insecure I was, the more control I did, the more I did, you know? And, and then, uh, the MDMA showed me the little kid, you know, classic inner child work into the boy underneath this role as a helper. And all the fear that I had built in my body, uh, came out, you know, in shivering and neuro neurogenic shivering and stuff.
Ivar Goksøyr : And, and all the pain underneath that, uh, like body armor came. And, um, and there was a lot of linking and understanding. And, and when I got back into my therapy chair, I was surprised really to notice that there [00:16:00] were no anxiety reactions in my body anymore. So, you know, those old feelings of pain and fear, they had been triggered on a daily basis in therapy sessions.
Ivar Goksøyr : I didn’t know that. I wasn’t aware it was unconscious. I had just felt this unease, you know, and I had noticed that I was a bit stressed out and I, I had been working really hard, so. When I had this ability to sit unfunded, uh, I wasn’t afraid anymore, uh, because I, I had, you know, released a lot of the feelings that had created this anxiety.
Ivar Goksøyr : I had also experienced this deep inner healing forces, the inner healing intelligence or self-organized with, or, or whatever you would like to call it. So, uh, I could trust that force in the patient much more. Uh, and I could, uh, you know, take much less responsibility. And I was much less driven by my own anxiety and my own need to regulate my own feelings and needs and sessions.
Ivar Goksøyr : And, [00:17:00] and what happened then, of course, is that the patient led the process better and I was much more receptive. So when my body was more relaxed, I could work much more intuitively and, and take in and react much more adequately. And I’m, I am. Pretty sure I can only compare like from before and after and, you know, no systematic observations, but, uh, I know a hundred percent sure that my wellbeing went up a lot.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, and I enjoyed my work much more. And I’m sure also that at least, uh, substantial proportion of my patients, I mean, I was effective with some patients before as well, but a substantial proportion of my patients also are doing better, um, in therapy. So, so it felt really important to see this, you know, this potential and yeah, uh, I saw it as a really good way to, to, um, you know, to heal the healers.
Ivar Goksøyr : And, you know, as Marina Sabina said, you are the medicine. Uh, and so [00:18:00] if we can heal the, you know, the therapist, then we can really reach a lot of people, uh, more deeply. So, yeah. So a good way to spread more healing to, to many people.
Joe Moore: Yeah. I think a funny and interesting analogy is the holotropic breathwork training model where you have to actually do a lot of your own work before you’re approved to do the sessions.
Joe Moore: And that, you know, there’s, I guess in the old psychoanalysis frame, multiple years of psychoanalysis before you could do it, so. Mm-hmm. You know, not that they necessarily got a lot of training, they got a lot of insight, um, you know, um, yeah,
Ivar Goksøyr : sure.
Joe Moore: So, yeah.
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah. Go ahead. I really thi uh, yeah, I really think it’s, you know, the, the methods that goes more deeply into the unconscious layers of the psyche.
Ivar Goksøyr : There, there’s always been, uh, a demand that the practitioner has his own, you know, a meditation teacher has his, his own meditation practice. Of course, the psychoanalyst have, has [00:19:00] had his own psychoanalysis, of course. So that need might be, uh, lesser with more symptom oriented, uh, methods. But, you know, psychedelics, they go deep and, uh, yeah, I mean, most people would, even though there are no hard, really good evidence like.
Ivar Goksøyr : Through randomized controlled data supporting that claim. I think, uh, most clinicians would, would agree that therapist self-awareness is incredibly important. And also to have felt how these different methods and, and techniques and attitudes, uh, are experienced, uh, from the inside. Um, so the is quite clear.
Ivar Goksøyr : Um, of course there are some pitfalls as well. You can, if you have like one strong, for example, psychedelic self-experience, and then you can, you know, over generalize from your own experience and accept other people to have similar experiences. Why? The truth is that they are very different. And I mean, I think also something that I [00:20:00] see sometimes in, in psychedelic, you know, in the psychedelic sphere is that people might have really strong healing experiences and they’re true, uh, uh, but it cannot sometimes lead people to think that they’re more healed than they are in, in reality that there are so many layers.
Ivar Goksøyr : But it can kind of, some, some people can have a certain narcissistic response maybe, or now I gained so much power and I have so, so much, uh, depth knowledge of myself in the psyche, so now I can go out. So, uh, some, there are some pitfalls, but, uh, you know, I, I cause also an, an article, a model curriculum for psychedelic, uh, training.
Ivar Goksøyr : Um, and, uh, it is a strong recommendation, uh, not a mandatory, um, thing, but to have self experience as part of training programs. Uh, so the consensus is pretty clear.
Joe Moore: Yeah, absolutely. So I think, um, yeah, the consensus is so clear and it’s just so [00:21:00] frustrating that we have to still kind of like figure out how to convince regulatory groups.
Joe Moore: Um, I think, um, can you talk about what kind of data they’ve liked to see? What kind of data was helpful? To present to regulators?
Ivar Goksøyr : Well, so we, we haven’t, uh, we haven’t done that yet. Uh, uh, I, I. Well, I, I, and if I should, you know, make a guess, uh, you know, anything that can actually, uh, provide a link, uh, at least to a proxy that, you know, you, you do something here.
Ivar Goksøyr : You give yourself experience, and then you can see that it actually helps the patients. And that’s, that’s, I think that’s a bridge that is really hard to make because there are so many variables in play. And then, as I said, also from my own experience, uh, I, you know, it’s reasonable to think that, say if you have countertransference issues, uh, some, some people, and I had like some chronic counter [00:22:00] transference issues that came up independently of who the patient was.
Ivar Goksøyr : And that’s true for many of us. But some of us also have, you know, we’re very effective with, with, uh, many patients. But then there are these few that triggers us in ways that we still are not able to, to really, uh, grasp or handle in a, in a therapeutic way. And for, for this. Particular patients, uh, it, it’ll be important.
Ivar Goksøyr : So, and it’s very difficult and it’s very, uh, you know, costly to, to kind of prove those links. However, I, I do have a certain hope that, you know, combining MDMA with other therapist development, uh, methods and start to explore and start to, you know, find, you know, look at a lot of subgroup analysis and looking at moderating variables, and maybe we can, in the future at some point, see that for, for these therapists, this intervention, MDMA, enhanced [00:23:00] therapies development is actually helpful for the outcomes of, of, of this subset of patients.
Ivar Goksøyr : I think that that can be, uh, reasonable, but it’ll be a, a way, and I I also think, you know, if there is consensus in, in a, in a field, in a, in a, in the medical field that this, we believe this is important and there are a lot of. You know, a good argument can be made. I think that should be sufficient as well.
Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Right. It is a pretty safe drug. It’s really, well, you know, regarded in terms of clinical effects, so that that plus the consensus, like let’s just hope. We can, you know, put together the data we need to make this happen. I, I’m really, really excited. Um, so how many times have you taught your training so far?
Ivar Goksøyr : So, I, I, maybe it’s five times now. So I’ve had like, uh, around 270 people through, um, and it’s been quite well, uh, uh, [00:24:00] received. Uh, people are talking about how they embark on a self-reflective journey and that they can really, uh, you know, have a lot of recognition in, in what they see. And the, you know, it’s something with watching these unfiltered, uh, scenes with these really deep emotions as A-M-D-M-A or a psychedelic therapist, you know, that.
Ivar Goksøyr : And also other emotion, experiential focused therapies that, you know, the, when these unfiltered emotions come out, it really touches our own strings and puts them in motion as well. Uh, so it can really be, um, you know, some, some therapy as well in there. Uh, uh, if you let it, if you want it, and if not, uh, it’ll still be, uh, interesting to, you know, look into, you know, how this, uh, actually can look in real life.
Ivar Goksøyr : And also to look at some quite experienced therapists, uh, working with me.
Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. That’s great. Can you share a little bit about some of your [00:25:00] collaborators?
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah. So, you know, I’m, I’m the founder of Psychologic, which is a mental health clinic here in Oslo. We are 30, uh, affiliated psychologists, and we have this, uh, cooperation with, uh, uh, the academy clinic here, the leading KE clinic, axon Clinic.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, so we’re implementing Ketamine now. So the Axon Clinic is really important for that clinical work we do. And then we also have the hospital, uh, in Ville, uh, which is a county in Norway. Uh, that’s where the psychedelic research team is. So they will be a collaborator on this study. Uh, hopefully it’s not like formally anchored yet.
Ivar Goksøyr : And then you have the University of Oslo where the Institute of Psychology, uh, still not, uh, anything signed or formally anchored, but we’ve had a series of meeting and, uh, the, the right people there wanted to happen. So, um, we just need, uh, of course we need to finalize the grant proposals and project descriptions and, uh, and get the funding.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, and then, then, you know, we’ll hopefully let, uh, hopefully gonna let it fly. [00:26:00]
Joe Moore: Hmm. This is really interesting. Yeah. Um, so having that kind of network and affiliation broadly, it, it seems like really prestigious groups and I, I just love that it’s kind of, you know, coming together as if it will be a real project and, and hopefully get real funding and move it all forward.
Joe Moore: So thanks for your efforts there. Um, yeah. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Is the, is the science funding ecosystem a little friendlier? So like, I think I only know of a few psychedelic programs in the United States that have received federal funding. Um, yeah. Like would, would science funding, um, for you come from at the national level, or would it be like bigger institutions?
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah, so we, we broke through a glass roof there a few years ago, getting the first governmental grant for the MDMA depression study. And then, uh, we got, uh, quite a big grant, uh, from the health authorities again for ketamine study. [00:27:00] Uh, so, uh, yeah, we have had two, uh, two major wins there. And then we’ve also had money from Nors Nors Skin Mind.
Ivar Goksøyr : It’s a Swedish foundation for a second md, a depression study in young adults. And that’s also where I, I’m, we’re seeking our primary funds for this, uh, pathogen assisted therapist training in addition to my s founding some, uh, or funding, some of it, uh, half of my PhD money, uh, can be funded from my clinic.
Ivar Goksøyr : And then, uh, there’s a research council in Norway that I will apply for. For rest of the PhD funding. And then this, uh, training is also helping to, to fund further protocol development and, and get it going.
Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, yeah. Amazing. So are people back to your training now? Are people from around the world taking your training or is it purely Scandinavian folks?
Joe Moore: Yes,
Ivar Goksøyr : yes. So we’ve had, you know, [00:28:00] Australians, Indian people, we had people from South America, you know, South Africa, uh, all across, uh, states and Canada and Europe. So, and we always start with, uh, greeting each other, hello in our mother tongue. So that’s a cacophony of people from around the world. So it’s really a, a nice international, uh, flavor to it.
Ivar Goksøyr : And so I’m very pleased to, to be able to, uh, to bring, to bring that to the world and to bring people together. It’s also inspiring to see how many people, uh, are passionate about this. We also have, you know, plenty of time to have interactions and ask questions. Um, so that’s also, uh, uh, good to have some of that.
Ivar Goksøyr : And, um, yeah,
Joe Moore: outstanding and, um. Can you talk about a little bit about what, what it’s like to actually show your own videos? Like that has to be a little emotional. Yeah. Kind of a big deal, right?
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah. I [00:29:00] mean, you know, the first time I, I looked into the tapes and they’re quite, you know, they’re, you know, what they say about MBMA, uh, therapy’s, it’s not a no no gay, no pain situation.
Ivar Goksøyr : And, uh, know a lot of the times, and we see it in the MDMA depression trial as well, people have this really affirmative positive experiences reconnecting with love and clarity and, you know, have to have some people have positive feelings in their body for the first time in years, you know, and so some of those clips are really, you know, filled with humor and affirmations and really celebration of life.
Ivar Goksøyr : But then you also, you know, the, the higher you can go the, the deeper you tend to be able to go and vice versa. And, and there are really some really painful. Expressions. There’s, they’re also, so before I showed it, the first time I, I showed it to my wife and I was really curious, what am I doing? And this is this weird.
Ivar Goksøyr : Am I just, you know, being pathetic. Well, even though I knew this is, this is honest, it’s raw, [00:30:00] it’s me. And, and it was important. And it, and it, I think it will be important for a lot of people to be able to watch it because I think it normalizes, you know, it’s not only MDMAs, it’s a therapy or psychedelic therapy that is stigmatized.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, the healer’s own wounding is also somewhat stigmatized. Uh, you know, uh, it’s not that easy. I mean, it’s getting better. I mean, culture might, might differ, but. To really talk openly about the wounding. And it’s, it can be a lot of pride also in US therapists, you know, going into this role. And even though we sometimes may feel like hypocrites, we don’t want other people to, to see that we are very, you know, very human.
Ivar Goksøyr : And, um, as I say in NS is a therapist’s about, you know, getting the patient in touch with their inner healer. And if we also, through this training and other, of course, uh, things can, the therapist can get in touch with their inner patient, uh, and heal that, I think, I think then, then you will be able to go even further.
Ivar Goksøyr : So, [00:31:00] uh, but as my wife watched, uh, those, some of those first, most emotional clips and, and I saw how touched she she was and how, how, you know, how, uh, how much compassion she, uh, that was elicited in her than I, I got that necessary, you know, confidence to, to, to show it also to broader audience. But yeah, I must admit that I was quite.
Ivar Goksøyr : I, I was clear that I, I will need you guys to, to give some feedback after this. And I mean, these, it’s like five or six years, uh, since I had these sessions. So it’s very well integrated. Um, that’s also important. So, uh, you know, so I say that I have no need for you to kind of protect me or anything, but, uh, this silence afterwards is, uh, is not something so please, and, and of course, just, you know, uh, as, as in psychedelic therapy and as a therapist to just pay close attention to your own [00:32:00] reactions when you watch these clips.
Ivar Goksøyr : One thing is the technical aspects and, and that meta perspective. And another thing is just tuning into what is going on on the, on the deeper levels in the patient and in you. How the patient is a mirror on processes inside of you. And that’s something that we focus a lot of in the, in the course and it tends to, tends to be quite helpful.
Ivar Goksøyr : Mm-hmm. So, uh, but it has, it has been really gratifying, I must say, because universally, uh, you know, uh, the ra the ratings has been 4.84 stars, uh, from 270 reviews out of five stars studies. So. I also do a lot of lecturing, uh, in other contexts than this course in, in universities and, and psychedelic therapy programs.
Ivar Goksøyr : Um, and in these teachings I tend to show a, a few more, more short, shorter clips. And, and yeah, I think also there is a, a need and a, and a also a certain kind of hunger for being able to actually look at authentic [00:33:00] clinical footage, uh, in training.
Joe Moore: Right? I think, um, a huge portion of the maps, MDMA training is kind of, you know, pausing and playing and pausing and discussing and, and things like that.
Joe Moore: And I think that’s really helpful. Um, especially given we just can’t do it. Um, so mm-hmm. You know? Absolutely. I think even if we could do it, the video analysis and commentary would be really helpful. Um, yep. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a good way to learn. I hope in time we can do that with a lot more psychedelics too.
Joe Moore: Um mm-hmm. There’s very serious differences in how somebody would show up under DMT and Iboga and whatever else, right?
Ivar Goksøyr : Absolutely. No, I, I think that’s key, uh, to, to, to, to build up the video libraries in training, for training purposes is certain, certainly something that I would aim for.
Joe Moore: Yeah, absolutely.
Joe Moore: Um, so could we [00:34:00] spend a little bit of time talking about inner healer stuff? Um, this is a, it’s a complicated topic, at least in America. I don’t know if it’s complicated elsewhere, but I, you know, we, we in our world, frame it as the body knows how to heal. Most of the time we have to set the container properly so that it can, um, and I don’t know how that’s like, um.
Joe Moore: So you’ve, you’ve probably heard the, um, accusations, right? This is cult thinking that there’s some inner healer out there. How do you like to think about it or how do you like to talk about it?
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah, so, uh, yeah, I’m aware of the critic, you know, and the critics of this being more, having like a concept rooted in spiritual thinking and that it can also lead into this kind of exceptional thinking around psychedelics that somehow psychedelics show you the truth and somehow everything that comes up on psychedelics is inherently benign or [00:35:00] correct, or, and, and the only thing you need to do is you trust it and then ev and it, everything will turn out for the best.
Ivar Goksøyr : Um. And, uh, uh, I, and so I think it’s, uh, it’s an important concept that makes a lot of clinical sense and it has a lot of different names. Uh, but it needs to be seen as, uh, um, a metaphor, not like, uh, uh, you know, it’s not a separate entity or intelligence, but, uh, it is part of our nature and I think it makes a lot of sense to think of us as, uh, you know, we are nature, we are, uh, organic creatures, and the body for sure knows how to heal in many ways.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, but sometimes it’s not able to heal itself either. And sometimes it can start attacking, uh, itself. And the psychic can also, you know, uh, attack itself. Uh, and, um. So I think it’s, it’s for sure an really important Ali, and it’s not a new concept. I mean, Carl Rogers, uh, [00:36:00] the principle of self-organizing wisdom, the, the, the therapist only needs to set this certain, you know, the congruence and the positive regard and empathy, the facilitative, uh, psychological factors for the patient’s self-organizing wisdom to take the lead and, and to lead to self transformation.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, so it’s really a humanistic and, and beautiful concept, but it needs to be seen as a metaphor. And it’s also important to. You know, to acknowledge that these, uh, substances that, uh, has this great advantage of opening up the psyche, uh, in a faster, deeper way than many other methods, although you can open it as deeply with other methods and so forth.
Ivar Goksøyr : But this, this advantage is also the challenge with a method like the talent is also what can become problematic And, um, uh, and yeah, so, so, um. Uh, [00:37:00] I mean, you know, the, in psychodynamic therapy also, we have this, uh, concept of the Unconscious Therapeutic Alliance, which basically is the same. It is, uh, this part of the patient that has this unconscious will to health in, in the psychoanalytic, uh, thinker auto ranks terms.
Ivar Goksøyr : Um, and, uh, and the, or in Donald Winnekot’s terms, the, the, the, the true self that tries to express itself. Um, so, um, so, uh, in, in, in the traditional training on, in, before we also have this, the main thing you do is to show the patient that there’s, there is this sound part of you, this Healing forces tries to come through, and then there is this fear.
Ivar Goksøyr : Of becoming authentic and to letting this true. And then you have the resistances against it. And then the whole thing is about tilting this inner, uh, power balance between the, the forces that want to express and the forces that wants to, uh, suppress in favor of the expressive forces. [00:38:00] Um, so it’s really a, a way of thinking that I, that I, that I’m well aware of and, and trained in from beforehand and it fits really well.
Ivar Goksøyr : So, but yeah, um, to just say that, I mean, it is a bit complicated because in a way it is, it has a lot of truth in it. If you’re able to trust that whatever is coming up is something that you can handle, then this trusting and this. You know, my frame of mind is, is, is actually creating, uh, that reality, at least to a certain extent, but we must be, uh, mindful that this is not possible, uh, for many of us.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, and that, um, the risk of, you know, some kind of patient blaming, if you’re not able to, you know, heal from this, then it’s, uh, in a way your own fault or something like that is, but I, I must say I’ve never seen that as a problem in, you know, in the [00:39:00] therapies teams that we have here in Norway and throughout the training and the way MAPS has trained us.
Ivar Goksøyr : I mean, there is a lot of focus on that, uh, concept, but it, it’s not trained as some, you know, uh, I don’t know. In, I, I think it’s trained, trained in a quite wholesome way. That’s, that would be my perspective on it.
Joe Moore: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We do need to be really careful about how we talk about it and, um, I think it’s just such Yeah.
Joe Moore: An amazing thing. This is the first time in many years somebody brought up auto rank, so thank you for that. Oh,
Ivar Goksøyr : yeah, yeah. You know it, yeah.
Joe Moore: Major influence on Stan Groff and, uh, transpersonal psychology. Yeah. Yeah. Um, breath work as well. Yeah. I, I love that term of phrase, uh, the will to health. I think that’s great.
Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.
Ivar Goksøyr : Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Joe Moore: Um, yeah, and I’m, I’m with you. It’s just I see it in nature. Rabbits [00:40:00] will shake, dogs will shake sometimes to change state. We don’t really have that, you know, we could. Yeah. Um, but it’s, you know, I mean, kids
Ivar Goksøyr : in, in bomb rooms, kids are shaking, but the adults has learned to, uh, suppress it as part of their culture conditioning.
Joe Moore: Mm. Right. Yeah. So there’s just so much there. And, um, I think, say would, would you agree that psychology is just kind of like, generally speaking, institutional psychology is kind of like missing a number of core ideas that we kind of discussed in the past, but we haven’t figured out how to integrate those things?
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah, for sure. I mean, uh. You know, there are a lot of different groups, uh, also in kind of the established psychology, at least here in Scandinavia. And they’re really onto a lot of these things. Uh, some coming from humanistic psychology and emotional focus therapies. And I mean, there’s [00:41:00] also, so I would say there’s, in
Ivar Goksøyr : the,
Ivar Goksøyr : the, the cartoon variant of mental health care is of course very little developed, but at least here in Scandinavia, I think there’s a lot of good stuff coming up.
Ivar Goksøyr : So I, even though there are some differences, and you say, I mean, in the maps manual, it’s, you know, one of the, uh, the sayings there is, can, can what is coming up be worked as, as, um, uh, po possibly part of the healing process instead of being pathologized, for example. And I, I do think that in, in many acute words, that would be a good thing to integrate more.
Ivar Goksøyr : Of course. And also I, I believe that like, say. Uh, this, this the psychotherapeutic culture where you, you, you, you suppose that there is a problem and then you dig to find the problem and, and solve the problem. Then you, you, you run the risk of creating, uh, the problem in by this way of thinking. So to assume that, and this is also a good exercise [00:42:00] for life, to assume that nothing is actually wrong, you know, that this is, this is all happening for perfect, uh, reasons.
Ivar Goksøyr : And, you know, in this society we tend to individualize, uh, too much, you know, both our pride and our shame and, and you know, we’re quite, you know. We, we miss the big picture that, you know, we are part of a really, uh, big picture here, a big web of things. And our free will is probably much more, you know, constrained than we like to think, at least when we remain unconscious.
Ivar Goksøyr : So, you know, we are nature and patterns in nature expressing, and if I had had your genetic, you know, uh, uh, genetics and your, uh, learning history, I would’ve taken the exact same choices as you do in your life. And the same is true vice versa. So I really think it’s important to stop individualized and personalize and, and put so much blame [00:43:00] and guilt and, um, I mean, responsibility is important.
Ivar Goksøyr : It’s important to, to wake up and to try to be conscious. And, but at the same time, you know, could your life up until now have, uh, unfolded in any other way than it did? If not, uh, is there anything to blame? And then we tend to compare ourselves, you know, to, to others. And then that’s just nonsense. Mm-hmm.
Ivar Goksøyr : So, yeah. Yeah. Maybe deviating a little bit from your original question, but, so yes. I don’t want to, to, I wanna paint a, a too, you know, black or white picture of what is established. There’s a lot of good things going on, but for sure a lot of room for improvement in, in the way we think about things. And, uh, I do think psychedelic can be a, a positive, bring some positives there.
Ivar Goksøyr : And not to say the least to. Integrate, MDMA asso therapy in, in mental healthcare, but also in in somatic [00:44:00] medicine. Uh, for, for some, uh, disorders, I think will really enhance our understanding of how much unconscious emotional wounds are really, uh, at the core of so much of our symptoms and problems and diagnosis, both mentally and, and somatically.
Ivar Goksøyr : And, uh, so I really have big hopes, uh, for that. And, and I mean, back to the inner healing intelligence, I mean, uh, patients, they really, it makes sense for patients because that’s, this is what they experience my, I mean, some people say it’s people that haven’t taken the drug will not understand. You can read yourself like an open book that they really feel, wow, where did that come, come from?
Ivar Goksøyr : It’s so fascinating that you know, all this, all this inside you, this inner wisdom, this intuitive knowing. Uh, so, so to, to give that I think and also as therapists to, to. Be engaged and to be equipped to do that deep transformative work that most of us wants to do [00:45:00] and to, to see how much this inner intuitive wisdom is, is triggered when.
Ivar Goksøyr : A drug and a context is really putting inside you a lot of trust, uh, and, and compassion. And so when you have trust and compassion you, that that’s what we needed to enter truth that is normally painful. And you know, when you’re trustful, you’re not afraid. So when you’re not afraid, you don’t need to defend and you don’t need to defend, then you have access, uh, to your body and to the contents of your mind.
Ivar Goksøyr : Um, so, so that’s really, it’s empowering for the patients, but it’s also very empowering for therapists and, and to be able to step outta that expert role and, and to really learn from the individual cases and from this rapport of wisdom within each patient is really, really precious. And I, I think it will advance the field and the collective, uh, level of consciousness in mental health care.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, [00:46:00] for sure. Yeah.
Joe Moore: Yeah. And I don’t, I don’t mean to like put psychology in, in the psychiatric field in a bad light. It’s, it’s a problem to continue working on, um, if the paradigm stops yielding good results. Maybe we need to broaden the paradigm a little bit. Um, absolutely. Yeah. You know, for instance, like these psychedelic drugs are potentially some of the best drugs we’re adding to psychiatry since Prozac and Prozac.
Joe Moore: Wasn’t that amazing? It was. Okay. Yeah. But it wasn’t amazing. Yeah.
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah. Absolutely.
Joe Moore: No,
Ivar Goksøyr : I,
Joe Moore: I totally agree. Yeah. And you know, I, I think, um, it’s okay to critique our fields too. I know we’re fighting really hard to make our fields. Um. Defensible and seem respected and whatever, but like, we also, part of that dynamic, for me at least, is like [00:47:00] confronting, like where are we having limitations?
Ivar Goksøyr : Absolutely. And I think, uh, I mean the, the, the, the numbers are clear. Like there’s so many people that we’re not able to reach in mental health care now, so it’s perfectly legitimate to critique it. I just sometimes feel that, you know, to stay out of idealization and devaluation can be really important because devaluation of others, uh, just triggers and idealization of what you’re doing.
Ivar Goksøyr : It, it, it kind of invites devaluation and devaluating others is not something that makes people interested in what you have to, to offer. So to, to have a nuance approach on that. But for sure, I mean, there’s so many people we are not able to help. And, and why is that? And you knows. And we’re talking about, yeah, we know we need more money and more time with each patient, and that’s true.
Ivar Goksøyr : And we need more, you know, better implementation of what actually works already, evidence-based treatments, and that’s so true. Um, but then I also think [00:48:00] that we, we are talking too, a little about the enormous complexity of the task at hand. So that that’s also an a, a good reason why we were not able to reach more people.
Ivar Goksøyr : I mean, anybody that has helped try to help a fellow human being that is stuck in deep self-hate or, you know, lack this early re relational imprints of being lovable or safe in those critical periods growing up, how hard that is to, to change, you know, there, there’s certainly no pill you can give anybody, and there’s no procedure.
Ivar Goksøyr : You can, you know, uh, elicit, even though no matter how much the health bureaucrats would like, that there’s no package you can give people. It’s, it’s really hard. And, uh, the mind is complex. And while in somatic medicines you have all these tools, you know, you have, you can take pictures and take tests to know more about the ethology underneath, you know, the root causes of the symptoms on there.
Ivar Goksøyr : On the surface. Uh, and you can also have this robotic [00:49:00] arms that can do these tiny precise procedures behind all these layers of protective tissue. But in mental health, we, we lack these, um, ways to, to get this deeper picture and, and, and do these incisions deep inside with, with very much position. And I, I do think that psychedelics are technologies for mental health that will really, uh, advance, uh, or give us the possibility to, to advance our knowledge and to, to help so many more people.
Ivar Goksøyr : They don’t come without risks, and especially if not, you know, uh, applied within a, uh, a context as is knowledgeable about how the psyche works. Um, so, but with that, I, I really am hopeful. Right. I mean, you see, you, you can look at the, you know, what has happened with ketamine in the us It, it is, it’s not only pretty, I mean, I’m very happy for all the people that have been [00:50:00] helped by ketamine in the us but the way it’s prescribed and, you know, uh, with, without any context and container and, you know, I, I kind of fear I have some worries that similar things will, will be happening to, to other psychedelic drugs.
Ivar Goksøyr : So that’s something to be aware of for sure.
Joe Moore: And I, the way I frame that, Ivar is like, it’s part of us learning. Like we have to make mistakes before we can learn. Yeah. And what is the optimal container and mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and cost is obviously a big thing, right? So, and I, I kind of know what you’re talking about.
Joe Moore: Some people are talking about at-home, MDMA and, um, not long after at-home, ketamine has had, you know. I, I can’t say bad results yet, but there has been abuse for sure, and there has been sloppy prescription for sure, and people have been hurt. But you know, in medicine people will get hurt. Um, so we have to kind of like, you know, is the standard of care be would’ve been [00:51:00] better for them.
Joe Moore: And that’s a whole thing that we have to work out and science will help us understand it, I hope.
Ivar Goksøyr : Absolutely. I, I like that, that we’re still learning.
Joe Moore: Yeah. Like the idea that we’ve figured everything out just doesn’t work for me. Um, we’re too early. Science is still pretty young like. Double blind. Our cities are very young.
Ivar Goksøyr : I mean, yeah, 1962 or something, that it became the gold standard and, and yeah, psychologists, it’s, it is a very young discipline. And, and that’s what all those that we’re not able to reach, uh, those that our hearts still bleed for, they are, they are reminding us of that, that we are still a young discipline and that there are tons of things we still need to learn and, and psychedelics are, are learning enhancers, uh, done, uh, used in the, in the right way.
Ivar Goksøyr : So, uh, so we as a field can learn from that hopefully.
Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, so very optimistically, say five years out [00:52:00] from now, what might you hope is a little bit different as a result of the training that you’re putting on, and it’s coming up in about a month.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, well, so, uh, well, I, I, I really hope, I mean, we have 280 people trained and, and then I’ve done all the marketing myself, and now I’m getting the help of you, this platform, other platforms.
Ivar Goksøyr : And so to really reach thousands of, of, uh, participants in, in the next few years that will, and that this course will inspire them. To do ever more deeply inner healing work on themselves and be able to recognize so much more of the processes in patients because they’re not stocking their own anxieties and defenses.
Ivar Goksøyr : And because they have, uh, uh, walk similar paths themselves and have this increased ability to pattern recognition and to really connect and understand what they’re going through. Um, and that even though if they’re not working with psychedelics or MDMA at all, just that, that’s not a prerequisite at all for taking this course.[00:53:00]
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, that’s also part of the feedback. You know, even though if you don’t have much interest to, it’s a really good way to, to, to get some, um, depth knowledge on therapist development, uh, in itself and healing processes in general. So, yeah. So. For, for therapists to do their work. And I do believe there’s a lot of truth that you can’t bring anyone longer than you have brought yourself.
Ivar Goksøyr : However, luckily the patient can bring him or herself longer than you have, but then it will be despite of a, not because of. So yeah, that’s a goal. And also that’s amazing, uh, that, uh, this, uh, and pathogenesis therapist development study will be helped by this course to be funded and to be, uh, to have pioneered a new, uh, frontier in psychotherapist method, independent development, and have inspired, uh, many more [00:54:00] research groups to continue that endeavor, to use this learning enhancer together with a range of, of, of methods to really, really heal and help the, the,
Joe Moore: the healers.
Joe Moore: Yeah. So here’s, here’s something we didn’t get a chance yet, and we chatted about this before. Um, we recorded. Um, was this idea of MDMA being, um, at times more optimal for certain populations than tryptamines, like psilocybin? Um, could you speak a little bit about that?
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah, well, there’s a lot we don’t know yet, but my sense, uh, from my, uh, experience is that.
Ivar Goksøyr : Um, for integrating into mainstream psychiatry. I, I do believe that MDMA has a special potential because it is easier to work with. There will be less projective processes, there will be less dramatic, uh, traumas [00:55:00] coming up. It challenges our metaphysics to a lesser degree. Um, it requires some, I I, I wouldn’t say that it requires less competency at all, but it’s easier to combine with whatever you’re already doing.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, you know, MBMA just opens your heart and goes straight into your personal biography, and you can just, no matter what your method you’re trained in, NDMA will help you to see that these processes you’re, that you’re trying to elicit will just become deeper while classic psychedelics. Um, will be much more different, much more, uh, spiritual and much more symbolic.
Ivar Goksøyr : And it can be harder to, to integrate. Uh, and it can, uh, can, can may, it may be more messy and maybe more people will have more dramatic and difficult experiences and, and there will be a bigger chance for, for, for backlash. This being said, uh, classic psychedelics, this is not to speak down classic [00:56:00] psychedelics.
Ivar Goksøyr : They have been shown to be quite safe in a clinical setting. It is possible, uh, but we must remember that the clinical settings in the, in the research, you know, the research settings, they are really tight and, uh, the screening is really tight. So when we open up more, I think, uh, it, it, it requires more to get that right.
Ivar Goksøyr : The potential is huge and there are important, but it just requires more specialized knowledge, um, to, to handle. Uh, the fact that these, that those drugs, they don’t have any inherently anxiety regulating properties, making the takeoff and learnings more, more smooth, like MD Ma, uh, do have. So I think, uh, here in Norway we just implemented, we are in the process of implementing ketamine in the public mental health care.
Ivar Goksøyr : It was just approved. Um, and, um, and I think that’s a, a good place to start. And then [00:57:00] if MDMA follows, uh, and then, uh, classic psychics after that, I think that could be a good learning curve for the field to make this implementation as wise as possible for the betterment of well people. I, I really think, uh, psilocybin is exceptional.
Ivar Goksøyr : Uh, but, uh, you know, we’ll, we’ll see.
Joe Moore: Yeah, absolutely. Time, time will show. Um, yeah. And let’s be intellectually honest as long as we can about these things. And, um, yeah. Yeah. And
Ivar Goksøyr : yeah, it’s, I’m, I’m curious to know, you know, how it will, this is just my fantasies. I mean, and people have so many different views, so Yeah.
Ivar Goksøyr : I’m, I’m excited to see.
Joe Moore: Yeah. Amazing. Is there anything else that you’d like to mention before we work towards closing up? Maybe you can give the details of the training again.
Ivar Goksøyr : Yeah, so it’s coming up the 2nd of November and then the 9th of November. It’s two consecutive Sundays, [00:58:00] uh, three hours each online interactive, a lot of authentic clinical footage and, uh, you know, a little bit on the fundamentals and on the HandsOn aspects, but we don’t do use too much time on it, on it.
Ivar Goksøyr : And then we frame what we see, uh, within this concept of the wounded healer, and we do a scientific clinical and, uh, exploration of that archetype and, uh, encourage self-reflection and watching clips and, and processing what this, how this is, uh, for, for each of us. But the main thing is to, to really get to see a lot of end a assisted therapy in action framed within a container that, uh, uh, therapists, uh, tend to, uh, really be appreciative of.
Ivar Goksøyr : So, and, and I really enjoy doing that. And I, I, I will also say that I. You know, I, I don’t know. I’m not sure who the audience, uh, this live stream of podcast will be, but [00:59:00] I just think that, uh, each one of us that is somehow drawn to this field, we, we have this knowing that there is something important and yes, do not idealize.
Ivar Goksøyr : And there are all these limits and, and challenges in, in how to release the potential and avoid harm, but this inner knowing or feeling that we’re onto something important and that is really important to, um, to follow that, uh, inner knowing. And it’s really important that we mess it up as little as possible and that we really do our own work.
Ivar Goksøyr : That we educate ourselves in all the ways we possible can. Most of us also have this natural respect and maybe a little bit fearful for, you know, that I can certainly feel that every time I’m initiating someone, it’s hard to get an, a true informed consent, uh, but this certain trepid level of trepidation for entering these deeper realms.
Ivar Goksøyr : So I think we really need to be, uh, aware of the potential, but [01:00:00] also there’s responsibility and, and be really to believe in, I mean, to take seriously both this attraction we have towards the field. And I think each of us can have a special, unique contribution to the field. Uh, and also, uh, to take the, the responsibility that comes with engaging in this field.
Ivar Goksøyr : Seriously. So I, I hope to, to assist in, in those matters.
Joe Moore: Amazing. Thanks so much for joining us and sharing, and I hope people check out the program. Um, check out the blog we have coming up from var. There’s gonna be some good insight there as well. Um, and thank you so much. Let’s, um, conclude here and we’ll hang out backstage for a minute.
Ivar Goksøyr : Great. Yes.

October 3, 2025October 7, 2025

Kyle Buller & Joe Moore — Breathwork, Community, Creativity, and Fresh Psychedelic Research

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Joe and Kyle debrief a hometown Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork weekend in Breckenridge, then sketch the next chapter for Psychedelics Today: a community-centric model (Navigators) that bundles education, live streams, book and film clubs, and small-group access. They kick around the big “creativity + psychedelics” question, contrast subjective “I feel creative” with objective task performance, and highlight new research—from DMT’s potential in stroke recovery to breathwork’s measurable effects. They wrap with quick hits on MAPS leadership, state policy moves, and what’s coming up at PT this fall.

Highlights & takeaways

Breathwork > substance? A reminder that profound states are accessible without drugs; benefits of facilitating at home (rested facilitators = safer, better containers).
What is “shamanism,” really? A functional frame: non-ordinary states, interaction with the unseen, and service (healing/divination).
Community > one-off courses: PT is shifting toward a monthly membership model to keep prices accessible, deepen relationships, and sustain more free content.
Creativity debate: Double-blind study (DMT + harmine vs harmine vs placebo) suggests impaired convergent thinking despite increased felt creativity; how to define and measure “creativity” fairly, and other research outcomes might tell a different story.
Whitehead & novelty: A quick tour through Alfred North Whitehead’s notion of “creativity” as the principle of novelty—useful language for mapping psychedelic insight to real-world change.
Neuro + clinical frontiers:
- DMT for stroke (animal models): BBB stabilization and reduced neuroinflammation signal a promising adjunct to current care.
- Cluster headaches: Emerging reports on short-acting DMT for rapidly aborting cluster cycles; more data coming soon.
- Breathwork science: New imaging work associates music-supported hyperventilatory breathwork with blissful affect and shifts in blood flow.

News & culture mentioned

MAPS leadership: Betty Aldworth & Ismail (Izzy) Ali named permanent Co-Executive Directors.
Policy snapshots: Colorado Natural Medicine Board recommending ibogaine (with Nagoya-compliance requirement); Alaska signature gathering; Massachusetts activity.
Media & scene: Hamilton’s recent appearances; contamination concerns in some “psilocybin” products; “psychedelics tick far more neurons than expected” paper; mixed findings for postpartum depression.

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors or inaccuracies.

Joe Moore: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to psychedelics today, Joe and Kyle today. Kyle, how’s it going? Pretty

Kyle Buller: good, Joe. How

Joe Moore: are you doing? Lovely. Excited to do this again. This is two weeks in a row. We get to stream together. Yeah, yeah. Well

Kyle Buller: many

Joe Moore: more to come. Yeah, that’s great. Um, so today we’re gonna do some kind of, uh, analysis on some news articles.

Joe Moore: We’re also gonna talk about a launch. We’re kicking off some future classes and, um, just kind of like the direction of where we’re thinking right now for psychedelics today. So excited to do that with you. Yeah, likewise. So, um, let’s talk about this past weekend. Yeah. Breath work.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. We had a nice breath work week weekend up here in Breckenridge.

Kyle Buller: Um, yeah. Really lovely group of folks. Um, and as I think we were mentioning last time, just yeah, know, it’s always a pleasure to be able to share this work with, with people. Um, and I’m just [00:01:00] always, you know, I, we’ve been doing this for a while, right? And we’ve seen all sorts of different experiences unfold, but, um, I think I’m always just still surprised about like how powerful like breathwork is for folks, um, without a substance.

Kyle Buller: Um, and so it just always, you know, makes me excited that we have this within us and techniques to, uh, and practices to be able to go inward without always needing psychedelics.

Joe Moore: I was chatting with, um, man Singh about his book, um.

Kyle Buller: Shaman. Oh gosh.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Uh, the most timeless religion or something like that.

Joe Moore: Uh, throw up a copy of the, uh, cover of the book, um, on the live stream if anybody’s watching the video that Yeah. Shamanism, the Timeless Religion. Cool. And we were chatting a lot about how he thinks that the, the psychedelic, um, kind of like dominance in these narratives, um, around like religion only coming from psychedelics.

Joe Moore: Like perhaps [00:02:00] it’s the case that Sure. Plenty do, but it’s not necessarily the case that all of them do. Right. Like you and I have had plenty of experiences. Non-drug, there were quite extraordinary. Right?

Joe Moore: Yeah.

Joe Moore: Yeah, through

Kyle Buller: breath work, through meditation. My dreams are always very psychedelic and really interesting, um, drumming, right?

Kyle Buller: Like there’s just so many different ways, uh, to go inward and, and have these like connections with the numan and mystical. It doesn’t always necessarily need to be through chemical, uh, means. So

Joe Moore: yeah. And, um, one of his things, um, and I was really happy to chat with him about this, that the three kind of categories that make up shamanism being kind of a non-ordinary state, interactions with the unseen world, and then some sort of services like healing or divination and mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: And that’s just like, you know, a fascinating fundamental definition, um, for like, what is shamanism? And this is definitely [00:03:00] hotly debated, but that’s kind of what he landed on for his book and Right. I just love that.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Because it is an umbrella term, right? Like shaman shamanistic practices look different cross-culturally.

Kyle Buller: Um, but yeah, there’s, are those kind of like universals, like, you know, entering into trance states. Um, also, yeah, I think that service is a big portion. It’s like, why are you going in there? And then how are you bringing it back? I remember when I was chatting with my one teacher, um, years ago, he had a long talk with me about like service and community when doing this type of work.

Kyle Buller: It’s like, why are you doing this? Are you just doing this for yourself? Or are you doing it for the community that you’re in? And like, being of service. Um, and I think that’s also a really important point because we can kind of get caught up in the transcendence of the experiences and wanna just keep going back.

Kyle Buller: Right? And then it becomes a little self-indulgent, maybe a little bit of bypassing instead of yeah, bringing it forward to the community in a way, whatever way that is.

Joe Moore: Right. Um, and this concept [00:04:00] of the magic is already within us. Like the wonder is already within us is kind of like a concept that I love from breath work.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. And like, you know, we don’t necessarily need that magical plant or that magical person. You know, I’ve been kind of being a little shitty about this calling, like, you know, shamans like kind of interchangeably calling shamans magicians. Mm-hmm. To like kind of just say like, there’s not much difference, you know, and like sometimes diminutive, and I’m apologize if I’ve hurt anybody’s feelings here, but just trying to make a point that like you have this already in you and doesn’t necessarily require some powerful person with other worldly abilities to do it for you, with you.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Moore: Thus breath work.

Kyle Buller: And it’s interesting just thinking about like how like psychedelic ceremonies and plant medicine ceremonies have like shifted over the years and I wonder kind of like where we’re going as a culture when it comes to these like practices and [00:05:00] techniques, right? Like before it was the shaman, the medicine women, medicine man, um, you know, going into those realms, like having years of like, training.

Kyle Buller: Um, and maybe it’s the distinction between like. What is the shamanic role versus somebody just exploring consciousness on their own? You know, and, and maybe that’s something to, to like, you know, differentiate of like how somebody is like working with these states. Um, but yeah, now a lot of people have more access to it, right?

Kyle Buller: Like before it was like the shaman going into those trans states and bringing healing, or I always like Martine Tels, um, definition of a shaman. He’s like a spiritual lawyer trying to make contracts between this world and, and the spirit world. Um, and like just trying to figure out what’s going on. You know, traditionally that’s also kind of like how things were done and now, right?

Kyle Buller: We all have like our autonomy to, to go in there with these medicines and with practices and stuff like [00:06:00] that. But does that mean by just going in there, does that make everybody a shaman? Um, and I think that’s a interesting question,

Joe Moore: right? Like there’s. I think, I think the term is useful in some ways and not useful in other ways.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Um, and we kind of got into that and it’s a really fun thing and I advise everybody to listen to that podcast. It’s really great. I’m excited to dig into it. Yeah. Hopefully next week if I can get it together. Um, but it’s really, really great and I’m excited about the book and I think even, uh, somebody in kind of the psychedelic press UK orbit wrote a review.

Joe Moore: Um, so if you don’t have time for the book, you could check out the review. I think it might have been Mike J who I love his work. Um, masculine book, right? Yeah. Masculine. So many others too. Um, I’m negligent. I need to catch up on his stuff too. So, um, I could say that for the rest of my life, I guess endless.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Which I’m thankful for. But yeah, breath work. It was so good. It was [00:07:00] so good to just be with people again here in our hometown so we, you know, don’t have to travel super far to do it. We have people come to a really beautiful place. Um, we well rested, you know, having to be in our, you know, our own bed.

Joe Moore: This is amazing. And then, you know, we show up really fresh and people can kind of explore nature here. Just gorgeous woods and mountains and kind of at the peak of autumn too, this past weekend.

Kyle Buller: It’s definitely peak foliage season, which is nice. Um, and yeah, it, it has been really nice kind of doing this like in the hometown versus, you know, I’ve been on the road like for the past like two years, well, I guess the past year I’ve been a little bit more settled.

Kyle Buller: But yeah, running retreats all over the place, doing stuff in like, you know, all sorts of different parts of the world. Um. Not sleeping in my own bed, you know, getting, I got really good at sleeping in hotel rooms and other people’s beds. I was like, oh man, this feels like a skill that I can finally get like a good night rest somewhere else.

Kyle Buller: But, [00:08:00] um, yeah, it just felt a lot different to be able to do that, like in your home versus having like travel and do all that stuff and be a little ungrounded at times or dealing with time zone differences and all that stuff. Yeah,

Joe Moore: right. It’s, um, it is really something and there’s, there’s pretty good data that if you’re not sleeping in your own bed, you’re kind of putting yourself at risk, um mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Over time, right? Like, it takes one or two or three days to, to kind of get to that kind of safety. It’s kind of like a natural survival response. So anyway, like when facilitators can show up rested, um, I think it really contributes to the, to the safety and the overall feel of it. So thanks for everybody that showed up for letting us do it that way.

Kyle Buller: Yep.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, so I think, um, we’ll have some more dates in the near term. I think this time of year is a little tough for people to commit to. Um, but hopefully [00:09:00] we can do some in the winter and hopefully we can do some in the spring, maybe even in Denver. So stay tuned, everybody, if you want to do that kind of work with us.

Joe Moore: Um, and yeah, maybe, uh, anything else here or maybe we can pivot to the new project we wanna chat about.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, we can pivot.

Joe Moore: Cool. So we’ve largely funded psychedelics today through education, um, to date. And, um, the, the world is changing. How people want to educate themselves is, you know, always shifting. And as a result, we want to keep delivering amazing stuff to you all out there and keep being of service to the community to the best of our ability.

Joe Moore: And what we’ve landed on in part is. An online community, different tiers and monthly fees, and trying to figure out how to move most or all of our education over into this kind of monthly model, which I think could be really interesting. So folks don’t [00:10:00] necessarily have to show up and pay, you know, 200 $800 for individual trainings, which are, you know, high value.

Joe Moore: We’re trying to be as competitive in the marketplace of education as we can be, and often case we underprice ourselves. So, you know, I think. Just people are more accustomed to let me add this subscription on. Maybe I can just join for two, three months and, and bail. Which we hope you stay around. But you know, that’s always an option too.

Joe Moore: And, um, you know, how can we also develop community? Because I think what we saw in vital and navigating psychedelics and our whole breath work, um, careers is the value of community. Even if temporary community is amazing and mm-hmm. Having people with shared experiences on the same platform, maybe we got to know each other in person here or there.

Joe Moore: Like that really adds things to the, to the stock. Anything you want to add here about the why?

Kyle Buller: Well, the community piece, I think is the, [00:11:00] the big piece. And I think just to echo what you said about like, you know, what we’ve learned in vital, it’s like. That has felt just so amazing to get to know people, to like build a community, have people like, you know, participate in, in different ways, whether it’s coming back and like giving presentations or helping, you know, do some teaching and, and supporting that way.

Kyle Buller: And, um, yeah, I think we all crave it too, um, like finding like-minded others to be part of this path. Um, and so, you know, I think that’s another reason why we wanna do it. You know, we wanna connect with you guys too, right? Like, we wanna be able to create this community to be able to connect, hear what you guys are interested in, um, and also help to hopefully provide value through, you know, doing more of these live streams for you.

Kyle Buller: Um, you know, education, all that stuff. So, yeah. Yeah,

Joe Moore: I was thinking about, like, one of, one of my favorite ever conversations is a, a dear friend who’s a classist and, um, knows a lot about the Mediterranean and then another guy, mutual [00:12:00] friend. Now, um, there’s like a world class. Expert on the Mongols. We just hang out, hung out at dinner, chatting about, like, speculating about, you know, ancient drug trade, ancient, like, kind of pre silk road drug trade.

Joe Moore: And it was just fascinating. Um, and one of my favorite things and, and the idea is that when we get together with people in the psychedelic space, often we have overlapping funny interests that we don’t really get to get into in our day to day. Mm-hmm. Like can’t really talk to the. The banker or the grocery store person about this stuff.

Joe Moore: But, you know, niche interests really feed our soul, right? Mm-hmm. Like that’s why like the Star Trek conventions have such a big, you know, fan base and they’ve grown forever. And same with psychedelic conferences. Like people go ’cause they wanna talk to the other people. Um,

Kyle Buller: yeah, and like, just like what kind of friendships and connections come outta that?

Kyle Buller: Like I think about like, yeah, the connections we’ve experienced in Vital or the students have experienced among one [00:13:00] another, and it’s like, you know, we haven’t, I guess, necessarily been doing that for our general PT audience, um, because we’ve been just so focused on vital, um, and continuing to be, but wanting to expand that.

Kyle Buller: And yeah, just seeing a lot of the connections like Blossom out of that. It’s like always really nice to see people from like cohort one still mix and mingling or like thinking about, um, the pizza party that we had at Psychedelic Science, like, you know, we have like 50 plus people there. It was like really beautiful just to see people come together.

Kyle Buller: Um, the friend and again, the friendships, the collaborations, like everything that’s kind of like blossomed out of that and it’s like, yeah, how do we bring that to the larger audience for you that, you know. You’re not gonna sign up for vital, right? It might be a big investment. It might be, you know, time that’s not your path.

Kyle Buller: Um, but you still wanna connect with others, right? You still wanna like meet other people, make friends those connections, chat about stuff. So, you know, we’re depending on, uh, doing yeah, more of these live streams q and as. Um, depending on the tiers, open [00:14:00] office book clubs, um, we’ve always had a really great time running those book clubs in Vital, so it’s like, yeah, let’s do it for the, the larger, uh, PT audience as well.

Kyle Buller: Um, yeah, and then, yeah, some of those top tiers, you get small group access, maybe one-on-one calls with us. So,

Joe Moore: yeah. And I’m excited to bring film, film, clubs and certain levels of art to the table. So, um, getting kind of behind the scenes conversations with psychedelic artists and, and sending some of the tears.

Joe Moore: Art. Um, I also love the idea of, um, figuring out together how we actually want to discuss psychedelic film, like documentaries and then literal like. Films that are heavily influenced by psychedelics. I’ll say two off the cuff that I want to include, like Blueberry, which had an alternative. Yeah, I forget the name.

Joe Moore: I forget the other name. And then there was a, I forget it

Joe Moore: too.

Joe Moore: Um, like everything by Jurowski, obviously, but then, uh, come on, enter, enter the Void. Have you seen that one? [00:15:00]

Kyle Buller: That was big during my college years and everybody was like talking about it ’cause of the crazy DMT scenes and stuff like that. Yeah, that one’s really wild.

Joe Moore: Yeah, that’s, uh, you gotta buckle up for that one. I, I came in cold to a friend’s house, like right around the time it came out and I was like very stressed out, but gripped the whole time too. Mm-hmm. Um, thankfully only seen it once, but yeah, there’s so many films coming out. There’s so much art coming out.

Joe Moore: There’s so much room for us to get together and talk about niche things, um, and help. Co evolve and co-create the future of psychedelic. You know, that’s, I think the name of the game here. Somebody asked me yesterday, like, what is the future of psychedelic community? And it’s like, oh God, you know, like I should have some special insight on this.

Joe Moore: And I don’t know, but I, but I think it’s people finding friends, finding really deep connection and then developing community around that if you can. Mm-hmm. Um, and it’s not necessarily like there’s gonna be [00:16:00] one big psychedelic community that everybody gets along. I don’t necessarily know. No,

Kyle Buller: you need, you need your diversity of community, right?

Kyle Buller: Whether it’s this like larger online community, your local community, different interests. Like, I just think about like, yeah, the different communities I’ve been part of. Like some, some of ’em are just radically different than psychedelics, right? Like, and I think that’s healthy.

Joe Moore: Yeah, absolutely. So in time, I hope that we can really, you know, get a number of folks in here.

Joe Moore: And this can be how psychedelics today can support you, support, you know, community can support us. And, you know, this is our job, this is what we do full-time, and we want to keep educating as much as possible and putting out as much free stuff as possible and cheap stuff as possible. Because, um, that’s really been our core, like 90 plus percent of what everything we’ve done has been free.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, yeah. And we love that. It’s just like we, I think we just want to keep doing that. But yeah, it’s [00:17:00] also very unsustainable to just give things away for free all the time.

Joe Moore: So if you support that idea, support us and we can hopefully keep, um, keep that going and also do more and eventually build team and, and keep, um, putting more and more out because there’s so much left to discuss here.

Joe Moore: So much left on the table for us to get into for, you know, the whole thing. Like how do we do this safe and safely and legally? What is, what even is safety? Um, what are the actual legal risks? Um, how can we operate in different countries? You know, is that the right move? Um mm-hmm. And what even does like a really, really safe personal practice look like that, you know, if you don’t have the, um, the privilege of doing it in community, what can you do privately?

Joe Moore: And then how do you build community that’s like, there’s so many things. Like what other kind of topics do you think would be useful for folks for us to like, to get into and develop?

Kyle Buller: Um, within like what we’re [00:18:00] doing,

Joe Moore: psychia generally stuff that we can support.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Um, yeah, there is so much, right? Like this is such a multifaceted field.

Kyle Buller: Um, my mind, it always kind of goes towards, I think we’re chatting about this last week, just like the whole technology development. And I think. You know, that is reason to be, I think, more connected. You know, I keep reading all these like studies about like our disconnection from nature, how alienated people are.

Kyle Buller: And I think, you know, that’s one big lesson I’ve taken away from psychedelics, right? It’s like, you know, being able to connect with nature, connect with others, everything’s like interconnected and you know, we are at this like convergence point, um, with like, you know, society, humanity, with like, you know, the way things are going, the technology.

Kyle Buller: It’s like also how does psychedelics help navigate us through that? Um, like is it a grounding rod at times or helps us to like, give some insight? Um, you know, I was just thinking, um. No, I brought this [00:19:00] up last week, but kind of digging back into like all Terrence McKenna stuff again. Um, he just kind of keeps popping online and the stuff he was talking about, you know, like back then, uh, it’s kind of where we’re at now.

Kyle Buller: Um, what he was talking about with like the internet and like computers and artificial intelligence and just like, man, yeah, he was talking about this stuff in the nineties and like, you know, how did psychedelics also impact that, you know, for him? Like, did they kind of like help him develop these ideas, think about it differently?

Kyle Buller: Um,

Joe Moore: mm-hmm. Yeah. So what was, what were some of the lines? Uh, computers of the future will be drugs and drugs of the future will be computers, is another McKenna lion around this. And you know, I guess let’s talk about that, like this idea of grounding and like in what ways, and this is kind of speculative and kind of going on a little tangent, but like in what ways can psychedelics actually be that grounding rod?

Joe Moore: Like, and then in what ways can they be kind of like the. Um, instigator for, [00:20:00] um, flights away from Nature.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. I think about this like, and I think this is something I’ve struggled with, um, and maybe Terrance also struggled with it too, with like maybe some of his experiences where my previous ex like experiences, I’d have these like deeply kind of like technological type of experiences.

Kyle Buller: Like, you know, Terrence talked about like the machine world, right? And it’s like you could see the future in which if we continue to develop that stuff, maybe that’s where we’re heading to. But then also at the other side, it’s like. Wow. The more, like, I hate looking at my phone on psychedelics, you know?

Kyle Buller: I’m like, I want to be so far away from that thing. It feels like, I don’t know, it just feels like it sucks a soul out of me. Um, and, you know, just staring at a screen. And so that helps me just to ground in nature more, helps me to like, think about my relationship, um, to technology and like, you know, where do I wanna spend my energy?

Kyle Buller: Um, but it’s also interesting right now that, you know, [00:21:00] this is how humans communicate, right? Like we communicate largely online in text, um, through, you know, these types of means. Um, and yeah, I think it’s something to consider, you know, because yeah. And some of this research that’s coming out around just like the loneliness epidemic and or disconnection to nature, and, you know.

Kyle Buller: I keep hearing all these folks talking about like, um, how human experience might be a job, um, in the future. Like paying somebody to go on a walk. You know, I hear Gary v talk about that sometimes, and I’m just like, yeah, are we gonna be so hooked in where it’s like we are looking for like human connection and we’ll be willing to pay for that in a way.

Kyle Buller: Um, and to me that’s kind of sad, but I don’t know.

Joe Moore: I remember how, um, kind of appalled people are when I, when I show them like the app job simulator or, which is just amazing. But the concept is just, [00:22:00] you know, something similar to that. It’s like robots wanting to like, experience what human life was like.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Um, and like, you know, it’s a jokey app, but there’s some truth there. Um, and that’s, that’s interesting. I wonder, I don’t, that’s a little too futuristic for me for right now, right? That that whole concept of paying somebody to go for a walk, but. You know, I shit like I, stuff stuff is getting stranger with AI and, and robotics and I don’t, I don’t understand what’s gonna happen.

Joe Moore: I think that, I don’t think any of

Kyle Buller: us do. I, I think even the people that like have invented it Yeah. Are kind of like confused about like where it’s going.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Yeah. So like how do we, how do we kind of just get grounded in ourselves, in nature, in our community and, you know, build the things we wanna build, whatever that is.

Joe Moore: You know, I remember there was kind of like this weird, uh, yet again, Margaret Atwood kind of apocalyptic trilogy called [00:23:00] ORs and Craig. And there were these kind of like post-apocalyptic survivors called God’s Gardeners and they made a whole cult of, um, you know, kind of permaculture survival, but kind of like biotechnology and like, um.

Joe Moore: They, all the Saints days were like, you know, Darwin Day, Gregory, Mendel, like so many different like big biologists, you know, like who’s to say we can’t develop those cultures and like create culture around that. Um, and you know, get really smart. Like, ’cause I think really we need to become really smart and we don’t, it’s smarter than we are and we need it to not be only from ai.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. I might be a, a, a nice segue into the creativity piece, right? ’cause we’re kind of touching on like creativity and intelligence, um, and all of our conversations in the past, how psychedelics can help like spark creativity. And I know like, yeah, you’ve mentioned it quite a, a you know, we’re dealing with these problems where we need creative [00:24:00] solutions.

Kyle Buller: Um, and like, how do we develop more creative solutions? Um, you know, is it gonna be just like. It’s funny. Yeah. Your, your, your comment the other day, contacting the Oracle, um, you know, contacting like GPT, um, you know, ’cause I feel like a lot of us use it, right? Just for like, creative endeavors, like asking questions and stuff like that, you know, or, you know, are we kind of, uh, moving past some of our uniqueness of being human, uh, with that creativity and, and how do we spark that if we get too reliant, um, on, on that?

Kyle Buller: And, you know, I think what, there has been some research coming out of like MIT around, um, like some cognitive decline or creative decline when you become too reliant on it. Um mm-hmm. That was creepy,

Joe Moore: right?

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Joe Moore: Um, yeah. Before we go too deep into this, just if people wanna check out what we’re doing with our community, psychedelics today.com/navigators, we’re gonna talk about it a few more times though.

Joe Moore: So [00:25:00] Yeah. Like, historically in the psychedelic arena. The, the stuff out of, um, Fatman and Harmon’s work, um, back in Palo Alto, uh, Harmon was kind of the lead on that. The idea was that they would get together people who are stuck on creative problems for, um, what was it, at least six months, maybe a year and a half.

Joe Moore: And then they would, you know, have a really tight container about, um, administering psychedelics to, to help them solve those problems. And, um, people would come out and solve the problems. And so that, that is kind of like the historical thing and they had a lot of success there. Um, and then, um, we’re, we’re seeing Center for Minds kind of pick this up and try to like figure out the fundamental neurological stuff.

Joe Moore: Like what is creativity in a really, really micro, um, neurological context. It’s kind of how I’m seeing it. Like okay, [00:26:00] and that, so we need to understand what that is and then we can see if psychedelics. M interact with that thing. Um, but creatives kind of, you know, schools of design kind of have their own metrics already that the, that Center for Minds isn’t necessarily interacting with yet.

Joe Moore: So I think that’s kind of an interesting opportunity. Um, all right. And then, so today we’re gonna talk about this study. Um. Let’s pull that up. I’m gonna try to put it on screen, Kyle. Yeah. But what, what did you, can you kind of set the stage, like describing this study?

Kyle Buller: Yeah. So there was a study that, um, was just published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, which starts to kind of challenge this widespread assumption that psychedelics enhance creativity.

Kyle Buller: And so they did a doubleblind randomized design study. Um, and, but they used kind of like a pharmac was, uh, so it was a DMT plus harmine, um, which was against Harmine alone. And the placebo conditions. Um, and some [00:27:00] of the things that they found out was that it necessarily may have not increased certain types of thinking and creative, uh, processes, uh, that like, you know, maybe we think that is happening, um, during the experience.

Kyle Buller: And I thought that was like pretty interesting to, to read. And again, you know, the, some of the limitations there was like all white, uh, men participating in the study. Um, you know, generally a small sample size. Um, but, and you know, uh, the kind of like the Woca mix, like, you know, is that, you know, I mean Fatman was what Exploring LSD, right?

Kyle Buller: Right. So it’s like you didn’t wanna test some of these other substances here. Um, but um,

Joe Moore: did you catch what school they were at? Oh, Dresden interesting. Um, and then Zurich. Yeah. So, you know, like, I think. In support of the research. Like we have to have baselines like this. You [00:28:00] know, we have to have kind of like, yeah.

Joe Moore: Doesn’t look right. Doesn’t look like we’re gonna do this. And I, I remember Robin Carhartt Harris saying a few years ago, some things along the lines of like, do you really want to be consuming psychedelics before you do x, y, Z tasks? And he is like, based on my data a little bit above microdosing isn’t necessarily gonna be helpful for a lot of things.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Um, and I think, I think that’s kind of a little bit clearer in the data now, but also this is, you know, how do, how do you make a creative breakthrough? And I think this is kind of like setting the stage for us to like develop this as a field, right?

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Yep.

Joe Moore: So they did the DMC in harmony and pharma was thing and Yeah.

Joe Moore: That’s interesting.

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Joe Moore: Macro level, divergent and convergent thinking and. Macro level creative process dynamics. Yeah. Be interesting to have these folks on to talk about it.

Kyle Buller: I think we should. Yeah. Because Right. That’s [00:29:00] been a lot of like our talk track too, like talking about like the creative aspect.

Kyle Buller: Um, again, you know, it’s like a small sample size. Um, but I did find it interesting Yeah. That like, um, I think the study’s results revealed disconnection between subjective experience and objective performance. So while the participants reported feeling more creative and insightful under the influence, uh, their actual performance on creativity, uh, told a different story.

Kyle Buller: Um, so that’s interesting. Right? It’s like, I think, um, Terrance McKen of talked about how psychedelics like foster funny ideas and Right. I think like when we’re in those experiences, like some of those ideas feel really creative and genius, but then it’s also, you know, how many of them. Are actually really great ideas.

Kyle Buller: Um, and can you actually maybe also move those ideas forward? Um, does it also sound like yeah, there was impaired problem solving? So it, uh, significantly impaired convergent thinking, making participants [00:30:00] worse at structured problem solving tasks, which is like interesting compared to like the Fatman stuff, right?

Kyle Buller: Because it’s like you had somebody, you know, you had these scientists that like, um, were really kind of struggling with problem solving and then being able to kind of dig in. And it also kind of challenges the narrative that we all hear too about, um, you know, Steve Jobs, um, you know, Francis Crick, Carrie Mulli, and all these folks that have like, made these creative breakthroughs.

Kyle Buller: Um, you know, and them talking about how impactful their psychedelic experiences were, um, for some of those creative insights.

Joe Moore: Right. So I think, yeah, I think we owe it to, to ourselves and our community to really dig into that one a little bit more. And, um, I’ve always wanted to, I think this is something that we’re kind of really uniquely positioned to chat about.

Joe Moore: So let’s, let’s see what we can do.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, I don’t know. Have you feel like you’ve been really [00:31:00] creative, like on psychedelics? Um, where it’s like been useful? I wanna say yes for me, but

Joe Moore: like, it depends on our definition of creative. Well, maybe that’s an

Kyle Buller: issue too, with the study too. It’s like, how are we defining that?

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Do you remember a Whitehead’s definition of creativity?

Kyle Buller: Um, I could pull it up really quick. Um, um,

Joe Moore: uh, so here we go. In his categorical scheme, in process and reality, Whitehead explicitly states creativity is the ultimate behind all forms, inexplicable by forms and conditioned by its creatures, uh, a k the individual actual entity.

Joe Moore: So there’s a lot there that’s like probably not too easy to understand. Um, but it’s kind of like, uh, hinting at potential is what I [00:32:00] see. And like, how do we actually kind of, um, understand that there’s so many potentialities before they’re actual right? And by when we start making decisions, we kinda like collapse that tree of potentiality.

Joe Moore: And, and, and the tree of potentiality kind of keeps going in kind of big, eh, nearly infinite ways. Um, but what did, what did you find here?

Kyle Buller: I was just pulling something up, um, that I posted on our vital community actually, um, because we were talking about creativity, um, and psychedelics. Um, somebody, uh, did a presentation on kind of like, uh, creativity and flow and psychedelics, and it was really interesting.

Kyle Buller: I pulled up, I started researching creativity, and then I started finding all this stuff that like, um, Whitehead might have been, uh, you know, the c. Like the person that kind of like coined that term. I thought that was fascinating. I was like, [00:33:00] what? Um, right. But, but, uh, this is from Michael Hay, Hal Hay words, woods.

Kyle Buller: Sorry, I’m totally butchering your name. Michael. Um, so he wrote, uh, Whitehead’s development of the word creativity. Uh, namely that he coined this very term, uh, this bearing, repeating prior, uh, to his use of the word creativity and religion in the making in 1926. Uh, this word was not, uh, extent in the English language.

Kyle Buller: Creativity is a term of Whitehead’s own devising in 1925 in science in the modern world, and a year or so before his first use of creativity. He instead used the term creativeness, um, but not on, but only really in 1929 in process and reality, um, that he fully adopted the term creativity, um, as best expressing the mode, um, character and ubiquity of the role of novelty within existence.

Kyle Buller: [00:34:00] Um, so that’s interesting. Expressing the mode, character and ubiquity of the role of novelty within existence and its notion of novelty, which is key. Creativity is the principle of novelty, an actual occasion of novel entity, diverse from any entity in the many which unifies. Thus, creativity introduces novelty into the content of the many, which are the universe.

Kyle Buller: Uh, destructively. The creative advanced is the application of this ultimate principle of creativity to each novel situation. It originates.

Joe Moore: Makes me Whitehead

Kyle Buller: terminology and all that stuff

Joe Moore: makes me think about McKenna, who didn’t necessarily get Whitehead from what I understand. But I think like this idea of novelty generation, I think there’s, I think there’s a lot there.

Joe Moore: And I think like if we go really far out, we can get some really big ideas. And this is kind of like some of the [00:35:00] terminology we’ve been using lately, right? It’s like the medium-sized ideas of what we really wanna bring back. Not something that’s so radical that we’re never going to understand what’s happening, but something that’s radical enough that it could help the community, um, and be implemented.

Joe Moore: And, um, yeah, I think like everything else always needs to be like contextually, contextually appropriate, right? Like introducing ideas that would be amazing for like the 13 hundreds and x, y, z region of the world doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the case here now,

Kyle Buller: right? Yeah.

Joe Moore: Thus novelty and creativity.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. I mean, I feel like psychedelics definitely. I don’t, well I guess it’s also a bias objective perspective. Like, you know, it does create like novelty, you know? I feel like the psychedelic experience is very novel in so many different ways. Um, but I don’t know. Yeah. I’m cool. I’m interested to see if anybody else like, picks up this research and kind of [00:36:00] starts to like maybe do a larger sample size, um, maybe more reliable tests and stuff like that.

Kyle Buller: ’cause you’re right, I think it’s also, yeah. How are we defining creativity? How are we defining all this stuff as well? Um, is it also the outcome, you know, like maybe, um, you know, some of our thinking and structure isn’t really great during it, but like also doing some like long-term follow-up, right? Like maybe somebody had an idea wasn’t fully formed, but, you know, a year or two later.

Kyle Buller: Did that, you know, come into, into being in a way? Um,

Joe Moore: yeah, absolutely. I think there’s so much there. Um, and, you know, so much room for improvement in science, just generally, like, I want to see more science, I want science to be radically well funded, and I wanna see people competing for ideas and competing for who’s right.

Joe Moore: And it’s kind of like one of the fun, more fun parts about it. Um, I think I’ve been frustrated about lately, Kyle, is this idea of like, um, and I don’t know how to solve this, um, but we [00:37:00] saw, um, we see people kind of creating the same data sets and they want like, really uniform and, and they’re only using it for like one trial, right?

Joe Moore: Like, um, I was reading some on autism recently and eventually autism researchers actually had like a standard set of ways of surveying people. Then they just shared all the data and they shared this giant data pool so that they could actually mine for all sorts of insights on this giant global situation.

Joe Moore: And like, how could we develop some sort of collaborative process to make science, you know, more science come out more regularly, um, at lower cost to everybody. And I, I don’t know, like I’m, I’m kind of like dreaming pie in the sky, but it has happened elsewhere is kind of the point. And I think maybe when, when, when we were kind of like deep in the, uh, early phases of the COVID situation, we had [00:38:00] similar collaboration.

Joe Moore: Right. Hyper funding from different governments, right?

Kyle Buller: Yeah.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, so we’ll see. We’ll see. Maybe we can do that. Um, so let’s talk about this other one. This one’s really fun. Um, strokes. What did, what did you learn about this stroke problem?

Kyle Buller: Yeah, this was really interesting and so there’s some studies done around using DMT, uh, to, um, and this is mostly in animal models, in, in mice so far.

Kyle Buller: Um, but how it could actually help, um, post-stroke, um, so like with inflammation and, and stuff like that. Uh, and which is like really interesting ’cause I actually chatted with somebody a while ago, um, where they were talking, I think they had a mild stroke and they started actually using mushrooms, um, to help out with, with the symptoms there.

Kyle Buller: Um, [00:39:00] so yeah, uh, some of this research where this, uh. Uh, yeah. Uh, it was published in the Science Advances. Um, and here in this article it says, the results market significant step towards, uh, a, a step forward in stroke research as current, uh, treatment options for stroke remain limited. So, researchers found that DMT offers a dual mechanism of action.

Kyle Buller: It protects the blood brain barrier and reduces inflammation in the brain, um, suggesting that it could complement existing therapies, um, or form the basis of new, more comprehensive treatments. Um, so yeah, that’s, that’s really fascinating,

Joe Moore: right? Like, um, I think there is a pharma company working on this. I think they’re called, uh, Algernon Pharmaceuticals, right?

Joe Moore: Um, and I, I don’t know really anything about their status, um, but I’m, I’m just like glad it’s happening. Uh, and then. Where, where was this study happening? I [00:40:00] didn’t really recognize any of these names. Oh. At savo. So maybe this is, Hmm. I’m gonna, I’m gonna actually share this article on the screen so people can follow along.

Joe Moore: Um, yeah, it’s just really exciting to see that we’re, we’re not just, um, exclusively keeping, um, science in like this kind of couch based model, a couch therapy based model, sorry. Um, that there’s like broader horizons. And that’s really, I think, a, a thing that you and I have been excited about for ages.

Joe Moore: Right. It’s, um, yeah. You know, really great to see that it’s not just psychotherapy.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. Right. There could be so many more like implications. And I’m glad like you’ve been getting loud about at court also too about like all the pain stuff and more of like physical implications with psychedelics here, um, than [00:41:00] just versus like the psychotherapy oriented approach.

Kyle Buller: Um, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I just, I just think about like, um, you know, my uncle had two strokes and he actually I think went for stem cell therapy over in Germany years ago. Um, and just thinking like, yeah, could this be helpful? Um, and it’s kind of interesting to think about, yeah, psychedelics being, um, an application for, you know, post-stroke recovery, if it’s possible, you know, I know this is still early in animal models, but,

Joe Moore: right.

Joe Moore: Um, in this, in this stuff, I, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Algernon people are actually administering it to humans at this point. But this is a different set of research that’s happening. Um, yeah. Not like I understand any of these charts at all, but, um, you know, that’s why people have scientific training and we can talk about it.

Joe Moore: Um, yeah, so I think, um. [00:42:00] Just really excited about this. Stroke is really scary. Stroke is really common. Stan Groff had a stroke. I actually wonder if his recovery was aided by his kind of history with psychedelics. Hmm. Um, yeah, I think at a certain point folks, uh, say like, you know, after 80 they’re like, I don’t know how many more times I need to do this.

Joe Moore: Um, right. You know, I have suspicions about Albert Hoffman, but, um, who knows? Um, yeah, and I, you know, I, I, the, the diseases I make jokes, like dark jokes about me getting in the future is like cancer and stroke. So just like really happy we’re looking at it here and I think, I think there could be some interesting, um, interesting, uh, things for different cardiac events.

Joe Moore: Just seeing how, like, this is kind of. Laid out, like, um, [00:43:00] uh, maybe I think that’s a little too speculative. But yeah, I’m just, you know, happy to see this is happening. Um, I love how rigorous this paper looks. Um, it looks like it’s really contributing substantially. So, thank you authors. Thank you for the whole team that did this.

Joe Moore: Oh, look at this. So there is a little bit of a tie here to Algernon. Okay. Um, company had no role in the design of the study. Um, EF and zn, I don’t, um, we’d have to look up top to see who those are, but we. But there’s only two of the total authors had like a stake in or advisors for Algernon. It probably means they’re paid cash and or have like stock or something like that.

Kyle Buller: Algin. Are they also like working with five MEO or they just strictly DMT. Oh, I thought I saw

Joe Moore: some stuff about like, these folks never gave us money. Everybody. Um, we’re just looking it up. ’cause like this is somebody that, uh, so they’re [00:44:00] looking at Alzheimer’s, which is great. Um, their pipeline looks like they’ve got two drugs.

Joe Moore: They’ve got a DMT here. Um, you know, obviously, I don’t know, like these, these code names are just like, what, what biotechs do? AP 180 8, right? Like, what are you talking about? I think that’s just how they make patents so they can like get investors, um, yeah. To do this stuff. But it looks like they’re doing just straight up dimethyl tryptamine and end dimethyl tryptamine.

Joe Moore: Um, and then let’s see what this other drug is. Um, chronic kidney disease, so they’re doing something with kidneys, um, that doesn’t appear to be anything we know about. So, um, yeah, excited to see, um, see how they’re, how they’re looking. I think, I don’t know. Like I, I pretty sure they’re in people. Yeah. See phase one.

Joe Moore: So they’re already in people. Um, they’re about to, looks like phase two starting soon, which is wild. Um, [00:45:00] cool. So that’ll be in more people. I always think the consent conversation here around stuff like this is fascinating. Like, how are you actually getting stroke victims consent if they’re unconscious?

Joe Moore: And I, I think, um, you know, after a stroke you could be really impaired, so how are you, how are you doing that? So I’m sure they’ve worked that out. I would love to chat with them to see how they’re doing that.

Kyle Buller: Yeah. I imagine they’re probably working with people that are able to give consent, but who knows,

Joe Moore: right?

Joe Moore: It could be families, right. Right. Um, but who knows? We’ll learn more in the, in the future, and this is pretty good news. Um, maps decided to finalize their executive team. So the board of directors, I think, um, named Betty Aldworth and Izzy Ali, co-executive directors, they’re no longer interim co-executive directors.

Joe Moore: This is a permanent thing for them. That’s great. Um, I, I remember a while ago, um, when they were both just, um, interim, I was like, [00:46:00] I don’t, I don’t know who they could put in that would make me feel really good about maps. Mm-hmm. Other than Izzy, um, like, because I didn’t think they were gonna keep the, uh, co-ed thing.

Joe Moore: I always thought they were gonna go for one. Right. But I was, I was chatting with Betty, who I, I really appreciate, so smart, so passionate. Been at this for so long, this drug policy thing forever and ever. Um, chatting with her, um, at the Santa Fe conference recently. She’s like, I don’t, I don’t know that I would ever actually want to be the sole ed ever again.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Of an organization. ’cause her last, um, it’s a lot thing before MAPS was SSDP, I think Ed there. And that’s like a handful. It’s a lot. Yeah. And like, um, Betty and Izzy have just a long career kind of working together too. Izzy was a, I think on the board of SSDP for a while. Um, yeah. And I, I don’t know, do you remember, do you remember this story?

Joe Moore: I, I met, um, Betty in 2017 at the Oakland conference, [00:47:00] like one of the after parties. Um, we were just like hanging out, shooting the shit. I didn’t even know who she was. I’m just shooting the shit at the back of some like, dance floor DJ thing. Um, you know, I just, um, making jokes about hula hoops or whatever and I was like dying and she was so, so great and she’s always been like.

Joe Moore: Really, really helpful to us. Yeah, so Izzy’s always been really helpful. I’ve actually called Izzy on a few emergencies and Thank you Izzy. Um, like help, I don’t know which way is up anymore. Um, like, what do I do here? He’s always been so helpful too. So just really excited that those two are leading the charge and I think their vision is really robust and excited to see what they wanna do.

Kyle Buller: Yeah, huge. Congratulations, Betty and Izzy. You guys will kill it and, um, yeah, hopefully steer the ship in, in a really awesome way.

Joe Moore: Yeah, I know it probably hasn’t

Kyle Buller: been easy in the past, like year or two, three years, however, yeah.

Joe Moore: Oh, incredible amount of work. Um, so I, [00:48:00] I know Betty was kind of like comms director for a long time at Maps, so we had some conversations and like would kind of get like, uh, embargoed news and, and things like that.

Joe Moore: And, and I, I would, I would call for strategy and, and sometimes offer my unsolicited opinion. And, uh, it was really just a, a, I don’t know, lovely relationship and I’m hoping I’m in touch with, um, somebody over there to get them on, uh, the show in the near term. And I, I’m excited about that and we’ll hopefully get some intel on, on what they’re up to in the near term.

Joe Moore: Sweet.

Kyle Buller: Awesome. Yeah, I would love

Joe Moore: to

Kyle Buller: hear some direct updates from, from those folks.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, so any other news that you thought, like, interesting to point out?

Kyle Buller: I haven’t been keeping up with much of the news, uh, cycles yet. Um, I feel like I need to, you know, dig in, but you just released a whole bunch in our recent, um, email you just sent out like a bunch of psychedelic news.

Joe Moore: Yeah, this week’s, [00:49:00] um, this week’s news roundup. Let me see, let me see how I can share this list. Um, I, I just was like really, really excited to be able to do this. Um, and yeah, I found, uh, found out that it’s not, not like a really intense amount of work for me to do this and I actually appreciate it ’cause I get to stay, um, in the loop on what’s happening in the world.

Joe Moore: Um mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kyle Buller: Um, there was this interesting article that just came out in, on September 2nd, so I guess a month ago. Um, I haven’t dug into this at all, so I don’t know if I wanna chat about it, but, um,

Joe Moore: go for it

Kyle Buller: sis. Scientists reveal how breath work unlocks psychic bliss in the brain. So high ventilation breath work while listening to music was associated with ports of blissful states, reduced negative emotions accompanied by increased blood flow to emotional processing.

Kyle Buller: Repeat the brain. [00:50:00] Um, so yeah, super fascinating. Um, so this was, um, yeah, so just saying breath work while listening to music may indu blissful states, um, in practitioners accompanied by changes in blood flow to emotional processing in the brain. According to a study published on August 27th, 2025, in an open access, uh, journal, PS.

Kyle Buller: OS one by, uh, Amy Amol, uh, Carter. Um, so yeah, I’m excited to dig into this one a little bit more. I’ve been just trying to dig into more breath work research. We just had a short at, well, I guess not short for online, an hour breath work session within Vital yesterday. Um, and getting a lot of these questions too around like, you know, how can psychedelics like produce these, or how can breathworks produce these psychedelic like states?

Kyle Buller: Um, so I’m excited to, to dig in, uh, to, to more of this.

Joe Moore: Yeah. I think, um, the [00:51:00] breathwork science is coming. Yeah. You already have a good amount of it. Um, but it’s, it’s coming. Yeah. So here’s just kind of like what I sent out. Um, yeah, just, just so people know what it looks like. There’s a big list of news articles, kind of mostly chronological.

Joe Moore: Um, there’s this really interesting, um, I. The fact that Hamilton was on Vice, again with Shane, I found really fascinating ’cause he is always had so many critiques about the news the Vice will put out. Um, but Hamilton was also on, um, the five cast. Interestingly, I don’t know if you saw this drama, Kyle, they actually put it up about a month ago.

Joe Moore: Um, they

Kyle Buller: took it down.

Joe Moore: They took it down, and then they put it back up. Um, on, on, uh. I think Saturday of our breathwork weekend. Yeah. Um, so I wonder what they pulled out? They were making jokes about getting sued. Um,

Kyle Buller: right. Yeah. That’s what I was like. They started off with stuff like that or they used that little like clip to start off.

Kyle Buller: So Yeah, I [00:52:00] imagine, I wonder if they were getting into some like pretty heavy things here and there that they needed to clip out, um, for li liability reasons. Right,

Joe Moore: right. You know, some people have a lot of money for attorneys. Um. Yeah. And so, you know, all sorts of stuff. So, uh, there’s just headlines, right?

Joe Moore: Colorado Natural Medicine Board recommends ibogaine for therapeutic use. So it’s looking like that’ll be coming sooner than later. Um, there is also the whole thing about Colorado requiring Nagoya compliant Ibogaine. Mm-hmm. Um, as of now, AMBIO is the only people with, apparently publicly. I got, I got kind of some funny conversations about this.

Joe Moore: The only company with, uh, Goya compliant Iboga. I’m like, eh, is that real? Like, I don’t know. I’ve, I’ve not done done enough digging, but they’re very insistent. But it’s people who are like deeply in that world. But then there’s the whole thing, like how do we get Iboga in? Um, there’s, uh, a new Iboga doc coming out really soon.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Um, I think later this month or in November, [00:53:00] um, that’ll be on Netflix. Um, Alaska is working to gather more signatures for their legalization bill. Um. A cluster headache study was funded psilocybin trial. It’s gonna be great. Um, but they’re using like DMT pens now. I think I told you that one, right?

Kyle Buller: I don’t think so. They’re using that for cluster headaches. Oh my God.

Joe Moore: Totally. So you have a cluster coming on at any point in the day. Could be in the middle of the night, you’re like, oh my God, this is gonna be a nightmare. How am I gonna do this? And like, I have to go eat like two, three grams of mushrooms or something, whatever the dose is.

Joe Moore: Could even be a gram and a half. But it, you know, that sucks to have to do it one in the morning to ab poor cluster. Um, and, uh, they’re having How do you even prepare for

Kyle Buller: that? You’re just like, I’m gonna, like, you don’t, you’re just like,

Joe Moore: it’s cluster headaches are so horrible that anything’s better. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Moore: Like these, it’s so bad that often you’re just bashing your head against the wall and or killing yourself. Right? Yeah. So like it is, um, the most painful condition we [00:54:00] know. Um, it’s up there with, uh, like it’s hard to rank these things. Chronic regional pain syndrome might be on par, um, but yeah, it’s really, really nightmare.

Joe Moore: But DMT smoke it. They can go right back to bed. Aborts it right away.

Kyle Buller: So fascinating. And that seems so, yeah, like, so accessible, right? Like not having to, because I’ve had friends that would like dose for migraines, um, and they said they would take like anywhere between like two and a half, three grams like every month or something like that, just to help to manage.

Kyle Buller: But yeah, it’s also, you know, a lot like what happens if you don’t really wanna go on these like, huge trips every month, uh, just to manage like migraine pain, but to have like a shorter acting, uh, psychedelics. I hear Ds in the background there. Lower, um, yeah, like a shorter acting and accessible, right?

Kyle Buller: Just taking like a hit, like that sounds really awesome. Um, to be able to like have that as an option for people that really struggle. Do they [00:55:00] understand like the mechanism of like cluster headaches, of like what’s going on there?

Joe Moore: It is an orphan condition with not enough research. Um, so yes and no. Um.

Joe Moore: But yeah, so I, I think Yale’s coming out with some data in the near term on the d the DMT pen thing, so they’ll have even more data. Um, no, like there’s, there, it’s, it’s such a rare disease that like people haven’t really funded it all that well. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. So in time we’ll get more. Yeah, I’ll, I’ll try to get somebody on to talk about that.

Joe Moore: ’cause DMT pens are really fascinating. There’s a new, um, new book on, um, one of Leary’s, um, closest confidants. Rosemary, I’m really excited to read that one. Um, yeah, what, I think you covered this, a kind of crazy amount of contaminants in Oh yeah. Um, mushrooms, uh, well, product sold as mushrooms commercially.

Joe Moore: Um, and there’s another one last week. Yeah. [00:56:00] This other one here. I think. Um, let’s see. Uh. And this one is a good headline. Psychedelics picked far more neurons than expected. Mm-hmm. There is one about, um, psychedelics not helping postpartum moms as well as we thought initially. Thought. Um, come on, where is it?

Joe Moore: Um, it’s in here. There’s just roundup. Yeah. Which is

Kyle Buller: like crazy, you know, like when we started off like doing this stuff, like it was really hard to find news articles about, you know, what’s going on and, um, I mean, yeah, it just shows the interest is really increasing, uh, over the years.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Athletes turn to band IGA for CTE and concussion relief.

Joe Moore: Um, a lot of really interesting things there. Uh, I may or may not be one of those athletes. Um, and yeah, there’s so much happening. Massachusetts is getting active again and um, that’s good. Yeah. Let’s work towards wrapping up here, Kyle, I think like [00:57:00] we have this advanced shadow work class coming up. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Kyle Buller: Yeah. So, uh, October 20th, as a Monday, we’re gonna kick off an eight week course with Dr. Ito Cohen. Um, we run this every fall around spooky time of the year. Um, seems like it aligns. Um, and we’ll cover the shadow. What is the shadow we’ll get into how to work with the shadow, um, more from yeah, this Jungian depth oriented approach.

Kyle Buller: Um, and this time around, um, you know, we wanna make it a little bit more practical for folks. Um, and so we’re gonna make it, yeah, more advanced than, uh, say in the past in, in what we’ve been doing. Um, so yeah, if you’re interested in digging into the shadow, learning how to work with the shadow, learning how to work with it with clients, um, and not just the shadow, but also the golden shadow, which maybe you’ve heard me and Ido talk about in the past.

Kyle Buller: Um. Yeah, we only have, I think a few more seats [00:58:00] left. We’re, we’re getting to capacity, so if you’re interested in, in digging into all the shadow material, um, during Yeah, the, the fall, which the shadow season is upon us soon. Um, yeah, we would love to have you there. I always love teaching with Dr. Yo Cohen.

Kyle Buller: Um, and it’s gonna be a fun class, so, yeah.

Joe Moore: Great. And then, um, finally, let’s just circle back to navigators. Everybody. We’re really excited about this navigators program and, um, I think it’s, it is kind of gonna be a huge part of the future of psychedelics today and vital, and we really want to invite you to be a part of it.

Joe Moore: There’s a number of tiers of, of getting in starts at 9 99 a month, and, and you can go up from there. Um, if anybody, uh, you know, has questions, psychedelics today.com/navigators, you can email us, ask some questions there. Um. And like info at psychedelics today would be a good way to get us. [00:59:00] And then, um, yeah, we would love to see you in the community book clubs, film clubs, regular group meetings, um, early access to content, ad free podcasts.

Joe Moore: So much more so, you know, check it out. Um, anything you want to add about it?

Kyle Buller: Yeah, I would love to see everybody there. Um, again, we’re really wanting to build out the, the community there, get in, get involved in all sorts of different ways, connect with you, host events that you guys might be interested in.

Kyle Buller: So yeah, a show saying the book club ad free podcasts. We’ll do these live streams where you can jump in and do some q and a. We’ll probably have some exclusive live streams with folks that, um, you know, you guys can do. Again, I look at the tiers, it’s all kind of tiered out that way as well. Um, and, uh, yeah, really excited to, to be launching this and developing the community on the PT side of things.

Kyle Buller: Like obviously we’ve been doing that through the podcast, through events, um, but I feel like a lot of our community building has been really focused and vital. And so to be able to [01:00:00] expand the things that we’ve learned about that, um, to our wi wider audience, for those that, you know, vital ISS a big investment that might not be part of your path, um, to really start to bring it to the larger.

Kyle Buller: Larger PT community and our supporters and listeners. So yeah, if you wanna support us, if you wanna join our community, second alex today.com/navigators and we’re excited to, to launch this and meet you

Joe Moore: over

Kyle Buller: there.

Joe Moore: Alright everybody, thank you so much for tuning in. Uh, we’ll get this out on a regular podcast soon and just really appreciate you all being part of this project that’s been amazing over the last nine and a half years.

Joe Moore: So coming up on 10 soon. Crazy. And um, good god. Yeah. Learned a lot. Yeah. Um, yeah. So thank you Kyle. Thank you everybody and we’ll see you all in the next episode.

Kyle Buller: Alright, thank you everybody. Take care.

September 23, 2025October 7, 2025

Dr. Cat Meyer – Sex, Love, Psychedelics

In this episode of Psychedelics Today, Joe Moore sits down with Dr. Cat Meyer, licensed psychotherapist, sex therapist, and host of Sex, Love, Psychedelics. Together, they explore the deep intersections of sexuality, trauma healing, psychedelics, and the role of play in human connection.

Dr. Meyer shares her journey from growing up in rural Missouri and navigating early trauma to becoming a leading voice in sex therapy and psychedelic integration. She opens up about her personal healing path, her work with ketamine-assisted therapy, and how tantra, BDSM, and art have shaped her approach to erotic wellness.

Topics Covered

Defining the Erotic: Beyond sex, eroticism as vibrancy, life force, and connection to the senses.
Personal Story: Dr. Meyer’s early struggles, academic path in marriage and family therapy, and her discovery of tantra and BDSM as transformative practices.
Psychedelics and Healing: Her first experiences with MDMA-assisted therapy, ketamine retreats for women, and how these tools can reconnect people with pleasure and embodiment.
The Power of Play: Why play is essential for healing, relationships, and cultural transformation—ranging from improv and art to Burning Man experiments.
Navigating Power Dynamics: How erotic transference, facilitation, and unconscious needs can shape therapy, sex, and psychedelic work—and why self-awareness is crucial.
Feral Mysticism: Rewilding the body, reclaiming personal authority, and embracing vibrancy outside of cultural repression.
Pleasure and Illness: How Dr. Meyer works with clients facing chronic pain, fatigue, or illness to maintain erotic connection through presence and small practices.

Key Quotes

“Eroticism is the connection to vibrancy, to life—it’s how we engage with the world through pleasure.”
“Feeling is power. A discerning human who can feel is a powerful human.”
“Psychedelics help us come back into right relationship with our body and with pleasure.”
“Play gives us the freedom to experiment, to try, to be vulnerable, and to learn without attaching our worth to the outcome.”

Resources & Links

Dr. Cat Meyer’s Website
Sex, Love, Psychedelics Podcast
Follow Dr. Cat on Instagram: @drcatmeyer

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors or inaccuracies.

Joe Moore: [00:00:00] Here we are. Perfect. Hi everybody. Joe Moore here. Hope you’re all doing great. Psychedelics today we’re joined by Dr. Kat. How are you?

Dr Cat Meyer: I’m so good this morning.

Joe Moore: Yeah, this is gonna be fun. I, I warmed you up with some weird stories and, uh, you had some great suggestions for me.

Dr Cat Meyer: I think that was a, a mutual warming up my friend.

Dr Cat Meyer: I love some in there too.

Joe Moore: So you were a sex therapist out of Los Angeles. You’ve, um, been doing some cap work with clients. Um. Let’s kind of, uh, give people an understanding of what you do right now, and then we’re gonna rewind the tape to kind of like, give people, uh, an idea of how you got here.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Okay.

Dr Cat Meyer: So, um, I would say I’m a, I’m a professional shapeshifter, you do all kinds of things and shift into so many aspects of healing. Um, so I’m a, I’m a licensed psychotherapist [00:01:00] and I work with, uh, sex therapy. I’ve been doing that for about 15 years. Um, specializing in, uh, sexuality, trauma, um, uh, relationships, alternative styles of relationships.

Dr Cat Meyer: I teach a combination of BDSM and tan, so I do workshops, retreats around that. Um, I do ketamine assisted therapy retreats for women around sensuality. So we are doing, uh, cap. Ceremonies, two of them. And then the whole rest of the retreat is based around the integration coming into the body, coming into right relationship with pleasure and the body.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then I, I have a podcast Sex of Psychedelics where I interview experts all on psychedelics, sexuality, um, relationships. And, and I, uh, right now we’re delving into, uh, art as an expression to teach people. ’cause especially right now, what I’ve been running [00:02:00] up against is censorship. Um, watching how words are not fully communicating or landing or being received.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, and I’m noticing how art can, so there’s a way that art and the way that play can reach people and teach people in a way that you don’t have to have these words that seem to be triggering or causing a block. So, um, I’ve been an artist since I was. A baby, like a painting since I was eight. And, um, uh, now getting into more music and, and doing that as a way to get people to feel the erotic nature activate, um, you know, uh, develop that relationship with our bodies and heal.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah.

Joe Moore: So we were just chatting about our mutual friend, um, Didi Gold ppa. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, they were on last week and we chatted about, um, all sorts of things in the book, but I had [00:03:00] Didi define erotic. Yeah. And you just brought the word up. Could you, like what, what’s a kind of functional definition that you like when you’re working with people in this, um, topic?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, so what I say with erotic is that it is the connection to vibrancy. It’s the connection to life. Um, it is the. Relationship that we have with the world and, um, the experience of the world through our senses, and particularly as it relates to pleasure. So we experience the world through these data points, the senses, right?

Dr Cat Meyer: Sensuality is taking those senses in, uh, but through the sense of pleasure, the enjoyment. And, uh, so when we’re looking at, uh, you might also hear the word aeros and aeros is often used in union psychology as a symbol for, um, aliveness. And [00:04:00] so we’re looking for things that bring us liveliness, vibrancy, um, life force energy.

Dr Cat Meyer: Some people might hear it used in those terms.

Joe Moore: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I, I’ve been hearing, um, people in kind of, uh, mystical spaces mm-hmm. Using the term, but clearly not in like an explicit kind. Human sex framework, they’re kind of talking about it in, in that kind of like, broader context. Yeah. Um, yeah.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. And I think that’s really important because we’ve, we’ve attached such a narrow definition of sex as this act that we do. You know, we bring bodies together and in, or even our own body and, uh, we connect to it through friction and, and positions. And that really limits the expansive experience of what this does as creation or life or, um, uh, again, I’m gonna use the word [00:05:00] vibrancy.

Dr Cat Meyer: A wakefulness, right? And we are all sexual beings. You can’t really segment that as much as we try to in culture, we say this is, uh. Not sexual or you’re don’t be a sexual person or don’t be a sexually expressed. And yet we are sexual beings that walk this earth. It’s how do we interact with everything around us that is erotic or can be erotic because we can engage with things around us, and it can also be very dead.

Dr Cat Meyer: It can be very, very numb. We can be very disconnected from it or it can bring us down. And so that’s not eroticism, that’s like the opposite of it.

Joe Moore: Mm,

Joe Moore: mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. The repression is so interesting. We kind of chatted about historical origins of the repression, but let’s maybe put a pin in it for Okay.

Joe Moore: And then, and then talk about how did you get here? Like, um, [00:06:00] so I, I assume you’re an American. And, uh, you know, the American experience is quite interesting and unique. Um, and yeah, it just, how do you like to tell your story?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, yeah. So I, um, I’m from Missouri, so I’m from rural town, Missouri. Um, grew up as a, a traditional Catholic family, and I had some childhood trauma from when I was younger.

Dr Cat Meyer: Sexual trauma when I was younger and leading into a lot of, uh, anxiety, depression, uh, dissociation, panic attacks, um, eating disorders for about 11 years. And, but all of that was done in secret. So all of that was done within my own self and isolated from, from everyone else. So even though I was out in the world, nobody knew that I was doing these things or that these experiences were happening.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then. Um, I really struggled with relationships. Uh, they would last about two weeks and then I would have full panic attack in them. Or as things [00:07:00] started to move towards sex, I would just shut it down and completely deadpan in a relationship. So there was a fascination while there was a fear at the same exact time, and it wasn’t until I was 21 and I was reading a Red Book magazine and they were quoting a sex therapist, and I was like, oh, that’s a job you can have, like, you can actually do that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And mind you, I hadn’t had any sex. Like the most I had done is like make out with everybody in the fraternity, but I was not, not moving beyond that because of the, the deep fear in my body. Uh, I went to California and uh, got my doctorate in marriage and family therapy and immediately dove into. Learning sex therapy.

Joe Moore: And where did you study,

Dr Cat Meyer: uh, Alliant University? Here in Irvine or in Great In Irvine. Yeah. And I, um, going into that, I dove into Tantra first. So studying sacred sexuality [00:08:00] through more of the tantric lineage, um, and then studying more of the, the, uh, philosophical and the um, uh, spiritual aspect of, of tantra, um, through yogic.

Dr Cat Meyer: Traditions. And then that was some of my first indications of how you could feel differently in your body. Um, I was teaching yoga by the age of 1920 and I was like, oh, you can feel differently. That’s interesting. There’s a state change here. And so diving into that work and then, um, alongside, uh, you know, this more sexual erotic side and then the psychology side.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then I got into BDSM when I was 24 and realizing, well, having like a full transcendent experience that was similar to what I was trying to reach in, in the tan world. Like deep states of surrender, altered states of consciousness, like activating different parts of myself, um, different characters in myself, different skills in [00:09:00] myself.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then it just kind of progressed from there. Uh, I met a teacher who taught, uh, Reiki energy and introduced me to metaphysics. And then I got into, you know, this whole different world of healing that was beyond just my traditional sense of, uh, in psychology school. And then I got into plant medicine and it was just, just one thing after another.

Dr Cat Meyer: It’s kind of like when the student’s ready, the teacher comes and it’s here, here’s a new piece, here’s a new piece. I have no idea where I’m going with all of this. I’m just, I’m interested. This looks really cool. Let’s do this. And then in retrospect, seeing how all of these things interrelate with one another.

Dr Cat Meyer: And now I’m gonna place where I can see, so the interweavings of so many different disciplines. And see why some work, why don’t, and then even the expanded definitions of things you see regurgitated in the spiritual community. Things like pleasure, things like eroticism, things like [00:10:00] surrender, like those are actually very complex concepts that we hear on social media or we see, um, spoken on stage and we’re like, we nod our heads.

Dr Cat Meyer: We’re like, yeah, yeah, that’s right. That’s right. ’cause I’ve heard that before, but people don’t actually understand what they’re talking about with that. So is it actually deeply ingrained? So I’ve, I’ve been able to see across these, these disciplines, um, what it actually means.

Joe Moore: When did things like, um, ketamine assisted psychotherapy or maps come on your radar as something you were curious about?

Dr Cat Meyer: I was, I think I was 26. I, um. Had met somebody in the maps world who had introduced to me about things like, uh, MDMA therapy and, um, uh, telling me about the benefits of using that for sexual trauma. And I was like, oh, I’m really [00:11:00] intrigued, you know, being a therapist and, um, having sexual trauma myself. And, and I had worked with somebody and did, um, MDMA, um, therapy, not, not through maps, but this is, you know, a separate and, um, it was really profound.

Dr Cat Meyer: The things that came out of my mouth were things I had literally not told anybody, so I was so fascinated with how easily the words streamed out of my mouth. And then after that and the way the tears streamed down my face so easily, there was like no more filter there. And at the end of that session, I just softly fell asleep.

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, it was like this, this, uh, purge but not an intense hard breakthrough, the protector parts. It was soft and gentle and, and it was out. And that was a really important [00:12:00] phase at that part of my life to even just let it be heard by myself, let it be witnessed by myself being witnessed by another person, which I think is one of the stages that, of healing.

Dr Cat Meyer: That’s really important.

Joe Moore: Yeah. I love that, and thanks for sharing that story. It’s, um, we get these stories from people here and there that are just extraordinary, like unfolding through. Mm-hmm. You know, one or two encounters. Then we have the inverse, right? Where it’s like, oh, you’ve had 30 encounters and you haven’t had that thing you’re looking for yet.

Joe Moore: Um, you know, we, we used to see it in Hochberg breath work. People were like, I just want that rebirth experience. I wanna re-experience my birth. I’m like, why?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Moore: Um,

Dr Cat Meyer: I, I think ’cause there’s this hierarchy of spiritual spirituality and power, like we all have this real fascination with power and we think, well, if I have that experience, then, [00:13:00] then I have access to a power that other people don’t have. Or it puts me in a category separate than the rest of the world.

Dr Cat Meyer: And, and what do we think that that’s gonna bring us, is gonna bring us safety? Is it gonna bring us, um, you know. Divine knowledge. Is it like, what is that? What is that that we’re wanting from that?

Joe Moore: Yeah, exactly. That makes sense. Um, yeah, reflecting on my own kind of, um, uh, juvenile periods where I’m kind of seeking really hard and like that was part of it.

Joe Moore: It’s like, this isn’t a game I want, and it was kind of like a spiritual bypass and a few other kind of ways of framing it, I’m sure. But, um, yeah, like this is common. Mm-hmm. It’s not, yeah. Don’t judge yourself folks if you have that. Um, just No, I think a part

Dr Cat Meyer: of, yeah. Yeah. I think there, you know, there is a curiosity in us to, I think, you know, Maslow expanded his, his, um, uh, [00:14:00] you know, hierarchy of needs to even include self-transcendence.

Dr Cat Meyer: And even in that, there’s so many, there’s multiple layers in that too. Like, what are we, what are we seeking with that. So there, there may be this intrinsic desire to seek for more, and I think that’s beautiful. It just is. Then can we create a relationship with that seeking and see what is it actually wanting?

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, you know, with people who they wanna have better sex, one of the questions that I ask them is, what about what, what is it that you’re seeking in that better sex? What do you think you’re gonna get with that? And is it, and, and what do you mean by better sex too? A lot of times people are like, they just want more sex, but do they actually like the sex that they’re having?

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, or for me, in the search of better sex, it was, uh, peace. It was more of a, a fluidity and expression. Um, it was like I [00:15:00] didn’t wanna be clenching anymore. I was clenching a lot in my body. And, and it was also. I power, certainly power, you know, self power in myself. And probably at some points even using that, not even probably, I know in some points feeling like if I had a, a sexual power, then I could use that in space.

Dr Cat Meyer: That was valuable too. And so getting in relationship with that of like, oh, am I using this ability to be courageous in my body and in my expression, is that being used as a tool to seduce or to get something as well? And that’s just as powerful or important for us. What is sex, the function of, like, what are we using it for?

Dr Cat Meyer: Is it to create safety? Is it to get resources? Is it to get, um, connection, uh, comfort, um, to feel [00:16:00] something, to prove something? It oftentimes isn’t even just a. Experience of pleasure and enjoyment, but if we don’t get into the question of like, why am I using this? Or what is it? What’s that relationship or function with it?

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, we’re, we’re not actually in power of it ourselves.

Joe Moore: Um, all right, so you’re at the intersection of two really powerful topics. Um, and a lot of people are like, oh, psychedelics can save the world. A lot of people are like, oh, good sex can save the world. And like there’s this kind of, um, interesting intersection. I’m, I’m sure you see lots of assumptions that people have coming in that are.

Joe Moore: Super half-baked maybe, is the kind way to put it. And then there’s, you know, what, what are, what are kind of like some really [00:17:00] half-baked ideas that you see coming forward at the intersection of sex and psychedelics and what, what kind of things do you actually see as like, um, you know, powerful, powerful things often the horizon or that are here now?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Um,

Dr Cat Meyer: like I said, many of us have this relationship with power, you know, and in power there’s also the desire to wanna be saved. So I see many of us looking to experts, authorities, doctors, not knowing that they have a part inside of them that really wants to be saved. Give me the answer. Take me out of this suffering.

Dr Cat Meyer: Get me out of this place that’s really painful or dangerous for me. And when we say this is the answer, psychedelics or sex, it, it, um, the conviction of that can feel very [00:18:00] enticing to want to give up our, our power, our internal power for that person, um, to do that for us. And that’s very dangerous on many levels because the answer is never black and white and certain.

Dr Cat Meyer: And com you know, we can’t have conviction like that, um, as much as we want that because it’s so complex and the answer is really nuanced and people have a hard time with nuance because it’s, there’s, it changes, it’s dynamic. And the very nature of being human is dynamic. We change from morning to evening.

Dr Cat Meyer: We change from month to month, from year to year, um, through different phases of our life. And we get, we can feel terrified when we’re in, say, the ebb of something. You know, say our libido disappears and we’re like, oh my God, I’m broken. There’s something wrong with me. Or my, [00:19:00] my, my dick isn’t staying up.

Dr Cat Meyer: What’s, what’s wrong with me? Right. I’m not orgasming. And that also is not honoring that the body is in its own dynamic nature, speaking to us, communicating to us. This is a form of communication. It’s a symptom. Um, the nuance is, you know, it really holds that it holds space for us to both be valid in our experience and, um, that the answer can be completely varied and complex.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um. I do believe that both of these things can be highly supportive for us in sex. I’ll start with sex. The importance of sex. Um, and when it comes to healing or when it comes to, um, you know, power in ourselves is that [00:20:00] there’s so much cultural conditioning out there that tells us, this is wrong. This is shameful.

Dr Cat Meyer: You shouldn’t express this way. This is, um, this is dangerous. Um, there’s messages even from the ancient times of, um, making women’s bodies and their erotic expression both as a ritual source and as, um, you know, more of a profane source wrong. That it’s sinful, it’s dirty, it’s, it’s, um, uh, less than. And yet what we know is that when an individual, I’m gonna use, uh, a woman in this case, ’cause I just referred to that.

Dr Cat Meyer: When she’s in her body and she’s in her feeling and she’s in her, uh, expression, that is such an incredibly powerful human being to behold, because when you can feel, you can discern, and a [00:21:00] discerning human is a very powerful human. So think about all the things that turn down our feeling, and that’s a great way to both influence control, um, to reduce somebody.

Dr Cat Meyer: So the same with psychedelics. What I love about psychedelics is that it can also connect us to that feeling. So for many of my clients who’ve had difficult time with, um, you know, they’ve had trauma or they just have the, the impact of the cultural narrative on them, um, that feeling, the relationship with feeling can be very confusing.

Dr Cat Meyer: When they start to feel, whether it’s an emotion or a sensation, they might go into the fear of feeling too much overwhelm or feeling too little, numbness or nothing at all, or feeling mm-hmm. Incorrectly. And so psychedelics can help us to tap back into that feeling. What is it like when your body feels alive?

Dr Cat Meyer: What is it like when you feel energy? What is [00:22:00] it like when you feel sensation and pleasure? MDMA is great for that. It’s, it’s beautiful in that it can, um, I’ve had so many people report to me the, that they could feel emotion again. Um, where they couldn’t before they were really numb to it. Or, um, uh, my clients who’ve had vaginismus or dys hernia, those are painful sex.

Dr Cat Meyer: Uh, they used, uh, they told me they used microdosing of psilocybin and it helped to relax their body helped to relax their, their um, uh, vulva. In a way that they could feel again and feel pleasure or enjoy just being in their body. Um, ketamine is another one, like, in my practice, like, uh, and, and in my retreats, like the women, I teach them how to move their body, you know how to get outta the head and into the body with that medicine, and I’ll see them just like caressing themselves, like they’re just touching their skin here, or they’re, they’re moving their body and it’s, and, and I can tell that they’re [00:23:00] in the enjoyment of their body again, in a way that doesn’t overwhelm them and also doesn’t, you know, numb them out.

Dr Cat Meyer: Now the, the challenge with that is that. Uh, psychedelics can also overwhelm you. They can also barge through the very important protector parts in our body that are designed to protect us, um, or to, you know, to prevent that overwhelm, um, or us accessing something that we’re not ready for. And so how the protocols that we’re putting around that safety we’re putting around that the, the preparation that we’re putting around that is also incredibly important.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, there’s even energetic practices that I’m seeing people teach nowadays where I disagree with some of the protocols that they’re using because they’re forcing too much energy through the body that the body’s not prepared for. So that’s where that can be dangerous and. [00:24:00] Um, I’ve, I’ve worked with a number of individuals who came into my practice.

Joe Moore: Can you name, can you name something that looks like that real quick? The energetic

Dr Cat Meyer: I can. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Um, let’s see. Gosh, I don’t know the name of this other one, but I’ll, I’ll speak to this one. So this one’s, um, kli Kundalini activation process Cap. Um, not to be confused with Ketamine assisted therapy, um, but that one’s one where I’ve received individuals after doing a class where there’s several people and there’s a facilitator, and their bodies weren’t ready for that opening of their, the energetic, uh, flow of their body.

Dr Cat Meyer: And they ended up in a lot of pain, overwhelm, um, confusion, uh, crying, and they could not, they couldn’t calm their body down and. So we would do a, a session and, and I can speak to this ’cause this has happened several times, and so it’s a very general experience that I’ve [00:25:00] seen. Um, and having to work with them and bringing the energy down and bringing more of a self containment again where their teachers weren’t available to talk or they receive the messages of, um, you should just ground or, um, they gave them a list of things to do, but those actions weren’t working because it’s, it, there’s no preparation.

Dr Cat Meyer: For a client or even having a conversation with a client ahead of time, or a student who’s coming to your class ahead of time to see where they’re at with their nervous system health, with, with, um, their hi trauma history, um, with what may be happening in their field to know whether they’re prepared for that or not.

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, psychedelics do this too. It’s, it’s like, like a psychedelic, um, stimulates your nervous system, relaxes the fascia, which is the connective tissue on the body, [00:26:00] so that the energy can flow so much easier. It’s beautiful, and if it’s not held correctly, it can be very, uh, disorienting, disrupting, um, activate psychotic breaks.

Dr Cat Meyer: And I just, you know, I, I fear that there’s not enough infrastructure there to support people or give the resource to know who to go to, what to do.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then, you know, I’ll even speak back to the sex with all of that too. Um, the dangerous side of all of that is also power, you know, comes back to power. Like who are we working with? Um, uh, are there, is there, there’s an, an inherent power dynamic or, uh, in with anybody that we’re seeking help from. And many facilitators don’t realize that, or it’s very seductive to be in a role of power and to be the one that’s [00:27:00] facilitating and offering this healing for somebody.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, and sometimes they don’t even know what’s what stuff of theirs is becoming transferred onto a client or onto, I know somebody that they’re working on. And so their stuff can end up in the space and. They can project their needs onto another client. Therapists do that too. Um, I’m not just saying it’s psychedelic facilitators, but coaches do it too.

Dr Cat Meyer: I just think it’s really, um, hygienic practice, good hygienic practice for us to be doing that work to see what we’re bringing into the space as well.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Yeah, absolutely. I was just chatting with a Norwegian psychotherapist researcher who’s talking more and more about, um, doing the research required such that therapists can actually have their own processes legally with MDMA and other substances such that they have more awareness, um, and more skill in session.

Joe Moore: Right. And

Joe Moore: yeah,

Joe Moore: [00:28:00] that’s it. It’s a, you know, hard thing to sell sometimes, but therapy as a field kind of understands that there are limitations. Um, and there are things that we gotta catch,

Dr Cat Meyer: we do. And there is even talk about, you know, I’ll tie it back to sex, um, erotic, uh, transference and counter transference, which means that what we project onto our clients or our clients project onto us in a neurotic sense, um, uh, can be both used as a tool and used as harm if it’s not, if it’s, you know, moving unconsciously through it.

Dr Cat Meyer: So one of the things that I suggest people and that I do personally is working in, um, cohorts, working in cohorts or working with your own therapists, working, um, you know, I have clients who are therapists and we do their work that shows up in their client sessions because that’s, that’s really important, um, to have a place where you, you know, your stuff is in there.[00:29:00]

Dr Cat Meyer: We can’t pretend like it’s not, but how do we, you know, how do we do that hygiene practice to make sure that we’re consciously aware of it and we, we have a relationship with it. So it’s not unconsciously ruin ruling what’s happening in our sessions with our clients.

Joe Moore: I am muted. Sorry. Everything, you know, what

Dr Cat Meyer: much of the country is in, in the world is muted. So,

Joe Moore: um, I’ll give you a little bit of personal trivia, Kat. Mm-hmm. I, um, I have a kind of thing where I actually show up as a mime, but it’s actually the world’s worst mime, um, who’s actually a clown. So there’s like a, you know, there’s a whole lot of stuff there.

Joe Moore: We’ll get into that later, but commuting is part of it. Mm-hmm. I’ve not been punched yet, but you know, oh, thank God. It’s not always, it’s not always [00:30:00] the, the most, um, well looked upon thing. Um, yeah. So, um, the world being muted. Yeah. So this like, hygiene thing is really important. This, like, self-awareness of power dynamics is super important.

Joe Moore: I don’t know that we’re ever gonna kind of solve it. I just think it’s an active part of humanity and how we’re always gonna kind of interact with each other.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um,

Joe Moore: but we’ve gotta, you know, watch it become more self-aware, can help us in kind of like, um, hopefully seeing the dynamics that could suck us into something like a high control group.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Um, which is, you know, a, uh, I don’t want to name any right now, but there’s, you know, a handful out there, um, some of whom have been busted up, some are still active, but these dynamics, these erotic kind of, um, things or the power dynamic things can always kinda like. Be things that attract us. But once we all kind of become more aware of that

Joe Moore: mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Kind

Joe Moore: of a little bit [00:31:00] metacognitive maybe. Mm-hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: We

Joe Moore: can kind of protect ourselves and each other. What do you think?

Dr Cat Meyer: You know what, there, I had once had this really awesome therapist years ago who asked me, are you aware of what parts of you are getting their needs met through being a therapist? And I was like, Ooh.

Dr Cat Meyer: Uh, that’s a good question because it’s, it’s funny, we choose these careers or we choose these things and if we’re not aware of, um, what parts of us originally picked it, um, then I don’t think we’re in, in the power of it. We’re not in the power seat of it. And that isn’t to say that there can’t be also a connection of altruism and, and, you know, desire to help people.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um. There may also be another part in there too. And not to shame that part either. It’s just like, oh, I’m, I’m very aware there’s a part of me that’s, whether it’s feeling power in this role of knowledge and helping somebody or this, um, I’m getting the attention [00:32:00] with somebody who’s un their undivided attention on me that I didn’t get when I was younger or, um, uh, I get to intellectually get off on analyzing so many and, and just so it’s, it’s, uh, yeah.

Dr Cat Meyer: It’s, it’s things like that, the nuance, there’s the nuance thing there. Um, it’s not direct. It’s, it’s, um, energetic. It’s, it’s subtle. It’s flexible dynamic.

Joe Moore: Yeah. I’m just thinking about the power and like being in the power. Mm-hmm. After you get some letters after your name and a license, like, it’s a really interesting shift from like.

Joe Moore: You’re not one of the select elite until you have these mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. I’ve had that kind of, I, I, I chose not to go to therapy school. I thought about it long and hard for a long time. Yeah. And I just like decided, I don’t know that that’s for me. Mm-hmm. But, you know, I’ve experienced that. Joe, you’re not a therapist thing a lot.[00:33:00]

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. I’m like, Hmm. Fascinating. I hate that.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. That’s really unfortunate. ’cause I think that that prevents us all from working together in a multidimensional, um, way where somebody’s eyes and voice in particular way of understanding or seeing something or their dis discipline can pick up something that I can’t, and then I can work with them on that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And we can, we can. We can solve some of these problems and some of these puzzles together. Um, you know, it’s kind of like looking at the, uh, archeologists and when they started working with the geologists, they started uncovering even more and more quickly the mysteries of our ancient time because archeologists don’t necessarily know the science of the rocks and the minerals and, and so it’s just, yeah, there’s space for all of us to work together.

Joe Moore: Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for that. And I, [00:34:00] um, wanna kind of pivot, um, I had something really good. Okay, here it is. I think I got it again. So, you know, people hear this kind of, oh, sex and psychedelics are like, oh, burning Man, orgy Dome, everybody’s gonna get super high on acid or MDMA and everybody’s having sex with everybody.

Joe Moore: And it’s like, that’s not exactly what we’re talking about. Um, and we’re, you know, I think that’s kind of one of the intellectual. Traps when we start thinking about this. Mm-hmm. As opposed to like, what, what can it unveil? Mm-hmm. Or could it open up for possibility wise, um, for people as in like greater intimacy or all of those, like you’ve had some really good lists earlier of like what people might be looking for.

Joe Moore: And I think, yeah, it’s still the same list. Roughly speaking for the general sex conversation, there might though be some access to things via tantra that are kind of beyond that list, maybe.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Yeah. I dunno, how did I trigger anything? You wanna go off on there?

Dr Cat Meyer: Y yeah. A lot of things. Um, great.[00:35:00]

Dr Cat Meyer: So we can start with, um, actually I can probably answer ’em both at the same time. So I’m working on a model to help people to understand that that erotic evolution can happen on a couple of different levels, across many different categories. So it can start with awareness. As the first step, you know, becoming aware of the con cognitive constructs, you know, the definitions, how we’re identifying ourselves.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, and then it can move into intelligence when we apply what the awareness is and, and we gain more of a, um, interaction with, with these definitions or these roles or these energetics or these emotions. Like how do emotions affect our eroticism, um, and, uh, and sex. And then at the peak of that is acuity, you know, mastery.

Dr Cat Meyer: And that’s where you might, um, you know, study deep [00:36:00] into sacred, sacred sexuality in tantra or, um, become a master in, in BDSM. And, and and what does that even mean? And that can, um, to me, or the fluidity of roles. And to me, when I think of the mastery, it’s like. The full integration and ponten, spontaneous flow of creativity, of our embodiment of these roles that you might see of leadership, follower, masculine, feminine, um, receptive, um, initiator, uh, where you’re not thinking about it, you’re just fully in the dance of it.

Dr Cat Meyer: So I, ILII like to parse it out like that. You can go into sexual evolution and be at any one of those points, and it’s beautiful. It’s any three, one of those three is even better than just being unconscious, which so many of us are [00:37:00] unconsciously driven by the programs and the schemas in the world that the world’s provided to us Now.

Dr Cat Meyer: Many people might be, or, or people might be afraid to go into sex and psychedelics because of those images that you just presented. Um, I also believe that people are afraid to go into this, I guess this likens to that. Um, because what if they go overboard? What if they, they, they like it too much? What if they lose themselves to chaos and, and orgies and body parts everywhere?

Dr Cat Meyer: And it’s insatiable. And I’ve heard that from the narratives of women that I’ve worked with. You know, they’re afraid to get into their, their sexuality or they’re afraid to go to play parties or they’re afraid to make out with women ’cause they’re afraid they’re gonna like it too much and that they’ll be, um.[00:38:00]

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. That they’ll, they’ll burn up and burn out. And with that, I really believe that I am a great embodiment of the feral archetype, meaning like, I have rewild myself and I love being, um, expressively pervasive, uh, perverted. And I love to, um, uh, uh, say sexual innuendos and sex jokes. And, and I love, love the play of that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And I love being wild. I love wearing my underwear around the house and, and just doing, you know, whatever, whatever the fuck I want. And, um, but with that, I don’t burn out because I’ve built such a strong containment of myself.

Joe Moore: Hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: And so the, the, um, development of the skills to be chaos. Is only as supportive and growth inducing as we have a strong [00:39:00] container, and I’m meaning this for ourselves because in in the cultural dialogue, I hear a lot of this like, um, feminine needs a good, strong masculine, you know, or, or a woman can be fully expressed when she has a man that has, you know, can hold her in that and all of her rage and chaos and all that stuff.

Dr Cat Meyer: And the, the challenge with that narrative is that when we don’t develop these for ourselves, we might be outsourcing these skills to somebody else. And then what is our discernment of that person that we’re asking to be that role for us? And that’s where it becomes very tricky. I taught a this, um, class called Feminine Femme Chaos to women who were, um, uh, sugar babies.

Dr Cat Meyer: And they were really wanting to find their power in their, in their eroticism and their sexuality. And so these questions were, um, you know, when you build containment of yourself, [00:40:00] that is things like presence, self-regulation, um, uh, uh, consent negotiation, um, advocacy, direct communication, directness, you know, that builds a sense of intrinsic safety for yourself.

Dr Cat Meyer: And if you don’t have that, you might be looking for somebody to provide these things for you. And this is unconscious. Like, I’m like, you can consciously say, Hey, can you pay for my things? And it’s totally, totally okay. Um, but. When you’re unconsciously wanting somebody else to fill those holes for you or, or hold that for you so we can be in full chaos and expression and, and, you know, all over the place, um, that we might not realize what we’re paying out of our power, out of our safety, out of our, um, you know, anything else that we might be giving up.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, we do this, many of us do this all the time. We’re just not aware of it. Um, [00:41:00] but on the flip side of that, the chaos is full expression. How do we teach ourselves to be in our fullest expression? And, um, the world may not meet us there. There are many times where I’ve said something pervy or sexual and did not land.

Dr Cat Meyer: Did not land. And um, I’ve also built the ability to not, um, collapse in that. I’m like, whoop. Usually I’ll say something like, whoop, that did not land. Tell me how that translated for you. You know? Mm-hmm. But because I have that strong container of myself, I don’t, I don’t need to collapse or fall apart in that.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, it’s taking time. But that’s, those are the skills I think can be helpful. So then we can go to an orgy and be able to say no when we don’t want something. Or we can go to a, um, a, uh, sexual trauma, uh, sexual healing tantric shamanic retreat to learn skills. And because the [00:42:00] facilitator is in a role to teach us, we might say, override our yes or yeah, override our no to say yes for the sake of healing, but that actually doesn’t do it.

Dr Cat Meyer: And it, and it hurts us even more. ’cause we don’t have that sense of, of self containment for ourselves to be able to say no. Mm. Or believe we can.

Joe Moore: Um, I’m gonna pull up a picture that I took yesterday.

Dr Cat Meyer: Oh,

Joe Moore: it’s relevant here.

Dr Cat Meyer: Okay, well, I wonder how relevant.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yes. Oh my God, that’s so cute. So say, says, stay feral with a, what is that?

Dr Cat Meyer: A possum?

Joe Moore: Yeah. With a bow on the head. Um, I like it. Yeah. I’ve been like, kind of like leaning into the term feral a lot lately. Um, as like, I don’t know, there’s, it seems like there is something kind of fundamentally broken about the cultural [00:43:00] container we’re in. Um, I don’t know if it’s fundamental, but it, it appears to be part of the fabric of how everybody’s showing up.

Joe Moore: They’re mediated through this, this kind of cultural container that doesn’t allow people to be wild.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah.

Joe Moore: To be. Uh, feral. Um, I like the term feral mystic a lot.

Dr Cat Meyer: Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Kind of like working on that one a little bit. Mm. What is that? Yeah, what is

Dr Cat Meyer: that? Tell me. Um, well,

Joe Moore: you know, there’s, there’s some in what you said there that kind of like flows right into it.

Joe Moore: It’s like, um, who, who is the authority I’m gonna bend a knee to, or like take a knee to it’s mm-hmm. You know, it’s not Elon. Um, it’s not the orange guy, and it’s like, not, like there’s not, I, I can’t see too many things that I would want to take a knee to, you know? Um, I think taking a knee to your own divinity is the thing.

Joe Moore: Um, and that is the kind of essence of the feral mystic. It’s like, oh, mm-hmm. I’m the thing. We are the thing. Mm-hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. [00:44:00] The word feral comes from become moving from a domestic state to a rewilding state. And I think that that is a really powerful. Uh, word to, to stand, stand behind, um, as were re rewilding again.

Dr Cat Meyer: But again, it comes back to what I said earlier. There’s power in feeling. There’s power in feeling because we learn the communication of our body and then that, that is, that is our, uh, authentic self authority, and that’s really powerful. Um, there’s, while there is a part of me that has a lot of concern around what’s happening in, in the bigger culture at large, there’s a part of me that has a deep belief in, in teaching people to feel, again, teaching people to come back and write relationship with their body.

Dr Cat Meyer: So that power comes from. [00:45:00] From, you know, from, from the ground up instead of the top down from, from the people that are necessarily in our leaderships. And so, um, that’s what I believe that I feel really strongly for that.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We’ve been abstracted from all power sources and I think like, figuring out where those are for us and it’s like self ownership.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, in a lot of ways and

Joe Moore: mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: There’s a, there’s a sign at, I guess here we go. There’s a sign when I was driving by DPW one day and I was just like, no masters and there’s a giant guillotine. I’m like, oh boy, you guys are living live and burning in different,

Joe Moore: oh my Lord. Like,

Joe Moore: oh my god. Wow. And, um, yeah.

Joe Moore: And then one of my friend camps, um, hush hush pony bar, and they actually had like a whole guillotine like gag that you actually would, would work through, and you kind of like mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Get your, get your head chopped off. I’m like, oh my God. This is really a cultural moment right now. But also like, you know.

Joe Moore: Taking [00:46:00] your own power back in a certain way, symbolically or otherwise, like, I think is really important because as empires collapse, like the people are still there.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: People survive collapse. Me too. Of, you know. Mm-hmm. Um, Europe did okay after the collapse of the Roman Empire kind of took a little bit.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. But they did it. Yeah. Or it evolved

Dr Cat Meyer: like all these places, you know, and that’s something that we need to remember is the constant evolution of the world. The mixing of cultures, the inspiration, the, the melting pot that eventually happens across the globe and, and the ebbs flow shifts. Like it, um, yeah, I’m watching that, you know, the cycles.

Dr Cat Meyer: The repetition of cycles for a millennia. Like a lot of this is not really even new. It’s, it’s just a repeated cycle. We’ve heard these stories again. Um, there’s a lot of people that are going back into the remembrance of [00:47:00] ancient times and history. It’s really powerful to hear people talk about that. Uh, it’s also really important with that, that we check, uh, the interpretations because there’s also a lot of misinterpretations of these things too.

Dr Cat Meyer: And, um, uh, the power of mythology, I guess is important to, um, used to have our own individual interpretations. So it can be that too. Think how much are we gonna know the actual truth of things. So maybe there is space for the, the interpretation. I think that’s just as important.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Moore: There’s so much room for, you know, play in a lot of these areas. Um. Speaking of play, um,

Dr Cat Meyer: oh, I don’t do that.

Joe Moore: So there is, um, just kidding. I, at this great talk last night about like bringing more play into therapy and making therapy [00:48:00] feel like, um, like improv and play can be really, you know, convivial or deadly serious.

Joe Moore: And, um, you know, burning Man’s an example of that. You know, you get the little rubber chickens everywhere. Mm-hmm. Or people are playing with their lives and it’s, it says on the ticket you can die. Mm-hmm. So, you know, there’s, uh, it’s fascinating and I, I see this kind of like, um. Play engine. Mm-hmm. As I think one of our larger opportunities for cultural transformation.

Joe Moore: How do you, how do you like to sit with this kind of concept?

Dr Cat Meyer: Oh, I am the queen of play. I love, love play. I’ve done a lot of research around play and try to keep a pulse on what, what new comes out around play. Um, Stuart Brown does a lot of research around the concept of play and really, um, helps us, helps to define it for us.

Dr Cat Meyer: And it’s, and it’s when we, um, uh, intrinsically are drawn to [00:49:00] do, start doing something, um, there’s no end goal or achievement. Um, a desired outcome per se. It’s more for the desire to do the thing. Um, we’re not in the self-consciousness, um, around doing it right or wrong, and we lose ourselves to it. So flow state, like we lose ourselves to the time, um, or we lose track of time in that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And we all have different ways of playing. There are, uh, some of us are more kinesthetics, some of us are more like, we like collecting things, and that’s a form of play. Some of us like competition. Some of us play in being a director role. Some of us play in, um, creation of art and some of us have play through research.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, I will spend hours researching something and it’s so much fun for me. Love it. I literally drool, uh, for doing it. And, and I believe that that’s [00:50:00] really important for us too because many people or, or the concept of play in society has a lesser priority than say something with a achievement or something that we produce or something.

Dr Cat Meyer: And yet play rejuvenates us with energy. Play also, uh, requires us to be so present with the things that are available to us. You know, improv is an excellent example. We are present to what’s here and we use what’s here. Um, improv, uh, dinner playing. Cooking dinner. You go to your kitchen, uh, you go open your refrigerator.

Dr Cat Meyer: What do I have to engage with to, to, uh, you know, um, participate with. And when we play, there’s the opportunity of, uh, trying something on. We don’t know if it’s gonna work out. And that’s not the point. And it doesn’t matter. We’re experimenting. It also allows [00:51:00] us to, um, uh, oh, where was I going with that? Um.

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, uh, engage with things that might otherwise be incredibly vulnerable. Think about sex. I do, I, I instruct people to do play labs where they go into like 30 minutes with their partner. They bring in whatever they want, a specific position or a toy or an activity. And for 30 minutes they’re playing, they’re experimenting, they’re trying it out, they’re doing different things, seeing what happens.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then after, on the other side of that, they process, they talk what worked, what did they like, what didn’t they like? And now we’re not attaching our personal value to whether something didn’t work. I wanna use this, this, this butt plug. I don’t know if it’s gonna work, but let’s try it out that way I’m not a failure to my partner, or I’m not a failure to myself because we did that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then when we’re talking about this on more of the [00:52:00] cultural level. Um, burning Man is an excellent example of play, of bringing in the guillotines and bringing in the perverted signs of, um, I make these really unhinged street signs that, you know, it’ll, it’ll be like a stop sign and I’ll write, um, nonstop anal on it, you know, or don’t stop Daddy or, uh, um, when did I, I had one this year that I put rhinestones on it, and it’s originally said parking in rear and I put parking in her rear, and I was just jumping around with those, passing them out to people, letting, let people play with it.

Dr Cat Meyer: And it allows us the ability to engage with sex, with, with, um, you know, perverted in a way, in a fun way. We’re engaging with it. It’s not, I’m not taking it on as, um, any end goal. Accept the joy of it. [00:53:00] And people get to test their, their feelings around it or what comes up for them, or how do they feel when they’re holding that they feel taboo.

Dr Cat Meyer: This is naughty. Oh my God, I’m holding this fucking sign. It’s really an inch and I’m doing it, and it’s, how does it feel for me?

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, burning Man. Uh, you know, coming back to what you said, you know, these things, there’s so many of these unhinged things that are said, and there are times where I’ve taken, taken things out and I’m like, oh my God, how are people gonna respond to this? And Burning Man is a great place to try this part of us out.

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, somebody might have offense to it. Um, and we can be with that. And, and again, do we collapse? Do we try to, do we go into, um, over-explaining or do we just allow somebody to have a, uh, uh, a different perspective? They don’t understand me and the discomfort of somebody not understanding me, um, [00:54:00] is a really great lesson.

Dr Cat Meyer: We all get to learn.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, yeah, it is an interesting place. Do you, like, how do you, 30 seconds or less, what is Burning Man to you? Like what? Um, so like, how, how do we, like, how do you like to talk about Burning Man? Like, I kind of don’t know that I like talking about Burning Man other than telling people not to go. Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Um, oh my God. And making jokes like Burning Man’s ruined my life and stuff like that, where I’m like, you know, on one hand, super serious, on the other hand, total joke. And it’s like, you know, what else can I think about now? You know, now that I’ve, I’ve done this weird thing and engaged in it too much. Yeah.

Joe Moore: Um, you,

Dr Cat Meyer: you know, it depends on who I’m talking to. Um, on Instagram, I’ve, I’ve gone for 10 years in a row, including the Renegade Burn and I. Uh, talk about what [00:55:00] I get out of the experience every time. ’cause to me it’s like a ceremonial experience. I go in there with an intention and then, um, and then I meet whatever experience come happens there.

Dr Cat Meyer: Mm-hmm. And after that, I’m, I’m journaling a lot and processing because there’s lessons I learn, there’s skills I learned, there’s ways I showed up that might be different than, than what I’ve done before. Um, I always do a different experience. I even one year camped, uh, completely solo in my own tent, um, with my own AC unit and, and tried that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And I met the part of me that, um, was self-reliant and could go out into the world and make friends and make joy and fun everywhere with every situation. I didn’t stop smiling the whole time and that was really important for me to learn another year. It was, um, my dad had just died and I went out there and shit, hit the fan everywhere and it was the hardest burn.

Dr Cat Meyer: I was also solo camping by myself ’cause I tried to repeat the year before. And what was powerful was to see all these dads come forward [00:56:00] and help me in each of these situations. So there was something really, um, important for me to learn, like the, the surrender into help and, um, as radical reliant as I felt that I was in the year before this one was, I need help.

Dr Cat Meyer: I need to be held. Um, there was one year I, I had been studying a lot around the Ellucian mysteries and um, Brian Morocco’s work is one of ’em. Um, the author of the Immortality Key and what I saw was. Burning man as a sense of allucian mystery, as in you take a journey and follow me with this. But you take a journey and it may be hard, and you arrive at this place where, uh, this container of ecstatic states, um, mystery, uh, drugs in psychedelics, you know, um, meeting other [00:57:00] people, expanded consciousness, um, spontaneous, um, ply providing you with something that you, you manifested or you were wanting.

Dr Cat Meyer: And, and, and so I saw it from more of like a, a, a mystical sense. Um, in that year. And so every year it’s, it’s something new and different. I think it’s just a container if you wanna treat it as such for evolution, personal evolution, or you can treat it, you know, it’s like the sacred and profane. It can be something that’s really sacred.

Dr Cat Meyer: It can also be profanity and it can be the combination of both of those where sacredness can be found in profanity. Um, you know, the divinity and the humanness. Um, when I’m saying sacred and profane, I’m referring to the humanness of that, and both of ’em can exist at the same exact time.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Moore: There’s so much there in this like weird cultural experiment and there’s the best and [00:58:00] worst of humanity there. Mm-hmm. Everybody brings their best and worst to burning man. Yep. And it’s like, um, I, you know, I’ve learned so much. I’ve only gone four in a row. Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Um.

Joe Moore: I, you know, made a ridiculous decision to bring an art car second year, and you learned,

Dr Cat Meyer: I’ve learned a

Joe Moore: lot and, um, Uhhuh.

Joe Moore: Yeah, it’s fascinating and there’s so much education that can happen there. Self knowledge, you’re like, oh. And, you know, hopefully you have people to help you, um, kind of learn from it too. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, how did I show up? Super fucked up here.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you

Joe Moore: for telling me. Yeah, yeah.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. And I also think it’s such a microcosm of the macro world, you know, as much as it wants to be, it has this desire to be, um, non-central government that’s created as much as it wants to be free from judgment and, and you know, like a fluidity of a mix of people.

Dr Cat Meyer: There’s judgment, [00:59:00] there’s darkness, there’s curmudgeon, there’s, there’s crustiness, there’s, um, you can’t do this thing because you have money and, and you can’t plug and play. You can’t do this like. That’s exactly what the rest of the world is looking like. So it’s, I don’t, and I also don’t see anything wrong with that either.

Dr Cat Meyer: It’s just a mirror. Like it’s just a, this is what happens when you grow a society to be as big as it is. Um, does it turn up emulating the world that we’re trying to not be like?

Joe Moore: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And what do you think about like, um, pop media’s kind of presentation of it in the last couple years where it’s like the focus is on orgy dom only?

Joe Moore: Yeah. That’s a mirror and a half. Yeah. That’s all you know about. Yeah. And that’s interesting.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. People like sensationalism. People want entertainment. They wanna hear that there was cannibalism at Burning Man and [01:00:00] Ebola, you know, broke out in Mud Burn. You know, like, because, and here’s the thing is like media as entertainment, um, brings feeling into the body.

Dr Cat Meyer: It’s since it’s, it’s sensation, it’s panic, it’s anxiety, it’s fear, it’s, you know, like all these, um, uh, feelings where our everyday life might be really mundane. It might be, we might be numb to every day. We might be. So, uh, how many of us are reading. The news, you know, in, in this case, burning Man. Um, for the excitement, oh my God, that happened.

Dr Cat Meyer: Wow. That’s, I can’t even believe there’s an orgy dome where people have sex next to each other. Like, what? You know, so I, I, I just, I, I kind of laugh at it. I’m like, I remember after Mud burn, um, walking out, you know, two miles. And just being super joyful and going into [01:01:00] the, um, uh, what do you call that, the casinos, um, to clean up and, and rest finally, you know, ’cause I was exhausted and feeling I was in a totally different dimension walking through the casino floor.

Dr Cat Meyer: And people, you know, I look grungy, I look totally dirty, totally smelly. And people are like, you’re coming from, from from Burning Man. Did you get that Ebola? You know? And I’m like, I’m like, huh, yeah, I can’t, I can’t handle this right now. Um, no, I did not. But it’s interesting. But they’re, they’re like, it’s exciting for, for, um, the world and, um.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, we’re looking for entertainment, we’re looking for life. We’re looking for, you know, here’s the, coming back to eroticism, the word ologist, aliveness. And so are we finding aliveness in these, these, uh, shocking sensationalized news and yeah. Maybe. [01:02:00] Mm-hmm. Or do we wanna come into the vulnerable feeling aspect of pleasure, but most people don’t want that.

Dr Cat Meyer: ’cause that takes time.

Joe Moore: Right, right. Um, yeah. There’s so much here to dig into. Um, so we’re at roughly speaking time. We don’t need to hurry, but I wanna, you know, respect your day and like what are, what are some maybe kind of gems you or things we didn’t hit that you might wanna leave folks with as we kind of work towards the end here?

Joe Moore: Hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: Oh, here’s something, um, I shared with you before we started recording. Um, so I had been, for the last eight, nine months, I’ve been dealing with long COVID symptoms, um, that activated my Epstein bar activated, um, old mold, uh, uh, poisoning that I had, uh, a couple years ago. Hmm. [01:03:00] And it’s left me for the eight months feeling, uh, dealing with chronic fatigue, foggy brain, um, pain in my body, like waking up and having pain in my body.

Dr Cat Meyer: Like all the inflammation markers were through the roof. And it tanked my hormones and it tanked my, um, cortisol levels and it tanked, like it just brought the worst out of the physical body. And I think so many people are struggling with this and they don’t know what they can do, um, as it relates to their sex life.

Dr Cat Meyer: Like right now, I’m working with amazing functional doctors who have me, you know, um, doing ozone and hormone therapy and, and um, you know, working with inflammation, glutathione, things like that. However, during this process, it was the greatest lesson for me of how do you stay erotic? How do you continue to nurture your sex life with yourself and with your partner [01:04:00] amid chronic illness, chronic pain, chronic fatigue?

Dr Cat Meyer: And the solution of that is coming into relationship with pleasure. And I’m gonna explain that more versus just what’s regurgitated on social media. Pleasure is really important. Pleasure. Um, is that the feel good sensation in our body when we can relax our nervous system to, to connect with it? In therapy, I teach this very basic practice called glimmers and glows.

Dr Cat Meyer: This is a somatic practice that when we stop and we can consciously connect with something in our environment, um, that might feel good and a feel good. Um, for people who, who, who haven’t had pleasure in their bodies or don’t have those reference points, is this subtle expansion of the body. We shift, um, into the parasympathetic system and, and, [01:05:00] uh, things open a little bit.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, I have birds outside. I leave my windows open, I hear the birds outside and I’ll, I’ll just stop for a moment and hear the birds and I feel my body shift into that parasympathetic state and it feels nice. Now, that’s a glimmer and if you stay connected with that 30 seconds to a minute. Even it shifts into what’s called a glow, and it expands and deepens that regulated state and it expands the threshold of what you can tolerate.

Dr Cat Meyer: So pleasure is very important for the health of our nervous system, just on a basic level. Um, it’s not really basic, but on that, on that foundational level. Um, now when we’re chronically fatigued, when we’re in pain, a lot of times we don’t want to be in the body ’cause that’s where the source of this is.

Dr Cat Meyer: And yet you can connect with pleasure through just your [01:06:00] breath. Like if everybody just pauses and takes a slow breath in and a slow breath out, there’s something pleasurable about doing that. Or if you walk outside, I do this practice, um, I live in, um, in the mountains and I’ll go out for a walk and just be in tune with the sensations, the birds, the wind, the, the sound of the trees, the, the wind going through the trees, the feeling of my, uh, feet on the earth or the, my bare feet on the earth.

Dr Cat Meyer: And that increases your sensitivity, relaxes the body, especially if there’s any clenching going on in the body because of pain or, or fatigue. And you can see the whole body have a state change. It may not get rid of the, the pain, but, but there’s, you’re, you’re developing a relationship with the body still, or, um, when you’re engaging in with your partner.[01:07:00]

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, bringing in the presence, bringing in the slowness, connecting to what feels good, and acknowledging where you’re at. There were times where I told my partner, I don’t want penetration or I don’t want to orgasm. I even said, I don’t wanna orgasm, because it took a lot of energy in that moment and I didn’t have any.

Dr Cat Meyer: So allowing ourselves to, to fall into like a melted state of just touching and breathing and enjoying each other. And sometimes that would open up to more and sometimes that wouldn’t. But that continual coming back to things like that, while also honoring where the point, where the end point actually is, where the limit actually is, prevented me from going into a zero to 100, um, pattern of nothing at all or all the way.

Dr Cat Meyer: So many people do. If they start flirting, this is [01:08:00] gonna go to penetration, and I don’t want that, so I’m not gonna flirt at all. You know? Or, um, if I start making out with them, that’s gonna go to penetration. I don’t want that. So I’m just not gonna make out at all. I’m just gonna push their hand off of me.

Dr Cat Meyer: And that’s unfortunate because we’re losing all of these other realms that we might actually be available for or can even contribute to both our healing, um, of the physical body as well as the relationship.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. So that’s what I’ll tell people, like, just because there’s pain, just because you’re sick or just because you’re in this state doesn’t mean all of that’s not available to you. And, and you just, you can start with small things and that’s actually incredibly profound. Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Yeah. It moves the door, um, the perceived realm of possibility and a lot of other things and mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Actually getting pleasures, just medical. So, um, it is, it is.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. [01:09:00] And if you need psychedelic help, you know, think that that might also, might be available for you too. Ketamine is an antic. It’s, you know, prevents pain. It helps with some of the pain. So, um, or it helps lift the heaviness of depression and anxiety so that you can feel, connect and pleasure again or, um, so you can be in your body more easily too.

Joe Moore: Hmm. So where can people find out more about your private practice and workshops and mm-hmm. Other things you have going on?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, so they can go to dr kat meyer.com. That’s D-R-C-A-T-M-E-Y-E r.com. Um, they can also find me on Instagram at the same name. And, uh, my podcast is Sex Love Psychedelics on Spotify and, and, uh, iTunes and all those, all those podcasty things.

Joe Moore: Outstanding. Amazing. Well, Dr. K Myers has been lovely. Thank you so much. [01:10:00] I hope we get to do more. Um, we had a lovely conversation a while ago about the history of a lot of this stuff, and yeah, it’d be fun to dig into that in the future if you’re up for it.

Dr Cat Meyer: Oh God, let’s do it. Let’s be nerds and dig, dig deep into the past.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah.

Joe Moore: Love it. Well, thank you so much and, um, until next time. Appreciate it.

Dr Cat Meyer: Thank you.

September 16, 2025October 7, 2025

Dee Dee Goldpaugh – Embracing Pleasure

Dee Dee Goldpaugh with Psychedelics Today style graphics

Joe Moore interviews Dee Dee Goldpaugh, LCSW about their new book Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality. The discussion covers the book’s reception, critiques of over-medicalization, personal healing experiences, definitions of erotic energy and pleasure, historical repression of substances, and contemporary ethical concerns.

Key topics

Conversion therapy: historical use of psychedelics in conversion practices, risks today, and need for professional consensus to ban psychedelic-assisted conversion therapy.

Motivation: reaction to dominance of the clinical/medical model in psychedelics.

Author background: clinical social worker, ketamine-assisted therapy provider, sexual abuse survivor, early psychedelic integration work.

Personal healing: ayahuasca and San Pedro (Wachuma) experiences leading to embodied healing and pleasure.

Concepts defined: erotic energy as life force; distinction between healing pleasure and leisure.

Political framing: pleasure as anti-capitalist resistance; sustaining community and activism.

Links

https://www.deedeegoldpaugh.com

Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors or inaccuracies.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: [00:00:00] Okay, great. Yeah,

Joe Moore: we are live. Hi everybody. Welcome back to Psychedelics today. Joe Moore here joined by Didi Gold, pa. How you doing today, Didi?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I’m doing great. I’m so happy to be here. Joe,

Joe Moore: happy to have you. It’s been, um, a long time in the works for us to make this happen, and I wanted to actually show the cover of your recent book.

Joe Moore: Um, I assume this is your first book that you’ve published.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: This is my first book, yeah.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Embrace Pleasure. How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality. Uh, came out in July. June.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah, it’s been out about two months now and it’s been doing really, really well. I mean, it’s been a really interesting, uh, experience because as I was writing the book.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, colleagues in the field, uh, had sort of given me some level of warning about potential backlash in writing a book about psychedelics and pleasure, and, uh, warned me [00:01:00] about potential negative reaction and that, and I think that was coming from a really sincere and genuine place. And what I’ve learned in the past two months is that people have been dying to talk about this and are much more open to looking at different ways that psychedelics can be beneficial to them outside of the medical model.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, in the past two months since the book has been out, I have received dozens of emails from folks, some people sexual trauma survivors, some people just interested in exploring psychedelics that have found the book really meaningful. And every one of those emails means so much to me. It’s really been amazing.

Joe Moore: I love that. Yeah. I remember us talking about like ex uh, kind of. Predicting the heat that was gonna come your way, and like, I think you hit the right cultural moment because it’s, I don’t know, like things have gotten, become so tough and become also in, in a lot of ways so obvious that like, this is something that we need to dig [00:02:00] into and actually face squarely Absolutely.

Joe Moore: How, absolutely. How, how did that come forward for you?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah. Well, I mean, the ideas for this book really, I mean, there’s a lot of different ways I could talk about how this book came into the world, but it was really, um, an idea that, um, took hold as a response to what I saw as an an, an incredibly over medicalized, um, dominance within the field of psychedelics.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Mm-hmm. I really didn’t think that was gonna serve all people. I, I, as you know, from reading the book, feel like there is a time and place where psychedelic assisted therapy is exactly the right thing. But I mean, we had this sort of, um. Deeply capitalistic championing of the clinical model as the only safe model.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So I really wanted to start building dialogue about other ways people could think about psychedelic healing. Um, because I mean, clinical, the clinical model is just not set up to [00:03:00] actually take us into this additional step of like, well, what happens after we heal acute trauma or we’re not so depressed or anxious anymore.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: There is a whole world waiting for us that has to do with connecting to community earth relatedness, um, our sexuality and spirituality, spiritual life’s flourishing. So it felt really important to sort of build something that was an answer to that. And, and what I can assume is over the past year there’s been some really critical moments that this sort of blockbuster.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Uh, seemingly unstoppable, monolithic, psychedelic assisted therapy movement, all of a sudden got halted by a lot of practical things, the FDA, about stocks crashing. You know, we don’t have to get into all of the, the politics of the situation, but I think all of a sudden people started to think the way that this was, we were told it was all gonna go down.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Maybe isn’t exactly gonna, it’s not gonna work out that way. And what is [00:04:00] left for us. So as it turns out, um, the zeitgeist in this moment, I think of, um, you know, a lot of political uncertainty are more interested than we ever could have known about connecting with their bodies, their communities, about sexual flourishing.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So it’s really just been a, an incredibly exciting moment for me.

Joe Moore: Hmm. So let’s give a little bit of your background before we kind of dig more into, uh, your. Um, your book. So how, how did kind of therapy and kind of psychedelics come forward for you mm-hmm. As a, as a social worker?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah. So I’m a clinical social worker and I’m, I am a therapy, a therapist in private practice in Woodstock, New York.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: My day-to-day life is mostly seeing therapy clients, supervising therapists. I do a lot of consulting work in the field. I do ketamine assisted therapy. Um, and, uh, you know, that has been a [00:05:00] trajectory over 18 years of, of development in a professional career. So, um, I, my personal story is so wrapped up at the heart of this book.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I had multiple different career iterations before I became a psychotherapist. And, uh, like many people, my um, movement towards working in professional mental health was part of my own healing journey. And psychedelics are very much entwined with that healing journey. So I am a sexual abuse survivor. I’m very open about that in my teaching and in the writing in the book.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, and I had. A lot of psychotherapy. I tried a lot of different, uh, modalities for healing. I got deeply involved in meditation. Um, I mean, I, I really kind of tried it all and those things helped me, but they didn’t actually heal me. And at a certain point, I had [00:06:00] had experiences with psychedelics earlier in life in contexts that we might call more recreational.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, but when I came to do work in ceremonial contexts, it all of a sudden opened up this experience for me of healing that I did not even know was possible. And that was the moment that my professional career as a therapist and my psychedelic work really started to merge. So I began, before there were just training programs everywhere to be a psychedelic integration coach or therapist.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, I was in the very, very early stages of developing psychedelic integration techniques, and I was really focusing on. Sexual trauma survivors. Um, my work is more broad than that in terms of my practice. I work with couples, individuals. I do a lot of trauma work, but not exclusively that. And, uh, I really wanted to start developing protocols that were beyond just talk therapy.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Like what, you know, talk therapy hadn’t healed me, [00:07:00] so it, why would I think that that was the only way that other people could heal too? So I was really looking at how to help people in post psychedelic states. And from there, I mean, I think my work has really taken off in the direction of not just how do we effectively integrate a psychedelic experience for an acute level of healing, but how do we take this and really make it medicine in our lives?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: How do we go from, um, I feel better to, I am engaged with the world, right? I am living a wor a life that’s worth living, that is so much at the basis of the work that I’m interested in doing with people.

Joe Moore: Yeah, I think one of the, one of the handful of things that made me kind of get excited about your book is that I’ve been talking about these kind of nons psychotherapeutic modalities for a long time, and that they can be really effective.

Joe Moore: And for instance, my chronic pain went away by, you know, listening to music and live settings. [00:08:00] Uh, and like, I’ll be really honest, overusing psychedelics and MDMA and, but my chronic pain went away. So who’s to say it was really overusing and, um, you know, me really. But I think, um, but it, you know, I’m, you know, um, on a more clean path, I guess.

Joe Moore: But there was a lot of pleasure there and there was a lot of safety and trust and fun. And I think in a lot of ways that those are big themes that you’re touching on in your book is like. It’s okay to have fun. It’s okay to feel good in my body. It’s okay to feel good with other people. And, um, you know, another point, not all pleasure is sexual.

Joe Moore: Right? Like, a lot of people read it and they’re, oh yeah, oh, sexual. Uh, and then they’re like, wait, what about eating, like, doing fun things? You know,

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: you love me. So many little gems there, I think. Okay, let me see if I can, um, piece this apart a little bit. So the first thing is, uh, the, there is sexuality is right in the title of the book, but mm-hmm.[00:09:00]

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Really what I’m interested in is very much about like, how are sexuality is actually a part of our intrinsic life force and mm-hmm. The point that you’re making, like all pleasure, sexual pleasure is a powerful form of pleasure, but so can, um, any kind of erotic experience, meaning an experience that connects us to our life force can be equally powerful and sensual.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Right. So really what I’m interested in is the erotic dancing is a great ex, a great example of that, right? Anything that connects us to our bodies with other people, I think, uh, our creative work, uh, really is pointing to this idea of erotic energy. So, um, you started your comment by talking about this idea of overuse, and obviously that’s very individual.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Like when someone says, I’m overusing something, that’s their own personal judgment as to is it causing harm in their life? There may be a lot of different factors that go into [00:10:00] overuse, but the reason that I circle back to this point is to highlight something for the listeners about my own healing process.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: We have been sold this bill of goods really, and it kind of goes under the magic bullet psychedelic umbrella that you can go and sit in, um, with a psychedelic assisted therapist and do have an experience or two even with really good integration. And that’s gonna do it. And for some people that may really help set them in the right direction.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But my book and my philosophy is really thinking about psychedelics as a path in our lives. Does it mean you have to do it all the time? No, but it actually might mean that at strategic moments in our life, we return to these medicines as a way of helping us through not only difficult experiences, but rites of passage.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I am very, very interested in how we can look at. Um, the roots of psychedelics and indigenous cultures that are still living traditions today, [00:11:00] and rather than appropriating them or feeling that we have to go into those cultures and possibly cause harm, what can we do with this blueprint to actually create a new psychedelic reality that’s relevant to us in this moment that has to do with music community coming together with an intergenerational systems of support and potentially looking at psychedelics as something that’s integrated into our lives holistically.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, for me, uh, my initial work around my trauma healing was really with ayahuasca and I did a lot of ayahuasca ceremonies before I really felt like I was in a different place. We are not talking about like one or two dosings of MDMA and a very nice therapist holding your hand. I did many ayahuasca ceremonies over many years and, um.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I do talk about this as, um, sort of a key life experience that, uh, gave rise to the [00:12:00] philosophy in the book. But during my last Ayahuasca ceremony, I got a message from the medicine to go and receive healing from Wachuma Medicine, which is San Pedro. And it’s a very different kind of medicine, right? It’s more the chemical cousin of MDMA.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: It’s very heart-centered. Um, and it can also be deeply, deeply mystical as I’m learning. So I go to Peru and I don’t even know at this point what it is that I’m supposed to be healing because all of a sudden I’m not in this traumatized state anymore. I’m not ruled by trauma. I feel quite embodied. I feel like I’m doing well in my life and in my relationships, but I get this really clear message that this is the direction I’m supposed to be going in.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So I’m in Peru. I start working with Chuma Medicine, with the, with a teacher there, and. This really is the story that forms, um, the entire jumping off point for the book because it was the first day of my life that I experienced being [00:13:00] alive and awake and connected to the earth and connected to my body with no thought of trauma at all.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: There was not heavy processing happening. There was just beauty and expansiveness and love. I was being held on the earth in this expansive state of love and ecstasy, and that’s what really turned me onto this idea that this is the piece we are just not telling people about. It isn’t all hard work. Hard work is the thing that gets you to this place that you really get the healing.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: That was the healing. I just didn’t know it at the time. I, I did all of this really heavy trauma processing and thought, well, I’m pretty healed now. And, and to a lot of people I was, but I didn’t actually realize how absent that kind of expansive state of pleasure was in my life until I had these deeper experiences with Wachuma [00:14:00] that turned me on to the fact that like, this kind of love and pleasure is available to us at any moment.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, um, I want to go back and just try to like define a term because mm-hmm. You know, I think some people won’t. Me too. Like I have a little bit of a hard time like figuring out the, the use case for the term erotic and you used it earlier. Mm. And it was kind of like an interplay between two people maybe, or how do you like to use that or define that?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah. Great. Um, well. I think of the erotic, um, I’m drawing, there’s a really powerful essay written by Audra Lorde that’s called Uses of the Erotic. And I really, um, integrate her definition and it’s the erotic energy is really our life force energy. It is anything that falls into the realm of the expansive, the liminal, the creative.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: [00:15:00] So I think of sexuality as a component of the erotic, but I think of the erotic almost as this raw energy that exists within our bodies. That gets expressed in all different kinds of ways. And it can be expressed in through, as I said, through um, a connection with another person, but it can also just be our own personal creative output.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: We’re whenever we’re in that expansive state of, um, of connecting to the world, um, so we’re really starting to, uh, develop a little bit of a chain here of how different terms connect because. We can start with this idea of the, the erotic as being this energy within us that’s creative and expansive and connects us to the world and other people.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And then I think maybe like the next step on that chain is thinking about when we talk about spirituality and the development of spirituality, which I believe is linked. I think about that from a very pragmatic place. And it’s how connected are we? How connected are we [00:16:00] to the divine within ourselves, to the earth, to other people?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And then I think the next link in that chain that’s worth defining in this conversation is, what do I even mean when I’m talking about pleasure? So, you know, the pleasure is the, um, you know, the, the, the large letter title of the book. But it’s an incredibly misunderstood concept because I am not making any kind of argument that anything we might consider just in our colloquial language as pleasurable, is gonna necessarily be healing.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: In fact, those things can be the very things that hold us back from being as self-actualized as we can possibly be because we might consider it pleasurable to scroll on our phones all day, or any other kind of behavior that can become repetitive. And actually, um, I think in, in a lot of ways we become addicted to those behaviors because we are, um, trying very hard to survive in a very hard world.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So distracting ourselves makes a lot of [00:17:00] sense, and I would put that under the umbrella of leisure pleasure as I’m talking about it as something that heals us and connected to the erotic. Is any moment when we are awake and alive with a quality of mindfulness and savoring the sensual. So it must be something where our attention is there, our body is present, we are open, expansive, and alive.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I believe those kinds of moments truly do heal us. And so it, it really is important to think about these terms and how they connect and also that pleasure. And what I haven’t found a better word for than leisure are actually two really different things with different outcomes and utility in our life because, um, I’m not anti lesure.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, I think that it’s necessary, but real joy and real pleasure actually has a much bigger resonance that tips into the spiritual and the erotic and also the political. [00:18:00]

Joe Moore: Hmm. Do you wanna jump into the political aspects here? I think that’s a good bridge.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Sure. Absolutely. So I see pleasure as a tool of anti-capitalist political empowerment.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I think this is a really, really important point because as I was writing this book and I’ve been out speaking at conferences and doing podcasts and talking about the book, every time I come to talk about this book, there’s a little part of me that feels really responsible to share something about why it’s important to talk about pleasure right now.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Because we are in a moment, I think, of tremendous political uncertainty. There is so much fear about the rise of fascism in this country. We are witnessing political violence all around us, and in my experience, people are more scared than I have ever experienced in my lifetime about what kind of [00:19:00] future we’re facing.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So it can be. Edgy to talk about pleasure, be promoting pleasure within this political paradigm. So why is it important? I actually believe that pleasure, as I’m describing it, this meaningful kind of pleasure is what we need to remain politically empowered. Because if we continue to try to create some kind of resistance in the face of violence, we will become depressed and depleted.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And what is the thing that actually helps us to stand together and to have the self self-energy to keep standing up in the face of oppression? And I believe that we have to be nourished by this connection to other people. We need to join together in community and dance and listen to music and make music and tell [00:20:00] stories.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And support each other. Our body has to be nourished in this way, or we just simply will not be able to be effective. The other facet that I would mention of this is we are in this incredibly consumerized capitalist society, that we are in this massive overconsumption of information and overconsumption of stuff.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But if we really come to realize that so much of what we need to make us feel good resides in our bodies right at this moment, with nothing else required, but creating the space to drop into our human relationships and enjoy our bodies, uh, it really, really disrupts the message that we need to be continually consuming.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And so in that way, I think we can look at the act of pleasure as a, a politically empowered act and, and in fact, uh, an act of resistance and activism. [00:21:00]

Joe Moore: Yeah, I love that. Um, and I think, you know, there’s big historical roots that we chatted about earlier as well, and I think, um, you know, I was, I was trying to go, you know, thousands of years ago, um, but I think like more poignant as kind of the points you were making.

Joe Moore: Could you bring up some examples of like kind of repression from the last, uh, couple hundred years or more recently?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah, so there’s a section in early in the book and, um, I, to my knowledge, I shall say that different authors have written about these, uh, phenomenon independently, but I don’t, I couldn’t find any examples of where anyone had put this together chronologically as it’s laid out in my book.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So one of the arguments I make in the book is that the war on drugs is a war on pleasure. And what do I mean by that? We often think of the drug war as sort of starting with the Controlled Substances Act in Richard Nixon, and that is clearly a [00:22:00] very notable event that has impacted prohibition and the circumstances under which psychedelic work takes place today.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, but actually if we go back in history, the first anti-narcotics ordinances happen in 1875, and they’re targeting opium dens. So it’s not just that that authorities were interested in targeting opium, it was that white women would attend opium dens and there was a, they wanted to create a reason to raid opium dens and prevent.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, intermixing and sexual relationships between Chinese men and white women. So anti or anti-narcotics ordinances, uh, took place. Our next stop in this is, uh, peyote. So peyote is a sacrament in the Native American church and, um, under totally different circumstances, right? Peyote is used for community empowerment, for [00:23:00] spiritual empowerment.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But when the federal government wanted to, um, try to outlaw or ban practices relating to peyote, one of the chief ways they did that was to just try to disseminate rumors that peyote was going to, was being used for orgies and that young women were being given peyote and would be morally compromised and will be unable to assimilate to whiteness.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: We then have laws against cannabis and the. Propaganda at that time and, and cocaine as well. But cannabis has this really particular history where even the language marijuana, which I don’t know that I mentioned this fact in the book, but the languaging of, of cannabis transitioning to marijuana was to make it sound more associated with the global south.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So you wanna associate this subject, uh, this, this substance rather with black and brown men, and that they would become sex crazed and they would wanna have sex with white [00:24:00] women, and that the white women doing this. Substance, um, could remain morally uncompromised because you could blame the substance and you could blame the man of color, but you could rehabilitate the white woman.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So the next stop that we have in this trajectory really comes in this Nixon era, right? Where you have the controlled substances act as a response to, to LSD and what happens culturally right around the same time that we have, um, the cultural explosion of LSD is the advent of the pill. So all of a sudden you have these two really powerful chemicals that are helping people to connect to pleasure and sexuality, um, and are making women more politically empowered to be able to control their bodies.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Now, just worth note, I don’t mean to, um. Present this entirely rosy picture of the LSD era and the hippie era, that there was no problems there. And it was just a, um, you know, [00:25:00] that it was all wonderful for women because there were a lot of issues that we can point to that happened around that culture as well in terms of um, you know, women’s equality or lack of equality.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But it’s undeniable that this was a moment of sexual revolution and, and it was exactly that. A revolution of sexuality and a revolution of thought that made it feel so dangerous to the government. And there’s one more example that I give in the book that I think is really interesting ’cause it’s rarely looped in with this kind of bigger trajectory, and that is how MDMA came to be made illegal.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So just in. Very brief, uh, history of MDMA. You know, MDMA as many people know, before it was a scheduled substance, it was used widely in couples therapy. You know, Sheldon Resynthesize, MDMA gives it to Leo zf. All of a sudden, couples therapists are being trained to use this, and it’s effective in treatment.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: [00:26:00] Therapists are seeing great, uh, responses. When, uh, MDMA starts to get heat from the federal government is when it seeps into nightclub culture. When people start to use MDMA for joy for dancing, that’s when it gets on the radar of the federal government, and all of a sudden MDMA is a substance that we need to regulate.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So the brief addendum to that, if, if listeners don’t know, is that when the hearing happened, that did make MDMA illegal. They, the federal government or the DEA court judge, if I’m getting this correct. Um, determined based on testimony that MDMA actually did have medical utility and that decision was basically overridden and MDMA ends up on schedule one, as we know, as it remains today.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But the reason I go into this whole history is really to try to illuminate that we have a long [00:27:00] history in this culture of propaganda and prohibition that had a lot more to do with restricting people’s access to substances and fun and sex, specifically sex between races, but not exclusively that. And, and this goes all the way back to 1875.

Joe Moore: Wild, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um. I remember like looking up, uh, when we’re the first kind of like traces of like prohibition of substance, like kind of proto drug war things. And it was like kind of around, at least in Europe when tobacco came back and the, the king was like, oh, that’s gross. And it didn’t really go well.

Joe Moore: Um, but yeah, like later it just like evolved to all these other kind of things around kind of like subs, speciation, and, you know, racist, like kind of bloodline [00:28:00] stuff. And, you know, it was really fascinating and kind of ugly to watch it kind of roll out. Yeah, but that’s, you know, kind of a big part of the history of the human race is othering.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: You know, there’s one like little factoid in the book that listeners might find interesting. I was really trying to actually look for any historical evidence of fun, like, of substances being used for fun. And, uh, you know, if we look to, um, the Spanish conquest of the Americas and the repression of psilocybin and, uh, cacti cults, at that time, very rich documentation was destroyed.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So there’s little that we have, but one of the existing documents that we do have talks about the coronation of an Aztec king, where psilocybin was used specifically for merriment and enjoyment and, and, uh, dancing. So yeah, [00:29:00] we, we tend to look at indigenous practice and certainly what our perception is, is of it today, and put that into this bucket of healing.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But my suspicion is that as long as people have been using these substances, they’ve been in touch with the ecstatic properties and, and we at least have a little bit of scan historical documentation that, um, psychedelic medicines were indeed used for fun.

Joe Moore: It’s important, and I think like I, I was one of my favorite.

Joe Moore: Dinners I’ve ever had was with um, two friends. One was like a classist, so like ancient Greek world, Mediterranean. The other guy was world class scholar on the Mongols. And we kind of just, that’s a dinner. Oh my gosh. We speculated for hours about the, um, possibilities of drug trade and what might’ve been used.

Joe Moore: And it was fascinating and it was like kind of obvious ’cause things were a little boring and we had to, you know, very likely if something was interesting and sellable, people were selling it and trading it. [00:30:00] Um, you know, despite any kind of like sacred elements. Um, ’cause there was, you know, traders just like running, running the Silk Road and whatever other kind of trade routes there were.

Joe Moore: So like, I think there’s a rich tradition of it, but it was often scrubbed from the books. Um. Yeah. Even like the Greek symposiums, like they drink wine, but it was really clear that the wine was with things. It wasn’t just grapes and booze. Yeah.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I mean, there’s a whole very interesting anthropological kind of branch of psychedelic studies that talks about this.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: There’s, there’s a lot of really, really fascinating books that are, um, trying to piece together histories of different ways that psychedelic medicine’s impacted our cultural development, our spiritual development. I mean, that, uh, that, um, inquiry about the psychedelic roots of religion, right? It goes all the way back to was mm-hmm.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Like some of the earliest people were really interested in this. And I mean, it’s [00:31:00] still such an emerging field where the historical evidence is being pieced together.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. And a lot of work left to do, everybody. So, you know, if you wanna put on your history pants, go for it. Yeah. Love it.

Joe Moore: So, um. I, I often bring in this kind of idea that the United States was founded by Puritans. I used to, like, I was born in Massachusetts and I used to like bullshit people that everybody born in Massachusetts is issued a Puritan hat when they’re born. And I, half of people believe it, um, which is amazing to me, but it’s, you know, there’s something to it that there was a huge amount of, um, kind of, I guess religious extremists helped found this country and not, you know, they weren’t moderate in their positions.

Joe Moore: Right. So, I don’t know. Do you, do you think that has any kind of influence still?[00:32:00]

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I think it’s a more charged question than it seems like it is on the surface of it. Right? Right. ’cause this country was founded by people too conservative for England. And I don’t think that this, I don’t, I don’t think that we’re out under the thumb of that. I think we’ve got, um, it’s, it’s, it’s very interesting to me because I think we’ve got kind of these two forces that have always been in play in this country and, um, they sort of emerge and get stronger and then they ebb and they flow again, which I is this deeply Christian supremacist movement that seeks traditional, I don’t even know what it is, what tradition it is that they’re referring to, but a traditional view of family and gender roles.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And then we have these periods of cultural backlash to that. I think we now, we’re in a moment where those two opposing forces. Are at a fever [00:33:00] pitch, and it makes a lot of sense to me that this is deeply, deeply in our cultural paradigm from the foundation of this country.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. There, there’s definitely a lot of interesting religious undercurrents, and we don’t have to go too deep in it, but like the Protestant work ethic idea, the idea of like predestination your, your kind of fate to heaven or hell was kinda like preordained before you were born, which is huge in, in certain threads of, um, Protestantism.

Joe Moore: And, and you’re right. Like that idea that this was too conservative for England and like, that’s such an interesting thing to consider, um, and, and really powerful and um, yeah. So I think people should sit with that eventually.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Well, I think I have a, I have a comment that I think could be a, a little bit of a, um, helpful way of pulling some of this together.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I think when we think about this idea of Puritan Puritanism, it’s very much, um, an [00:34:00] anti pleasure. Um, there’s an assumption that somehow pleasure is going to lead to sin. The pleasure is associated with laziness. There’s that Protestant work ethic thing that we’re talking about. And the conversation that I’d like to change around that is I also have a reaction to some of the, um, progressive rhetoric that’s around rest and, um, kind of disengaging with capitalism.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I agree. Like disengage with capitalism as much as. Can, but this is the system that we live under and it is really important to find rest in our bodies. Like working ourselves to death is not a good thing, and sometimes we actually, what our bodies do need is rest. But I think what gets kind of lost in both discussions, on the discussion on both sides, on one side it is saying that [00:35:00] pleasure is evil and leads to sin and will somehow lead to some sort of like moral failing.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And the other says that, uh, actually your life can be, you could just like bypass all of this capitalism stuff. And what you should focus on is just like rest and empowering yourself around rest. And of course, I’m sort of reducing complex ideas, but I’d like to promote something that’s really in the middle ground, which is that, um, it is very important to pursue meaning and pleasure and meaning for me are deeply linked.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So I think in your life you do have to find something that is productive. And it doesn’t necessarily have to mean productive under capitalism, as in it’s associated with a high paying job. But I think you need to find your thing that helps you to actually contribute something to this world. ’cause we have to ask ourselves like, what are we here for?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: We’re here for more than watching Netflix, and we’re here for [00:36:00] more than giving up our entire lives to work for a company in an unfulfilling way. So I think that there’s something that’s deeply pleasurable about connecting to a kind of livelihood, to a kind of community involvement that actually requires that we get off our ass and do something.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I mean, rest when you need to. Work hard when you need to. But a fulfilling life. A pleasurable life is one where. More often than not, we’re doing something that we find emotionally and spiritually meaningful and connected deeply to our ethics and morals that contributes to making this world better in some way for other people.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I, I think, again, I’ll just connect that to a lot of what we hear in the contemporary rhetoric around trauma healing. Um, you know, healing from trauma can be very exhausting and you might feel like you really need to rest, but in fact, when you’re [00:37:00] spiritually depleted, all the rest and sleep in the world isn’t gonna do it for you because what you actually need is to find the energy to connect to meaning in your life and connect to other people.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And it does require some motivation and energy and hopefully, you know, in a, I think in a, I don’t know that this is entirely utopian, but a utopian idea, but, um. We have other people to stand there with us who love us and, and can help us, help support us as we’re trying to connect to that quality of, of meaning in our lives.

Joe Moore: Hmm. Right. Like there are moments when we really do need to put our energy out there to help other people. And right now it seems pretty clear that that’s the case. And one, one topic that you and I have been chatting about is this kind of, um, consistent encroachment, um, against queer rights and also this one particular topic of conversion therapy, [00:38:00] which is like really clearly shown in the data to be very harmful.

Joe Moore: But yeah. People are probably gonna be bringing it back and people already are bringing it back quietly into clinical frames. Right. So can you, can you give us a little bit of an understanding of this conversation where the important points you might wanna cover?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah, absolutely. So I started this interview by talking about how largely the reception to the book has just been wonderful and people have been super into it.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I’ve been so grateful for that. Um, but there are sections of the book where I talk about this legacy of psychedelic assisted conversion therapy mostly in the fifties and sixties or where the documented cases are. Although, uh, we are learning that this is, um, has continued to happen. Um, more survivors are being identified and underground guides who I’ve interviewed in the course of writing this book, most certainly still get requests for conversion therapy.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So, um, what has seemed to be really difficult to people is [00:39:00] that I do name. Several beloved figures in the history of psychedelic medicine who practiced conversion therapy. And many people have a really hard time with accepting that that figures that contributed a lot and are quite beloved might have also had ideas that were, um, accepted at the time that we now realize are really harmful.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Mm-hmm. So, um. I think it’s really important at this juncture to define what conversion therapy is and is not. Yeah. Because that can really help people to understand some of the pushback around, uh, these discussions of historical figures of what we can do going forward. So there’s a perception that conversion therapy is a coercive treatment inflicted by up upon queer minors or trans minors, um, mostly by religious clergy or other kind of fundamentalist counselors that seeks [00:40:00] to reorient them to cis genderedness or heterosexuality.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: That’s not an accurate definition of conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is any therapy, whether it is voluntary or not, that aims at changing the gender identity or sexuality of the person. Or upholds an idea that heterosexuality is a healthier, more natural or desired outcome. So if we look at a lot of these historical cases, uh, I think we really can see that the figures who engaged in this behavior were doing voluntary treatments with consenting adults who came to treatment for distress related to their sexual identities for depression, for anxiety.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And yet these treatments existed within a cultural moment that I think we still exist in, that suggests that it would be easier [00:41:00] to be, uh, heterosexual or cisgender. And that instead of, um, receiving affirming treatments that can uplift the sexuality of someone, the treatment of the depression. Amounted to conversion therapy to suggesting that, um, treating the distress, in other words, can actually, and has actually caused a lot of harm.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So why is this important now? Right. I think there is this moment of some back and forth within the community naming certain people, and, you know, looking at the historical information is important. So we can look at what was in the historical record and develop a response to it. But why is that especially relevant in this moment?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Mm-hmm. Well, there’s a, a couple of different reasons. So the first, very relevant in 2026, the Supreme Court will decide a case. Called, um, child Versus Salazar. And this is a counselor in the state [00:42:00] of Colorado who is seeking to challenge the ban on conversion therapy to minors by, uh, clergy and counselors and religious counselors.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Now, if this person succeeds in the Supreme Court, this could effectively void bans in 24 states and the District of Columbia paving a way for conversion therapy practices to once again be legal. So we’ve got a, um, attempt that is gonna be heard by the Supreme Court that could once again really create vulnerability for some of our most vulnerable people who are queer and trans youth.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: The way that I see that this is particularly, um. Important to develop consensus within the psychedelic community and guidelines that ban the use of conversion therapy with psychedelics as consensus within our clinical community is a few reasons. One, psychedelics [00:43:00] are no longer something that is just centered in liberal ideologies.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: There is a huge interest in the right wing at, um, supporting psychedelic assisted therapies. And my concern is that one of the reasons that this is, um, looked at as, uh, something that is so, um, interesting to them is not just to support veterans, but because conversion therapy could make a big comeback.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Now we can look at medicines like ketamine that are integrated into clinical private practice right now without a lot of oversight. And for as much critique as I have about psychedelic clinical trials, for a lot of reasons, the one thing that they do have is at least moderate oversight. So we know conversion therapy practices are not happening in clinical trial contexts, but there is nothing to say that as these medicines become more widely available, that they couldn’t be used in private practice settings.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And that feels really important to me. [00:44:00] And the other piece that I wanna mention is just the suggestibility factor of psychedelics. One thing that the clinical, um, clinical literature tells us is that psychedelics make people more suggestible. And when we look at conventional conversion therapy, nons psychedelic conversion therapy, 80% of the people who have received this treatment as a minor experienced lasting harm in the form of depression, anxiety, increased suicidality.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: We know it has no efficacy or medical utility, and we know that it harms people. And my concern is as we integrate psychedelics into that, or if psychedelics were to be integrated into that, uh, the harm will be greatly compounded. So I think we’re in a cultural moment where we really have to, um, acknowledge that past harms occurred, look critically and compassionately at the people who, uh, practiced conversion therapy, hold them as complex [00:45:00] figures in a historical moment.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But it is so much more important to me that we go beyond this heroes and villains, or I should say more like, um, perpetrators and survivors paradigm. And think about like, why is this so important now that we understand our history? Really, I believe it’s so that we can build consensus and ethical guidelines now so we can look at what happened in the past.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And not to say this person was evil, but to say somebody who, um, is quite beloved and wise could have actually done something harmful with very good intentions. How do we prevent that from happening now? So yeah, it’s a very big issue and, um, I think we, we need to just recognize like we’re in a moment that still so deeply pathologizes queer and trans identities even very well, and tensioned therapists may not realize the harm they’re causing, um, because we still don’t have effective models that are [00:46:00] being widely used for what is really queer affirmative therapy.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, and one really uplifting part that I’d like to mention is there is a consensus statement that’s been signed by many, many different professionals in the field. Um, that’s in the process of being published right now. That does outline, um, a call for the ban of conversion therapy within psychedelic assisted therapy.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Uh, I think that it’ll be published. I think there’s gonna be a very good response. And hopefully what we’ll be doing is really developing some ethical guidelines that are based on, um, what we’ve learned from the past, uh, so that this can’t happen again.

Joe Moore: Yeah, I think we really need to stay on top of this because, you know, I, if I’m reading the political climate, like it seems as though this person, this case will succeed.

Joe Moore: And, um, we really need to like, put up defenses and media and interpersonally to help defend against that because we really don’t want to be harming people. It’s kind of one of the things in the clinical frame [00:47:00] that we don’t wanna be doing is harm. Do you know harm is kind of fundamental, right? So, um, yeah, I guess, um.

Joe Moore: There is this like challenging metaphysics, right? Of like, oh, if they’re gay, then they go to hell. So like, you know, what’s more compassionate? But that’s not really what we should be doing here. Like, that’s not a settled question. The afterlife and ethics morality, that like informed that what’s settled is clinical outcomes and like the science behind that and you know, what is the most compassionate thing to give people really good, healthy, comfortable lives in, in the way that we can, through our current tools.

Joe Moore: Harming is a thing we shouldn’t do. I think, you know, could be wrong, but I, I think we shouldn’t be harming people.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I, I think, uh, it’s foundation, what we need to be doing is helping people to self-actualize and then they can make choices in their life. You can choose how you, on a personal level, wanna reconcile your own religious beliefs with the sexuality that is inherent to [00:48:00] you.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: But I think fundamentally as a profession, we need to be coming from a place that we see all sexualities and gender expressions as valid, healthy, and normal. And that needs to be the cornerstone of how we’re working with all people. Whether they’re, whether they’re voluntarily asking for their sexual orientation to change or whether they, um, you know, whether they’re part of a religious community that believes otherwise.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I think it’s our professional obligation to uphold the dignity and worth of all people and identities.

Joe Moore: Yeah, and I think, um, just to make this more kind of clear and obvious for folks, like if somebody is trying to sweep a huge portion of themselves under the rug, that is only gonna come back worse in the future.

Joe Moore: And facing who you are squarely is. Part of that. And therapy can support that in helpful ways, right? And, um, trying to use therapeutic tools and [00:49:00] psychology to bury it is not gonna have a good result.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: You know, there may be an interesting segue here that I do talk in the book, which is like, how do we actually develop a set of sexual ethics and values that work for us because absolutely.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Mm-hmm. You sweeping your sexuality under the rug isn’t gonna work. But I think this is a good jumping off point where we can take this conversation, uh, and expand it to all people of any sexuality and gender identity. Um, it’s really, really important to talk about the potential harms to queer people, but we are also in a deeply sex negative society, generally speaking.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So I don’t think that there’s anybody walking around that doesn’t have a little bit of sexual trauma. And what I mean by sexual trauma here is maybe not capital T trauma, which we obviously understand is sexual trauma, sexual abuse and assault, but. The product of living in a sex negative society makes it actually really hard to develop a workable set of ethics and [00:50:00] values, um, that are meaningful to you.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So, you know, one of the things I talk about in the book is this idea of psychedelic sexuality. And what I mean by that is dismantling these inner narratives around our sexuality, um, that reject parts of us, uh, that integrate harmful ideas that come from society that can have to do with what kind of body is the right body to be in, um, what is the right way to experience and express our gender?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: What is it okay to like or not like sexually? And in my view as a psychotherapist, if you are not causing harm and are doing anything coercive, what you like sexually is better embraced. Right. To develop a sane relationship to our sexual desires is a gift. Um, people of course can have out of control sexual behaviors, and there’s lots of clinical support that people can receive around that.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And some interesting psychedelic work about how, um, [00:51:00] psychedelics could benefit people who, who do engage in out of control sexual behaviors. But I’m talking more about the way people who don’t consider themselves sexually traumatized at all, are carrying around deep narratives of shame around their sexuality.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I think developing, um. A kind of model of psychedelic, clinical flourishing could be looking at the ways that psychedelics can help us to integrate. Well, I mean, look, we can look at what the research actually tells us that these medicines do. And one thing that psychedelics reliably do is make us more open.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And the reason I think openness is such an important character trait when we’re thinking about developing a healthy set of sexual boundaries, ethics, and a healthy erotic self is because it does allow us to be, begin, begin to think creatively about all of the ways, um, that culture has given us deeply misogynistic or homophobic or transphobic or [00:52:00] fat phobic or ableist views that we then apply in the sexual arena and apply to ourselves.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Right? So openness actually allows us to change a lot of the sexual and societal narratives that we have around sex. And the other thing that psychedelic research tells us happens reliably that I think could really benefit fit us in the sexual arena is empathy. Experiencing deep empathy for other people allows us to tolerate sexual difference.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I think psychedelics are, um, incredibly important at developing more empathy for our partners, more empathy in our human relationships to how we experience the sexuality of other people, and being able to enact our own sexual boundaries. The last piece of this that I’m really, really interested in too is spirituality because, and this links, I think right back to the conversation we were having about queerness.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And earlier than that, the conversation we were having about religious and puritanism, [00:53:00] um, so many people have been sexually harmed by the teachings of organized religions. The gap between sexuality and spirituality can just seem insurmountable for people that I believe, and in my direct experience, psychedelics can connect us to an experience of the divine that is embodied.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: It tells us that our body is actually sacred and more than us knowing that through an intellectual frame, we can feel it by the ecstatic states that psychedelics can offer us in our bodies. And I think that actually this phenomena allows us to connect. Spirituality to our sexuality in ways that so many of us have experienced as damaged by the teachings of organized religion.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So in my incredibly optimistic mind, one outcome I would really love to see is this kind of emerging, um, [00:54:00] spiritual, emerging sense of spiritual practice and how it connects to sexuality. And so to tie this whole thing together, I started by talking about sexual ethics and values. When we experience ourself as divine, when we experience our partners and our partners bodies as divine, as divine, um, treating them with the utmost respect and ethics is natural.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: It’s unthinkable to enact sexual harm on ourself or other people. If we truly have an embodied sense of our sexuality and our bodies as divine vessels. So, I mean, this sounds kind of broad and philosophical, but I think its applications are actually very practical and it can start with how we, how we receive and give pleasure and love in our own relationships right in this moment.

Joe Moore: Mm. That was all quite brilliant, Deedee. Thank [00:55:00] you. I think taking a moment to, to kind of introspect if we’ve had these experiences is a good idea. Like, oh, your body has a sacred thing and other people has a sacred thing. And um, yeah, that intersection also being quite sacred and yeah, how do we want to do these things And yeah, I think there’s a lot people really are gonna take from this recording and your book.

Joe Moore: Um, was there, was there anything in your book that we didn’t really touch yet as like a main category, um, that might kind of hook some people into. Picking up your book, which is what I want people to do.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Mm, thank you. Um, I think the one piece that we didn’t touch on fully, um, I can share in brief. There are kind of two aspects of the book that I think are one that is very interesting to general readers and another that might be interesting to people who have been sort of connected to the psychedelic [00:56:00] community in some way.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: There’s a chapter on sexual trauma, and I began to hint at this, but I take a really expansive lens as to what I mean when I say trauma. So I’m really thinking, um, you know, we can acknowledge traumas as being the big T traumas that we all recognize being sexually assaulted, abused, and I certainly am, don’t treat that lightly.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So, PTSD and how psychedelics can be supportive of healing people with acute trauma. But I’m really looking at, um, the post acute effects of psychedelics and how they can help us to dismantle these. Inner smaller traumas that have to do with absorbing a sex negative culture. So what I lay out in the book is some of these psychedelic phases of trauma healing.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I won’t get into all the details of that, but I do break down in a way for readers that I think is very practical and something that they can integrate with a therapist, but also can think of a lot about on their own, about, um, these [00:57:00] different components of how we can heal and dismantle, um, traumas within us using psychedelics, whether it’s self-guided or in a clinical setting or in a, in a ceremonial setting.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And I do offer some somatic practices and things that are quite practical for people, um, that I think could be useful to people. Um, because again, I think we’re all a little sexually traumatized. We all have something to heal. Um, I’ll just tell you as a super quick aside, uh, at my book release party in Denver after the Psychedelic Science Conference, um.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: A, a person who was on site who was helping us to sell the books at the party came over and tapped me on the shoulder and said, oh, there’s this guy over there that says he doesn’t have anything to heal in his sexuality. Can you, can you go over and convince him about why he should buy this book? And I was like, I, no, no, I’m not gonna do that.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Because fundamentally, I believe that in this very deep. [00:58:00] Paradox that we all have something to heal in our sexuality. And simultaneously you are not broken. Recognizing your non brokenness is the healing. And because I think most of us carry some idea, some edge, that we are a little broken, that is where the need for healing comes in.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: It’s not actually that we need fixing, it’s that we need to recognize our inherent sacredness and power and dignity and worth in our sexuality. So that is section one. Um, section two that I feel really proud of that I think, um, could be really useful for people who have difficulty like myself reconciling some of the sexual harm that we’ve witnessed in the psychedelic community.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, you know, there is unfortunately this misperception that psychedelics make us more evolved. Wiser, kinder necessarily. For some people, psychedelics seem to make them very much more [00:59:00] narcissistic and can be used as tools of harm. So there’s a whole chapter in the book where I talk about, um, covered memories of sexual abuse in psychedelic states, which is a very, um, difficult topic.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And one of my clinical specializations. And I also to the best of my ability, tried to look at power dynamics and all of the unseen ways in psychedelic relationships, either between guides and clients or in psychedelic communities or in ceremonial contexts. All of these unseen vectors that can influence our safety and, um, unfortunately in some cases lead to the perpetration of sexual harm.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So not only how we can prevent that, but at least my best attempt at thinking how as a community we can answer to that and understand more about people who perpetrate harm. Um. I think that there are some really wonderful people doing work in this arena. Um, and I’ve been painstaking and tried to take a really nuanced approach [01:00:00] to this topic, um, because I think, uh, a lot of what I’ve seen in the psychedelic community unfortunately lacks a little bit of the basis of compassion and nuance.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So I put a lot of effort with really trying to look at these really difficult issues around sexual harm, um, from the perspective of both discernment, but also heart centeredness.

Joe Moore: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I feel it. And I think like,

Joe Moore: uh, I don’t want to go hard on therapists right now, but often there’s this like, disconnect, right between like, I’m, I’m this professional. And this is what I do, as opposed to like, I’m a feeling human that wants to like be with other people and help other people in this way. And I, I think like even in, I’m sure you’ve seen this, but in some of our trainings we have doctors say, I feel like I’m a human again.

Joe Moore: Like I’m this person kind of positioning myself as clinical expert. [01:01:00] Um, like I actually can’t relate with people in a new way that I haven’t been able to since med school, which is like more trauma, right?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Oh, medical training, um, is partly a masterclass and dissociation. Ooh. It really is. And I mean, to survive as an agent of the healthcare system we have and deliver care under, you know, under these circumstances and sometimes very acute situations with encountering a lot of suffering.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: You have to turn yourself partially off. You know, I, I know that we’re, this is maybe more than we want to fully unpack at this late hour in the, in the podcast, but, you know, I will say, um, people who work to treat trauma, uh, experience a lot of vicarious trauma and a lot of, um, energy in their own bodies that we need support [01:02:00] around medical doctors, uh, are working under circumstances that can be really dehumanizing.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And hence our encounters with the healthcare system can be dehumanizing. But when I think about sort of psychedelics and how harm is perpetrated at its core, um, what’s almost always there is an assumption on the part of the practitioner that they know what is needed to heal you. And that can be a very dangerous belief.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: And, but we go to doctors and shamans and Eros asking exactly for that. You have to give me what I need to heal me. So I really tried to outline how that there are all of these contradictions in our attraction to power and what we want from providers and how this is a, a very slippery area where harm can occur because it might be the very thing that we’re asking for, which is for [01:03:00] someone else to heal us that leads to boundary violations that can lead to things that feel like they were harmful later.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Um, it’s incredibly complex to unpack some of these issues.

Joe Moore: Yeah, and I hope we get to do more like this dei this um, there’s so much more depth to plum here and I think I. Pleasure is as a topic. Being introduced into the psychedelic ecosystem is kind of like a gateway into a lot of other conversations that have been really difficult to have, I think. And I think you’re, are you, are you experiencing something like that?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah. Yes. I mean, I think even just, um, people turning onto the idea that, um, pleasure extends beyond sexuality, right? Like you think about sensuality, eroticism pleasure as holistic in our lives for a lot of people as a really revolutionary idea.

Joe Moore: [01:04:00] So, all right, well, what, uh, where can people find the book?

Joe Moore: And then I have a few other questions.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Yeah, absolutely. I set up a really lovely website that makes it very easy for people because it’s just embrace pleasure.com. There’s buy links for many different. Sources where you could buy the book depending on how you like to shop. Uh, it also tell you a little bit more about me.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I will be updating it a bit more in terms of, uh, public events and classes that I’m doing. Um, you can also sign my mailing list. I don’t hit you up all the time, but I do occasionally send things out when there’s really notable stuff people might be interested in. Uh, I have a couple of events coming up that folks may be interested in.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I’m teaching a three hour workshop based on the book that will be, um, not just didactic, but also interactive for the Una Institute on, um, October the third and later in October, I’ll be teaching another class for the Open Foundation that will be. Uh, [01:05:00] on the same idea of pleasure and sexual flourishing with psychedelics, but it’ll be a little bit more, um, geared towards clinicians.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: So that will take a little bit more of the clinical frame. And then I’ve got like a vast amount of teaching stuff that’s outside the psychedelic community as well. But those are, um, two, uh, examples of institutions within our psychedelic community that, um, will be offering things based on the book.

Joe Moore: Yeah, brilliant.

Joe Moore: And I’m glad, I’m glad you, uh, mentioned that. ’cause that’s what I was gonna ask about events and in person opportunities. And I, I, I’ve heard you’ve become quite the party thrower with the book launch as well.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: I mentioned this to you already, but I’ll share it. When I was in the throes of writing this book, and it’s a long book, it’s like 350 pages with, um, like many, many citations.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: It’s, it’s a heavily. It’s not an academic book, but I really wanted to make sure I was buttressing my arguments with academic [01:06:00] sources and that I wasn’t just like pulling this out of the air. So it was a lot of work and when I would just be in the thick of things, I would, I would just look up and think, just imagine the book release party.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Imagine your book release party. And then in July I was actually driving to the book release party and I thought like, this is the thing. I did all of this for this moment. I’m getting to go to the book release party. So what a wonderful opportunity to look at pleasure as a motivator to create something of meaning, right?

Joe Moore: Absolutely. Yeah. It can be used skillfully. Absolutely. Um. Yeah, I think, um, there’s a lot of lessons there. Can’t wait to throw my next party. We’ll see. Um, yeah. Cool. Well, Deedee, thank you so much for making it. I really appreciate your time and your commitment to these issues and I really hope we can just continue to amplify the message.

Joe Moore: It’s so important. And thank you so much.

Dee Dee Goldpaugh: Thank you so much, Joe. [01:07:00] This was awesome. I’ll come back anytime.

Joe Moore: Can’t, can’t wait. It’s gonna be fun.

August 20, 2025

Growing Attention To Psychedelics For Pain, Physical & Neurological Conditions

By Kevin Lenaburg and Court Wing

Psychedelics can be powerful treatments for chronic pain and other physical or neurological conditions. There is increasing awareness of these expanded uses for psychedelics, and this significantly broadens the range of people who are interested in and will benefit from access to psychedelics. Multiple universities and companies are conducting psychedelic trials for various conditions that produce primary or secondary chronic pain, including fibromyalgia, phantom-limb pain, pain from spinal cord injury, Lupus, peripheral neuropathy, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), neuropathic pain, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Lyme disease, Long-COVID, Parkinson’s, and others.

How Psychedelics Work For Pain

Mounting evidence shows that psychedelics can influence the biological, psychological, and social factors that may contribute to complex chronic pain. With so many diverse conditions showing positive response to psychedelics, there likely are multiple underlying transdiagnostic mechanisms of action at play. These are not single-factor drugs. Here are several of the key ways that have been proposed for how psychedelics reduce pain:

Structural neuroplasticity: both patients with depression and those with some kinds of chronic pain show significant decreases in volume in brain structures responsible for mood and pain management. Psychedelics have been shown to generate regrowth in the cortex and likely the peripheral nervous system, allowing for greater capacity for relief.

Non-opioid pain inhibition via the 5HT2A receptor: the target of classic psychedelic psychoactivity. This is the only known serotonin receptor that creates persisting descending inhibition past nerve damage, strongly suggesting a direct impact on pain signals.

Anti-inflammatory: some psychedelic compounds have up to 800 times the anti-inflammatory efficacy of corticosteroids. Psychedelics may operate as “homeostatic autoregulators,” bringing the body’s functions back to their healthy default state.

Cortical reorganization: chronic pain is often a maladaptive output of the brain, creating a constant alarm signal with pain occurring absent an injury or long past injury healing. Psychedelics may reorganize these entrenched pathways that have become sensitized to all incoming nerve signals.

Critical period reopening: psychedelics may cause significant “metaplastic” windows following the acute dosing phase, allowing the nervous system to achieve a period of high receptivity and associative learning.

Psychosocial reframing: chronic pain often becomes more than a physical condition — it can shape a person’s identity. Pain may create a psychological and physical vicious cycle where pain worsens mood, and low mood heightens pain sensitivity. Psychedelics may help break this cycle by reconnecting people with a deeper sense of self, one not defined by pain. This shift in perspective can support new coping strategies, greater resilience, and a reduced likelihood that stress or emotion will trigger pain flares.

Other potential mechanisms: while there is a growing body of evidence to suggest how psychedelics affect those living with chronic pain, little is known about how psychedelics work in the treatment of cluster headache and other headache diseases, despite mounting proof of efficacy. There is more research on psilocybin and cluster headache than on other pain conditions; however, the way psilocybin treats cluster headache is believed to be quite different from other chronic pain conditions.

Growing Attention

Here are some highlights of recent coverage in this area and ways to support this trend or learn more.

MAPS Psychedelic Science 2025

This year’s conference had multiple panels discussing how psychedelics can be effective treatments for pain, physical, and neurological conditions. There was a packed room for the Psychedelic & Pain Association’s session entitled “Expanding the Lens: Mechanisms, Models & Modes – Transdiagnostic Potential of Psychedelic Medicines.” This talk highlighted how psychedelic substances work across the body-mind, allowing them to have impact in a broader condition set. Watch HERE. There were also multiple community meetups where people shared their personal stories of using psychedelics for back pain, migraine and cluster headache, and other types of chronic pain.

South by Southwest (SXSW)

This year’s gathering featured a session from the Psychedelics & Pain Association on psilocybin for Fibromyalgia, Phantom-limb Pain & Post-treatment Lyme Disease.

Watch HERE.

The Psychedelics & Pain Association submission for 2026 builds on last year’s talk, sharing research on psilocybin for Parkinson’s and low back pain, as well as DMT for cluster headache. SXSW uses community based voting to get talks onto the stage. To support sessions that cover the expanded use of psychedelics in physical medicine, click on the session links, then click the heart icon. Creating a SXSW account takes less than a minute. (Voting closes on August 24, 2025.)

From Practice to Proof: Psychedelics for Physical Conditions

Rewiring the Brain: Psilocybin and Neurological Healing

Ibogaine: A Hail Mary for Pro Athletes with Head Trauma

The Science and Stories of Women’s Psychedelic Use

Designing for Ibogaine: Healing, Risk, & Radical Possibility

Online Symposium for Patients, Facilitators & Clinicians to Learn from Global Experts

A deep dive into this topic happens annually with the REMAP Therapeutics Psychedelics & Pain Symposium, co-hosted with the Psychedelics & Pain Association. Held on September 27 & 28, 2025, this online conference features presentations from researchers, clinicians, patients, and advocates leading the field of psychedelics for pain and physical conditions. Registration is offered on a sliding scale and all sessions will be recorded and available afterwards on the Psychedelics Today platform for registrants.

People living with pain are increasingly using and reporting remarkable effects with psychedelics. There is an incredible opportunity to reduce physical suffering and improve health. Growing research and attention to these expanded uses of psychedelics broaden the community invested in the positive progress of the psychedelic field.

July 31, 2025August 6, 2025

Psilocybin Enters German Psychiatry: A Clinical Milestone for Mental Health

Germany’s decision to permit psilocybin therapy for patients with treatment-resistant depression—under a compassionate use policy—marks a pivotal shift in European drug policy. It may set a precedent for others in the region exploring psychedelic-assisted treatments.

Unlike centralized models that require regulatory approvals, Germany’s model empowers licensed psychiatrists to make case-by-case decisions on psilocybin treatment. They don’t need to submit individual applications. This professional discretion, paired with oversight from public health authorities, could pave the way for reimbursement by insurers and more scalable access to care.

OVID Clinic is leading the program. They are a private psychiatric center in Berlin, co-founded by psychiatrist Dr. Andrea Jungaberle and researcher and author Dr. Henrik Jungaberle. Both are longtime contributors to Germany’s psychedelic medicine movement and maintain close ties to the MIND Foundation, a nonprofit focused on science-based psychedelic education and ethics. OVID has been recognized for its integrative model, which includes virtual reality–supported psychotherapy and ketamine-assisted treatment alongside research-driven psychedelic care.

According to a press release issued by MIND Foundation and OVID Clinic, the psilocybin treatments offered through this program are part of “a multi‑professional and integrative therapeutic approach that takes into account the psyche, body, and life context in equal measure,” said Dr. Andrea Jungaberle. The model blends somatic and psychiatric insight with structured preparation and integration support.

Her co-founder, Dr. Henrik Jungaberle, emphasized that this program is more than just access to a molecule—it’s about embedding psychedelic treatment within a responsible care ecosystem. “With Compassionate Use, we are creating a clinical application space where research knowledge, medical care, and psychotherapeutic experience can be meaningfully combined,” he said.

Psilocybin—the psychoactive compound found in “magic mushrooms” (P. cubensis) has gained momentum globally as a potential breakthrough treatment for assorted depressive disorders (and much more), particularly for patients who haven’t responded to conventional treatments like SSRIs or talk therapy. Clinical trials in Europe and North America have demonstrated its ability to produce rapid and durable reductions in depressive symptoms, especially when administered with professional psychological support.

Germany’s move joins a patchwork of other European models that reflect growing interest—and divergence—in how nations are approaching psychedelic regulation. In Switzerland, a compassionate use pathway for LSD and psilocybin has been in place since 2014, though it requires federal approval for each patient. The Netherlands permits the use of psilocybin truffles (a legal workaround to the mushroom ban), fueling a booming retreat industry in what many view as a legal gray zone. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic is actively developing legislation to legalize psilocybin and MDMA for therapeutic use under licensed medical supervision—a sign of political openness unmatched elsewhere in the EU.

Public reaction to the announcement has been largely positive among leaders in the psychedelic field. Anne Philippi, founder of the Berlin-based New Health Club and U.S.-based New Health Institute, remarked, “This is an unexpected move for Germany, and I think the narrative around psychedelics as new tools to heal will be much easier to change. Public opinion will be affected by this tremendously.”

Her colleague, Philip Drechsel, added: “Germany’s move to allow psilocybin under compassionate use is both bold and overdue. It marks the start of a new era in EU psychiatric care. It’s a triumph of ethics, showing what’s possible when science and suffering are both heard.”

Germany’s model occupies a middle ground between central control and loose regulatory ambiguity. It allows trusted clinicians to act in the best interest of their patients while still operating within the clinical frame.

While limited to clinical contexts, the program’s launch marks a cultural turning point: psychedelic therapies are increasingly being treated not as fringe experiments, but as legitimate psychiatric tools.

Advocates of cognitive liberty, harm reduction, and trauma-informed care will note the momentum toward more humane, personalized, and integrative mental health systems.

More EU nations are exploring regulated access, and Germany’s experience could shape a broader continental conversation.

Beyond legal structures, this also raises more profound questions:

Who will receive treatment first?

How can clinicians be adequately trained?

How can we ensure that the unfolding psychedelic ecosystem prioritizes access, safety, and equity, not just innovation and profit?

Sources

July 29, 2025July 31, 2025

Chad Charles – Integrating 5-MeO-DMT: Therapy, Harm Reduction, and Best Practices

In this episode of Psychedelics Today, Joe Moore sits down with Chad Charles — educator, mentor, and practitioner specializing in 5-MeO-DMT therapy.

Chad shares his decade-long journey working with 5-MeO-DMT, emphasizing the importance of:

Practitioner training and mentorship
Personalized, therapeutic alliances
The nuanced understanding of dissociative states
Ethics in standardized clinical dosing
A trauma-informed approach to psychedelic care

He also introduces his upcoming research project, analyzing 500+ one-on-one sessions to illuminate best practices and ethical frameworks in the 5-MeO-DMT space. This is a must-listen for anyone passionate about harm reduction, responsible facilitation, and the future of psychedelic therapy.

🕒 Episode Breakdown

00:00 – Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:41 – Chad Charles’ Background and Work
02:18 – Defining 5-MeO-DMT
05:28 – Breathwork and Therapy
09:22 – First Experiences with 5-MeO-DMT
18:00 – Training and Ethical Considerations
30:41 – Conscious Surrender vs. Submission Experience
31:18 – Ethical Considerations in Psychedelic Research
32:02 – Understanding Dissociative Doses
33:26 – Empowering Individuals Through Therapeutic Alliance
34:26 – Challenges in Contemporary Science
38:02 – Good Practice vs. Malpractice in Psychedelic Therapy
41:51 – Personal Experience and Practitioner Responsibility
46:52 – Addressing Malpractice and Corrective Experiences
01:00:11 – Physical Health Considerations in Psychedelic Therapy
01:02:21 – Future Directions and Research in Psychedelic Therapy
01:05:43 – Conclusion and Contact Information

June 16, 2025

Ibogaine and the Future of Healing: Trevor Millar & Jonathan Dickinson of Ambio Life Sciences

In this episode of Psychedelics Today, kicking of Psychedelic Science 2025 week in Denver, we sit down with Jonathan Dicksinson, Chief Executive Officer, and Trevor Millar, Chief Operations Officer of Ambio Life Sciences – one of the world’s leading ibogaine clinics – to explore the potential of ibogaine for addiction, neuroregeneration, and how ethics, honoring experience, and sustainability will be key to delivering ibogaine at scale.

Trevor shares his early work supporting marginalized populations in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, which led to the founding of Liberty Root, one of Canada’s first ibogaine clinics. Jonathan reflects on his apprenticeship in Mexican clinics, years of international advocacy with the Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance, and drafting the first set of clinical guidelines for ibogaine detoxification. Together with paramedic and ibogaine safety protocols expert Jose Inzunza, they co-founded Ambio in Tijuana in 2021.

They discuss:

The unique safety standards Ambio has pioneered – including industry-wide clinical protocols and magnesium therapy to mitigate cardiac risk.
Their scale: over 3,000 patients treated, with 100+ clients per month across five dedicated houses in Baja California.
Ambio’s groundbreaking neuroregenerative program for Parkinson’s, MS, and traumatic brain injury – which has already drawn patients like Brett Favre and Clay Walker.
How ibogaine appears to drive profound physiological change – including evidence of TBI reversal as shown in Stanford’s 2024 study on Special Forces veterans.
Why ibogaine isn’t just a molecule – it opens a long-lasting “critical period” of neuroplasticity that must be supported with preparation, integration, and holistic care.
The deeper story of sourcing: through his company Terragnosis, Jonathan is the only person with a legal export license for Tabernanthe iboga from Gabon, and Ambio is setting a precedent for reciprocal and ethical global supply chains.
Their cautionary perspective on Texas’ $50M push toward ibogaine clinical trials – and why the traditional “one drug, one indication” model misses the complexity and promise of psychedelic healing.

They also make a compelling case that Ambio is already modeling what the future of psychedelic care should look like – not a single drug in a sterile clinical setting, but a comprehensive, integrated protocol combining preparation, medical oversight, and deep integration. “Start with the end in mind,” Trevor urges – Ambio isn’t just part of the movement; it’s the blueprint for how ibogaine could be delivered worldwide.

Links:

Ambio Website: https://ambio.life/
Significant lesion reduction and neural structural changes following ibogaine treatments for multiple sclerosis (Frontiers in Immunology, Feb 2025)
Magnesium–ibogaine therapy in veterans with traumatic brain injuries (Nature Medicine, Jan 2024)
Ibogaine reduced severe neuropathic pain associated with a case of brachial plexus nerve root avulsion (Frontiers in Pain Research, Aug 2023)
Novel treatment of opioid use disorder using ibogaine and iboga in two adults (Journal of Psychedelic Studies, Jan 2020)
Clinical Guidelines for Ibogaine-Assisted Detoxification
Ambio Life Sciences Launches World’s First Clinical Ibogaine Program for Patients With Neurodegenerative Conditions

January 21, 2025November 14, 2025

Transformative Insights from Psychedelics Today Joe Moore & Kyle Buller | Ep 049 – Entrepreneurs In Recovery Podcast

Entrepreneurs in Recovery - Psychedelics Today

In this episode of Entrepreneurs in Recovery, host Jesse Harless sits down with Joe Moore and Kyle Buller, the founders of Psychedelics Today, a leading platform in psychedelic education and advocacy. Joe and Kyle share their transformative journeys, from personal struggles to become voices of change in the psychedelic and recovery spaces. The conversation delves into the evolving landscape of psychedelics, their therapeutic potential, and how they’re reshaping recovery, mental health, and personal growth. Jesse, Joe, and Kyle also explore the cultural shifts, challenges, and opportunities in this emerging field, offering invaluable insights for anyone curious about psychedelics or passionate about healing and transformation. This episode is a must-listen for those interested in breaking stigmas, navigating personal growth, and leveraging psychedelic experiences for profound, lasting change.

Spotify

January 14, 2025January 14, 2025

Kama Flight: The Healing Power of Somatic Movement, Communication, and Trust

As society becomes more virtual and disconnected, many of us are looking for new ways to touch, feel, and connect. What is Kama Flight, and how can it be used with psychedelics?

In this episode, Joe interviews Jeremy Falk: certified instructor and training program developer for Kama Flight; and Dr. David Rabin, MD, Ph.D.: board-certified psychiatrist and neuroscientist, co-founder & chief Medical Officer at Apollo Neuroscience, and advisor to the non-profit, Kama Flight Foundation.

Kama Flight is a wellness modality for partners, inspired by the movements of Watsu therapy, Thai massage, 5Rhythms, tango, improv dance, and Acroyoga. At the heart of it is the dynamic between the two people engaged in the dance (the ‘base’ and the ‘voyager’), which touches on collaboration, leadership, receptivity, strength, surrender, and most importantly, trust. The communication and instant feedback shared between the partners mixed with the healing energy of the somatic movements results in moving stuck energy out of their bodies while also making them more comfortable with touch, agency, and consent – which could be extremely beneficial toward preparing for a psychedelic experience.

They talk about:

The four principles behind Kama Flight: permission, presence, polarity, and play
The humility and humor in people trying (and failing) some of the movements, and how that is healing in itself
The huge benefit in people switching between the roles of base and voyager
What kind of growth they’ve seen in clients over extended periods of time
The importance of making time for pleasure in our lives

and more!

In addition to running retreats, Kama Flight is teaching their craft as well, and just finished their first training. They’ve launched an at-home course, and have upcoming workshops in Austin, New York City, and Miami, with the next taking place this Saturday, Jan. 18, in Mill Valley, CA. Use code KAMAFLIGHTPT for 15% off!

Links

Kamaflight.com

Jeremyfalk.com

Drdave.io

PT462 – Touch Therapy, Wearable Technology, and Treating Trauma with Safety, featuring: Dr. Dave Rabin, MD, Ph.D.

Apolloneuro.com

Gnar Country: Growing Old, Staying Rad, by Steven Kotler

PT426 – Making the Impossible Possible: Flow Hacking and Peak Performance Aging, featuring: Steven Kotler

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.

PT464 – Bodywork, Somatic Literacy, and Understanding Trauma: The Mind and Body Connection, featuring: Bessel van der Kolk, MD

Emotiv.com

Hhs.gov: U.S. Surgeon General Issues New Advisory on Link Between Alcohol and Cancer Risk

Theportal.house

Kama Flight retreat: Jan. 30 – Feb. 2, at Casa Maya Kaan, Tulum, Mexico

Kama Flight’s other upcoming classes

Kama Flight class: Jan. 18 at The Portal, Mill Valley, CA (use code KAMAFLIGHTPT for 15% off)

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

December 24, 2024December 30, 2024

Rethinking Addiction and Treatment Models: Is the Recovery Community Ready for Psychedelics?

Psychedelics are going mainstream, but society’s views on addiction and recovery models are still behind. Is the recovery community ready for psychedelics?

In this episode, Joe interviews Dan Ronken: licensed professional counselor and addiction counselor with a private practice in Boulder, CO, called Inclusion Recovery, and lead trainer and facilitator for the Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI).

He tells his story of going from a sponsored BMX racer to three stints in rehab before the age of 14, and what he’s learned from his experiences in recovery over the years: that there is a wide range of what ‘in recovery’ actually means, that abstinence-only and 12-step models don’t work for many, that connection and community – and consistency in both – are enormous parts of what actually leads to overcoming an addiction, and more. As recovery communities cautiously begin to talk about psychedelics, he highlights the importance of nuance in understanding addiction, the need for open-mindedness toward new therapeutic approaches, and the need for diverse support networks that welcome discussions around psychedelics.

He talks about:

Inducing alcohol cravings before an intramuscular ketamine shot as a way of using neuroplasticity to rewire the brain’s relationship with alcohol
How Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, benefitted greatly from LSD in the 50s, and how Ronken originally scoffed at such a concept
The growing visibility of psychedelics in popular media, as seen in shows like “Loudermilk” and “Ted Lasso”
The benefits of sober communities coming together for active and healthy activities

and more!

Links

Inclusionrecovery.com

Nature.com: Ketamine can reduce harmful drinking by pharmacologically rewriting drinking memories

Psychedelics and Addiction Recovery: Microdosing and Redefining the Path to Sobriety, featuring: Danielle Nova

Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transendence in Psychotherapy (Suny Series in Transpersonal & Humanistic Psychology), by Stanislav Grof

Hazeldenbettyford.org

Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book

Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life, by Allen Frances, M.D.

Psychedelicsinrecovery.org

Imdb.com: Loudermilk

Imdb.com: Ted Lasso

Thephoenix.org

Lucid.news: Bill Wilson, LSD and the Secret Psychedelic History of Alcoholics Anonymous

Distilled Spirits: Getting High, Then Sober, with a Famous Writer, a Forgotten Philosopher, and a Hopeless Drunk, by Don Lattin

YouTube: Bill W. (2012 documentary)

The Rose Of Paracelsus: On Secrets & Sacraments, by William Leonard Pickard

Pubmed: Percentage of Heavy Drinking Days Following Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy vs Placebo in the Treatment of Adult Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

December 3, 2024December 17, 2024

How Family Healing Shapes Veteran Recovery

In this episode, Joe interviews two members of the Heroic Hearts Project: Founder and President, Jesse Gould; and Director of Development and Head of Family Relations, Allison Wilson.

Gould gives a background of Heroic Hearts Project and discusses their current projects and future goals, and Wilson talks about her nonprofit, The Hope Project, and its recent merger with HHP to bring more of a focus to the other side of veteran healing: the families of veterans. While Heroic Hearts and other veteran-aligned organizations have been an answer to many vets unable to find help otherwise (and frustrated with the inconsistencies of the VA), they talk a lot about that missing piece – how crucial it is to have family involved in a veteran’s reintegration, and how that healing can impact future generations.

The Veteran’s Guide to Psychedelics: A Preparation and Integration Workbook was recently released, with all proceeds going to HHP, and they are hosting their first Gala event, “Operation: Freedom To Heal,” this week, December 5, in Los Angeles. The goal of the event is to fundraise, gather community, and recognize the supporters who have gotten Heroic Hearts to where it is today, and will feature live and silent auctions and a performance by Melissa Etheridge. Email Allison@heroicheartsproject.org if you’d like to attend.

Links

Heroicheartsproject.org

Thehope-project.org

Jesse Gould – Healing PTSD Veterans through Ayahuasca Retreat Opportunities

PT372 – The Heroic Hearts Project: Veterans and The Impact of Storytelling, featuring: Jesse Gould & Zach Riggle

The Other Side of Veteran Healing: Secondary PTSD and Post-Retreat Family Dynamics, featuring: Allison Wilson & Dr. Grace Blest-Hople

Sealff.org

The Veteran’s Guide to Psychedelics: A Preparation and Integration Workbook, by MSc Matt Zemon

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

November 26, 2024December 17, 2024

The 3-Axis Framework: A New Model for Psychedelic Work

New ways of looking at non-ordinary experiences and integration are always being conceived. What is the 3-axis framework?

In this episode, Kyle interviews Pierre Bouchard, LPC, LM: therapist, minister, and former professional vinyl DJ specializing in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and ministry.

Bouchard introduces his 3-axis framework for psychedelic integration, which looks at the personal, the transpersonal, and, with time, seeing how the lessons learned from non-ordinary experiences and personal work are expressing to the world: How can we use what we’ve learned to show up better? How can we use our gifts to be of service to others? What is stopping us? He also talks about the importance of building a foundation for holding the experience of a psychedelic journey – that you have to first build an ego to later dissolve it – but recognizes the tricky balance of not strengthening an ego so much that it gets in the way.

He discusses:

The broad scope of what someone can mean when they say “psychedelic healing”
The importance of keeping the 3 axes in harmony – that you should always be attending to each
Why someone beginning a healing journey needs to be smart, curious, and desperate
The challenge of discerning between an entity or a projection: How do we know what to take from that experience?
Why practitioners and therapists need to find a balance between being confident and humble

and more!

Links

Pierrebouchardcounseling.com

Sacredpractices.org

PT248 – Pierre Bouchard – Somatic Therapy, Trauma, and the Nervous System

Exploring Somatic Practices and Psychedelics, featuring: Pierre Bouchard, LPC & Kara Tremain, ACC

Deep-psychology.com: Ken Wilber Fundamentals: The Four Quadrants For Newbies

The Emerald podcast: Guardians and Protectors!

Intention, Making Space for Integration, and Finding Joy in the Mundane, featuring: Lana Pribic, M.Sc, CPC

The Emerald podcast: Oh Justice

November 22, 2024December 17, 2024

Sex and Psychedelics: Healing Through Altered States

Can erotic energy be as transformative as a psychedelic experience?

In this episode, Joe interviews Bria Tavakoli, LPCC, MA, MS: a therapist specializing in relational and sex therapy, with a focus on helping clients integrate psychedelic experiences.

She shares her personal journey with psychedelics and how they unlocked deep trauma, allowing her to develop a level of comfort with intimacy, love, and her sexuality. She talks about the parallels between psychedelic journeys and sexual experiences, and how both can be gateways to unexplored parts of ourselves, as well as catalysts for healing and transformation. She discusses society’s cultural shame surrounding our sexuality, why we need to view sexuality from a wellness-based model, and how psychedelics can help couples grow together, and at times, really challenge their relational structures. When asked how to combine sex and psychedelics, she answers, “very carefully.”

She also discusses:

The immense importance of creating a safe space for couples discussing their intimacy
How clients reporting sexual concerns is usually a cheat code to determining what their real issues are
Ethical and practical considerations for combining psychedelics and sex therapy, related to stories of concerning sexual behavior in the space
Why humor and lightness is so important in this work
The importance of honoring individual capacity and being true to yourself when exploring new experiences

and more!

Links

Embodywithbria.net

Embodywithbria.net: Share your story

Ancestralmagi.com

YouTube: PT Live: Joe Moore and Tommaso Barba Discuss Sex and Psychedelics

Nature.com: Psychedelics and sexual functioning: a mixed-methods study

Europeansexology.com

Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, by Esther Perel

Laura Northrup – Healing Sexual Trauma with Psychedelics and Entheogens

Integrativesextherapyinstitute.com

Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy, by Jessica Fern

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

November 15, 2024November 15, 2024

From Individualism to Connection: How Psychedelics and Group Therapy Can Heal Our Collective Crisis

It becomes more apparent every day how much isolation and focusing so much on the individual is hurting us. Can psychedelics – and specifically, group therapy – be the answer to our crisis of individualism?

In this episode, Kyle interviews Geoff Bathje, Ph.D.: licensed psychologist, researcher, former Full Professor, and co-founder of Sana Healing Collective, a Chicago-based non-profit focusing on ketamine-assisted therapy and psychedelic integration.

He talks about what he feels is one of the largest factors in our mental health crisis: the individualistic and neoliberal lens Western culture has placed on mental health and how it neglects the massive systemic and relational factors that are affecting us all. He digs into how we got so alienated and how psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness can not only help us think critically and solve problems, but also move us out of this individualistic framework of healing and more into a collective one. How do we use psychedelics to fix our relationships and find our community?

He discusses:

The challenge of knowing when to work for relationships and when to just end them, especially in the afterglow of a big experience
Group ketamine experience vs. individual, how groups can help facilitators find patterns, and how ketamine works with somatic therapy
His paper, “Psychedelic integration: An analysis of the concept and its practice” and his visual model of integration showing the different domains of our personal experience
What he thinks will happen next in drug development: Will therapy be left out after Lykos’ failure with MDMA?
The importance of moving beyond aggressive criticism and moving into world building

and more!

Links

Sanahealingcollective.org

OSF Reprints: A Qualitative Study of Intention and Impact of Ayahuasca Use by Westerners

Frontiersin.org: Psychedelic integration: An analysis of the concept and its practice

Harm Reduction Journal: Ethical and legal issues in psychedelic harm reduction and integration therapy

The Emerald podcast: The Revolution Will Not Be Psychologized

Researchgate.net: Relationships, Not Boundaries

Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert D. Putnam

Chacruna.net: The Unbelievable Claims of Psymposia about MAPS and MDMA-Assisted Therapy

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

November 11, 2024November 11, 2024

How Safe is Ibogaine Therapy? The Delicate Balance of Risk and Efficacy

There is a delicate balance between risk and efficacy with any psychedelic intervention, but especially with ibogaine. Just how safe is ibogaine therapy?

In this episode, Joe interviews Thomas Feegel: co-founder of Beond Ibogaine, an ibogaine treatment and research facility in Cancún, Mexico.

When Feegel first heard of ibogaine 16 years ago, he found that people were having great success, but nobody could recommend where to go for treatment. So he worked to create what was needed: a combination of a hospital, mental health treatment facility, retreat center, and resort, with the proper infrastructure in place, employees with ICU experience, exhaustive HIPAA-compliant admission criteria, regular data collection, and a major focus on safety.

Addressing the recent Rolling Stone article about the tragic death of a patient at Beond in 2022 (interestingly, 2 days after his initial dose), he discusses what he feels was inaccurate, largely related to what could be perceived as a suggestion that there wasn’t enough screening or that corners were cut. With no official reason given for the patient’s death, it brings into question just how safe one can be, especially with people whose bodies and hearts have been through so much. How much hidden harm is created by the stress of PTSD and addiction?

He discusses:

The complexity of journalism and drawing conclusions from limited information
The limitations of conventional addiction treatments and the sad numbers around how many people stick with rehab
The importance of collecting as much data as possible about each patient, at regular intervals, prior to, during, and after the experience
The need for a regulating group to create standards around admission and administration procedures for ibogaine

and more!

We’re releasing this episode on Veterans Day because Beond’s program was co-developed by veterans, military medical personnel, and active-duty law enforcement officers who have seen how much ibogaine can help. Make sure to check out some of our past Veterans Day episodes with Joel Lambert, Tommy Aceto, Matthew ‘Whiz’ Buckley, Allison Wilson & Dr. Grace Blest-Hopley, Jesse Gould & Zach Riggle, and a very powerful episode with three anonymous vets.

Links

Beondibogaine.com

Rollingstone.com: He Took a Psychedelic to Cure His Addiction. It Was His Last Trip

Beondibogaine.com: A Clinical Summary

Cdc.gov: Drug Overdose Deaths in the U.S. Top 100,000 Annually

November 11, 2024October 27, 2025

Psychedelic Literacy for Veterans: Bridging the Knowledge Gap in PTSD Recovery

Faced with health challenges that traditional treatments often fail to remedy, veterans are increasingly turning to psychedelics for help. Their stories of trauma and healing help humanize their experiences, reduce stigma, and foster essential conversations that broaden acceptance and understanding of how psychedelics can support them.

While over 7,000 U.S. service members have died in combat since 9/11, more than 30,000 veterans and active-duty soldiers have taken their own lives during the same period. Some estimates suggest this number could be significantly higher, reaching upwards of 150,000. This staggering statistic highlights a mental health crisis, one in which veterans face PTSD, depression, chronic pain, insomnia, and other challenges at alarming rates. Many veterans feel abandoned by traditional therapies that often provide only temporary relief.

With increased advocacy and a surge in scientific support, psychedelic-assisted treatments have emerged as a promising pathway for veterans seeking more comprehensive recovery from trauma.

Heroic Hearts Project: Promoting Psychedelic Literacy and Support for Veterans

After leaving combat, former Army Ranger Jesse Gould struggled with severe PTSD. He left his career as an investment banker, sold his belongings, and journeyed around the world in an attempt to find a new way forward.

After an ayahuasca retreat in Peru, Gould says he – finally – found relief from his PTSD symptoms. Invigorated by his experience and the relief he found in plant medicine, Gould founded Heroic Hearts Project, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting veterans and their families in overcoming the impacts of PTSD and military trauma.

“I was at my lowest point, feeling disconnected and hopeless,” Gould told Psychedelics Today. “As my own pain began to lift, I knew I couldn’t keep this journey to myself.”

Heroic Hearts empowers veterans and their loved ones through transformative retreats and encourages them to take control of their healing. The organization fosters community and provides support for veterans as they undertake the challenging work of processing trauma and reclaiming peace, Gould says. It builds ‘psychedelic literacy’ through education on preparation, integration, and safe practices for maximizing benefits.

“When veterans have these big psychedelic experiences during a retreat, no matter what, they will have lasting changes,” Gould explains. “They gain new perspectives on how they view themselves and the world.”

Bridging the Psychedelic Knowledge Gap for Veterans

Ensuring veterans have not only have access to a community, but that they’re armed with a strong foundation of psychedelic therapy, integration, and risk reduction is crucial to ensuring their relief is durable, says author and educator Matt Zemon MSc.

A new book, The Veteran’s Guide to Psychedelics, written by Zemon in collaboration with Heroic Hearts and clinically reviewed by Ken Weingardt, PhD, was recently published to help bridge this critical knowledge gap. Gould and Zemon kicked off the project after Gould noticed the lack of comprehensive publications tailored for veterans exploring psychedelics.

The clinically reviewed book was designed to equip veterans with knowledge of safe, responsible, and therapeutic psychedelic use, offering insights into a new frontier of mental health care that emphasizes key principles veterans need to understand when exploring psychedelic options responsibly.

Understanding the Challenges and Potential of Psychedelics for Veterans

Dr. Robert “Bob” Koffman, a retired Navy Captain and psychiatrist, emphasizes the significant gap in addressing the trauma many veterans face.

“For years, like most clinicians, I relied on conventional treatments… but despite our best efforts, the standard approaches often fell short,” he explains.

This realization led him to explore psychedelic-assisted treatments, which he views as potentially transformative for veteran mental health care.

With nearly 40 years in military medicine, including combat experience and public health expertise, Koffman has seen firsthand the limitations of traditional approaches. He believes that psychedelics – particularly those promoting neuroplasticity – can address trauma in ways conventional methods cannot. According to him, these therapies may “not just heal hidden wounds, but by mending the accompanying soul wounds, and save countless families.”

Koffman emphasizes the importance of health literacy for veterans: “It’s about knowing what questions to ask, recognizing the risks, and understanding the potential benefits.”

For him, informed preparation and responsible use are essential for veterans to move from crisis to genuine transformation and long-term wellness.

The Power of Openly Sharing Veteran Stories

According to Zemon, openly sharing stories is a powerful force for fostering understanding and encouraging other vets to explore new avenues of healing. Many veterans who have turned to psychedelics describe their experiences as life-changing, inspiring fellow veterans to consider new possibilities for their own recovery.

Tom Satterly, Delta Force veteran and co -founder of All Secure Foundation, says psychedelics allowed him to confront trauma in ways conventional therapies could not.

“These treatments have allowed me to break through pain that no other method could touch,” Satterly said.

Beth Law, a former US Army veteran, joined MycoMeditations psilocybin retreat in Jamaica to overcome PTSD. Her experience was recorded and shared by the German public-broadcast network, ZDF News, where she described how the experience allowed her to feel like herself again.

Steve Keefer, a veteran of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, says his perspective evolved through sacred ceremonies supported by community. “I viewed life as a series of battles, but this attitude strained relationships and led to negativity. Through healing ceremonies, I’ve found fulfillment, peace, and healthier relationships. I’m more in service to others now than I ever was in uniform.”

Navigating Psychedelic Risks: Safety and Responsibility for Veterans

“Veterans need a clear understanding of the risks, as well as a strong foundation in preparation, set, setting, and integration – each essential for veterans who choose this path to navigate it successfully,” Zemon said.

Zemon advocates for a proactive approach, encouraging veterans to balance both potential benefits and risks in considering psychedelic-assisted healing.

“While psychedelics offer new possibilities for healing, they must be approached with caution and preparation,” Koffman adds.

The conversation around psychedelics in veteran mental health is evolving, and at its core is an urgent need for psychedelic literacy and supportive resources. Bridging this knowledge gap with science, safety, and empathy equips veterans with the guidance they need. By understanding the critical elements of psychedelic therapy and the organizations that facilitate access, veterans can embark on a healing journey that addresses trauma holistically and cultivates renewed hope.

October 17, 2024October 27, 2025

How Shadow Work Can Be a Powerful Tool for Psychedelic Transformation

Psychedelic shadow work is central to the transformative potential of entheogens, helping us confront and integrate hidden parts of our psyche.

Psychedelic experiences, in and of themselves, do not create lasting change by chance or passively – they require active participation. Entheogens can open the doors to the unconscious and invite us to make meaning from its contents. Shadow work supports this soul-manifesting process by helping us embrace our hidden parts so that we may become fully actualized.

What is the Shadow?

Psychotherapist Carl G. Jung coined the term “shadow” to describe the instincts, drives, and emotions we consciously and unknowingly repress but whose malignant impacts we feel.

The shadow contains our darkest secrets, covert desires, and obscured emotions. It holds our greatest fears and our fullest potential; it is the source of intuition, wisdom, and individuation. And yet, most of us reject it because we fear the truth – that we are both good and evil, loving and hateful, angry and calm, devastated and joyful, masculine and feminine.

“The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore, wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness,” said Jung in Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

Yet we disguise our undesirable traits, in part, to get along in polite society.

This process is necessary, according to the late psychedelic-assisted therapy pioneer Ann Shulgin. After all, we can’t enact our darkest fantasies of rear-ending every insufferable driver who cuts us off. We need executive control via the ego to quell such drives.

However, the issue arises when we overcorrect and deny our shadow’s existence.

When we hide from unflattering elements of ourselves, like aggression, guilt, power-hunger, and greed, we paradoxically give these traits more control over our lives. Unseen shadows show up unexpectedly, like when we lash out over minor frustrations, sabotage our career because of unacknowledged fears of success, or spout passive-aggressive remarks instead of confronting conflict directly. Unprocessed shame or guilt can manifest as perfectionism, and buried feelings of inadequacy may elicit a compulsive need to control.

“A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps,” wrote Jung.

But just as we suppress unfavorable qualities, we also bury our brightest traits.

What is the Golden Shadow?

The “golden shadow” refers to these constructive qualities, such as confidence, creativity, compassion, leadership, and joy. We see these characteristics in others but sometimes fail to recognize them within ourselves because we feel unworthy, afraid of failure, or unfamiliar with how to embody them.

Kyle Buller, M.S., Psychedelics Today co-founder and psychedelic integration therapist, notes that many of us come from environments where positivity is unwelcomed.

“People may find it hard to experience joy because they associate it with guilt or shame, or they might feel that the therapeutic focus should be about the ‘darker emotions’ when it comes to shadow work. They may want to shut the good feelings down. This can be a great opportunity to work with the golden shadow,” said Buller.

Whether golden or dark, the shadow must emerge from hiding so we can reclaim our autonomy. But we must do the work to coax it out.

How to Expose the Unconscious: Shadow Work

Ido Cohen, Psy.D. and lead instructor of the course, Navigating the Jungian Shadow with Psychedelics, defines shadow work as the practice of becoming conscious.

“We develop our ability to be aware and embody what we are conscious of,” Cohen told Psychedelics Today.

Psychedelics are one of the best ways to do this work because they “activate and amplify the psyche and our emotional, somatic and spiritual dimensions.” Dreams, hypnosis, and life transitions are also excellent catalysts.

Dreams
Jung believed dreams offer a direct path to the unconscious through their symbols. He suggested that themes like falling could represent a fear of failure, being chased might signify an unresolved conflict, and dark figures could convey unaddressed desires. He advocated that processing and analyzing such symbols illuminates the shadow.

Hypnosis
According to Ann Shulgin, Ericksonian hypnosis is another powerful shadow work method. This approach leads patients into a trance, where they descend a stairway deep into their inner world. When they reach the basement, they confront the shadow, which they see as a fierce animal. The hypnotist instructs them not to fear the beast but to enter its form and experience the world through its eyes. This merging allows them to harness the shadow as an ally rather than an enemy.

Transitions
Major life transitions, such as losing a loved one or experiencing a midlife crisis, can also ignite shadow work, whether we choose it or not. Such events break down our defenses and ego structures, leaving us vulnerable to repressed emotions, drives, and conflicts that demand our attention in order to grow.

Psychedelics
Psychedelic experiences are perhaps the most reliable path into the depths of our souls because they fundamentally change the way we think, feel, see, and perceive our inner and outer worlds. Entheogens teleport us directly beyond the ego’s veil into the unknown

“Psychedelics offer a unique opportunity to face our repressed parts head-on. They allow access in ways that regular psychotherapy may not,” said Buller.

How Can Shadow Work Arise During Psychedelic Journeys?

Psychedelics help us access the shadow by disrupting the way our neural networks communicate and perceive stimuli. This process reduces activity in the brain’s default mode network (DMN), which governs our sense of self and ego.

When the DMN quiets, boundaries between consciousness and unconsciousness blur. The resulting experience excavates stifled thoughts, memories, emotions, and visions while allowing us to interact with them from an open and receptive state.

Shadow work can happen naturally during these journeys. We might even transcend the unconscious labels of “good” vs. ” bad” while stepping outside our sticky parts to merge with something greater than ourselves. Such interconnected insights are transformative, but they are not necessarily the norm.

Psychedelics often reveal harrowing traumas and wounded parts that we may be unskilled to face. This confrontation can spark intense anger, grief, or shame. Our ego will resist the discomfort to protect us, but its efforts will paradoxically exacerbate it. We may become overwhelmed, overly identified with the pain, or completely detached from reality.

These very real risks are a crucial reason navigating the shadow with psychedelics often requires support, especially when we’re inexperienced with these substances.

The Importance of Support in Psychedelic Shadow Work

Psychedelic-assisted therapy, preparation and integration coaching, and group processing provide critical foundations to face and embrace unconscious aspects of the self.

Skilled practitioners know how to hold space for every part of us to emerge. If we’re experiencing unresolved rage, therapists or facilitators can help us feel and release it.

“Anger is a major emotion that people often struggle to express. We [as practitioners] might ask, ‘What would it look like to express this anger?’ It could mean yelling, shaking, or verbalizing. Clients may even direct anger toward the therapist in place of the person they’re really angry at,” said Buller, who added that projections are O.K. within the confines of the practitioner’s comfort and safety boundaries.

Psychedelic facilitators also invite us to stick with the feelings we may want to oppose.

“When clients experience discomfort, we might ask, ‘Can you find pleasure in this sensation?’ Sometimes, the edge of discomfort is where the real work begins,” said Buller.

Buller explains that from a holotropic breathwork perspective, amplifying emotional expression is the key to expunging it from our system.

However, the edge is sometimes too dangerous to approach, and effective practitioners know when to pull back the reins.

“We don’t push shadow work agendas on clients. If you go too quickly, the parts might rebel. Instead, we take a slow approach and partner with the client so they can eventually go deeper,” said Buller.

This alliance allows practitioners to determine when digging into the shadow’s contents is appropriate and when it could inflict harm.

Integrating Psychedelic Shadow Work

After confronting the shadow, we must begin the process of integration, where we interpret and act on our findings. Some of the most effective integration methods involve working with a therapist, coach, or support group.

“Ideally, we want to start with a safe process of slowly digesting our psychedelic insights. We can then form a relationship of curiosity, inquiry, and then change,” said Cohen.

The change piece can be the most challenging because it mandates that we rewire our lives to match the authentic selves we’ve been hiding for so long. We may need to quit a job, end a marriage, or restructure relationships with friends, family, and substances. Such radical shifts often require reliable help and compassionate accountability.

Therapists trained in psychedelic integration, especially those using frameworks like Jungian analysis or Internal Family Systems (IFS), are well-suited for effective shadow work because they provide a structured approach to processing unconscious material. Some psychedelic retreats even include depth psychology as a core therapeutic framework, a branch of psychology with strong ties to shadow work.

Jungian therapists can help interpret the symbolic messages of psychedelic visions, such as the tiger, whose archetype might signify repressed feminine essence, aggression, or independent spirit.

Analysts can also help us make sense of bodily sensations, postures, memories, and emotions.

“We then want to understand the shadow material within the larger context. How was it formed, what’s its use, and more. This will allow us to start weaving together a narrative, opening us to intergenerational and environmental influences and having more compassion with ourselves,” said Cohen.

In the context of IFS, therapists can help us integrate the shadow using parts language. They may guide us in understanding that the tiger is a protector part, fiercely defending our vulnerable exiled parts, such as our traumatized inner child from suffering. Such terminology prevents us from overidentifying with the stifled rage and allows for a more harmonious and balanced sense of self.

The Bottom Line

Psychedelic shadow work is transformative, especially in the context of powerful journeys and integration. It provides a framework for understanding the visions, sensations, and thoughts that arise during altered states of consciousness and invites us to engage further. In turn, psychedelics calm our ego and amplify our psyche so we may embrace our inner outcasts as missing puzzle pieces to the fullest expression of our humanity.

Are you interested in learning more about what the shadow can reveal? Join us for *Illuminating the Hidden Self: Navigating the Jungian Shadow with Psychedelics*. In this 8-week live-taught course, participants will learn how to work with the Shadow in a conscious and embodied way, how to harness the psychic potential of the Golden Shadow, and more. *Seats are limited.*

October 4, 2024October 4, 2024

Healing Psychedelics: Where Science Meets Spirit

Does combining the knowledge from Indigenous traditions with more research-backed Western frameworks land us in the sweet spot where science meets spirit?

In this episode, Joe interviews Micah Stover: certified psychedelic somatic therapist and author of the upcoming book, Healing Psychedelics: Innovative Therapies for Trauma and Transformation; and Craig Heacock, MD: adolescent, adult, and addiction psychiatrist, and host of the Back from the Abyss podcast.

Stover discusses the inspiration for the book: the ancestral voices she started hearing after she had children, being featured on Heacock’s podcast and becoming fascinated with people’s healing stories, and her move to Mexico, where she learned the beauty of a less complicated and more connected life. She learned that the village you surround yourself with is really the medicine, and that existing in the mysteries of life can be much more beneficial than trying to solve everything. Combining her Western training with more Indigenous perspectives, she wondered: Where do science and spirit meet? And how can they dance together?

They discuss:

Stover’s early days of offering medicine journeys in Mexico, and how much leaning on elders from all backgrounds matters
The importance of discernment in non-ordinary states: Is spiritual bypassing just the absence of discernment?
How finding a village can be just connecting to the earth: How much of our trauma is from a “nature deficit disorder”?
The power of transference and the relationship between therapists/facilitators and clients
The idea that modern psychology has fallen short because we’ve sterilized love out of the room, and the challenge of bringing love back as part of a safe container

and more!

The book, which is laid out somewhat like a workbook (and which Heacock wrote the foreward to) comes out on November 4 and is available for pre-order now.

Links

Micahstoverconsulting.com

Healing Psychedelics: Innovative Therapies for Trauma and Transformation, by Micah Stover

Craigheacockmd.com

Spotify: Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories, with Craig Heacock MD

PTSF 34 (with Craig Heacock)

Spotify: Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories – From Beauty Queen to Psychedelic Guide

PT292 – Sam Gandy – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, by Francis Weller

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

From the Eleusinian Mysteries to Modern Mysticism: The Role of Religion in the Psychedelic Experience, featuring: Charles Stang

Rational Mysticism: Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment, by John Horgan

Spotify: Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories – How do you learn to do psychotherapy? An exploration with Dr. Erin Jacklin

Wikipedia.org: Ina May Gaskin

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

September 6, 2024September 11, 2024

Breathwork, Holding Space, and the Healing Power of Connection: Documenting the Dreamshadow Community

Breathwork can be a powerful tool for addressing trauma and supporting growth, but the community formed around it seems to prove where the true magic lies: the healing power of connection.

In this episode, Kyle interviews Mustapha Khan: Emmy Award-winning director with over 100 film and television credits, who has worked with clients such as Coca-Cola and Honda, and celebrities ranging from Maya Angelou to Snoop Dogg.

Khan is finalizing a film about Lenny and Elizabeth Gibson and their ongoing work at Dreamshadow – the people and community responsible for Joe and Kyle meeting and the creation of Psychedelics Today. He talks about meeting the Gibsons, being welcomed into their community (instead of his proposed “fly on the wall” role), how centered and happy he felt after his first breathwork session, and what he has learned through the process: that breathwork can be an incredibly healing modality, but the magic he has found has been more in the community surrounding it, and the responsibility (and honor) of being a sitter for someone else.

He discusses:

The first time his breathwork went psychedelic, and speaking with his recently deceased Mother
How he got into filmmaking and why he wants to tell stories about people like the Gibsons
The beauty of breathwork not having a dogma or doctrine attached to it
The power in holding space for someone else, even if it’s just being present
The importance of taking action that aligns with psychedelic ethos: What can you do to contribute to your community?

and more!

Khan is planning to release the documentary, “Life and Breath,” in October. In addition to a screening at Dreamshadow, PT will likely do a virtual one as well, so stay tuned for updates!

Links

Mustaphakhan.com

Jethrowaters.com

Dreamshadow.com

PT316 – Lenny Gibson, Ph.D. – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Bicycle Day Reflections, Quantum Mechanics, and the Value in Studying Philosophy to Understand Psychedelic Experiences, featuring: Lenny Gibson, Ph.D.

Children of Crisis, by Robert Coles

Solidarity Fridays – Week 10 with Kwasi Adusei

RIPPLES of Hope: Psychedelics as a Tool for Peacebuilding and Collective Healing, featuring: Sami Awad & Leor Roseman, Ph.D.

Amazon Prime: “Song for Our People”

Amazon Prime: “Rocksteady”

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

August 30, 2024August 30, 2024

Is Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy at a Crossroads? Exploring What’s Next for Lykos & MDMA Treatment

Lykos’ psychedelic-assisted therapy model was meant to reinvent mental healthcare as we know it. Its PTSD protocol, which included preparation support, three guided MDMA therapy sessions, and integration counseling, took a bold step toward merging pharmacology with psychotherapy. But the FDA’s decision to reject it may force the psychedelic industry to pivot from resource-intensive and holistic to streamlined and pharma-friendly.

How We Got Here: Understanding the FDA’s Rejection

On Aug. 9, Lykos announced that the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected its new drug application (NDA) for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. The company’s press release was so matter-of-fact and measured that I had to read it twice to grasp the meaning.

Eventually, my eyes refocused on two sentences: “The FDA communicated that it had completed its review of the NDA and determined that it could not be approved based on data submitted to date. The FDA has requested that Lykos conduct an additional Phase 3 trial to further study the safety and efficacy of midomafetamine (MDMA).”

Lykos has not shared the FDA’s complete response letter (CRL). However, it said the agency rejected its NDA for reasons aligning with the June 4 Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (PDAC) hearing.

I’ve investigated the infamous MDMA hearing in prior articles, so I’ll spare the exhaustive details here. But to briefly recap, PDAC members who lacked psychedelic expertise said that Lykos’ statistically significant clinical data was unreliable. It determined the trials contained inherent design flaws and feared that alleged misconduct, although unsubstantiated, could have skewed the data. Nine of eleven panelists said the NDA was not ready for approval.

PDAC’s vote confused many advocates, who noted that Lykos followed the FDA’s draft psychedelic therapy FDA approval guidance. Others pointed out that MAPS and the FDA co-created the trial design through a Special Protocol Assessment in 2017.

In the FDA’s words, “We have completed our review and, based on the information submitted, agree that the design and planned analysis of your study adequately address the objectives necessary to support a regulatory submission.”

Dr. Scott Shannon, Principal Investigator in MAPS Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials, added that the FDA thoroughly investigated MAPS’s research sites during the trials to ensure proper data acquisition.

However, the advisory committee ignored these facts. Instead, they lamented over Lykos’ drug plus psychotherapy protocol, consistently questioning its validity and whether emotional support was even necessary alongside MDMA to alleviate PTSD. Worse, despite blatant contrary evidence, they asserted that MAPS’ FDA-aligned MDMA therapy protocol could do patients more harm than good.

Facing the fallout: MDMA therapy FDA rejection

Facing the Fallout: Lykos’ Next Steps

Lykos must now conduct a third Phase 3 clinical trial to overcome issues it thought were ironed out. The new trial will take at least two years and cost millions of dollars the team may not have.

In preparation, Lykos laid off 75% of its workforce, discontinued funding MDMA therapy research in Europe, and radically shifted its leadership team.

Rick Doblin, PhD, founder of Lykos’ non-profit parent company MAPS, resigned from the board shortly after the MDMA therapy FDA rejection. Doblin, a beloved psychedelic trailblazer and somewhat controversial figure, said his activist nature interfered with Lykos’ regulatory path. He will now pursue MAPS’ broader research, education, and policy reform goals.

Upon Doblin’s departure, Lykos hired a seasoned pharmaceutical executive, Dr. David Hough, to oversee the NDA’s next steps. In a recent press release, Lykos Chairman Jeff George said, “Dr. Hough is a consummate industry professional and exactly the right person to lead the crucial work of engaging with the FDA for our resubmission.”

Hough’s resume includes bringing Spravato (esketamine nasal spray) to market at Johnson & Johnson, where he led compound development and the medical, scientific, and regulatory processes.

Spravato is a ketamine-analog medication with dissociative psychedelic properties prescribed for major depressive disorder. The FDA approved Spravato’s NDA in 2019 with a protocol requiring patients first to prove that traditional antidepressants failed before becoming eligible for coverage.

Glaringly, Spravato’s application did not include therapeutic intervention, begging the question, could Hough have similar plans for MDMA?

A New Path for Psychedelic Therapy?

The future of psychedelic-assisted therapy remains uncertain. Doblin, among others, believes that Lykos will eventually bring MDMA therapy to the masses, but following the FDA rejection, he has grave concerns about the direction the industry might take.

On a recent Modern Enlightenment podcast by Ceremonia, he expressed fears that the FDA’s decision could have a chilling effect on future psychedelic NDAs, setting a hands-off precedent he deems immoral.

Doblin told Ceremonia, “We (MAPS) had suggestions that it might be interesting to do a study just giving people MDMA without any support, but Michael Mithoefer, our lead psychiatrist, myself, and others thought it would be unethical to do that.”

“…stuff comes up [on MDMA], and if you’re not capable of processing it, you can end up worse off,” he added.

Doblin also articulated why he believes MDMA alone is insufficient to extinguish PTSD.

He explained that 40% of Lykos’ clinical trial participants had previously tried MDMA recreationally before joining the study. If the drug alone were all they needed, these patients would’ve been cured of PTSD. But they weren’t. Many had suffered for years without relief. And it was the combination of MDMA plus psychotherapy that finally helped them achieve remission.

Doblin explained, “It’s not about the drug. It’s about how you process. And it also is not just about the drug experience. It’s about integration. It’s also about preparation. All of that is what contributes to the outcomes.”

In other words, the idea that a psychedelic experience alone can cure mental health issues ignores the complexities of trauma and the human psyche.

Nevertheless, the FDA skepticism about MDMA therapy means psychedelic NDAs may start to look like Spravato’s, or they may follow the “psychological support” approach that pharmaceutical companies Compass Pathways (Compass) and Mind Medicine (MindMed) are promoting.

“Profit-oriented companies like Compass are minimizing any psychotherapeutic angle. They just want [psychedelic medicine] to fit into the psycho-pharm model that people understand,” said Shannon.

He added, “I have to tell you that 95% of the people that I know in the psychedelic realm don’t believe in that {approach},” he added.

According to Shannon, “psychological support” means licensed therapists are on-site during drug administration. But instead of providing counseling intervention, they serve in more passive roles, stepping in only to prevent psychological harm when necessary.

“[This approach comes from] people stuck in the old ways. People who want something comfortable and not challenging. This is what fading, failing paradigms do. They try to prevent new ideas from coming in,” said Shannon.

Will Lykos Carry MDMA Therapy to the FDA Finish Line?

Lykos has vowed to bring this novel psychedelic medicine to the current regulatory framework. However, industry insiders think its new Phase 3 trial will introduce different study design elements that could render the original protocol unrecognizable.

At the very least, Lykos may need to shift from integrative, holistic therapies, like Internal Family Systems, Hakomi, and Holotropic Breathwork, to accepted “evidence-based approaches” like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that fit neatly into the traditional medical structure. CBT can be effective for PTSD, but today’s mental health crisis proves it is remarkably substandard.

Amid the tug-of-war between innovation and convention, I fear psychedelic-assisted therapy, as we now know it, may be headed toward extinction. But I won’t mourn its passing. Instead, I’ll see this phase as a metamorphosis—where the old form dissolves, making way for a model that adapts to today’s framework while (hopefully) preserving the transformative essence of psychedelic healing.

August 8, 2024August 7, 2024

Somatic Therapy and Psychedelics: How Body-Centered Approaches Are Revolutionizing Trauma Treatment

Somatic therapy and psychedelics are proving to be mutually beneficial as the psychedelic revival evolves. Somatic therapy can unlock deeper levels of healing and trauma release inaccessible by psychedelics alone. And at the same time, somatic therapy can set the table for someone who is not quite ready for a psychedelic journey.

Whether they’re new to the psychedelic field or not, most people have a basic understanding of what psychedelics are and what they do. However, many people are unfamiliar with somatic therapy. Thus, even fewer understand the intersection between somatic therapy and psychedelics. Before exploring the interplay further, let’s address the obvious question first.

Peter Levine, somatic therapy and psychedelics

What is Somatic Therapy?

According to Harvard Health somatic therapy is “… a treatment focusing on the body and how emotions appear within the body. Somatic therapies posit that our body holds and expresses experiences and emotions, and traumatic events or unresolved emotional issues can become ‘trapped’ inside.”

Somatic therapy, or just simply ‘somatics,’ is a topic that covers significant breadth and depth. Somatics is not one thing, but many different training programs teach it, and unique practitioners practice it with distinct approaches.

Two notable therapists, Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk, specialize in trauma and psychedelics under the somatic umbrella.

Levine developed a type of somatic therapy called “somatic experiencing.” The therapy, he explains, is a body-oriented modality that helps heal trauma and other stress disorders.

“It is the result of the multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, Indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics,” Levine says.

Dutch psychiatrist, researcher and author Bessel van der Kolk has made significant contributions to the somatic therapy field as well. His book The Body Keeps the Score describes how a group of therapists and scientists struggled to integrate recent advances in brain science, attachment research, and body awareness into treatments that “can free trauma survivors from the tyranny of the past.” Van der Kolk’s work has brought much-needed attention to how trauma gets trapped or “stuck” in the body, and is often referenced in the psychedelic field.

Besides somatic experiencing, a variety of methods exist to address trapped trauma in the body. Some of them include body awareness, pendulation, titration and resourcing among others. So who might benefit from somatics?

Who Benefits From Somatic Therapy?

People suffering from anxiety, complicated grief, depression, PTSD, self-esteem problems and other challenges can find healing benefits from somatic therapy.

Often these unsettling feelings manifest in the body in crippling ways. These unwelcome feelings, anxiety and stress may lead to lack of concentration, sleep complications, muscle tension, stiffness, etc. Over a long period of time, these physical maladies put tremendous wear and tear on the body, and can lead to the manifestation of chronic pain and illness.

As van der Kolk says, “the body doesn’t lie.” These debilitating physical conditions are symptomatic of the underlying stuck or blocked psychic energy. So anyone with entrenched experiences, feelings or traumas causing corporal pain can benefit from somatic therapy. Somatic therapy works to disempower these emotions. But how do these unwanted emotions become unwelcome guests in the body?

How Animals Have an Advantage Over Humans

Levine made one of the biggest advancements in somatics by studying animals. By observing animals, Levine came to the conclusion that animals have an ability to discard or brush off psychic distress. Think of a dog shaking off water. Animals seem to have an innate ability to neutralize trauma after escaping a predator. Not possessing this ability would compromise their survival instincts and threaten an existential crisis. However, humans don’t appear to have the same set of skills.

Somatic therapy focuses on the nervous system as its foundation. The human nervous system does not respond like the nervous system of animals.

“Animals complete the whole threat cycle. They go through the whole thing. They discharge that energy,” Kara Tremain, ACC explains.

Bonnijane Monson, DPT concurs, and explains further. “You’re looking for saber-toothed tigers around you. You have to be aware of all the saber-toothed tigers in the area, because the saber-toothed tigers can potentially harm you. But if you’re looking for external saber-toothed tigers, you don’t care if you’re hungry. You don’t care if you’re sleepy. You don’t care about the signals happening in your body that are trying to tell you what you need because your biggest concern at that moment is safety. So we lose interoception which is the internal knowing and sensing of what we need and want. So what we teach in somatics is to increase interoception.”

In a way, somatic therapy teaches us to regain our animal instincts and reclaim our bodies again. We have to teach our bodies that we are no longer in threat. However, if a person is stuck in deep trauma, in a flight, fight, or freeze response for example, they may not benefit from other therapy types.

Where Somatic Therapy and Psychedelics Intersect

For some people with deep, embodied trauma, somatic therapy may be the skeleton key that unlocks it.

For example, a person may not be getting results from traditional psychotherapy. In a case like this, the body transforms into a psychic sentinel and does not allow passage to the origin of the pain.

“You can talk about it all day long, but your body is still going through the experience,” Monson says.

The nervous system is the ideal starting point for somatics, Tremain says.

“… You really can’t do the bigger, deeper work if you’re stuck in a trauma pattern.”

In this case psychedelics may not be the ideal solution – yet.

Undergoing somatic therapy may be a necessary pre-game step, leading up to a psychedelic experience. The need for somatic therapy shows up in psychedelic settings in slightly different ways.

Somatic Therapy as a Psychedelic Precursor

Because most people are unfamiliar with somatic therapy, chances are a therapist will recommend it to them for the first time. Perhaps a traditional psychotherapist has encountered a blockage in someone that talk therapy can’t resolve. In this case, a psychedelically informed therapist might also deduce that the timing for a psychedelic journey is not right either.

“Unless there is a real orientation to the body, you can spend the whole psychedelic session in your mind, just processing things from a mind perspective. An orientation with the body changes things,” Tremain says.

Sometimes severe trauma can reduce the benefits of psychedelic medicine, despite the medicine’s potency. In this case, somatic therapy prior to a psychedelic session may help someone prepare for a journey. Tremain emphasizes that her goal is to get people to do somatic work before they engage in a psychedelic session.

Somatic Therapy in Underground Psychedelic Settings

Many people attending underground psychedelic retreats and ceremonies may not know about somatic therapy. However, people with severe, nervous system-based traumas may still seek them out, and may not be aware that their body is keeping the score. Thus underground retreat leaders, practitioners, and guides, need to prepare for these scenarios and seek expert-level training to help support those who may come to the circle with unresolved somatic trauma.

Monson points out the risk stating, “With different memories or experiences are going to come sensations from the body. And if somebody is not prepared to experience the intensity of what is happening in their body, it can feel really scary and a lot of fighting and struggle can happen as a result of what’s showing up in a psychedelic experience.” Some may interpret this as a “bad trip” when in reality a tough experience may be an indication that a person needs somatic therapy. It boils down to a matter of comfort.

“If somebody feels more comfortable being present and can stay there a longer period of time, the amount of struggle is less and the integration afterward is much easier because they already know how to process that through a somatic approach,” Monson explains.

How Somatic Therapy and Psychedelics Complement Each Other

Somatic therapy and psychedelics can be like a training ground to the playing field of the psyche. As an individual undertakes a journey of deep, personal work, layers of the psyche peel back. This reveals more profound levels of psychic projects underneath. However, sometimes a person’s body isn’t quite ready for the psychedelic playing field.

“Somatics prepares someone to stay in their body and work through, or be with, whatever shows up,” Munson says.

Whether it’s emotional or physical pain, or different memories and experiences, somatics prepares a person to take on these challenging moments. The glamorization of psychedelics can mislead people to believe that challenging experiences are throwaways. In fact, these difficult experiences may provide the richest rewards.

A quick dip into a psychedelic-adjacent field reveals “the bad” often seeds and nourishes personal development. German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche proposed the idea of “post-traumatic growth.” He was way ahead of his time in 1888. He also aided the progress of psychology with his idea. Through the lens of post-traumatic growth, somatic therapy opens, sets and tends the psychedelic playing field.

“A big part of this work is learning to be with uncomfortable sensations and to be with discomfort. It’s about learning to be with discomfort so you can process it. The more you can be with it, the easier it is to process. The more you’re not over-responsive to something, the more settled your body is, you can actually see things and process things that come up in a psychedelic space,” Tremain explains.

In this way, somatic therapy gives a person the tools to graduate to the psychedelic big leagues, and artfully manage challenging experiences.

Somatics and Psychedelics: Unlocking the Treasure Within

The psychospiritual healing process often plays out like a locked treasure chest containing more locked treasure chests. Everyone has unique treasure chests, sizes, shapes, and locks requiring distinct keys to open. Somatic therapy provides another key to opening the next chest. Anyone with psychedelic experience knows how journeys can elicit profound visceral reactions. Without a body-centered approach to psychedelic journeys, a person may short-circuit their healing process and shortchange their full healing potential.

Do you feel called to explore what somatic therapy and psychedelics is on a deeper level? Consider joining us for our fourth cohort of Vital, where students can specialize in somatic therapy and psychedelics. Applications are open now with limited seats available.

August 2, 2024August 2, 2024

Jungian Psychology, Psychedelics, and the Multiplicity of Self

Jungian psychology takes a fascinating look at the relationship between the conscious and unconscious parts of our minds. How is this framework brought more to the forefront through psychedelics and an understanding of our many parts?

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Johanna interviews Jung experts and Vital instructors: Maria Papaspyrou, psychotherapist and co-founder and director of the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy (IPT); and Dr. Ido Cohen, clinical psychologist and founder of The Integration Circle.

They talk about the experiences that helped them first understand the concept of multiple different parts making up their being, and dive into what it is about psychedelics that allows us to discover and work with these different parts: how the protector parts of our psyche work overtime to keep parts away from us, and how psychedelics can dissolve them, leading to a better understanding of ourselves. How much of our persona is based on who we feel we’re supposed to be? What shadow parts are stopping us from being our true selves? And what amazing parts of ourselves have yet to be discovered?

They discuss:

The idea of self as a unified entity: Does this concept make sense anymore?
Risks in understanding how different parts work together, from justifying behaviors to inflating defensive structures
The need to move away from solution-based to more process-focused frameworks, and the power in treating healing and growth as an ongoing process
The rejection of the shadow and the archetypal (and impossible) wish to extinguish all suffering
The large discrepancy between what people think being a psychedelic facilitator is vs. the reality

and more!

If you really want to dig into Jungian ideas, Jungian psychology is one of the new specialization tracks featured in the next cohort of Vital, beginning September 16. If you want to know more, send us an email or attend one of the next Vital Q+As.

Links

Instituteofpsychedelictherapy.org

Towardswholeness.co.uk

Theintegrationcircle.com

Psychedelics and The Shadow: The Shadow Side of Psychedelia: Exploring the dark and golden shadow of psychedelia

PT390 – Vital Psychedelic Conversations, featuring: Mackenzie Amara & Dr. Ido Cohen

PT450 – Dreams, Psychedelics, Symbolism, and Cockroaches, featuring: Mackenzie Amara & Dr. Ido Cohen

Lithub.com: The Heteronymous Identities of Fernando Pessoa

The Red Book, by C. G. Jung

My Self, My Many Selves, by J.W.T. Redfearn

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

July 26, 2024August 2, 2024

Psychedelics in Palliative Care: Screening, Safety Measures, and Experiences With the Divine

Psychedelics in palliative care has become an exciting new framework for people looking to ease anxiety and embrace spirituality, but the concept is not as simple as just providing a substance.

In this episode, Joe interviews Livi Joy: Director of Health and Safety, Existential Palliative Ministry Lead Facilitator, and more at Sacred Garden Community (SGC).

As she screens applicants for SGC (and Beckley Retreats), she talks a lot about the process and the safety measures that are absolutely necessary when using psychedelics in palliative care – especially under the framework of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Does the patient have at least one strong support person? Do they need to start or increase therapy? Does their home need to be rearranged due to possible fall risks? How will certain medications muffle their experience? Are they truly physically healthy enough to be able to handle a powerful journey? And also, is the sacrament always necessary?

She discusses:

How preparation questions for a journey are often in line with preparation for death
Why it’s important to provide these experiences for people far from the dying process itself
What Sacred Garden’s core tenant of faith that everyone can have a direct experience of the divine in this lifetime means to her
Atheism and the complications that arise when discussing spirituality and consciousness: Who’s really in charge?
How psychedelics can help with understanding and preparing for death, but our culture is too death-phobic too embrace it

and more!

Links

Psychedelics Weekly – AIMS vs. the DEA: An Update on the Fight to Reschedule Psilocybin

Wikipedia.org: Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Sacredgarden.life: Workshops

July 19, 2024July 23, 2024

Ecopsychology, Plant Dietas, and Plant Consciousness: Building a Relationship with Nature

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Johanna interviews Monica Nieto: Vital graduate, psychedelic facilitator and integration coach, and founder of Holistic TherapeutiX, a retreat center offering cannabis and breathwork retreats; and Jordana Ma: past Vital instructor and psychological counselor who runs retreats in Peru following the Asháninkan tradition of traditional Amazonian medicine.

They discuss their similar paths to psychedelics and healing, the power of plant dietas and fully immersing yourself into nature, and learning to hear your true teacher: the inner healer. They highlight how we’ve lost the connection to the ecological consciousness within our bodies, and how the plants – perhaps in a self-serving way – have become allies, trying to teach us to heal the web we’re a part of and reconnect to nature and ourselves.

They discuss:

The importance of combining traditional perspectives and Western psychotherapy into a spiritual practice
The similarities between yoga and traditional Amazonian medicine
Singing as a somatic (and breathwork) practice
How things are meant to work in synergy, and the problem with science trying to extract compounds rather than respecting the power of the whole plant
Their role models who have inspired them and informed their work

and more!

The Vital Early Bird discount ($2000 off!) ends on July 22, so make sure to apply today!

Links

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com

Holistictherapeutix.com

Jordanama.one

Hakomiinstitute.com: Ron Kurtz

Joannamacy.net

Joanhalifax.org

July 12, 2024July 12, 2024

Difficult Conversations, the Need for Culturally Competent Care, and Why Representation Matters

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews Sara Reed: Vital instructor, lecturer, and lead psychedelic research therapist at Imperial College London; and Alex H. Robinson: Vital student, integration coach and psilocybin facilitator for Heroic Hearts Project, and distinguished Army SOF combat Veteran with a decade of active duty service.

Reed has worked with MAPS to make clinical trial populations more diverse and is creating culturally sensitive Clinical Research Forms for future research trials, and Robinson spearheaded her unit’s Cultural Support Team program and contributed to policy changes to help place women into traditionally male-centric Special Operations roles. Representing marginalized groups themselves, they’re both passionate about making psychedelic therapy more inclusive and representative of the general population, and getting more practitioners up to speed to be able to deliver culturally competent care.

They discuss:

The importance of having difficult conversations and calling out bad behavior
The fallacy of zero-sum thinking: Doing something special for a smaller community doesn’t take away from the main goal; it adds to it
The benefit of being able to self-reflect and personalize content when most psychedelic education consists of one-sided lectures
The challenge of getting people who don’t feel represented to enroll in clinical trials, and how personal stories go a long way

and more!

Links

Sarajreed.info

Akjournals.com: Culturally informed research design issues in a study for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder

Psychedelics Today: Sara Reed – Ketamine Therapy Through a Culturally Responsible Lens

Alex-robinson.org

Heroicheartsproject.org

YouTube: PT Live: Joe Moore and Alex H. Robinson Discuss the Heroic Hearts Project

PT341 – Racism, Trauma, Research, and Psychedelics, featuring: Monnica Williams, Ph.D.

PT372 – The Heroic Hearts Project: Veterans and The Impact of Storytelling, featuring: Jesse Gould & Zach Riggle

Atableofourown.org

PT278 – Ayize Jama-Everett, Courtney Watson, Leticia Brown, and Kufikiri Imara – A Table of Our Own

Researchgate.net: The Cultural Genogram: Key to Training Culturally Competent Family Therapists

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com

July 11, 2024July 31, 2024

Archetypes, Individuation, and the Shadow: Carl Jung’s Enduring Psychedelic Influence

Archetypes, Individuation, and the Shadow: Carl Jung’s Enduring Influence on Contemporary Psychedelics

Although the late psychologist and mystic Carl Jung died in the 1960s, his ‘inner self’ legacy is enjoying an organic revival, synchronizing with the resurgence of psychedelics.

Jung’s work provides a reliable road map for a psychedelic trip through the unconscious, and contemporary psychedelic explorers are hungry to learn more about his profound teachings.

Why Jung Appeals to a Broad Psychedelic Audience

Jung’s enduring transpersonal principles can help us interpret and understand complex non-ordinary experiences, whether they’re brought on by psychedelic compounds or other endogenous methods.

Thus, his insights resonate with a broad audience: licensed therapists, reiki practitioners, guides, yogis, integration coaches, breath workers, and others.

“We’re in need of tools that help us to articulate what’s going on at that level of depth,” says Jungian analyst-in-training and clinical psychology doctoral student MacKenzie Amara. “…we don’t have [many tools] to articulate what’s happening when we get into the messy place of extreme emotional catharsis and symbolic representation through the form of visions and communication with ancestors who have been long dead.”

Understanding Archetypes on Jung’s Terms

In order to comprehend Jung’s psychospiritual philosophies, it’s crucial to first understand some basic Jungian concepts and terms. Jung believed that the psyche (mind, body, soul) is composed of three parts: the ego (or personal conscious), the personal unconscious (unique, containing suppressed memories), and the collective unconscious.

The collective unconscious is a domain of primordial images and symbols that evoke meaning and connection across races, cultures, and nationalities. According to Jung, these symbols contain ‘ancestral memory’, which is inherited. Our ancestral roots and dreams provide insights into the collective unconscious, which shapes our perceptions, knowledge, and experiences.

Within this realm, four main archetypes reflect our beliefs, values, motivations, and morals. The four main Jungian archetypes are:

The Self: The Self emerges when the ego integrates with both the conscious and unconscious aspects of our minds. It represents the culmination of an individual’s spiritual journey, known as individuation. Through individuation, each person realizes their unique, cosmic identity.

The Persona: The Persona refers to the various social masks we wear. We present different aspects of ourselves depending on the social context, such as at work, with family, or with friends. The development of the persona is influenced by upbringing, culture, and environment.

The Shadow: The Shadow contains the parts of our personality that we repress, discard, and hide. These can include traits we are unaware of or do not appreciate. While prejudices and biases originate from the shadow, it is not entirely negative; it also holds potential strengths and hidden talents.

The Anima or the Animus: These archetypes represent the ideal feminine (anima) and masculine (animus) aspects within us. The animus embodies masculinity in a woman’s psyche, while the anima embodies femininity in a man’s psyche. Society often discourages the expression of these opposite-gender traits. Integrating the anima or animus is a crucial step in the process of individuation.

Due to intense engagement with archetypes during psychedelic experiences, individuals risk having their personal worldviews disassembled in the process.

“Jungian theory lends itself to people that have had spiritual, transgressive, or transpersonal experiences more than those that are kind of stuck in a rational materialistic worldview,” Amara explains.

These transpersonal experiences make the Self the focal point of the journey of individuation.

Carl Jung’s Inner Self Explained

The Self is central to Jung’s worldview, merging consciousness and unconsciousness to represent the whole psyche. We are born with a sense of unity, but as we grow and focus on the outer world—school, work, relationships—we form an ego and lose this unity, neglecting our inner world.

Jung identified two life stages: the outer world and the inner world. As adults, we often experience tension between our conscious and unconscious minds, leading to a midlife crisis. This signals the need to nurture our inner life.

Life’s challenges can bring a “dark night of the soul,” where societal values fail us. This prompts a quest to reconnect with our soul, though many avoid this confrontation. Embracing our suffering can lead to psychic growth, uniting our conscious and unconscious realms.

Through this process, known as individuation, we integrate the ignored parts of our unconscious, regaining wholeness and inner harmony.

Carl Jung’s Process of Individuation

As we turn inward, we encounter individuation, a central theme in Jung’s work. Individuation integrates our unconscious with the conscious, restoring the wholeness of the Self. This process, akin to self-actualization, involves breaking free from societal and cultural norms to become a unique individual. Successful individuation provides deep-rooted stability, like an ancient oak tree, supporting us through life’s storms.

Individuation heals the split between the conscious and unconscious, allowing our true Self to emerge. This journey creates turbulence as we realize our conventional world and unconscious world often conflict. The conventional world shapes our beliefs and behaviors, creating a structured reality. In contrast, the unconscious is chaotic and tumultuous, divided into the personal and collective unconscious. The personal unconscious contains everything outside our conscious awareness.

From birth, we operate largely on autopilot, influenced by external conditioning. This conditioning shapes our ego and self-perception, leading to a split and psychic imbalance. Psychedelics can help repair this split, aligning our conscious and unconscious minds.

Jung, Psychedelics, and “Ego Death”

Carl Jung coined an often used term in psychedelic vernacular: ego death. Ego death refers to a compromised sense of self, and it’s a state that’s coveted by many psychonauts. While some consider it an end goal of psychedelic work, it’s really the first step towards a return to wholeness. So, why is this idea prevalent in the psychedelic community?

“Psychedelics are what we call psycho-pumps for individuation. Meaning psychedelics are connectors to personal and collective unconscious; what gives you more of the unconscious material to then work with,” Dr. Ido Cohen explains.

This idea results in the common sentiment that psychedelics are “ten years of therapy in one day.”

While Cohen doesn’t think it’s necessarily accurate, he believes people are trying to say, “Wow, psychedelics can really open up the barrier to the personal and collective unconscious which then a flood of information comes in.”

This shedding of a one-sided self-identity holds true in above ground and underground psychedelic settings, as people jump-start their individuation. Insights can follow that may lead a person to explore what has been relegated to the basement of their psyche, or the “shadow.” When we learn to dance with the shadow, we empathize and relate with all of mankind on a profound level, Cohen says.

Learning to Dance with the Shadow

As a midlife crisis arises, or we enter a dark night of the soul, and the process of individuation begins and we come face to face with our shadow. This daunting task is referred to as doing “shadow work,” (another Jungian term gaining popularity in licensed and underground settings alike).

At first glance, we may see our shadow and assume it is evil or an enemy. But our shadow is part of us, and can’t be abandoned or avoided. As we familiarize ourselves with the shadow, we learn that it is not to be feared, as it is only dark or hostile when it is ignored or misunderstood. Thus, it’s critical to understand what the shadow really is.

What is the Shadow?

The shadow encompasses all the psychic elements we reject and hope to discard by casting them into the depths. It includes the traits we’ve ignored, disowned, or removed from ourselves, forming our personality in the process. The shadow is the unknown dark side of our personality, representing everything we desire not to be.

The shadow includes negative and primitive human emotions and impulses: selfishness, rage, greed, pride, and lust. Anything we reject in ourselves as evil, intolerable, or less than ideal forms the shadow. It’s a repository of both negative and positive qualities we no longer claim. Within this mix, we find the shadow’s hidden treasures.

Cohen notes, “There is also the golden shadow, which includes beautiful aspects we repressed due to our upbringing or environment.”

This could mean rediscovering playfulness or sexuality. Or it could reveal latent talents, like a lawyer discovering a talent for writing or an athlete becoming a chef. It often emerges in psychedelic settings, inspiring life changes like new careers, divorces, or relocations. However, it’s crucial to provide quality integration and a solid container to help individuals make sound decisions and avoid regret.

The shadow compensates for what we lack. For instance, if a person is aggressive, the shadow reflects empathy and tenderness. If they’re shy, it reflects confidence and assertiveness. Honoring and accepting the shadow is an intense spiritual exercise, revealing our potential and the ideal self we strive to become.

Carl Jung’s Psychedelic Guidance is Here to Stay

For the Western mind, unaccustomed to Indigenous worldviews that embrace plant spirits and entities, Jung’s concept of the inner self offers all psychedelic practitioners an invaluable tool to navigate the mind-manifesting unknown. Think of Carl Jung as a trustworthy psychic sherpa: he guides us through the peaks and valleys of the timeless and boundless realms of human consciousness (and unconsciousness), helping us reconnect with our soul.

Do you feel called to learn more about Jung’s teachings? Consider joining us for our fourth cohort of Vital, where students can specialize in Depth and Jungian Perspectives. Applications are open now with limited seats available.

July 5, 2024July 6, 2024

Symptoms as Signals: Trauma and the Role of Inner Healing Intelligence

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews Casey Paleos, MD: Vital instructor, researcher, psychiatrist with a private practice offering ketamine infusion therapy and KAP, and co-founder of Nautilus Sanctuary, a non-profit psychedelic research, education, and advocacy organization.

Paleos talks about how stress creates trauma, and how the symptoms Western medicine tries to silence are actually signals – a quality assurance mechanism sending an alert that something is wrong, and that when symptoms are labeled as ‘treatment-resistant,’ is it actually a case of one’s own inner healing intelligence outsmarting a medication to make sure that that message is delivered?

He discusses:

MAPS’ recent advisory board ruling, past ethical violations, and how training should be done
How consent in a therapeutic relationship is an ongoing process of checking in
How psychedelic-assisted therapy (and maybe all therapy) is simply removing obstacles so one’s own inner healing intelligence can do its job
The importance of a culture (and training) that celebrates all therapeutic modalities as complementary: There’s a lot of uniqueness in this world, so we should embrace that

and more!

Links

Drpaleos.com

Nautilussanctuary.org

Verywellmind.com: What Is the Diathesis-Stress Model?

Lykospbc.com: Lykos Therapeutics Statement on FDA Advisory Committee Meeting

Cbc.ca: Footage of therapists spooning and pinning down patient in B.C. trial for MDMA therapy prompts review

PT464 – Bodywork, Somatic Literacy, and Understanding Trauma: The Mind and Body Connection, featuring: Bessel van der Kolk, MD

Nautilussanctuary.org: The Dana Paleos Fund

Mymodernmet.com: Kintsugi: The Centuries-Old Art of Repairing Broken Pottery with Gold

July 4, 2024July 4, 2024

Raising the Bar: Why Psychedelic Mentorship is Essential For Professional Development

Asking for help is an inherently vulnerable thing. But when it comes to becoming a better psychedelic facilitator or guide, it’s crucial. Enter: psychedelic mentorship.

When people seek help from a psychedelic professional, experience matters. One may be dealing with addiction, depression, or trauma. Or perhaps something a bit lighter: a reset, a shift of perspective. Whatever the reason, individuals place their trust not only in the substance, but in the practitioners who help guide the way.

The vulnerability and trust between individuals and their psychedelic support providers highlight the critical importance of experience. This is why professional relationships, such as mentorships, are essential. A skilled mentor can equip facilitators with the expertise to handle the most challenging circumstances, distinguishing them from those who cannot provide the same level of support.

How Mentorship Can Help Psychedelic Professionals

The resurgence of interest in psychedelic medicine has ushered in a new era of therapeutic possibilities, yet despite the exciting prospects of increased access and expanded treatment options, considerations like ethics and client safety must remain paramount. Mentorship can provide the responsible guidance needed to navigate these crucial therapeutic aspects, ensuring that the rapid expansion of psychedelic therapy does not compromise the quality of care.

Psychedelic mentorship and apprenticeships can help build solid foundations, keeping therapists and practitioners focused on the client and the practice.

The Benefits of Mentorship

Psychedelic mentorship offers numerous benefits, both for the mentees and the broader professional psychedelic community. It provides future practitioners, therapists, guides, and integration specialists with critical knowledge, guidance, and support, helping them build confidence and competence in their practice. Experienced mentors share insights gleaned from years of helping others, including best practices, ethical considerations, and the subtleties of client care that are not always covered in formal training programs.

Moreover, mentorship fosters a culture of continuous learning and professional development. It encourages mentees to stay updated on the latest research and developments in psychedelics, promoting an evidence-based approach to supporting clients. This dynamic exchange of knowledge helps advance the field, ensuring that therapeutic practices evolve and stay connected with new scientific discoveries and industry norms.

What Can Future Psychedelic Professionals Learn From Mentorship?

Through mentorship, novice professionals and healers gain hands-on experience under the guidance of seasoned practitioners. This practical exposure is invaluable, as it allows mentees to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world settings, honing their skills in client interaction, session management, and therapeutic intervention.

Mentors also provide future psychedelic professionals with feedback and constructive criticism, helping them identify areas for improvement and develop their therapeutic style. This personalized guidance ensures that new psychedelic practitioners are well-equipped to handle the varied challenges that will inevitably arise during their practice.

For insight on mentorship in the psychedelic medicine space, we spoke with Kylea Taylor, therapist and creator of Inner Ethics program. As an ethics instructor for the Vital Professional Certificate Training in Integrative Psychedelic Studies, she observes first-hand how valuable mentorship is for psychedelic professionals who are training to build their careers and work with clients.

“I think the most important training is experiential. Supervised experience of having many extra-ordinary states of consciousness oneself and sitting for others who are in extra-ordinary states of consciousness,” Taylor said.

“Along with those experiences, it is very important to be in experiential study communities with other peers who share their experiences while you listen and who listen to yours. It is important then to have trainers and trained facilitators who can answer your questions and make comments about what happened in a group session. They can answer the questions of your peers, from which you learn as well.”

The Unique Situation of Psychedelic Therapy

Psychedelic therapy and support occupies a unique and complex niche within the broader field of mental health treatment. There’s a delicate mix of hands-on client care, navigating the legal status of psychedelics, and the specific ethical and professional considerations intrinsic to this type of therapy.

The Vulnerability of Clients

Clients engaging in psychedelic therapy or support often enter highly vulnerable states. The substances used, such as MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD, can induce intense emotional and psychological experiences. These experiences can unearth deep-seated traumas, evoke powerful emotions, and alter perceptions of reality. This heightened vulnerability requires practitioners to be exceptionally skilled in managing emotional crises and providing a safe, supportive environment.

Mentorship plays a critical role in preparing therapists to handle these situations with the utmost sensitivity and care, ensuring that clients feel secure and supported throughout their journey. Mentors can share their experience, help keep mentees focused, and guide them through helping clients navigate challenging experiences.

Recent allegations of practitioner misconduct during psychedelic therapy trials highlight the need for the best possible training, mentorship, and professional accountability.

In her training sessions with burgeoning psychedelic facilitators, Taylor places an emphasis on the importance of ethical considerations and the utmost care for clients.

“[Facilitators have] an up-power position that has a greater power differential than the one between a therapist and a client in talk therapy. The psychedelic medicine amplifies vulnerability, suggestibility, and sensitivity. It softens the client’s defenses. This makes it incumbent on the practitioner, what I call the person who is in the ‘Responsible Party’ role, to have a regular source of oversight for their work—a peer consultation group, a supervisor, or a mentor—where we can be vulnerable ourselves and talk and learn from our challenges to provide impeccable care to clients.”

The Legal Status of Psychedelics

The legal status of psychedelics adds another layer of complexity to psychedelic facilitation. While there is a growing movement towards the decriminalization of psychedelics, they remain illegal in many parts of the world. Even in jurisdictions where psychedelic therapy is permitted under specific conditions, like clinical trials or compassionate use programs, legal restrictions and regulatory requirements can be stringent. Mentors help practitioners navigate this complex legal landscape, ensuring they remain compliant with all relevant laws and regulations. This guidance is essential for protecting both the facilitator and the client, as legal missteps can have severe consequences.

Ethical Considerations & Ensuring Safe Spaces for Clients

The unique and sometimes intense realities of psychedelic therapy demand adherence to rigorous ethical standards. The altered states of consciousness induced by psychedelics can blur boundaries and heighten emotional and psychological sensitivity. Practitioners must be adept at maintaining professional boundaries, managing therapeutic dynamics like transference, and ensuring informed consent. Mentors can help trainees understand and uphold these ethical standards, offering guidance from their lived professional experiences, helping future practitioners prepare for the unique challenges that could arise in psychedelic sessions.

“Practitioners can, without realizing it sometimes, come to believe that the healing and transformation of their clients is their own doing,” says Taylor. “They can misuse a client’s transference and be in denial about their own countertransference. They can exploit a client’s vulnerability or suggestibility sexually, emotionally, financially, medically, or spiritually and rationalize their reasons for doing so. They can ignore their own semi-conscious and unconscious motivations. If they have no peer consultation group or mentor, they may have no one to remind them about their client’s best interests.”

Traditional vs. Peer-to-Peer and Community Mentorship

Mentorship in psychedelics can take various forms, each with its unique benefits. Traditional mentorship involves a one-on-one relationship between an experienced mentor and a less experienced mentee. This approach allows for deep, personalized guidance and the development of a strong, supportive relationship.

In contrast, peer-to-peer and community mentorship involve more collaborative and collective forms of support. Peer-to-peer mentorship connects individuals at similar stages in their careers, enabling them to share experiences, challenges, and solutions on an equal footing. Community mentorship, on the other hand, involves larger networks of practitioners who provide mutual support, share resources, and collectively advance the field.

These forms of mentorship can complement traditional mentorship, providing a well-rounded support system for professionals at all stages of their careers. Taylor sees benefits in a well-rounded approach.

“I think having both forms of oversight is ideal. Traditional mentorship is usually one-on-one or in small groups. One can benefit from a mentor’s greater expertise. A one-on-one supervisory session can usually provide more security of confidentiality about a client situation,” Taylor said. “Peer consultation groups can provide more points of view, a breadth of resources and greater reach in networking. Our InnerEthics Peer Consultation Group is structured to protect vulnerability as practitioners rotate in roles to help each other do self-inquiry and relational reflection. Together they do mutual consciousness development to help them do their consequential work. Members of these groups also benefit from two things that are hard to come by in modern culture: a feeling of belonging and greater self-compassion.”

Considering the unique dynamics of psychedelic therapy, and how the future rollout will be full of new participants and novel therapeutic models, mentorship is quickly becoming a cornerstone of professional development. This supportive mode of training will help equip professionals with the knowledge, skills, and ethical grounding necessary to ensure they’re well-prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of this new era of mental health.

Are you working toward becoming a psychedelic professional, and looking for mentors to guide you? Consider Vital, where students gain access to one-on-one mentorship opportunities with experienced facilitators working in the field. Applications are open now with limited seats available.

July 2, 2024July 2, 2024

Transforming Trauma: Community, Connection, and the Healing Power of Vulnerability

In this episode, Kyle interviews Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.: developer of Somatic Experiencing®, educator, and author of several best-selling books on trauma.

His most recent book, An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, is exactly that: a change from more scholarly writing into an extremely vulnerable telling of his early childhood trauma and how he has healed over the years. He talks about how his unconscious convinced him to write the book, how trauma can move into the body, and how he needed a student to identify how his trauma was affecting him. He believes that we all have wounding, but it’s how we carry these wounds and tell our truth that matters.

He discusses:

The need to allow space for both Indigenous traditions and evidence-based Western frameworks
The power of having even just one distinct moment of feeling cared for and loved
How Colin Turnbull saw healing differently after living with an African tribe for three years
Why he suggests 15-20 sober experiences with non-ordinary states for each drug experience
Why not having a community or empathetic other makes us more vulnerable to trauma

and more!

Links

Somaticexperiencing.com

An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, by Peter A. Levine

Ted.com: How to live passionately—no matter your age

Wikipedia.org: Colin Turnbull

YouTube.com: The Moth Presents Andrew Solomon: Notes on an Exorcism

YouTube.com: Marvin Gaye – It Takes Two

Imdb.com: The Last Shaman

PT464 – Bodywork, Somatic Literacy, and Understanding Trauma: The Mind and Body Connection, featuring: Bessel van der Kolk, MD

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com

Navigating Psychedelics: Australia – 9-Week Certificate Program in Psychedelic-Informed Practice

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

June 27, 2024July 4, 2024

Understanding Microdosing: Integrating Small Doses for Big Therapeutic Gains

Microdosing. By now the practice has fully emerged from the underground and into the mainstream. No longer the domain of self-healing psychonauts and efficiency-chasing CEOs, the benefits of microdosing can be found in major magazines and clinical trials with Ivy-league universities.

The concept is relatively simple: taking very small, sub-perceptual doses of psychedelics (generally one-tenth to one-twentieth of a recreational or therapeutic dose). This practice has been reported to provide some of the benefits of psychedelic substances without strong sensory effects and, sometimes, help with the difficult work involved in full psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions.

Many people swear by microdosing and say it has greatly improved their mental health and daily lives. It seems we’ve passed a tipping point and that microdosing is here to stay.

As we move towards possible approval of psychedelic medicines by the FDA, and with decriminalization measures making progress in jurisdictions across the globe, how will microdosing fit into this future of psychedelic-assisted therapy? What benefits does it provide to therapists, practitioners, and the clients they serve?

Microdosing as a Tool For Practitioners and Clients

Despite an overwhelming number of positive personal stories and self-reported research, the hard science is still out as to the level of tangible benefits patients might gain from microdosing psychedelics. However, this combination of enthusiastic anecdotal reports and (slowly) mounting clinical research makes microdosing an intriguing tool for people looking to better their mental health and the practitioners who help them do it.

We spoke with Kayse Gehret, microdosing expert and founder of Microdosing for Healing, for her perspective on how microdosing can improve therapeutic results for both patients and practitioners.

Microdosing is the ideal way to introduce most individuals to psychedelic practice and therapy.

“Its relative subtlety is an advantage as it provides people a gentler introductory experience and begins to allow some challenging or unfamiliar emotions to surface incrementally versus all at once,” Gehret said. “My colleagues and I are seeing an increasing number of clients coming to us after returning from a high dose ceremonial retreat feeling destabilized. While psychedelics can bring us big truths, we must also recognize that much of the public is not appropriately prepared, resourced, or ready to receive these truths in a single weekend.”

The therapeutic potential of psychedelics has been known for decades (centuries or milenia if considering insights from ancestral and indigenous communities). From PTSD to depression, high dose psychedelic-assisted therapy has shown impressive therapeutic results.

How Does Microdosing Work with Therapy?

Psychedelics primarily work by modulating the brain’s serotonin system, which plays a key role in mood regulation, cognition, and perception. They can also enhance neural plasticity and connectivity. These types of effects create states of mind that are fertile ground for mental health therapies. Openness, creativity, dissolution of the ego, the breaking of bad habits of mind — all are typical benefits of psychedelic therapy that may also be accessible through microdosing regimens.

According to Gehret, microdosing has a lighter touch, and is less of a jarring and intimidating experience. This allows patients to take part in psychedelic therapies with a gentler, more accessible introduction.

“By starting with microdosing, individuals can begin to heal and discover threads and shadow material leading up to and in preparation for their high dose journey,” Gehret explained. “In our microdosing community, I’ve witnessed repeatedly that when people begin with microdosing and work to deepen their relationship with the medicine over time, when they ultimately journey they tend to have much less fear, resistance and ‘challenging trip’ experience.”

Gehret leads the microdosing specialization course offered as part of the Vital Professional Certificate Training in Integrative Psychedelic Studies. She believes microdosing offers unique opportunities for mental health professionals.

“Professionally, I also believe microdosing is wonderfully supportive of the therapeutic bond between the client and their facilitator. By beginning with a microdosing protocol, a psychedelic guide can establish, deepen, and develop their bond with a client well in advance of the journey, which I believe can lead to much better outcomes and experiences for both client and guide.”

Therapeutic Benefits of Microdosing Psychedelics

While the efficacy of psychedelic medicine is becoming increasingly known to mental health professionals, it’s useful to look at some of the potential benefits of microdosing protocols and how practitioners may be able to incorporate them into their practices.

Depression and Anxiety: One of the most promising areas for microdosing psychedelics is in the treatment of depression and anxiety. Anecdotal reports and preliminary studies suggest that microdosing can lead to improvements in mood, reduced anxiety, and increased emotional resilience. For clients who have not responded well to traditional talk therapy or antidepressants, microdosing may offer an alternative or adjunctive treatment option. For recent clinical results, see the Phase 2 results from MindBio Therapeutics’ microdosing trial using LSD for depression.

Enhanced Creativity and Problem-Solving: Microdosing has been reported to enhance creativity, focus, and problem-solving abilities. These cognitive benefits can be particularly useful in therapeutic settings, where patients are often encouraged to engage in introspective and creative processes as part of their treatment. Enhanced cognitive flexibility may also help patients break out of rigid thought patterns that contribute to unhealthy states of mind.

Improved Emotional Regulation: Emotional dysregulation is a common feature of many mental health conditions. Some studies have shown that microdosing may help individuals better manage their emotions, leading to greater emotional stability and reduced reactivity. This can be particularly beneficial in therapies aimed at addressing trauma, where patients need to confront and process difficult emotions.

Increased Mindfulness and Presence: Personal reports and self-reported research has shown increased mindfulness and a greater sense of presence in their daily lives. This heightened awareness can enhance the effectiveness of therapeutic practices such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) and other mindfulness-based interventions.

Gehret has been guiding therapies and teaching Vital’s microdosing courses for several years, sharing her first-hand experience with burgeoning student practitioners. In addition to the therapeutic possibilities, microdosing protocols can help solve issues around access, as traditional psychedelic-assisted therapy can be a costly and lengthy endeavor, she says.

“Microdosing is a subtle and gentle way to explore a therapeutic relationship with psychedelics and test how your body, mind, and spirit respond. It’s also far more accessible and affordable than clinical psychedelic therapy treatments, which can run into multiple thousands of dollars for a single experience, is not covered by most insurers, and will leave out most of the under-insured population,” she told Psychedelics Today. “On the other hand, cultivating your own medicines and becoming part of a microdosing community will cost far less, plus provide you with the ongoing benefits of community, education and support.”

As psychedelic therapy continues to enter the mainstream, it seems that microdosing will become an important introductory tool for those looking for help but are perhaps not yet fully comfortable with the idea of psychedelics. From a logistical perspective, the shorter session time and lack of hallucinatory journey means that microdosing can provide a tool for practitioners that offers some of the benefits of psychedelic therapies but with fewer demands on resources (time and costs), which can create a more accessible experience for clients.

Microdosing group work and peer-to-peer models are also advantageous over traditional one-to-one therapy, as more people can be served, while eliminating the potential for practitioner burnout

“These models also empower people to step into their own healing, self-trust, and intuition, and support each other in the process. In our microdosing community, we have people who have been attending our gatherings since our inception – and many of them have gone on to become microdosing coaches, guides and community builders. They serve as models, mentors and inspiration for the participants just starting out.”

This psychedelic resurgence is in an exciting moment, one that offers the possibility to create new modes and models for mental health treatments. Yet as with any new frontier, it’s crucial to build solid foundations based on education and responsibility. Ensuring that tomorrow’s practitioners are receiving the proper training is vital to the health of the growing landscape. Mentors like Gehret are lending their expertise to help build these paradigms.

In the future, Gehret envisions practitioners offering a range of microdosing support: integration circles, one to one support, group programs, and weaving the practice into their existing healing modalities like bodywork, psychotherapy, end-of-life care, human design, hypnotherapy, and more.

“This new way of incorporating and blending complementary modalities is incredibly effective and also a breath of fresh air from the silos and gate-keeping we see within medical models of care where you need to get a referral for everything and the system is rigged for profit over the best interest of the patient,” she said. “It really is an exciting time to be in the healing professions and microdosing is an ideal practice and bridge for people to begin to think differently about their health and healing.”

Interested in learning more about how to become a professional specializing in microdosing? Enrollment for the September cohort of Vital is open, with limited seats available.

June 24, 2024June 24, 2024

What is MDMA’s FDA Approval Status? A Look Ahead

Following the multi-decade regulatory pursuit, legal MDMA-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) seemed imminent to many people. In February 2024, the FDA accepted Lykos Therapeutics’ New Drug Application (NDA), and all markers indicated a likely approval.

However, on June 4, the Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (PDAC) shattered optimism when nearly all members advised the FDA to reject Lykos’ application.

In a 9-2 and 10-1 vote, the committee asserted its belief that MDMA therapy, as it stands, is neither effective nor safe for Americans with PTSD.

So, what is MDMA’s FDA approval status following the hearing?

The outlook seems grim, given that the FDA aligns with the advisory panel 88% of the time. Still, Lykos (formerly MAPS Public Benefit Corporation) remains hopeful.

“We believe there is a path forward and are focused on collaborating with the FDA as they continue to review our NDA over the months,” said Lykos in an email interview.

A final decision on MDMA for PTSD is expected on or around August 11th.

Unpacking the events that led to the recent developments in FDA approval for MDMA.

The Backstory

Starry-eyed psychedelic proponents didn’t see the dissent coming. The FDA had just granted Lykos’ NDA priority review, and everything seemed to be going smoothly.

However, the contention became clear on March 26, when the Institute of Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) published draft evidence on MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. In the report, ICER acknowledged MDMA’s potential to help people heal from trauma. However, it raised significant concerns about weaving this novel treatment into traditional medicine.

The TLDR of the report’s criticism was that Lykos’ clinical evidence did not sufficiently support MDMA therapy for PTSD. The report cited alleged data validity issues, potential biases from therapists and participants, and a reported incident of sexual misconduct. It also highlighted MDMA’s cardiovascular risks, unexamined adverse events, and lack of long-term data proving the therapy’s enduring effects.

A month later, five people submitted a citizen petition to the FDA commissioner requesting the organization convene an advisory committee meeting on MDMA-AT to discuss the application’s “shortcomings and risks.” The letter also called for an extended public comment period prioritizing concerned speakers, and a live webcast.

The letter’s primary claim against the NDA was that MAPS/Lykos allegedly “manipulated clinical trial data to hide adverse events from regulatory agencies, motivated in part by a belief that these agencies would not understand that these adverse events are a necessary part of their MDMA-AT.”

The FDA responded to the petition by granting the advisory committee meeting with an extended comment period. However, it denied the request to prioritize input from concerned stakeholders.

The Meeting

June 4th’s meeting was a nine-hour saga, inviting FDA members, public participants, Lykos representatives, and eleven PDAC panelists to debate the risks and benefits of MDMA-assisted therapy.

PDAC boasted various roles in the psychopharmacologic field, including consumer representatives, pharmacists, patient representatives, scholars, and physicians. It did not include experts from the field of psychedelic research. Nevertheless, by 5:30 p.m., the board confidently dismissed MDMA-AT’s ability to do more good than harm for PTSD.

Lykos told Psychedelics Today that they didn’t see the rejection coming.

“Going into the meeting, we knew this was a unique assignment for the panel to review a drug-plus therapy combination. We did, however, believe that the fact that studies showed MDMA-assisted therapy offers statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in PTSD symptoms and functional impairment compared to placebo across two phase 3 trials with evidence of durability over time would compel the panel to support approval.”

MAPS / Lykos’ second Phase III Trial (MAPP2) found:

86.5% of patients in the MMDA-AT group clinically benefited from the treatment compared to 69% in the placebo group.
71.2% of the MDMA cohort no longer held a PTSD diagnosis, compared to 47.6% in the placebo group.
46.2% of MDMA patients achieved remission compared to 21.4% in the placebo cohort.

Despite the clinically impressive results, PDAC emphasized significant doubts about the data’s validity and MDMA-AT’s overall safety.

Functional Unblinding and Expectation Bias

Functional unblinding occurs when participants or researchers accurately predict the treatment they receive or administer. Expectation bias occurs when someone anticipates a particular result. Prior experience, previously held beliefs, and functional unblinding can cause such biases, potentially impacting patient experiences and reporting.

Dr. Paul Holtzheimer from the National Center for PTSD said, “Expectation bias can work in two ways. It can exaggerate the effect of the active treatment and blunt the effect of the placebo treatment.”

It’s true that 40% of the trial participants used MDMA in the past and may have assumed the drug worked based on prior positive experiences.

However, as Lykos points out in a recent statement, “The data indicates that prior illicit MDMA use had no impact on the results, as there was no meaningful difference in primary outcome measure or adverse events reported between the subgroup of Phase 3 participants who reported prior illicit MDMA use and the subgroup of participants who did not.”

Functional unblinding impacts, however, are far more debatable.

Renowned psychedelic drug researcher Matthew Johnson, PhD, explained Lykos’ unblinding problem in a recent X post.

Johnson said, “For those [in the study] thinking they got MDMA, the therapeutic effect was nearly identical between MDMA and placebo [groups]. Yikes.”

In other words, people who guessed they were on MDMA achieved similar therapeutic responses, whether or not they really took the drug.

Still, Johnson points out in The Illusion of Consensus podcast that functional unblinding is not a new issue for psychedelics, nor is it unique.

“There are a whole host of drugs that have been [FDA] approved. All of the sleep drugs… all of the anti-anxiety benzodiazepines, all the ADHD drugs… all of the opioid pain relievers. The practice of psychiatry is filled with psychoactive drugs that have very clear signatures… I want to know to what degree in FDA advisory panels this [functional unblinding issue] has come up… Because cutting through the blind is an issue for all these [compounds]… I don’t think psychedelics should be held to a higher standard than the normal process.”

Misconduct and Data Integrity

Potential misconduct during the MAPS / Lykos trials added to PDAC’s concerns about the integrity of the results.

Allegations included reports that principal investigators:

Discouraged patients with negative experiences, like suicidality, from participating in follow-up studies.
Influenced patients to report favorable outcomes.
Inconsistently recorded adverse events.
Purposely recruited patients who would respond well to MDMA therapy for PTSD.

PDAC also lamented the trials’ insufficient data on patients with severe trauma as well as an overall lack of diversity, citing low Black and Asian representation.

Dr. Melissa Barone, a psychologist from the Maryland Healthcare System, said, “There are so many problems with the data that each one alone might [be okay]… But when you pile them up on top of each other… I think there are still a lot of questions about how effective the treatment is and how durable it is.”

At least some of the mistrust centered on the perception that Lykos and MAPS founder Rick Doblin, PhD, are determined to push MDMA approval at any cost.

Lykos says, “Like all research sponsors, Lykos and its clinical sites are subject to regular FDA inspections. We have full confidence that the FDA will continue to assess the integrity of Lykos’ research through its inspection process.”

Durability of Effect

Lykos’ clinical trials show that MDMA-assisted therapy exhibited durable therapeutic effects for at least six months. However, PDAC questioned the claim for several reasons.

One was that patients utilized other integrative treatments in between MDMA therapy and the follow-up analysis, including:

Psychodynamic therapy
Eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR)
Other cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
Group psychotherapy
Prolonged exposure
Cognitive processing therapy
Holotropic breathwork
Interpersonal therapy

The committee expressed that these therapies introduced “confounding factors,” which made it challenging to isolate MDMA-AT’s specific impact.

Meeting chair, Dr. Rajesh Narendran, added more skepticism. He said, “I’m not convinced that this drug is effective in the short term… PTSD is a disorder where symptoms can fluctuate quite a bit. We all know that. And I feel like there should have been more repeated assessments over time to gauge where these people are heading.”

Psychological Intervention

Lykos’ unique psychotherapeutic approach was another confounding factor impacting the data, according to PDAC.

The FDA does not regulate psychotherapy, so this sticking point was beyond the meeting’s scope. However, several participants expressed distrust over what they perceived as an unstandardized and unproven modality.

In reality, Lykos utilized an approved framework described in its MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD manual. The approach is a non-directive, inner healer method that facilitates patient-led trauma processing.

It employs standard protocols like Exposure Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), EMDR, and psychodynamic therapy. It also invites less conventional techniques, like Internal Family systems (IFS), Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, virtual reality, and Buddhist psychology.

Dr. Holtzheimer said, “I think the challenge here is that the psychotherapy in this case is not evidence-based yet.”

Dr. Barone added, “MDMA is not administered without the psychotherapy. And the psychotherapy is really vague. It is not well-determined. It seems like it was not standardized. And that makes it really hard to determine how effective it is…”

PDAC argued that the lack of standardization raises questions about the trials’ reproducibility and reliability. They also questioned the necessity of the therapy itself, wondering whether MDMA alone could elicit similar benefits.

Dr. Amanda Holley, a pharmacologist who previously worked at the FDA, explained this challenge in a recent Psychedelics Today Podcast.

“[The FDA] is having a hard time disentangling the contribution of therapy vs just MDMA. With this trial, they would’ve liked to see a factorial design that [tested] the therapy with the drug, an arm with the drug alone, and an arm with therapy alone. That would’ve given them a more holistic view of the data.”

Safety Concerns

Another data gap involved cardiovascular health risks, which panelists said were not fully assessed throughout the studies. They raised concerns that MDMA could cause heart attacks and strokes.

In The Illusion of Consensus podcast, Dr. Johnson explained that this argument was somewhat “absurd” due to MDMA’s known effects. Sure, it raises blood pressure and heart rate. But it’s a reasonable risk-benefit ratio. Johnson compared MDMA’s cardiovascular impact to Adderall, which doctors give to children every day.

“Even with a minor abnormality at the end of a session, it doesn’t mean it will lead to a clinical event like a stroke, which is extremely rare,” said Dr. Johnson.

The FDA said it should have required Lykos to take EKGs and blood samples after MDMA sessions. However, the agency admittedly approved Lykos’ study design without these measures.

The FDA’s admission did not shift the panelists’ perspective.

Sexual misconduct was another significant concern sparked by an incident in 2015.

A harrowing public comment on the matter came from Speaker 26, Sarah Grosh, who spoke as a proxy for Phase 2 participant Meaghan Buisson. In Buisson’s words, Grosh described the abuse that took place. Buisson’s descriptions of the assaults she suffered in session were recorded and are now publicly available.

Buisson also reported becoming suicidal during the trial and said that Lykos did not document this adverse event. She claimed MDMA therapy left her overwhelmingly vulnerable and led to further exploitation by her therapist, who she said trafficked her while still in the trial.

Grosh asserted that Lykos’ leadership did nothing to intervene after she filed the ethics complaint in 2018 and that they continue to deny any ethical violations.

Lykos responded in its statement, saying, “This was a terrible and harmful instance of malpractice that caused profound suffering to a participant. Lykos reported this violation to Health Canada, the FDA, and the relevant Institutional Review Board and banned the therapist pair associated with this case from all future work. Since then, we carefully developed and implemented new policies and practices aimed to prevent, detect, investigate, encourage reporting of, and thoroughly respond to potential instances of misconduct or unethical behavior.”

Prospects of FDA Approval

Amid the shadow of alleged misconduct, data misalignment, and safety concerns, PDAC voted an overwhelming no to MDMA treatment for PTSD. The FDA is not required to follow PDAC’s guidance. However, the overwhelming pushback casts serious doubt over whether 2024 will be Lykos’ year.

“It doesn’t look good at all. I imagine at some point MDMA will be approved for PTSD, but I wouldn’t put bets on it to be approved in August,” said Dr. Johnson.

Many people have read the statistic that the FDA aligns with advisory committees 88% of the time. However, a lesser-known fact is that in cases when the committee did not recommend approval, the FDA only agreed 67% of the time. This disparity leaves the door open for hope.

Another hopeful sign, according to Dr. Holley, is that the FDA prioritizes public health when making NDA decisions. The fact that current PTSD therapies are highly deficient and no new drugs have been approved in decades represents a significant healthcare failure.

Lykos maintains that MDMA-assisted therapy can meet the nation’s critical mental health needs, and it has not given up on approval.

“While we understand that the FDA considers advisory committee recommendations, most of the conversation at the meeting centered on known issues that have already been discussed and investigated. In addition, the panel was focused on the regulation of therapy outside the FDA’s purview.”

Lykos added that the organization is discussing a potential post-approval REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy) program with the FDA. REMS would seek to ensure patient safety and regulatory compliance through measures to monitor and manage risks.

“If FDA-approved, prescription MDMA-assisted therapy will be launched with careful consideration of its potential benefits and risks, following established medical guidelines, protocols, and quality standards,” said Lykos.

What’s Next if the FDA Approves MDMA-Assisted Therapy?

If the FDA approves Lykos’ application in August, the decision will spark a timeline that requires several bureaucratic steps before patients can access MDMA treatment for PTSD.

First, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) must reschedule MDMA from Schedule I within three months of approval.
After the federal rescheduling, states must also reschedule the drug. Most have processes for automatic alignment, while others have state-specific scheduling procedures.

“Our plan is to make MDMA-assisted therapy available, if approved, in 2025,” said Lykos, who clarified that they would initially roll out the program to a limited number of sites.

What’s Next if Lykos’ Application Fails?

Lykos declined to speculate on what they might do if the new drug application for MDMA-AT fails.

However, in similar circumstances, trial sponsors must thoroughly rectify the issues through additional studies, further data collection, or modifications to the drug’s formulation, labeling, or manufacturing process. Once finished, sponsors must resubmit a package with all the information proving the issuers were resolved. The FDA then re-evaluates the application to determine if it meets the safety and regulatory requirements.

The process can delay FDA approval by a median of 435 days, requiring companies to spend significantly more time and money to get to the finish line.

The Bottom Line

PDAC does not think the current data proves MDMA therapy is effective for PTSD, nor does it believe the potential harms outweigh the risks. Lykos asserts that the clinical trial results speak for themselves and that treatment could significantly improve countless lives. Now, 13 million Americans with PTSD await MDMA’s FDA approval status in August.

June 21, 2024July 7, 2024

Self-Care, Destabilization, and the Holistic Nature of Psychedelics

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews Kaitlin Roberson: Vital graduate and co-founder and CEO of Cacti Therapeutics, a psychedelic biotech company developing novel therapies for chronic pain; and Dr. Michele Cox, DO: current Vital student, veteran, physician, and co-founder of LifeBloom, a brand new company focusing on bringing community and connection into women’s healthcare.

They talk about their work: Roberson’s research on trauma and chronic pain, and why she feels that working in the pharma industry is a calling; and Cox’s framework as an osteopath, the value she’s found in touch and connection, and how she explains to clients what to expect when undergoing ketamine treatment.

They discuss:

Why psychedelics are such useful interventions
The body’s ability to tell us what’s wrong, as long we’re listening
The destabilization that can occur after a big experience: If you don’t have a good support system, is it really the right time?
Self-care and our tendency to never feel like we’re good enough
How there is energy in everything and we should all recognize that more

And, as Vital students, they talk about what they hoped to get out of Vital and how it delivered more than expected. If you’re just discovering Vital, be sure to check out the website and fill out an application. Secure your spot and take advantage of the Early Bird discount!

Links

Traumaresearchfoundation.org

Cactitherapeutics.com

PT464 – Bodywork, Somatic Literacy, and Understanding Trauma: The Mind and Body Connection, featuring: Bessel van der Kolk, MD

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.

National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine’s infograph

June 12, 2024June 12, 2024

Why Are Some Parents Choosing Psychedelics Over SSRIs for Teens?

Disclaimer: The content of this article does not constitute medical advice. At the time of this writing, psychedelics remain largely illegal in the United States. We urge parents to consult with doctors and legal experts before considering psychedelic therapy for their children.

*All names and identifying features have been changed to protect the privacy of the youths featured in this article.

Mark* was 16 when he dreamt of ending his life. Jessica* was just 15 when she tried. Ketamine therapy saved them both, their clinicians say.

Mia* faced an eating disorder at 16. Her mom’s decision to book her a psilocybin retreat in Mexico led Mia to eat normally again that year.

19-year-old Justin* lived with phobias, anxieties, and bouts of depression. An underground mushroom journey and integration coaching enabled him to feel acceptance and autonomy for the first time.

Mia, Justin, Mark, and Jessica’s teen brains hadn’t fully formed when they ingested these psychedelics. And long-term research on adolescent entheogen use is limited. Yet, parents like Mark’s and Jessica’s are pursuing psychedelic healing for their depressed teens.

Sometimes, parents seek psychedelics as a ‘hail Mary pass’ after traditional antidepressants fail. Other times, psychedelics are the preferred first line of defense. Desperate to ease their children’s suffering, parents are pursuing solutions that break this taboo known to Western culture.

Here, we explore the parent-led phenomena of psychedelic therapy for teens, spanning ketamine clinics, psychedelic retreat centers, and underground circles.

Traditional Youth Psychedelic Use Around the World

Every psychedelic experience is different. Many are uncomfortable. However, the perception that only adults can effectively harness their healing power is steeped in narrow modern framing. The view does not hold up against centuries of use among Indigenous cultures that give young children plant medicine for spiritual and cultural initiation purposes.

The Fang tribe in Gabon, for instance, administers ibogaine to children between the ages of eight and ten. Brazil’s Santo Daime Church members give ayahuasca microdoses to babies, and the Huichol of Mexico give peyote to children starting at age six. The Huichol also use plant medicines prenatally and while breastfeeding to prevent miscarriage, support fetal growth, and enhance breast milk.

Family-based psychedelic rituals remain a common practice in Mexico, according to Andrew Tansil, co-owner of Mexican psilocybin retreat center Sayulita Wellness.

He recalls the time when Sayulita was a local center serving only Mexican nationals.

“People would bring their children as young as five or six, and they would do bufo, the Sonoran toad medicine, and have whole family experiences.”

Sayulita does not serve young children today. However, the center regularly accepts accompanied minors from all over the world starting at 16.

Why are parents seeking psychedelics for their teens?

Why Parents Are Seeking Psychedelic Therapy for Teens

Parent-led inquiries on psychedelics have steadily increased over the past few years at Sayulita, with about one teen traveling there monthly. Sometimes, the center welcomes whole households, including parents and children, who ingest the medicine together. Other times, teens engage in private psychedelic sessions with Sayulita’s registered nurse practitioners. One parent must go with minors to these retreats.

Most teens who visit Sayulita have mental health concerns like depression or anxiety. However, eating disorders are the most common problem among young girls like Mia. Fortunately, many emerge from the psilocybin experience transformed.

“Mia was a superstar. She left the retreat eating all kinds of food and continued the trend back at home. Mia really moved forward and did so fearlessly. She got out of her way, and that was the whole intention of the experience,” Tansil said.

Eating disorders are not so common among Certified Psychedelic Coach Ehren Cruz’s young adult clients. However, many suffer from persistent unexplained anxieties, like Justin. Others face existential emergencies. All seek Cruz’s coaching services to prepare for and integrate psychedelic experiences into lasting change.

“The demographic of people reaching out is getting younger. Eighteen to 24-year-olds want to launch into the world with more purpose than the provisional life their parents built. They want alignment but don’t know how to achieve it, and the disconnect is causing a real crisis.”

Cruz finds that parents of these young adults see psychedelics as an bright pathway through the harrowing transition period.

“Parents have often gone through mental health struggles themselves. They have been in talk therapy and on SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and have navigated the world from that muted sensory capacity. Now, they’re raising collegiate-age children with similar issues and want to handle healing differently.”

Cruz states that many parents seek psychedelics over SSRIs for teens to avoid clinical diagnoses. However, other parents find their way to psychedelics when all else has failed.

And if new research is any indication of the efficacy of psychedelics for teens, parents may no longer have to rely on anecdotes and their instincts to help them decide whether the compounds are the right choice for their child’s treatment.

Brand new research suggests that teens have higher self-esteem, emotional stability, resilience, acceptance, and social connectedness after a psychedelic experience.

The study aimed to investigate the long-term psychological effects and side effects associated with psychedelic use among adolescents between 16 and 24. Results indicted that not only did the teens have a greater sense of well-being after psychedelic use, they were less prone to depression, suicidal ideation, and delusional thinking.

Psychedelic ketamine as a solution for teens.

How Ketamine Therapy is Helping Teens

D.C.-area ketamine clinic Avesta Ketamine and Wellness receives many calls from parents seeking psychedelic therapy for treatment-resistant teens. The center treats about one adolescent per quarter, like 15-year-old Jessica, who are severely depressed or nearing the brink of suicide.

Avesta co-founder Dr. Ladan Eshkevari welcomes this population because she believes ketamine saves young lives. She recognizes the potential risks but doesn’t see them as unique to young patients.

“Ketamine is a generally safe medication, but can be habit-forming in all patients,” said Eshkevari, adding, “the compound is rapid-acting with minimal side effects when done in a controlled setting, with providers trained to use it appropriately. Research shows ketamine induces synaptogenesis-growth of new synapses, impacting neuroplasticity.”

In other words, ketamine is well-tolerated at any age while helping form new connections between brain cells and reversing damage caused by stress and depression. This process typically improves mood and quickly reverses suicidal thoughts.

Ketamine research targeting adolescents affirms its antidepressant powers for issues ranging from suicidality to bipolar disorder. Additionally, young adult studies tout the compound’s benefits over SSRIs.

Fortunately for Jessica and Mark, many ketamine clinics accept teen patients. Some centers treat children as young as six.

Mark’s mom, Dana, recalls her son’s history of depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and panic attacks starting at 14. At 16, he began expressing suicidal intentions.

At 18, Mark had a severe dystonic reaction to his antipsychotic medication, Abilify, involving intense involuntary muscle spasms. He refused to continue the medication afterward, so Dana searched tirelessly for alternatives.

Dana was inspired by ketamine research that praised the medicine’s success rate with suicidal ideation. But she was also concerned about ketamine’s widely reported substance abuse risks.

“I second-guessed myself and worried that Mark would somehow get addicted… but in the end, it was his decision,” said Dana.

After Mark’s physician and psychiatrist agreed, Dana brought her son to Priority You ketamine clinic in Clearwater, Florida.

“By the sixth infusion, Mark felt different and no longer had suicidal ideation. He felt hopeful and creative for the first time in years,” said Dana.

The ‘Rubber Band Effect,’ Close Monitoring, and Expert Support

Mark worked with a therapist for two months after the protocol, developing healthy life skills like nutritious eating, exercising, and engaging with nature. However, four months later, he had a setback after his best friend committed suicide.

Mark went back to the clinic for an infusion. However, instead of feeling better, the ketamine experience confronted him with deeply repressed guilt.

“He had a breakdown,” said Dana.

Like Mark, Justin faced mental health deterioration after his psychedelic experience. However, Justin’s distress appeared just weeks later, and for different reasons.

“We call it the ‘rubber band effect,’” said Cruz.

The rubber band effect refers to the period after the peak experience when the mood-boosting psychedelic glow wears off. Initially, the person feels empowered and capable of transformative change. However, weeks or months later, old fears, egoic patterns, and anxieties can resurface with a vengeance.

“As the mind returns to its normal state, it can perceive the psychedelic insights as threats and tries to reassert itself,” said Ehren.

Justin’s rubber band smacked him into a full-on spiritual emergency. He experienced suicidal thoughts, couldn’t sleep, and started taking stabilizing medications.

“In [recent] conversations with Justin, he said he wouldn’t trade the psychedelic experience. He found the true grace and the essential self he was looking for. But he’s still coming through it two or three months later. The situation was incredibly disruptive,” said Cruz.

Justin and Mark’s psychedelic therapy challenges are common amongst people of all ages. However, young people are particularly vulnerable because they lack engrained self-regulation skills. The shaky emotional defenses teens have mean they need attentive, professional support before, during, and long after breakthrough psychedelic sessions to process fears, contend with disruptive insights, and avoid re-traumatization.

“It’s a big responsibility, and you must ensure young people have a support structure, a network, and other channels to hold it down,” said Cruz.

Ehkevari agrees.

“At Avesta, we ensure adolescents have a lot of support from parents, therapists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians.”

The June 2024 study confirms the caution practitioners are practicing with teens in psychedelic settings. Participants indicated more challenging experiences while under the influence of psychedelics, including ego dissolution, more intense hallucinations, paranoia, and fear. Instances of visual symptoms related to hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder (or HPPD) were higher than what’s typically seen in adults.

“… differences in acute subjective effects, specifically the less positive role of ego-dissolution experiences for long-term changes in adolescents, as well as a higher prevalence of HPPD-related symptoms suggest that special considerations might be required when assessing psychedelic treatment design and risks,” the report cautions.

Therapeutic intervention helped Mark a great deal after his friend’s suicide. Talk therapy and two additional ketamine infusions allowed him to process and heal the repressed emotions that the first session revealed. Mark started college a month later and is pursuing a degree in game design.

He visits the clinic for booster ketamine doses every six months.

“I don’t think Mark would still be here now if it weren’t for ketamine,” said Dana. “Mark still experiences anxiety. However, he does not have to take medication for it because he’s learned to cope.”

Coping with life’s ups and downs while staying present for the ride is precisely the promise that psychedelics offer. Parents like Dana value that pledge and are helping their teens feel their way through pain rather than medicating their young minds and managing symptoms.

“Current medications have a 70% failure rate and come with a whole host of side effects, with a long uptake time. I think patients and their families are starting to think about treatments that may get to the brain’s ability to heal versus medications that are mainly for symptom management,” said Eshkeavari.

According to Tansil, starting these alternative treatments earlier in life could be crucial.

“Younger people have less conditioning. And so they have a higher chance of having positive, transformational psychedelic experiences. The young person’s mind is also more open. So, healing happens much quicker and more fluidly.”

“The number one comment I hear from people over 60 who come to Sayulita is, ‘I wish I would’ve done this so much earlier in life.”

June 7, 2024July 7, 2024

Exploring Somatic Practices and Psychedelics

In this episode – the first in the 2024 series of Vital Psychedelic Conversations – David interviews Pierre Bouchard, LPC: Vital instructor and lead trainer for the Congregation for Sacred Practices; and Kara Tremain, ACC: recent Vital graduate-turned-instructor, somatic practitioner, and growth and development coach.

In this series, we pair up a Vital instructor with a current or previous student as a way of showcasing different (and aligned) perspectives on what they feel is most vital for the psychedelic space to be discussing, while also highlighting their experiences with Vital, our 12-month training program. The next cohort begins September 17 and we’re accepting applications now!

As they are both are passionate about somatic work, they discuss:

The power of somatics in showing people how much our bodies and nervous systems matter, and how our thoughts are often not the main driver
How ketamine or MDMA can help with somatic work
How somatic sound can be, through music for journeys, sound bowls, or tuning forks: Can just the right frequency create magic?
How somatic work is not solely about resolving trauma, but also about learning to conduct energy and use one’s body as a tuning apparatus

and more!

Links

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com

Pierrebouchardcounseling.com

Sacredpractices.org

Karatremain.com

Somaticexperiencing.com: Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.

Spotify.com: Pierre’s public playlists

June 5, 2024June 5, 2024

Psychedelic Bypassing: When Avoidance is Mistaken for Healing

During a crowded mid-pandemic Zoom seminar on microdosing for addiction treatment, a few attendees raised caution over the dangerously simplistic ways in which addiction was being presented. Within moments, a frenzy of animosity resounded.

“Why are you bringing your negativity here?” one participant asked.

“The presenters are doing great—why not recognize that?” another chimed in.

“If you don’t like microdosing, you can git out!” yet another declared.

I would have been surprised if I hadn’t witnessed other psychedelic conversations where “negativity” was not welcome and legitimate criticism was deemed “bad vibes.” What did surprise me was the group’s validation – even the facilitator joined in and scolded the critics. Then again, since such critiques threatened his microdosing livelihood, I suppose his attitude made sense.

I noticed a similar – albeit more concerning trend – arise in February 2021, when a video surfaced of former 5-MeO-DMT facilitator Dr. Martin Ball boastfully recounting the time he vomited on the face of a client incapacitated by the powerful toad venom. For each objection to Ball’s blatantly unethical behavior, a defense kicked back, spitefully ridiculing the judgmental “snowflakes” and their “low vibrations.”

I’m all for a fair trial. But some actions are not OK, and vomiting on the face of an incapacitated person in your care is one of them. Evidently, many psychonauts disagree.

What is this trend I’m pointing to, this negativity about negativity, this shaming of voices raising valid concerns? This is a trend I’m calling “psychedelic bypassing.”

Psychedelic Bypassing: The many ways the mind can excuse abuse, ignore the darker sides of ourselves, categorize the vast scale of emotions into little boxes of “good” and “bad,” and cast aside anything deemed “lesser than” — all in the pursuit of a more enlightened life.

A Primer on Spiritual Bypassing

To understand psychedelic bypassing, it’s important to first understand spiritual bypassing.

In 1984, meditation teacher and psychotherapist John Welwood coined the term “spiritual bypassing.” As laid out in Robert Augustus Masters’ book Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters, spiritual bypassing is “the use of spiritual practice and beliefs to avoid dealing with our painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs.”

In other words, it is disguising patterns of avoidance with New Age lingo that liberates us from confronting difficult and painful realities. In short, Masters describes spiritual bypassing as “avoidance in holy drag” — a strategy “not only for avoiding pain but also for legitimizing such avoidance.”

But What Does This Have to Do With Psychedelics?

Don’t psychedelics force us to confront difficult and painful realities, no matter how fervently we resist? A lot of the time, yes. But not all the time.

Amidst abundant scientific research demonstrating that psychedelics catalyze profound healing for an ever-expanding cast of conditions, many advocates appear to have forgotten that psychedelics can also inflict harm. Despite suggestions from mainstream narratives, taking psychedelics is not a guaranteed route to healing. Just as psychedelics can heal our wounds, they can also amplify our capacity to avoid those wounds — and, in the case of the face-vomiting Ball, even inflict them on others.

Plunder the depths of Erowid and you’ll find no shortage of reports of psychedelics catalyzing psychotic breaks. Read through Chacruna‘s website, and you’ll find abundant articles on sexism and racism in psychedelic spaces, sometimes at high levels of influential organizations. Dig deeper, and you’ll find stories of people being physically, psychologically, and sexually abused in “safe” psychedelic environments.

Psychedelics are non-specific amplifiers, meaning they can amplify our darkness as well as our light. Just as psychedelics can open space for curious inquiry and new perspectives, they also provide fertile ground for embedding distorted beliefs and behaviors more deeply. If psychedelics solely induced awakening, why would the CIA spend decades researching their potential to control people in myriad ways?

Intention and context make all the difference. When self-delusion is the operating principle, psychedelics can amplify the delusion. And we mustn’t underestimate the mind’s capacity to delude itself. In the words of Carl Jung, “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.”

And still a perspective spreads that psychedelics can only transform our world for the better, and anyone who raises concerns about their potential harms is a “threat to the movement.” Victims and their allies are silenced by a chorus of proselytizers who justify themselves, saying, “We’re so close to FDA approval! It’s not worth putting all this progress in jeopardy!”

No one wants another Nixon slamming down the great gavel on substances that can clearly help countless people. But when avoidant patterns proliferate unchecked, they become a culture, and when a culture avoids serious issues and vilifies those who speak about them, that culture deepens traumatic neural pathways that damage ourselves, our loved ones, and our world.

No matter how enraptured in the Godhead its constituents become, a culture that evades its most pervasive issues will never be a culture of widespread healing.

Why Do People Engage in Psychedelic Bypassing?

Sometimes, it’s as simple as refusing to hear what we don’t want to hear. For instance, early in 2021, preliminary research from Imperial College London showed that the life-enhancing benefits of microdosing, as reported on countless podcasts and blogs, may be attributable to the placebo effect.

The response of the microdosing community?

A chorus of people instantly ripped on the study, refusing to consider the possibility that the results had validity, because… well, the results didn’t jive with their beliefs (or their business interests).

Such instances of bypassing are easy to recognize. Other times, bypassing is more complex, stemming from sources beyond the reach of awareness.

Psychological vs. Spiritual Bypassing

Robert Augustus Masters argues that bypassing flourishes when the spiritual is separate from and given more significance than the psychological. Countless spiritual practices emphasize “letting go” of pain, securing stability in a palace of positivity whose iron gates seal out all dementors. “Don’t mind the dementors that breach the castle in your nightmares!” the spiritual teacher preaches. “Just focus on the light, and your pain will dissolve away.”

The thing is, that pain often stems from psychological wounds, and spiritual practice that denies it won’t make it disappear. While meditation can be healing, it can also enhance patterns of disassociation and withdrawal that bar people from experiencing intimacy and love.

Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield speaks to this phenomenon in his book, A Path With Heart. After a decade of vigorous Buddhist training, Kornfield felt he had resolved his issues. However, when he returned to the States and entered a romantic relationship, he found he was “still emotionally immature, acting out the same painful patterns of blame and fear, acceptance and rejection that I had before my Buddhist training.”

Kornfield’s monastic isolation kept him distant from his deepest wounds, which were relational in nature. “I’ve seen how many other students misunderstand spiritual practice, how many have hoped to use it to escape from their lives” and “avoid the pains and difficulties of human existence” writes Kornfield.

Whether we meditate for decades or blast ourselves into cosmic unity with every psychedelic under the sun, we still may be avoiding the most pertinent issues stunting our psychological development.

The Traps of Transcendence and Oneness

Transcendence is a psychedelic buzzword, often regarded as a healing path of “overcoming” wounds and becoming more whole. It can also justify bypassing, for many transcenders cast negative judgment on that which must be transcended — often their psychological and emotional pain.

“When transcendence of our personal history takes precedence over intimacy with our personal history, spiritual bypassing is inevitable,” Masters writes. Healthy transcendence embraces that which is transcended, while “unhealthy transcendence avoids it, making a spiritual virtue out of rising above whatever is deemed ‘lower’ or ‘darker’ elements of our nature.”

In the framework of influential transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber, development is not about transcending, but transcending and including what came before.

Transcendence is similar to another psychedelic buzzword, “oneness.” In the face of conflict and difference, many psychedelic advocates like to remind others that “we are all one.” While this is true at some metaphysical level, it invalidates the reality of difference and the struggles many face because of those differences, such as people who hold marginalized identities and experience overt oppression every day.

What kind of “oneness” casts out all who don’t bliss out on the same medicine? Nothing more than the oneness of a bubble that resists what threatens to pop it.

The Happy Place Where Egos Die

Masters writes that we are vulnerable to spiritual bypassing when we practice to reach a better place — where suffering is abolished, where love and light reign in the resuscitated Garden of Eden.

When that’s the ideal, we villainize and shame the parts of ourselves we believe block us from that idealized perfection. We may even deny their existence, because according to our high/low, positive/negative ethic, these parts indicate we are far from reaching Happy Fun Land. If we’ve been presenting ourselves as a spiritually-evolved being, then no one can know about these parts of us. So we shove them down with a Buddha smile, forcing ourselves to connect to compassion and eliminate the enemy of our “lower” nature.

This trend is especially evident in the psychedelic concept of “ego death.” Psychedelic folks often villainize the “ego,” which is typically comprised of these “lower” aspects of our nature. When ego death is the aim, anything resembling ego becomes an obstacle. When ego is not recognized as an essential part of our inner world, that essential part of our inner world becomes the villain, creating a war within ourselves.

I imagine this is partly due to psychedelic healing being framed in the same way that yoga, meditation, and numerous “alternative” healing methods are marketed: Do this, and your life will improve dramatically. This idea is even more intoxicating with psychedelics because a) they work faster, and b) a boatload of science backs up their efficacy. But when we fall prey to this “magic pill” mentality, we follow a falsely advertised claim that psychedelics will transport us to Big Rock Candy Mountain, where our egoic problems evaporate.

This thin narrative brings too little focus to the fact that psychedelic healing isn’t sustainable without significant changes in lifestyle and thought patterns. Feeling awesome and gaining perspective on your suffering is rarely sufficient. It is the beginning of a new path, and without commitment to new ways of being, benefits tend to vanish as quickly as they appeared.

Psychedelic folks often speak of “integration” as some finite place, like, “I integrated deep realizations about my anxiety on MDMA, so now it’s gone!” Healing isn’t always linear, nor is it about arrival. It can be cyclical, and when we cling to states of bliss, we bypass whatever threatens those states’ supremacy. Integration isn’t a final arrival, but an ongoing process of active engagement. As Jung wrote, “There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self.”

Recognizing Dualistic Thinking

Bypassing can also be a symptom of dualistic thinking getting carried into the nondual realms psychedelics can open, where reality does not abide by rational structures. Rather than categorical frameworks like “good/bad” and “self/other” ruling the day, the ground of truth becomes paradox, beyond the reach of reason’s limits. As rationality fights to make sense of such an experience, it often subjects the paradoxical to the categorical, applying dualistic labels like “good” and “bad,” and “me” and “not me” to the experience.

Picture this: say I have a mystical experience on five grams of mushrooms, and I realize that at my core, I am love embodied. I’m so immersed in the experience that I am certain my demons have been forever cleansed. Three days later, I get cut off on the highway, and a familiar anger takes hold as I curse that reckless SOB. I pause, thinking, “This anger can’t be me, because I now know I am pure love, and I can’t be love and simultaneously feel such hostility.” So I reject my anger, creating a schism in my psyche that spawns a dualistic battle that will rage indefinitely, no matter how vehemently I deny it.

If, on the other hand, I recognize that I can be love embodied and feel intense anger at the same time, I give myself more space. In that space, I can feel anger without identifying it or fearing it is me at the core.

Passivity and Aversion to Anger

In numerous spiritual communities, anger is the quintessential “low vibe” emotion. Countless frameworks teach to restrict its expression, if not eliminate it completely. Only then can you abide in whatever nirvanic illusion is the goal.

The problem is, anger is an essential human emotion, and a powerful one. Powerful emotions don’t just go away when we deny them. They get stronger, and even if we stop ourselves from expressing them externally, we end up expressing them toward ourselves.

“There isn’t any such thing as a negative emotion,” Masters writes. “There are negative things we do with our emotions, but our emotions themselves are neither negative nor positive. They simply are.”

When we judge anger, we are often judging harmful expressions of anger, such as hostility and violence. The emotion and the behavior are distinct, and becoming more intimate with the emotion and its sources will open healthier, more conscious avenues of expression.

When we judge our anger as “bad energy,” we judge it as such in others. When a community validates that judgment as virtuous, that community shuns an essential emotion that has a lot to teach us about boundaries, needs, and deep wounds.

In hearing about practitioners abusing clients, it makes sense to be angry. If we shun our anger, we disregard the wisdom of this response and may even justify the practitioner’s behavior, saying, “They’re doing their best. Who am I to judge if that’s right or wrong?” In that response, both our anger and someone’s harmful behavior are bypassed under a distorted ethic of “acceptance” and “forgiveness.” This encourages a passivity akin to numbness, a glorified distancing from a dark reality and the looming prospect of confrontation. It’s more comfortable to just “let it go.”

Maybe this trend is reducible to a reluctance to cast judgment. Moral relativism — the notion that each person’s moral code is justified unto itself — is a seductive ethos, but it promotes a passivity that allows harm to flourish unchecked. Anger about harmful behaviors is not “bad energy”; it is a valid, important response to issues that could implode this whole psychedelic renaissance if they remain unchecked. Transformation can only come by calling problematic issues to conscious light, and anger can sometimes show us where those issues lay.

What is Guru Syndrome?

The psychedelic space is home to many self-appointed “guru” facilitators, many of whom are far less skilled at facilitation than they are at bypassing. How else could a self-described “healer” inflict sexual abuse on participants — an ongoing problem in psychedelic spaces — and free themselves of responsibility?

According to Masters, this form of bypassing spawns from “delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.” Quite likely, these facilitators have had profound psychedelic experiences, and they mistakenly “confuse the attainment of such states with being at an advanced stage of spiritual practice.”

Here’s where psychedelics create a particularly tricky form of bypassing. Unlike meditation, which can take years to induce a peak experience, psychedelics can rocket anyone into sudden confrontation with the mystical. The confrontation can be so earth-shattering that the individual emerges completely certain they have been reborn, where yesterday’s troubles that occupied their “previous self” have forever melted away. That may be true for a while, but what about when yesterday’s troubles return? Since this experience birthed them anew, those troubles can no longer be them, right? This person fails to recognize this new “egoless” persona is actually the structure of a new ego that bears more similarities to the previous one than they care to admit. And how could it not, with root issues continuing to fester unresolved?

The danger then emerges as justification of harmful behavior. “Even clearly abusive behavior on the part of a spiritual teacher may be excused as an opportunity for students to grow in their practice,” Masters writes. It’s gaslighting to the extreme, fueled by an ego-boasting infallibility under the claim it is egoless and insusceptible to “lower” impulses.

It may be tempting to pass this trend off to a handful of underground practitioners, but recent revelations again show that above-ground clinicians are susceptible as well. Researcher Matthew Johnson describes this trend as “the inclination to believe that the nature of the experiences people have on psychedelics are so sacred or important that the normal rules do not apply, whether they be the rules governing clinical boundaries, the practice of clinical psychology or medicine, sound philosophy of science, or ethics.”

“Psychedelics might magnify the subtle abuses of differential power that can be at play in the routine practice of clinical psychology or medicine,” Johnson continues. “The scientist or clinician might, perhaps without explicit awareness, fall into the trap of playing guru or priest, imparting personal philosophies without a solid empirical basis.”

While psychedelics can amplify the healing of therapy, they can also amplify the transference — a client’s unconscious feelings toward the therapist. If practitioners are adept at bypassing, they are vulnerable to excess countertransference — the therapist’s feelings in response to the client’s transference. That countertransference can manifest in harmful ways, and the practitioner can justify their harmful behaviors as “part of the client’s healing” — exactly how Martin Ball justified vomiting on his client’s face.

Responsibility in facilitating in non-ordinary states.

Responsibility in Facilitating Journeys in Non-Ordinary States

What level of psychedelic bypassing has to occur for people who have allegedly perpetrated significant abuses in psychedelic spaces to rise the ranks and become some of the most influential spokespeople of the entire psychedelic ecosystem?

Part of me wants to give those who stay silent during abuse scandals the benefit of the doubt, to bury my responses beneath a higher kind of “understanding” and “forgiveness.”

Maybe everyone deserves a second chance, but giving people a shot at redemption cannot be the same as enabling them to perpetuate harms without consequence. Taking an honest look at our capacity to bypass, with or without psychedelics, strikes me as a good place to start.

June 4, 2024June 5, 2024

The EMBARK Model of Psychedelic Therapy

In this episode, Kyle interviews Alex Belser, Ph.D. and Bill Brennan, Ph.D.: psychologists, psychedelic researchers, authors, and co-creators of the EMBARK model, a framework for psychedelic therapy.

When Belser and Brennan worked together at Cybin, they canvassed the field of psychedelic research and saw very little reporting (if any) of the manuals researchers were using. So, they created the EMBARK model as a “big tent” framework – a way to understand what patients were going through from the perspective of six different clinical domains, where the clinician can go deeper into whichever domain is needed based on their specific skill set. The EMBARK model has been used in two randomized controlled trials to date, and its corresponding book, EMBARK Psychedelic Therapy for Depression: A New Approach for the Whole Person (which they co-authored), was released in April through Oxford University Press.

They discuss:

The six domains and four ethical care cornerstones that make up EMBARK, as well as the many proposed change mechanisms that come into play
Concerns over facilitators stepping aside and letting the medicine do the work: How much of a factor is someone’s presence in the room?
How much smaller, “little t” traumas can affect people – trauma doesn’t always come from a single hallmark event
The need for facilitators to be trained well (and trauma-informed), as it’s nearly impossible to tell when an adverse outcome is coming

and more!

Links

EMBARK Psychedelic Therapy for Depression: A New Approach for the Whole Person, by Bill Brennan & Alex Belser

EMBARKapproach.com

Alexbelser.com

Centerforbreakthroughs.com

@BillBrennanPhD Linktree

Embarkapproach.com: Open Access

PT413 – Queering Psychedelics, The Dark History of Conversion Therapy, and The EMBARK Approach, featuring Alex Belser, Ph.D.

PT464 – Bodywork, Somatic Literacy, and Understanding Trauma: The Mind and Body Connection, featuring: Bessel van der Kolk, MD

Fluencetraining.com: Jeffrey Guss, MD

PT290 – Kylea Taylor, M.S., LMFT – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

PT302 – Dr. Adele Lafrance – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Early Research, Psychedelics in Palliative Care, and the Intersection of Science and the Sacred, featuring: William Richards, STM, Ph.D.

Pathwaysvermont.org: Soteria House

Models of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy: A Contemporary Assessment and an Introduction to EMBARK, a Transdiagnostic, Trans-Drug Model

May 28, 2024May 28, 2024

Embracing the Mystery: Making Psychedelic Literature Engaging

In this episode, Joe interviews Sean Lawlor: writer and therapist specializing in ketamine-assisted therapy at Reflective Healing in Fort Collins, CO.

His first book, Psychedelic Revival: Toward a New Paradigm of Healing, will be released on June 4. Written as somewhat of a primer for psychedelics and psychedelic therapy, he talks about how he decided to write the book, how Michael Pollan was an influence, and the importance of making psychedelic literature not boring: Research and statistics are important, but how does one relate to data points when trying to understand something so rich and weird?

He discusses:

Studying philosophy, from Nietzsche and Freud to Jung and William James
When a clinical frame or license is important (but can you always trust a license?)
How context and interwoven culture matter when differentiating between plant medicines and man-made psychedelics
Brian Muraresku’s The Immortality Key and research into ancient Greeks using psychedelics: Why do we place so much importance on proving this?
The importance of community, rituals, shared meanings, mythology, and rites of passage

and more!

Links

Seanplawlor.com

Pre-order Psychedelic Revival: Toward a New Paradigm of Healing

Enter to win a copy of Psychedelic Revival: Toward a New Paradigm of Healing

Reflectivehealing.com

The Ethics of Caring: Finding Right Relationship With Clients for Profound Transformative Work in Our Professional Healing Relationships, by Kylea Taylor

Therooster.com

Psychedelic Exceptionalism and Reframing Drug Narratives: An Interview with Dr. Carl Hart

Psychedelictimes.com: Benefit Enhancement Strategies Correlated With Positive 5-MeO-DMT Experiences, by Sean Lawlor

Woodycreektavern.com

Aspen Psychedelic Symposiu

IPCI.life: Sandor Iron Rope

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan

This Is Your Mind on Plants, by Michael Pollan

The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, by Brian C. Muraresku

The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, and Carl A. P. Ruck

May 17, 2024May 17, 2024

Depth Psychology, Archetypal Energies, and How Psychedelics Reveal the Soul

In this episode, Kyle interviews Simon Yugler: psychedelic-assisted therapist, educator, and author of the book, Psychedelics & the Soul: A Mythic Guide to Psychedelic Healing, Depth Psychology, and Cultural Repair, which comes out this fall.

He digs into depth psychology and why it’s a beneficial framework for navigating non-ordinary experiences – a practice he believes will be the next focus in psychedelic education and understanding, alongside more analysis into the archetypes and myths that reside within (and all around) us. In an age of hyper-individualism and isolation, the stories and archetypal energies we share (which can be brought more to the forefront with psychedelics) can be incredibly healing and connecting.

He discusses:

The challenges of reintegrating to reality after the classic Hero’s Journey, and how some people don’t want to
The time he ate 7 grams of strong mushrooms and nothing happened, confirming to him the omnipresence of trickster energies
Jung’s theory on individuation, and how true individuation actually creates deeper engagement with the world
How myths offer windows into deeper realms, and a breakdown of his Mythopoetic Integration Method
How psychedelics show us our souls, and how so much of the chaos in the world can be related to a denial of the soul

and more!

Links

Simonyugler.com

Simonyugler.substack.com

Pre-order Psychedelics and the Soul: A Mythic Guide to Psychedelic Healing, Depth Psychology, and Cultural Repair, by Simon Yugler

What Is Depth Psychology and How Does It Relate to Psychedelics? by Simon Yugler

What Is the ‘Collective Unconscious’ and How Can It Help Us Understand Psychedelic Experiences? by Simon Yugler

PT291 – Rick Tarnas & Sean Kelly, Ph.D. – The Impact of Stanislav Grof, Ego Death, and The Psyche Unbound

PT293 – Stanislav & Brigitte Grof – The Evolution of Breathwork and The Psychology of the Future

Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, by Richard Tarnas

The Origins of Creativity, by Edward O. Wilson

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

May 16, 2024May 16, 2024

Examining the Inner Healer Approach to Psychedelic Therapy

The body seems to mend itself from illness and injuries without conscious effort. Yet when the mind wanders down a deep self-loathing abyss, it can get stuck there for years. Amidst serotonin-boosting drugs and clinical psychotherapy, millions still suffer from persistent depression. But within this reality, a more profound truth might be at play.

According to psychedelic therapists, researchers, and explorers, the mind doesn’t have to accept unyielding despair: all humans, they say, may have an ‘inner healer’ who can guide them to balance.

This article explores the concept of inner healing in psychedelic therapy, examining the theory, the debate, and the latest study testing its merits, led by Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris.

What is the Inner Healer?

According to leading psychedelic theories, the inner healer is “the innate capacity or wisdom of the self to guide its own healing process.”

The inner healer is the deep knowing that emerges from the subconscious to help people resolve emotional and psychological challenges. It empowers them to navigate back to their intrinsic wholeness.

The notion posits that just as the body naturally mends wounds, the mind can instinctively recover from depression, PTSD, anxiety, and all other imbalances when freed from habitual fears that command ordinary consciousness.

In the context of psychedelics, MDMA, psilocybin, and DMT facilitate access to this profound wisdom. And through therapeutic support, psychedelic explorers can safely self-direct their own transformation.

Psychedelic therapy sessions offer a safe haven for people to work through trauma and conditioning. The experience can create a unique bond between the therapist and client, akin to a healthy parent-child relationship, where the client feels open to exploring challenging topics.

Along the way, clients may reconnect with and soothe exiled parts of themselves, like the wounded inner child who unconsciously drives their habitual patterns. By soothing these traumatized parts, clients might experience greater ease, compassion, integrity, and flexibility in their daily lives.

Modern Emergence of the Inner Healer in Psychedelic Therapy

Psychotherapist Dr. Michael Mithoefer was integral in spreading the inner healer theory throughout the psychedelic movement.

In a pivotal 2013 Bulletin published by The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Studies (MAPS), Mithoefer reflected on the mysterious nature of the mind and challenges in understanding how psychotherapy – be it MDMA-assisted or traditional approaches – really works. Rather than struggling for comprehension, he embraced the tension.

“We [as psychotherapists] strive to do rigorous science without losing sight of the remarkable richness of the process as we observe and participate in it,” Mithoefer said.

Inspired by psychologist Stanislav Grof’s transpersonal theories, Mithoefer asserted that psychotherapy wields effects across emotional, cognitive, physical, energetic, and spiritual levels. And that psychedelics’ pharmacological mechanisms play a role in the process. But he emphasized that the client’s inner healing pathway in relationship to the therapist and the medicine was the key to guiding transformation.

Mithoefer quoted psychedelic therapy patients in the article whose experience embodied the inner healer theory:

“I keep getting the message from the medicine, ‘trust me.’ When I try to think, it doesn’t work out, but when I just let the waves of fear and anxiety come up, it feels like the medicine is going in and getting them, bringing them up, and then they dissipate.”

“Maybe one of the things the drug does is let your mind relax and get out of the way because the mind is so protective about the injury,” he said.

Adopting the Inner Healer Model

Psychedelic therapists have now widely adopted the inner healer model, following the 2013 Bulletin and MAPS’ subsequent MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Treatment Manual.

Co-authored by Dr. Mithoefer and MAPS Founder Rick Doblin P.h.D., the manual emphasizes prioritizing the patient’s wisdom over the therapist’s expertise. It provides instructions for practitioners to take a non-directive approach to psychedelic therapy. It invites clinicians to listen empathetically and encourages the patient to trust their own capacity to heal from trauma and inner child wounds. In underpinning the approach, the manual emphasizes respecting each patient’s ability to process painful memories on their own terms.

MAPS’ MDMA protocol is now with the FDA for a new drug application review. If approved, the inner healing pathway may be seminal to the first nationally regulated psychedelic therapy program.

Following MAPS’ lead, psychedelic therapy researchers, universities, training programs, educators, and practitioners have broadly adopted the inner-directed therapeutic approach. Even ketamine clinics have embraced the practice despite the dissociative compounds’ distinction from classic psychedelics.

Trusting the client’s inner guidance during psychedelic therapy is so ubiquitous the method appears in Colorado’s draft rules for psilocybin facilitators. Under the state’s Natural Medicine Act, practitioners must prepare clients for psychedelic sessions by advising them to trust their inner guidance, inner genius, the self, wise mind, soul, or spirit.

Unlike Colorado, Oregon doesn’t require psilocybin facilitators to employ inner healer models. However, the state’s service centers promote the approach, including Satya Therapeutics and Omnia Group.

The debate within the psychedelic community.

The Industry Debate

Despite widespread consensus, not every psychedelic proponent ascribes to the inner healer theory. A recent article challenged the notion that people possess this inherent capacity.

The critique raised several concerns about the inner healer’s scientific validity, coherence, and mystical undertones. It argued that attributing healing to unexplainable subconscious forces may oversimplify complex psychological processes, leading to pseudoscientific woo-woo practices. It also cautioned against inappropriately introducing spiritual-based therapies into tax-funded programs. Finally, the article pointed to the contradictory nature of a “self-led” process that requires significant intervention from therapists and hallucinogens.

Proponents of the theory, however, emphasize that therapists merely facilitate access to deep healing. But that they are not the source of the healing, per se. These practitioners believe that psychedelics serve as the prime catalysts for unlocking humans’ innate wisdom and that their role is to help people address unresolved wounds in a safe and supportive setting.

At the same time, proponents acknowledge that their perspective is steeped primarily in observation rather than empiricism.

The Inner Healer Study

Famed psychedelic researcher Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris does not see the inner healer as mystical or supernatural. He believes in its credibility, publishing a placebo-controlled study, “Psychedelics and the ‘inner healer’: Myth or mechanism? to “deconstruct, test, and potentially validate” the concept.

The research randomly assigned 59 participants diagnosed with moderate-to-severe depression to two groups: one receiving high-dose psilocybin therapy and the other a placebo alongside the antidepressant, escitalopram. Both groups receive psychological support.

Psilocybin therapy group: Participants received two high doses (25 mg) of psilocybin three weeks apart. They also received a daily placebo after the first dosing session.
Escitalopram therapy group: Participants received two placebo doses (1 mg) of psilocybin three weeks apart. They also received daily escitalopram for six weeks. The dosage was 10 mg for the first three weeks and 20 mg for the last three.

After the sessions, participants completed an assessment called the “inner healer item,” where they rated the degree to which they strongly agreed or disagreed with the following statement:

“I felt like my body/mind/brain was healing itself, automatically/naturally/by itself.”

The Results

In the end, the high-dose psilocybin group was far more likely to report inner healer experiences compared to the escitalopram group. Additionally, higher inner healer scores within the psilocybin group marked greater declines in depression symptoms two weeks after the protocol. Additionally, patients who reported higher inner healer scores experienced more significant mental health outcomes, regardless of the self-reported intensity of the psychedelic effects.

Critics argue that the results might be skewed because the study focused solely on patient perspectives during medicine session days. It did not ask the escitalopram group about their inner healing experiences throughout the therapeutic protocol.

Additionally, according to the research team, the study did not empirically prove whether the inner healer feeling is an intrinsic, quantifiable neural mechanism or an event caused by subtle therapeutic guidance.

Still, the outcomes suggest that the inner healer construct, defined as “the belief that psychedelic compounds, plants or concoctions have an intrinsically regenerative action on the mind and brain…” is a substantive phenomenon worth investigating further using detailed scales and qualitative methods.

Enduring mental health may rely on this integrative approach.

Learn more about the inner healer theory and best psychedelic therapy practices in Psychedelics Today’s course, Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Wellness Practitioners.

May 14, 2024May 14, 2024

RIPPLES of Hope: Psychedelics as a Tool for Peacebuilding and Collective Healing

In this episode, David interviews Sami Awad: Palestinian peace and nonviolent activist and founder of Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem; and Leor Roseman, Ph.D.: Israeli neuroscientist, researcher, and senior lecturer at the University of Exeter.

They talk about Roseman’s 2021 paper, “Relational Processes in Ayahuasca Groups of Palestinians and Israelis,” which looked at what happened when people with fiercely different opinions moved beyond fear, anger, and othering, and sat together in a safe container and drank ayahuasca with the purpose of healing collective trauma. When the focus of the participants moved toward understanding each other, Roseman and Awad saw a unity that gave them a lot of hope, leading to the creation of their nonprofit, RIPPLES, which is focused on using psychedelics for peacebuilding – first in the Middle East, and hopefully soon, everywhere. As Awad says, “If it can happen here, it can happen almost anywhere.”

They discuss:

The efficacy of psychedelics as a tool for nonviolent activism, building peace, and recognizing – and healing – collective trauma
The balance between the idealistic and the practical, or ‘the irony of harmony’ – if you focus too much on the connectivity of psychedelics, do you actually exclude voices?
The concept of “my liberation depends on your healing and your liberation depends on mine”
The challenge in doing something with the hope and enthusiasm that comes after a powerful experience: How do you make sure that wave of hope continues rippling through choppy waters?

Links

RIPPLESsalliance.com

YouTube: Sami Awad & Leor Roseman: ayahuasca as a peace-making tool among Palestinians and Israelis (PS23-MAPS)

University of Exeter: Dr. Leor Roseman

Frontiersin.org: Relational Processes in Ayahuasca Groups of Palestinians and Israelis

Frontiersin.org: On Revelations and Revolutions: Drinking Ayahuasca Among Palestinians Under Israeli Occupation

Maps.org: Oneness, Liberation, and Revolutionary Revelations Observational Research on Ayahuasca Rituals of Israelis and Palestinians

May 10, 2024May 11, 2024

The Other Side of Veteran Healing: Secondary PTSD and Post-Retreat Family Dynamics

In this episode, Joe interviews two members of the Heroic Hearts Project team: Director of Donor Development and founder of The Hope Project, Allison Wilson; and Director of Research and founder of Hystelica, Dr. Grace Blest-Hopley.

They discuss how The Hope Project – a nonprofit that supports spouses of veterans, Gold Star Wives, and female veterans with scholarships to psychedelic healing retreats, integration, community, etc. – merged with Heroic Hearts Project, and why this is such a necessary part of the veteran healing story: How does a family hold space for a vet returning to a suddenly alien civilian life (especially after a psychedelic journey)? How does a spouse deal with their own trauma from constant worry and isolation? Wilson and Blest-Hopley are learning that, for many spouses, having their own experience (and with other spouses) has been incredibly beneficial.

They talk about:

The concept of secondary PTSD (often referred to as ‘compassion fatigue’) and the many ways it can manifest
How Heroic Hearts is working with Imperial College London to use veteran retreats as real-world observational research
The importance of involving family in the healing process, and how positive outcomes can trickle down to children
The need for more research into how PTSD and the effects of psychedelics are different in women based on their unique physiology (as most studies have focused on men)

and more!

Links

Heroicheartsproject.org

Thehope-project.org

Hystelica.com

Lucid.news: Vets Group Moves Psychedelic Therapy Research Outside the Clinic

Cnn.com: Largest study of brains of athletes younger than 30 finds early signs of CTE even in amateur players

YouTube: PT Live: Joe Moore & Alex Horton Discuss the Heroic Hearts Project

May 3, 2024April 15, 2025

Music for Psychedelic Exploration, and the First ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Album

In this episode, Joe interviews Held by Sound: psytrance musician who has created what may be the world’s first modular album for psychedelic exploration under his project, Held By Sound.

He talks about his background in the rave and festival scene, the moment he realized he wanted to make music, and the realization that he could create soundscapes specifically for journeys into non-ordinary states. And he digs into the ‘choose your own adventure’ framework of the free album: how he actually recorded 3 different albums and figured out how to transition into different moods based on which direction the listener wants to go – from more still to more expansive, to darker or more bittersweet. He has also created music for DMT trials in the UK, and talks a lot about the potential in extended-state DMT experiences.

He also discusses:

How he came up with the flow of the album related to phases of the trip
How much of a catalyst and safe container music can be, with or without a complimentary substance
How psychedelics in a fun, festival experience with lots of laughter can be extremely beneficial – you don’t need to do them the ‘correct’ way
Graham Hancock, Donald Hoffman, and the concept of consciousness as the building block of all reality
Psytrance, classical music, traditional Bwiti music, Lady Gaga, and what music he feels is best for exploration

and more!

Links

Heldbysound.com

Soundcloud.com: Held by Sound

Bandcamp.com: Held by Sound

Bandcamp.com: Papadosio

Dillonamp.com

Liquidbloom.com

Wavepaths.com

Pitchblack Playback: Jon Hopkins’ Music For Psychedelic Therapy

Wikipedia.org: Psychoacoustics

Algernonpharmaceuticals.com

PT381 – DMT, Hierarchies of Complexity, and Reality Switch Technologies, featuring Dr. Andrew R. Gallimore

Vice.com: Scientists Developed a Way to Make DMT Trips Last Longer Than Ever

Dmtx.org

Psychedelics Today: DMTx Psychonaut Training Webinar

Cyberdelicsociety.com

PT398 – Lost Civilizations, DMT Entities, & Altered States of Consciousness and Early Religion, featuring: Graham Hancock

Visionary: The Mysterious Origins of Human Consciousness, by Graham Hancock

The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes, by Donald D. Hoffman

PT436 – The Power of Sound: The Magic in Live Performances, Imperfections, and Music Curated Specifically for Journeys, featuring: East Forest

LSD Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Psychedelic Medicine, by Stanislav Grof, M.D.

Book links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale.

April 11, 2024

What is Holding Space: Guiding Psychedelic Journeys and Creating Ideal Set and Setting

Much like the psychedelic experience itself, the idea of ‘spaceholding’ or ‘holding space’ can strike some as a nebulous concept.

The term is largely synonymous with psychedelic facilitation or ceremony leading. When executed poorly, or not considered at all, the consequences can be severe for the recipient.

Why Holding Space Matters

When the psychedelic kicks in – whether it be psilocybin, ayahuasca, or 5-MeO-DMT – the individual may arrive at a fork in the road where the ego is invited to dissolve. How they navigate this juncture is key to the quality of the experience and managing their passage towards bliss is one of the key areas where a space holder can earn their salt.

With a safe container created for exploration and tools at hand, including mantras, breathing techniques, and attentive coaching, the journeyer is empowered to surrender gracefully through the depths of consciousness (and, possibly, dimensions). In that moment of ego death – should it occur during the trip – the body can experience long overdue relief from near perpetual fight or flight through a state of rest and digestion which promotes healing.

But in a chaotic setting, left unaided without guidance, travelers may find themselves engulfed in waves of fear and discomfort, veering into distress and confusion and finding elusive the state of simply being, without worries.

The Crucial Role of the Space Holder

The best space holders are beacons of guidance and support in the ethereal, mind-manifesting kaleidoscopic landscapes of a psychedelic journey. Their influence can determine the trip’s trajectory, and the best space holders remain discrete until they are called upon, possessing an intuitive sense of when greater direct presence is necessary.

In the uncharted territory of the psychedelic ’20s, as every man and his dog decides to serve toad venom and ayahuasca, the psychedelic community is increasingly emphasizing the need for well-trained facilitators. Initiatives and training programs like Navigating Psychedelics: For Clinicians and Wellness Practitioners aim to help equip those holding space with the skills to compassionately and adeptly facilitate psychedelic experiences for individuals and groups.

“Psychedelic therapy can bring about intense psychological, emotional, and physical experiences,” writes Michelle Anne Hobart, a spiritual emergence coach. It is thus crucial for space holders to be well-versed in trauma-informed practices to mitigate any issues that may arise, remaining calm, supportive and empathetic for their clients.

Creating Internal Space Through Set and Setting

In a sense, the phrase ‘space holder’ is metaphoric and refers to the creation of an internal sanctuary for the journeyer, through the adept management of their immediate external reality. Common pitfalls of flawed space holders can include a propensity for touch that may lead to intrusive physical contact, or encouraging excessively high doses. These missteps can all take the participant deeper into the experience than they are comfortable with, and risk energetic transference between the space holder and the participant.

Space holders must exhibit sensitivity and awareness, not only in setting the space optimally with appropriate music, smells, and vibes, but also in witnessing, guiding, and comforting individuals throughout their journey.

Otherwise, ceremonies intended to bring about transmutation and recalibration can become potentially dangerous and risk re-wounding participants who turned up to heal. “The ones who are in the role of holding vigil must be as attuned as the survivors of trauma and spiritual emergency themselves have had to be,” adds Hobart.

Maintaining Personal Integrity

The participant has effectively given the space holder permission to witness them in a highly suggestible, hyperplastic and defenseless state. “You’re really putting yourself in someone else’s hands in a very, very vulnerable way, even if you’re an experienced psychonaut,” says Dr. Ido Cohen, a psychedelic facilitator and the founder of the Integration Circle.

The space holder may wish to remain as invisible as possible until they are called upon. It can be tricky to know when greater presence is required, and when to simply allow the profound journey of self-discovery and transformation to happen.

An often-overlooked element of space holding is the ability to be completely present with a participant in their process without judgment or having a desire to give advice, according to Victoria Wueschner, president of F.I.V.E. (5-MeO-DMT Information & Vital Education). Deep in the throes of a visionary psychedelic journey, emotions and words shared may inadvertently relate to the space holder, but it is imperative they do not take it personally and instead remain in a state of compassionate detachment.

“When facilitators step into the role of being a space holder, they commit to giving their full attention and presence to the participant by actively listening with compassion, free of personal ego or motive,” says Wueschner.

‘Let the Unfolding Experience Be the Guide’

If somebody feels unsafe, rushed, or judged, it is more likely that negative thoughts and unresolved memories can arise in an overwhelming fashion. The space holder ideally lifts the weight from the participant’s shoulders, and when the path is clear, a protective bubble is created to block distractions and allow greater space for them to dive deep into their psyches and transform their inner worlds. The space holder is their unobtrusive cheerleader.

The key principles of the Zendo Project, which provides harm reduction education and psychedelic peer support services, are trusting, letting go, being open, breathing and surrendering. The organization advises space holders to be calm, meditative presences of acceptance, care, and compassion.

“Promote feelings of trust and security,” they say on their website. “Let the person’s unfolding experience be the guide. Don’t try to get ahead of the process. Explore distressing issues as they emerge, but simply being with the person can provide support.”

Space Holding Begins Before the Space Opens (and Continues After It Closes)

Another aspect of space holding that can be neglected is the process of screening individuals to ascertain whether a particular psychedelic experience is suited for their needs, and then helping people prepare. If a space holder does not, at a minimum, offer to conduct a call before the journey day and provide some preparation exercises – such as intention-setting, journalling or meditation – then that should ring alarm bells.

Space holding doesn’t end when the effect of the psychedelic wears off. A key component of the healing process is the integration – a period which can consist of check-in calls, talk therapy, and the provision of a personalized schedule of activities such as spending time in nature and avoiding certain foods.

But, ultimately, everything is rooted in a trusting bond between the space holder and the patient or client, says Dr. David Rabin, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who co-founded Apollo Neuroscience.

“Holding space always begins with a safe setting, rooted in trust, that helps to create the fertile ground for the seed of healing to grow. Without the trust and safety of the therapeutic alliance, the healing process can be completely shut down.”

Eager to learn more about how to effectively hold space in psychedelic settings? Join the next cohort of Navigating Psychedelics LIVE: For Clinicians and Wellness Practitioners. Limited seats available.

March 19, 2024January 3, 2025

Maintenance Doses and Recurring Revenue: The Ethics of At-Home Ketamine Therapy

In this episode, Joe interviews Juan Pablo Cappello: co-founder and former CEO of Nue Life Health, whose assets were subsequently acquired by Beckley Waves.

Cappello digs into his recent article which has been making waves across the psychedelic community: “Profit Over Patients? A Critical Look at At-Home Ketamine Therapy.” He created Nue Life with the goal of helping a million people address the root cause of their anxiety, and while the company was successful, he began to see a problematic trend: that using ketamine while providing services of a mental health company is very expensive and resource-consuming, and as companies saw a large percentage of clients requiring maintenance doses, the most profitable business model became essentially slinging ketamine to patients without providing any real integration or aftercare. Are these companies promising healing but really only guaranteeing recurring revenue?

He talks about:

How this emerging model makes it harder for ethical practitioners to be able to provide their services
The tools they built at Nue Life for long-term benefit, and why these should be the main focus – not repeated ketamine
Matthew Perry’s death and how the media was quick to place the blame on ketamine
The need for companies and communities to come to gather and create ethical industry standards for the at-home ketamine model
How cannabis was almost decriminalized under the Carter administration

and more!

Notable Quotes

“There’s all sorts of ethical companies and practitioners who are doing the good work every day on the front lines, and we have to recognize that. We also have to be honest that it’s harder and harder for those ethical practitioners to make a living because of what unethical practitioners are doing every day in the trenches, which is slinging ketamine.”

“Do I think that it’s probably a good trade to take ketamine six times a year as opposed to taking an antidepressant every day? Yeah, that’s probably a good trade. But there’s a better trade. which is: Let’s address the root cause of your depression, anxiety, or trauma once and for all. Let’s do the hard work. Let’s use ketamine as a beautiful tool to help you reset and reboot, and let’s get you well. And let’s support you in your wellness journey going forward, rather than putting you on the cycle of feeling better, feeling worse, feeling better, feeling worse.”

“I absolutely believe the pharmaceutical companies are way too close to the regulators, absolutely. But what do we expect when getting a drug approved by the FDA is a billion dollar proposition? I mean, look at what MAPS has gone through. They’re still raising money, notwithstanding the amazing clinical results that they’ve had with MDMA. …[They’re] continuing to raise money for clinical trials of a drug that wasn’t made illegal until 1982. So it’s not as if, in terms of the safety profile of MDMA, we don’t have oodles and oodles of real life data prior to 1982. Nothing’s a better sign of how broken the system is than what MAPS has gone through.”

Links

Profit Over Patients? A Critical Look at At-Home Ketamine Therapy, by Juan Pablo Cappello

Response to Criticism of ‘Profit Over Patients? A Critical Look at At-Home Ketamine Therapy’, by Juan Pablo Cappello

PT274 – Juan Pablo Cappello – Nue Life: Using Digital Phenotyping to Personalize Healthcare

Lexology.com: Ketamine Clinics and Malpractice: Recent New York Litigation

One Year podcast: 1977: Mr. Marijuana and the Drug Czar

March 15, 2024January 3, 2025

Self-Love, Narrative Therapy, and Post-Traumatic Growth

In this episode, David interviews Dr. 1Drea Pennington Wasio: integrative physician, psychedelic-assisted therapy facilitator and psilocybin retreat leader, international speaker, podcaster, and author of several books, including Sacred Medicine: Exploring The Psychedelic Hero’s Journey.

She discusses her personal metamorphosis and name change inspired by a powerful ayahuasca experience, and how that moved her into a life more inspired by authenticity and self-love. She gives the details of her retreats, explains her PRISM sessions, and talks in depth about the magic of resiliency: How can we not just return to baseline, but experience post-traumatic growth?

She talks about:

The power of tuning into creativity in times of depression
The efficacy of narrative therapy and writing in general
The universal themes of ‘The Hero’s Journey’ and how much agency matters
The importance of embracing nonfiction, and her upcoming book series, The Dreamweaver’s Legacy
The potential of microdosing psilocybin for menopause

and more!

Her new course on trauma-informed psychedelic therapy begins this month, and her next retreat begins May 10. Head to 1drea.com for details.

Notable Quotes

“On the fourth cup, I saw these visions and I heard a voice. And you know how it is. Yes, ayahuasca is a hallucinogen, but this voice was so powerful. And it basically was giving me an opportunity to make a shift. And the first time I heard it, I said no. The next night, I was in the same turmoil again, [and] by the time I got to my fourth cup, the voice came back and I said yes. And as soon as I said yes to this horrible question for me, I had to grab my bucket and I started to purge. And with that purge, I could see from me as a baby to that point, it was as if I was purging that timeline. What I realized is who I had become (because I grew up with so much trauma), I felt stuck. I felt like I couldn’t get out of the loop, even with this powerful medicine. And what she gave me was the opportunity to purge that. And by the third time I’m heaving over the bucket, I knew: I’m being reborn.”

“As a physician, I just recognize that without self-love – without true, unconditional self-acceptance, it’s really hard to be healthy.”

“I think everyone could benefit from just imagining: What would life be like if I had more magic, and I wasn’t so blocked and limited by my usual way of being or seeing things?”

“Many of us have wounding based on our family, or attachment wounds, so we need to heal and we need to recover in community. A lot of the people who do find success with 12-steps: they find that we recover together. I think there’s a certain magic that happens. A lot of my colleagues in this space say the group is the medicine. Yes, we take these magical molecules, but the group brings its own sort of medicine.”

Links

1drea.com

Psychedelic Preparation and Integration with Guided Meditations by Dr. DaeEss 1Drea (Special offer)

New course: Trauma-Informed Psychedelic Therapy: Supporting Clients with Preparation and Integration

The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell

1drea.com: The Dreamweaver’s Legacy

PT384 – Vital Psychedelic Conversations, featuring: Dr. Dominique Morisano, CPsych & Jessika Lagarde

Drjillstocker.com

Researchgate.net: Microdosing Psychedelics for Menopausal Symptoms Easing Brain Fog, Low Mood, and Cognitive Decline

Six Thinking Hats, by Edward de Bono

March 8, 2024January 3, 2025

Sacred Sites, Ayahuasca, and Connecting With the Rhythms of the Earth

In this episode, Johanna interviews Laura Reeves: Glastonbury-based facilitator and medicine woman trained in craniosacral therapy, somatic experiencing, breathwork, and more, who holds retreats at sacred sites in the U.K. and Peruvian Amazon.

She tells of her journey from serendipitously booking a trip to Ecuador just as she first heard about ayahuasca, to the early ayahuasca experiences that showed her our true interconnectedness, to a heroic dose of psilocybin and a trip to the hospital, to being accepted into training with an Indigenous shaman in the Amazon. With a lifelong love of nature, paganism, and ancient traditions, she stresses the importance of connecting to the natural rhythms of the Earth and harnessing its energy.

She talks about:

Self-initiated shamans and the dangers that can come from bad actors operating out of integrity and respect for the lineage
Ayahuasca as a purgative and the power of energetic clearings
Her experience with shamans using Icaros to channel the sounds of plants
Shadow work and its role in personal growth and healing
The energy of Glastonbury, feeling deep connections to sacred places, and how ley lines inspire places of pilgrimage

and more!

Notable Quotes

“I just walked off on my own, and I remember just standing there. And I started hearing the entire symphony of the rainforest and it was like no sound was a mistake. It was like I could see and feel the interconnectedness of every single sound and every feeling of every sound, and I just was there in this orchestra of nature. I guess that was [my first]] experience of this interconnectedness, the energy that kind of weaves between everything.”

“It’s great that these plants are awakening to awaken us now. But what’s unfortunate is a lot of people are then using it as an opportunity to make money, to be the shaman at the front of the ceremony, and they’re not prepared to do the work to actually be in integrity with these sacred lineages.”

“The way in which this other tradition works with the medicine is to drink ayahuasca without the DMT active substance (you still have visions, but it’s different), and then you drink warm water, and you’re literally just purging for about two hours. …And the way that I felt after this: It was like the medicine went down into the deepest parts of my body, into my cells, and just pulled out any toxins, any negative thoughts even, anything at all. And I felt completely clear and energized. My nervous system felt really reset at this point. …I was like: How can we create experiences just with the body where we can feel this depth of liberation and openness?”

Links

Laurareeves.co.uk

Laura Reeves linktree

Friday, April 19 – Sunday, April 21, 2024: Mystical Spring Retreat, Glastonbury: Land Magic, Consciousness Expansion & Heart Opening, with Laura Reeves & Guests

YouTube: The War on Consciousness TEDxTalks Graham Hancock (The talk TED tried to hide/ban) 2013

Psychedelics Today: PT390 – Vital Psychedelic Conversations, featuring: Mackenzie Amara & Dr. Ido Cohen

February 28, 2024March 6, 2024

Psychedelic Integration: How to Weave Your Experiences Into Daily Life

So, you’ve had a psychedelic experience. And somewhere within the sensory avalanche, the perplexing interior narrative, and avoiding looking at your own face in the bathroom mirror, you (gasp!) may have actually learned something. But what comes next? How can you ensure to take the insights you gathered and apply them to your life? Enter psychedelic integration.

What is Psychedelic Integration?

The word ‘integration’ comes from the Latin word ‘integrare,’ which means to make whole or begin again. It also has French roots, from the word ‘intégration,’ which speaks to ‘bringing together parts of a whole.’

While the psychedelic community has yet to uniformly align on a single definition for integration, we can begin to understand it by acknowledging that psychedelics can help disrupt and loosen our rigid personality structures and long-held beliefs. Integration is about finding a middle ground, fixing the tears in our narratives, and becoming whole again.

Sounds simple, right? Simple, yes. Easy, maybe not. Psychedelic integration is both passive and active. It takes time, willingness, and effort to work through and re-live a psychedelic experience within the natural mind. It can involve taking a thorough inventory of the mind, body, and spirit, and challenging oneself to dig deep, get uncomfortable, and sometimes, make big changes.

But don’t panic. Integration is an extremely personal process and doesn’t look the same for everyone. Before getting started, get grounded, give yourself permission to take your time, and treat yourself with love, compassion, and patience.

Document Everything

Someone I used to work with is fond of saying “it doesn’t exist if it isn’t written down.” And while, for our purposes, he uses it in terms of project management, the same is true for psychedelic integration.

As soon as you’ve had a little breathing room from the most intense part of the trip – either before the psychedelic substance has worn off, or a few days after – begin journaling. Writing or recording the parts of the experience that stood out to you is a great place to start while the memory is fresh in your mind.

Whether in a blank notebook, or an intentionally designed psychedelic Integration Workbook, capturing those fleeting thoughts and feelings is often considered a foundational step in psychedelic integration. If a blank page feels a little daunting, check out our comprehensive guide to integrating psychedelic experiences, including meditation prompts, structured journaling exercises, and goal planning.

Find Someone to Listen

After a profound psychedelic experience, it’s often helpful to share your story with someone. Whether a therapist experienced in psychedelic integration, a trusted friend, or a member of a psychedelic community, finding a non-judgmental person to hold space for you is important.

The act of verbalizing your experience can help in processing and understanding it on a deeper level. Your experience may have included some anxiety, depression, and discomfort. It’s crucial to find a person who is open-minded (and did we mention, non-judgmental?), allowing you the space to explore your thoughts and feelings without steering them in any particular direction.

If your resources are limited, or there just isn’t anyone in your circle who fits the bill, consider contacting Fireside Project, a free helpline for peer support before, during, and after a psychedelic experience.

“(The volunteers) come to the experiences having had their own experiences, and desiring to hold space for others as they navigate their experiences and navigate their processing afterwards. They’re not doing therapy. They’re not diagnosing. They’re really with the person (the caller, the texter) as somebody who gets it,” Fireside Project founder Hanifa Washington told Psychedelics Today.

Depending on the intensity of your experience and the state of your well-being in the aftermath, finding a trained professional or a doctor may be necessary – especially if you’re in distress.

Do Your Homework

Psychedelic integration also involves educating yourself about the psychedelic experience. Dive into books, scientific research, and personal accounts that discuss psychedelics and their effects on the mind and body. Understanding the psychological, neurological, and spiritual aspects of psychedelics can provide a richer context to your experience.

To really dig into your integration, consider taking an online course. Navigating Psychedelics: Lessons on Self-Care and Integration was designed so you can learn at your own pace, with lessons on how to get the most out of your experience and integrate psychedelic experiences into your daily life.

These days, there is more psychedelic information available to curious people than ever before. While there can be a lot to wade through, it’s best to find a format that’s easy and compelling to digest. This knowledge can help in recognizing common themes and lessons that emerge in psychedelic experiences. Knowledge is power, and there’s a lot of it out there for you to discover.

Take Care of Yourself

Physical health plays a significant role in psychological and spiritual well-being, especially after a psychedelic experience. And if you’ve just had one, your body might have gone through the ringer.

Ensure you’re taking care of your body through proper nutrition, adequate sleep, and regular exercise. Activities you enjoy, like yoga, art, meditation, and nature walks can also be beneficial, helping to ground your experiences in the physical world. Remember, a healthy body is crucial for a healthy mind. Though you may often hear about mental and physical health discussed separately, they are one in the same.

Find the Others

Outside of a therapist or coach, connecting with others who have had similar experiences can be incredibly beneficial for psychedelic integration. Look for community groups, workshops, or online forums where people discuss their psychedelic experiences and integration processes. Sharing with and learning from others can provide different perspectives and insights, and also remind you that you are not alone in this journey.

And even if, for example, you’ve taken psilocybin, don’t discount the experiences of those who have used other substances, from 5-MeO-DMT to ketamine (and all substances in between). While the substances and effects on the body and mind may differ, many of the feelings that can arise and the outcomes can be eerily similar. Finding commonality with many others who use psychedelics for healing and betterment can offer support, understanding, and camaraderie as you navigate your own integration journey.

Don’t Overthink It

The morning after my first ayahuasca experience, I woke up to a text from a friend that read:

Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.

I didn’t fully embrace the sentiment of this quote, originally written by Austrian author Rainer Maria Rilke, until much later. My friend was gently urging me to avoid trying to decode the ayahuasca experience too quickly. I didn’t take this advice, and by the time I landed back in Canada, I decided the medicine was, without question, urging me to live with more gratitude. Maybe so, but maybe that wasn’t quite everything I could have learned, or even the most profound. Because I stopped asking questions, I closed the door to new insights.

“How beautiful that we have this access to deep knowledge of the universe through us, but we have to be quiet. We have to be quiet to hear the whispers of the heart. And when you become quiet, the whispers of the heart become louder and they start filling you in. Then you have to start believing it,” Dr. Michael Sapiro told Psychedelics Today.

Sometimes, psychedelic experiences can be colossal, endless, and enlightening.

And sometimes, they can also be underwhelming, unremarkable, and even boring. Resist the urge to define the ‘why’ too quickly after the substance has worn off. Take a beat, unpack it, and let it marinate in your mind for a bit before concluding its significance – there may be more (or less) there than you think.

One Step at a Time

Choosing to take psychedelics can be transformative, opening doors to new perspectives and deeper understanding of oneself. But remember, the true journey begins with integration — weaving these profound experiences into the tapestry of your daily life.

While some may choose to take it slow and make the journey completely personal, others might feel inspired to integrate psychedelic work into their professional lives. If that’s you, consider becoming professionally trained before engaging in psychedelic practice with others.

As you navigate this path, cherish the insights, embrace the challenges, and remember that psychedelic integration is meant to be a journey, not a destination.

Eager to learn more? Check out our comprehensive self-paced course, Navigating Psychedelics: Lessons on Self-Care and Integration for your complete guide to understanding and integrating the psychedelic experience.

February 23, 2024February 24, 2024

PT489 – Psychedelics, Art Therapy, and the Creative Process

In this episode, Joe interviews Alyssa Gursky, LPC: artist, research associate and study therapist at the Social Neuroscience and Psychotherapy (SNaP) lab, and founder of Psychedelic Art Therapy LLC, which pioneers ketamine-assisted art therapy.

She talks about her first mushroom experience and how her art and creative process instantly felt different – how the judgment and concern about where the art was going disappeared and was replaced by a freedom; a return to a more childlike way of being, where all that mattered was the fun of the creative process, and expressing her inner world in art. They realized how much the creative process related to true embodiment and the ability to be fully present, and how healing it can be to simply be with other people and create art.

She talks about:

The power of being seen in a group, and how the bravery of one person can completely shift the group dynamic
The need for mentorship in the psychedelic space
The comfort and freedom found in affinity groups
The inspiring lives of Genesis P-Orridge and avant-garde filmmaker, Alejandro Jodorowsky
Rick Rubin’s ability to treat creativity as a spiritual act
and how attending a live wrestling event aligns with non-ordinary states.

Gursky is launching a virtual education and support group this March for anyone who wants to integrate art into client work or their own process. Visit her instagram for details.

Notable Quotes

“I used pastels pretty much the entirety of that whole first experience, and I was just so stunned at how much more freedom [I felt]. Like, there were concepts that I was learning, that your creative process is a reflection of your mind. And I felt like there was an observer really present, to where I remember drawing and there wasn’t this judgment of: ‘Well, what is this going to become?’ and ‘What am I doing with this?’ and ‘Should I have used that color?’ – this deep, neurotic, judgemental inner voice. But instead, it was just sensation.”

“When we’re not taking the time to process through what is in our bodies, we start to lose the ability to be present.”

“Psychedelics really help with this: helping people break through the veil of: just trust your impulses – that that artistic sublimation, the process of taking whatever is happening inside and allowing art to be a vehicle to have it on the outside: that is nervous system regulation. That is psychic healing, just to be like, ‘I kind of want to do that,’ and just trusting that. It seems like such a small act, but it’s such a big deal.”

“Art is helping us create the map of our psyche, and psychedelics are giving us wider access to that landscape. It feels like a match made in Heaven for me.”

Links

Psychedelicarttherapy.com

Psychedelics Today: Alyssa Gursky – Ketamine and Transpersonal Art Therapies

PT Live: Joe Moore & Alyssa Gursky, LPC Discuss Art Therapy, Affinity Groups, and More

Imdb.com: The Holy Mountain

Npr.org: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Provocateur And Industrial Co-Creator, Dead At 70

High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society, by Dr. Carl Hart

Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, by Dr. Carl L. Hart

Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, by Johann Hari

Swimming in the Sacred: Wisdom from the Psychedelic Underground, by Rachel Harris

Almatraining.org

Maps.org: Dr. Oscar Janiger’s Pioneering LSD Research: A Forty Year Follow-up

The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin

YouTube: May 1, 1969: Fred Rogers testifies before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications

February 20, 2024February 20, 2024

PT488 – The Cost of War: Veterans’ Mental Health and Government Responsibility

In this episode, Joe interviews Matthew ‘Whiz’ Buckley: former decorated US Navy F/A-18 Hornet fighter pilot and now, founder and CEO of No Fallen Heroes Foundation, a non-profit focused on healing veterans and first responders with psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Buckley met Joe in D.C. while they were both campaigning for psychedelic therapy to any lawmaker they could speak with. He talks about how the government is spending a fortune on the military, but not paying the total cost, since so much of that is externalized onto the soldiers themselves. He points out how many of them care more about making money than saving lives, and how we need “We the people” moments to wake them up or remove them from office.

He discusses:

His time in the Navy and his transition back to civilian life, coming to terms with trauma and realizing how much was physical (including tinnitus)
His life-changing experiences under ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT with the Mission Within
How we should be teaching veterans about various mental health options (including psychedelic-assisted therapy) as part of their transition process
The signing of the National Defense Authorization Act and the disappointing amount of money reserved for psychedelic research: Was it all just lip service?
The complications that arise when trying to get benefits from the VA while also trying to move on: When honesty about mental health isn’t incentivized, when do you tell the truth?
His experience operating legally in Colorado and how he plans to stay on top of Governor Desantis to bring psychedelics to Florida

and more!

Notable Quotes

“The military does an incredibly good job of turning us into human beings that are capable of doing some pretty horrific things to another fellow human being. And then when they’re done with us, they do a pretty shitty job of transitioning us back to being a human. They pay lip service to it, but there’s no return in it: ‘Hey man, you’re getting out. You’re not our problem anymore. We’ve got to focus on the next generation of killers.’”

“If we can get our first responders healed along with our military, I think this world would be a better place. …These medicines have the potential to turn warriors into peacemakers. And maybe that’s also why they’re illegal; they need little uniform killing machines that don’t do critical thinking.”

“Veterans: it’s interesting because it’s a tough community. We don’t listen to advertising or bullshit or anything; it needs to come from another vet for anything to have credibility. So you know, a Marcus Luttrell or a me or a JT looking a bro or a sister in the eye and going: ‘Hey man, this is what happened to me.’ Even in the back of their mind, if they’re like, ‘What the? That’s insane,’ there’s still a lot more of: ‘I trust this person. They would not steer me wrong.’”

Links

Nofallenheroesfoundation.org

MAX Afterburner podcast: Ep. 60 – Psychedelics Today Co- Founder Joe Moore

MAX Afterburner podcast: Ep. 84 – Healing Trauma from Columbine

HunterSeven Foundation

Militarytimes.com: First-ever provision for psychedelic studies included in defense bill

Psychedelics Today: PT427 – The Philosophy of Law Enforcement, The Criminalization of Self-Directed Behavior, and Transformative Care for Police, featuring: Sarko Gergerian, MS, MHC, CARC

Missionwithin.org

DoD TAP: Transition Assistance Program

Kranews.org: Can psychedelics combat prolonged grief? Dell Medical School launches study to find out

Psychedelics Today: PT432 – From NBA Dreams to Cultural Healing: Iboga and a Mission to Empower Gabon, featuring: Stéphane Lasme

Psychedelics Today: Could the Sonoran Desert Toad Cure Narcissism?

Tucsonherpsociety.org

Feb. 23 – 25: The Sacred Mycology Summit

February 13, 2024February 13, 2024

PT486 – 5-MeO-DMT, Somatic Release, and Creating Context for Spirituality

In this episode, Joe interviews Steve Rio: psychedelic guide, performance and transformation coach, musician, and co-founder of Enfold, a retreat center in BC, Canada.

While Enfold caters each experience to each client, they largely work with 5-MeO-DMT (which is unregulated in Canada); partly because of its power, and partly because Rio realized how much was missing in terms of safety and process when using the substance. They are trying to fill in the gaps, working with the University Health Network Centre for Mental Health to analyze measurements of mindfulness, DAS tests, the Brief Inventory of Thriving survey, and language used when describing experiences to collect as much qualitative data as possible. He discusses their screening process, why they work with synthetic 5-MeO-DMT, why they encourage everyone to go to a group session, and how 5-MeO seems to bypass psychological processes and largely be related to somatic release.

He talks about:

The power of 5-MeO and being humble and honest with yourself: Are you stable enough to handle the dysregulation?
5-MeO bad actors and ‘Drive-by 5’ people who show up, do the drug, and leave
The plight of Sonoran Dessert toads and the need for more data around their declining populations
How 5-MeO seems to connect people with a higher power, and the need for the experiencer to find their own context for it
The importance of creating a clean and open container for spirituality and meeting the client where they are

and more!

Notable Quotes

“I think inserting any type of dogma is not really helpful in taking people through a psychedelic experience. I think there are some core basic principles around love, around compassion, around forgiveness, that I think everyone can agree with, but I think beyond that, it’s important for everybody to be able to contextualize their experience in the framing that feels right to them. …We try and create the clearest and simplest container for spirituality that allows for the depth of spirituality, but doesn’t necessarily try and say spirituality is one thing or another, because frankly, that’s a very personal choice.”

“These toads have quickly become close to extinct. And the whole region is in turmoil because of people coming to harvest toads. There’s cartel activities. I think there’s human safety risks, I think there’s animal safety risks. And once you work with synthetic, you realize that there’s so little difference between Bufo Alvarius and synthetic that it makes no sense to be working on healing, transformation, and consciousness expansion at the expense of this beautiful animal.”

“The more people can open up in a group setting, I think that’s an incredibly healing practice – to be able to be vulnerable, to be able to be heard, to hear other people’s stories and realize you’re not alone. To hear yourself in others is really powerful. I think, ultimately, the deepest healing does happen in community.”

Links

Enfold.org

Psychedelics Today: IG Live with Steve Rio

Psychedelics Today: PT377 – Integrative Medicine: Health, Wellness, and Psychedelics, featuring: Andrew Weil, M.D.

Tucsonherpsociety.org

Psychedelics Today: Could the Sonoran Desert Toad Cure Narcissism?

Drmalinvedoyuthaug.com: Publications

Vice: The Toad Venom That’s Stronger Than DMT: Bufo

Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life, by Allen Frances, M.D.

UHN Psychedelic Psychotherapy Research Group

Brief Inventory of Thriving (BIT) Survey

February 9, 2024February 9, 2024

PT485 – Meeting People Where They Are: Why the Underground Will Always Thrive

In this episode, Joe interviews Ayize Jama-Everett: author, educator, filmmaker, and therapist with a long history of work in substance use and mental health services.

When Jama-Everett was last on the show, “A Table of Our Own” – a film focusing on healing, psychedelics, and bonds within the Black community – was still in its infancy. It’s now complete, and he and others behind the film are touring with it, with showings coming up in Detroit, LA, and Boston. A free follow-up discussion hosted by CIIS’ Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research is happening Feb. 15, and, from February 15-16 only, the film is available to rent online.

He gives his full origin story: growing up around substance use, how he got into therapy and healing people through journeys, how “A Table of Our Own” came about, and how it was influenced by mushrooms. Then he discusses a lot more, with a much-needed critical eye:

His experiences with some notorious bad actors in the facilitation space
Decriminalization and how we celebrate small wins while ignoring steps back
Drug exceptionalism, the Drug War, and the demonization of crack
Power dynamics and the dangerous concept of letting go
Why the Black community is so skeptical of psychedelics

And he talks about why it’s so important to meet people where they are – that what works for one person or one community won’t necessarily work for another, and the above-ground, corporatized, overly medicalized model will never work for everyone.

Notable Quotes

“I’m about to crawl back underground after this, I think. …This above ground shit is, by and large, for the birds. …There’s so many people now doing psychedelics and stuff, right? I would assume, given the promises, that there’d be more ethical people out there. There’d be more people with less ego. There’d be more women in charge, there’d be more queer people in charge, there’d be more people of color in charge. But it just seems like the same white corporate dudes. It’s like they’re talking about an app. …I want to just be of service to the people that need it and not deal with the rest of this bullshit.”

“The whole decrim thing in general: I feel like when decrim isn’t married with all substance use, then I don’t know what the hell we’re talking about.”

“When we talk about access, we’re talking about insurance. Dude, I barely have insurance. Insurance reimbursement? You want a revolution and you start with insurance reimbursement? What? How does that make any [sense]? Was Martin Luther King marching across that bridge in Selma, being like, ‘We are going to have insurance reimbursement for [everyone]?’ No. That is not where you meet people. That is the last fucking thing. That is the blip at the end. People are dying. People are killing themselves. …People who are seriously struggling don’t give a fuck about insurance.”

“You’re sitting here, taking all of this stuff and you’re putting it in the context of pathology: Something has to be wrong in order for you to take this, so that it can be corrected. Actually, maybe things are alright, and this is the way of joining.”

Links

Ayizejamaeverett.com

Ayizeje.com

Atableofourown.org

Rent “A Table of Our Own” here

Psychedelics Today: PT278 – Ayize Jama-Everett, Courtney Watson, Leticia Brown, and Kufikiri Imara – A Table of Our Own

Bbc.co.uk: The Lovecraft Investigations

Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology, by Robert V. Guthrie

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt

Psychscenehub.com: David Nutt’s drug harm ranking scale

January 23, 2024January 23, 2024

PT480 – Psychedelics and Consent: Power Dynamics, Boundaries, and the Concept of ‘Safe Enough’

In this episode, Kyle interviews Emma Knighton: Somatic trauma therapist, Vital instructor, and psychedelic integration therapist focusing on consciousness exploration, complex PTSD from childhood abuse, and queer identity development.

This episode is a bit of a masterclass on consent and boundaries within the client/practitioner relationship. She discusses power dynamics: how conflicts arise due to the breaking of established boundaries; safety, and embracing the idea of creating a container that is ‘safe enough’ to go into places that feel unsafe; and the importance of maintaining agreed-upon boundaries no matter how much the client may want to break them. They discuss ways to fulfill the need for touch when touch was not agreed upon, and the concept of practicing touch interactions before the experience – that playing out possible scenarios will create a somatic map so bodies remember what it feels like to be near each other while one body is deep in an experience.

And she talks about much more: What she’s learned from the kink and sex work community and their similarities with the psychedelic world; ways to handle consent in group settings; the clash between giving people agency but needing to step in and protect them; restorative justice models and how they could be used in a much-needed psychedelic practitioner accountability system; the need for practitioners to continue doing their own work; and how part of true consent is being honest about one’s own limitations or conflicts as a practitioner.

Notable Quotes

“We live in a compliance culture, not in a consent culture. So most of us have not actually learned what it feels like to be really attuned to consent in our bodies.”

“I don’t say, ‘This space is safe,’ I say, ‘We’re going to make this space safe enough’ – safe enough to do the thing, whatever the thing is. Safe enough to consent to the risk that is present. I don’t actually think that ‘safe, period’ exists for anybody anywhere. So it’s more about: What does ‘safe enough’ mean for each person? And that’s facilitators and clients, because facilitators: We have our own boundaries. And if we’re not attending to our boundaries and if we step over one of our boundaries in service of somebody else, that container is now out of consent, because we’ve crossed a boundary that we have. So we have to think about: What is safe enough for me to be in this setting and then, what does safe enough look like for the person or people I’m working with? And how do we create that?”

“I think part of the consent process and part of being an ethical and accountable practitioner is being really honest around: What do I know, what do I not know, and what do I not know that I don’t know?”

Links

Emmaknighton.com

American Psychedelic Practitioners Association

Bettymartin.org: The Wheel of Consent

Psychedelics Today: PT290 – Kylea Taylor, M.S., LMFT – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Integral Psychedelic Therapy: The Non-Ordinary Art of Psychospiritual Healing, edited by Jason A. Butler, Genesee Herzberg and Richard Louis Miller

Schoolofconsent.org

The Consent Academy

January 16, 2024January 16, 2024

PT478 – Holotropic Breathwork as a Stepping Stone, Complementary Therapy, and Teacher

In this episode, Joe interviews Christine Calvert: Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator.

She talks about how addiction led her to breathwork, how breathwork has helped her over the years, how breathwork can be a compliment to other self-work, and how becoming comfortable with breathwork first could be a very important stepping stone towards better understanding the psychedelic experience. She talks about how years of breathwork helped her navigate complicated states of consciousness, and the incredible benefit of learning to trust our body’s capacity to heal itself.

She discusses using bodywork in sessions and the importance of having the experiencer be the one who requests it; how much a facilitator’s past relationship with touch affects how they use touch; the risk in meditation vs. the safety of breathwork; the concept of learning self-awareness; how profound it is to be witnessed in breathwork’s dyad model; and why researching and creating guidelines for this kind of work seems impossible.

Notable Quotes

“One of the things I love so much about breathwork vs. psychedelics is that it is endogenous medicine; this is coming from within me. And as somebody who had experienced the world in [a way that] felt like I really was surrounded in a culture and a society that was incredibly disempowering – to have a model that turns you back inside yourself over and over again is a true gift and an act of radical self-empowerment.”

“Obviously in counseling we get witnessed, but there is something really profound about the witnessing in the dyad setup model of holotropic breathwork where [we’re] being witnessed by somebody, and their job is only to do that: to literally sit [and] accompany me as I go internal. And then there’s just an immense amount of support. So for these parts that really didn’t have support and are holding a lot of the trauma of omission (the things we needed that we didn’t get); it’s incredibly powerful and poignant to have this kind of relational field surrounding us through that while that material is moving through us.”

“I feel like if we could do a stepping stone program, breathwork would be the first one, because I think if we can’t access and understand what and who we are with our own endogenous medicine; as explorers and facilitators or practitioners, I think we’re missing something.”

Links

Alchemicalnectar.com

Psychedelics Today: PT313 – Christine Calvert, LCDC – Holotropic Breathwork, Ethics, and Dying To Ourselves

The Thirst for Wholeness: Attachment, Addiction, and the Spiritual Path, by Christina Grof

Holotropic.com: Grof Transpersonal Training

January 5, 2024January 5, 2024

PT475 – End-of-Life Care and Psychedelics: The Role of a Death Doula

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews Christine Caldwell: graduate of the first cohort of Vital and Founder of End of Life Psychedelic Care (EOLPC); and Mary Telliano: end-of-life coach, psychedelic facilitator, and Founder of The Anam Cara Academy, which trains people in the art of end-of-life coaching.

Whether we’re comfortable with it or not, we’re all going to die. And research shows that psychedelic experiences can help tremendously with the anxiety and depression that surround that inevitable transition between realms. Caldwell and Telliano discuss the role of a death doula; how they found their way into end-of-life care; why the West’s relationship with death changed during the Civil War; the role of families in the process; the legality of providing end-of-life psychedelics and the complications that arise when people are unable to leave their homes; and how different substances can be used based on each person’s abilities and comfort level.

They talk about why the mystical experience of psychedelics can be so helpful during this process (and how the placebo effect can be a very real factor); tell a few stories of amazing things they’ve witnessed while doing this work; and drive the point home of how important it is for us to reintegrate death as a natural part of life – to have rites of passage around death, to learn from death, and, much like we need to remember our inner healing capacity, realize that we all have the capacity to play the role of a death doula for someone else.

Notable Quotes

“We are on the forefront of people calling back in sacredness, calling back in those pieces that we’ve forgotten. I was about to say ‘missing’ and I’m really trying to reframe that linguistic and say ‘forgotten’ because it’s never gone away; we’re just really remembering this piece and this emphasis on how important it is to honor the transitions as a community, as a whole. And what it does for me on a personal level as a death doula, how it’s changed me by witnessing so many people dying, is that I’ve witnessed my death over and over and over and over again through these people. And I’ve gotten to kind of really sit and be comfortable in a space that I think a lot of people shy away from. And being in the room with somebody who is in transition is one of the biggest gifts you can get because you carry that with you now. And so, the work of a doula is also in service to ourselves.” -Mary

“It’s the mystical experience. I just firmly believe that, because we’re working with people who have an openness, a receptivity to looking at spirituality in terms of coming to terms with their death and dying, and looking into whether or not there is a greater consciousness, which of course we know there is. And psychedelics are the portal to that greater consciousness.” -Christine

“The technology of psychedelics helps us transcend beyond our body. And if we can make meaning outside of ourselves, things become a little bit more [navigable] because now, we have enough inside of us to remember that there’s something that happens outside of us, and these two worlds start to communicate and inform each other.” -Mary

Links

EOLPC.org

Connectanamcara.com

Psychedelicalpha.com: Sunstone Therapies Announces Expansion of Innovative Dyad Study

Rootstothrive.com

Psychedelics Today: PT307 – Kathryn L. Tucker, JD – The Right to Try Act and the Battle for Psilocybin Access

Mindbiotherapeutics.com

Diamondthera.com

CBC.ca: Sask. man granted exemption to use ‘magic mushroom’ therapy for end-of-life anxiety

December 29, 2023January 8, 2024

PT473 – Microdosing for Healing: The Importance of Journaling and Group Process

In this episode, Kyle interviews Kayse Gehret, the Founder of Microdosing for Healing, an international virtual community and coaching program supporting microdosing practice.

She tells the story of embracing microdosing and her grand mal seizure disorder going away, and how the inability to touch people during the pandemic led to the creation of Microdosing for Healing. She breaks down the details of the program, challenges she’s seen, and the importance of using every effective modality possible to align with each person’s individual experience. The next 6-Week Immersion Group course begins January 26.

She talks about how accessing the body is usually the best entry point to healing; how effective journaling and other personal development practices are to recognize change (especially with how subtle microdosing can be); the efficacy of group process; how physicians are beginning to see the power in community and connection; concerns over the “jump in the deep end” attitude of many people leading to destabilizing experiences; how regular check-ins are important to keep people connected to their original intention; and the idea that people are striving for an unattainable state of perfection – that our goal should be a constant state of improvement and aligning ourselves to who we are meant to be – and microdosing until we don’t need to microdose anymore.

Notable Quotes

“I grew up with a grand mal seizure disorder, so I had always, growing up, shied away from anything that would destabilize my brain more than it already was doing on its own. So doing high dose or experimenting with drugs was never appealing to me and kind of a bit scary to me. But when I was introduced to the concept of microdosing, there was something that just was like ding! And the idea that I could do something that felt more like a natural supplementation, a spiritual vitamin if you will, over time, as kind of an expansiveness [tool] and a healing modality – not anticipating at all it would have the effect that it it did end up happening for me – but that sounded more appealing than high dose work at the time. So I started microdosing and among other things, my seizure disorder disappeared completely, immediately upon practicing.”

“Somatics and body work is fundamental, I think, to our healing, especially where we are in society right now. I think accessing the body is, for many people, the best first access point to their own healing.”

“I really feel like the majority of the public, especially now that it’s mainstream, most people (and again, this is just my opinion) are not resourced and resilient and in a place where going straight to a high dose experience is going to best serve them. And what we have witnessed loud and clear over the last three years is when people take the time to lay the foundation and really apprentice themselves to their practice – incorporate breathwork, body work, other healing modalities first – and they lay a foundation of trust with themselves and the medicine; then they move into higher dose work with a guide and facilitator, it is a completely different experience.”

Links

Kaysegehret.com

Microdosingforhealing.com

Microdosing for Healing podcast

Body Work: Careers in Massage Therapy, by Kayse Gehret

Psychedelics Today: PT231 – Dr. Hassan Tetteh – Human Care Over Health Care

December 26, 2023December 26, 2023

PT472 – Psychedelics and Comedy: Finding the Humor in Personal Growth

In this episode, Joe interviews Mike Finoia: standup comedian, Producer for the hit show, “Impractical Jokers,” and co-host of the Comes a Time Podcast with Dead & Company bassist, Oteil Burbridge. His new Special, “Don’t Let Me Down,” is out now.

He talks about his early days of recreational drug use at jam band shows; a powerful psilocybin experience; passing out before his first ketamine experience and how his commitment has made subsequent experiences much smoother; and how his continued work has allowed him to focus on what’s truly important. He’s seen positive results from talking about his ketamine-assisted psychotherapy experiences on stage, and he’s working on new material that will be much more focused on not just psychedelics, but the therapy, self-work, and growth he’s gone through in his journey.

He also discusses the influence of other comedians; the bioavailability in different ketamine methods; how psychedelics are like a performance-enhancing drug; the importance of having a working, attainable idea of success and not getting caught up in other people’s lives; the benefit of asking people in the audience to raise their hands if they’ve done psychedelics; and the importance of recognizing that psychedelics are absolutely not for everyone – at least if they’re not ready.

Notable Quotes

“It’s interesting because I’m trying to work out the material and figure out what’s funny, but also, some of the stuff I’m saying that’s from my gut is getting laughter and applause, and also, people are coming up afterwards and they’re like, ‘That’s really awesome that you’re talking about this.’ …I have to pay attention to that.”

“A comic, just like anything else really – you know, a podcaster, an entrepreneur, a businessman, whatever – you’re 10 different things. You’re the Director of social media, you’re the Director of advertising and marketing and promotions. You have your art and you have the thing you like to do, but then there’s a hundred other gigs that come with it, and you have to kind of stay on top of all those things. And that can get extremely overwhelming. And if you already have that imposter voice or that critic that’s beating the hell out of you all the time, it’s more ammo or more fuel for their fire. So to me, psychedelics have been– It’s almost like a vacation. It’s like a way to shut that crap off and get to what really matters.”

“When you have the anxieties and the depressions and the imposter syndrome, things like that; sometimes the most psychedelic part of a psychedelic experience is the absence of the bullshit, where it’s just: you get down to being a living being and you’re out of your own way. And that, to me, is the most valuable part.”

Links

Linktree: Mike Finoia

YouTube: Mike Finoia

YouTube: “Don’t Let Me Down” comedy special

December 22, 2023December 23, 2023

PT471 – The Evolution of LSD Psychotherapy, the Power of Breathwork, and Why We Should be Taking Archetypal Astrology More Seriously

In this episode, Joe and Kyle are honored to welcome back Stanislav and Brigitte Grof: Stan being the person who kickstarted their interest in non-ordinary states of consciousness, breathwork, and this podcast; and Brigitte: his other half, co-creator of Grof® Legacy Training, and support system (and often, voice) since his stroke a few years back.

They discuss the recently released Stanislav Grof, LSD Pioneer: From Pharmacology to Archetypes, which Brigitte assembled in honor of Stan’s 90th birthday. It celebrates his life’s work in pioneering research into non-ordinary states of consciousness and transpersonal psychology, and features an extended interview with Stan; testimonials from a number of legends in the psychedelic and psychological fields like Jack Kornfield, Rupert Sheldrake, Richard Tarnas, and Fritjof Capra; and a large photo album of rarely seen pictures, including Stan doing his first experiments with LSD.

And they talk about so much more: The evolution of LSD psychotherapy as Stan realized people’s experiences were coming from the psyche rather than any pharmacology; why he started practicing and teaching breathwork; Stan’s love of treasure hunts; how the perinatal matrices were born and how each corresponds to astrology and religious archetypes; why experience in breathwork can be so beneficial to better psychedelic experiences and facilitation; why integration is equally as important as the experience; and an argument to take archetypal astrology more seriously – that there is often a synchronicity that can’t be denied between these archetypes, events, and experiences.

Notable Quotes

“I was surprised that people were having very, very different experiences. And then when [they] had these substances repeatedly; then again, it was completely different. …So I realized that this had nothing to do with chemistry, this had nothing to do with pharmacology, and that it’s basically about the psyche.” -Stan

“I have to say I’m extremely grateful for the map that he found and he gave to all of us, especially in The Way of the Psychonaut, his life’s work, encyclopedia. All the knowledge is there. And when I go to these places myself and I get into the pits, I can, in the back of my head, remember, ‘Oh, this is what Stan was writing about, so it should be okay. I’m going to get out of this.’ So I think everybody who is doing these journeys should know about Stan’s findings. It’s just so mega helpful.” -Brigitte

“When you hear what people say later or you see the creativity and the power of energy that gets released, then the liberation, it’s so amazing, and so healing and very exciting. And the people sometimes say, ‘How do you live with all that screaming?’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s music in my ears, because so much of the suffering is silent. So when these things come out and they get expressed, they’re leaving the system and people get liberated. So once you understand that, then you’re good.’” -Brigitte

“When we do breathwork, then you add to it breathing, and actually, the intelligence; it brings its own thought. And then of course, bringing in LSD, psychedelics: it’s even further. But the idea is to always work with the psyche. You don’t need any specific tricks.” -Stan

Links

Stangrof.com

Brigittegrof.com

Grof-legacy-training.com

Thewayofthepsychonaut.com

The Way of the Psychonaut: Encyclopedia for Inner Journeys (Volume One), by Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D. (Volume Two)

Stanislav Grof, LSD Pioneer: From Pharmacology to Archetypes, by Brigitte Grof

Psychedelics Today: PT293 – Stanislav & Brigitte Grof – The Evolution of Breathwork and The Psychology of the Future

Psychedelics Today: Renn Butler – Holotropic Breathwork and Archetypal Astrology

Psychedelics Today: PT291 – Rick Tarnas & Sean Kelly, Ph.D. – The Impact of Stanislav Grof, Ego Death, and The Psyche Unbound

The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Stan Grof (#347)

Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, by Richard Tarnas

Changingofthegods.com

Stangrof.com: Holotropic Research and Archetypal Astrology

December 19, 2023December 19, 2023

PT470 – Wounded Healers and the Power of Community in the Veteran Space

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Johanna interviews Angie Leek, LMFT/LPC-S, SEP: Vital instructor, Founder of the Holos Foundation for Transpersonal Healing, and psychotherapist offering KAP through her private practice, Holos Counseling; and Justin LaPree: Vital graduate, decorated Marine, former firefighter, and Founder and President of Heroic Path to Light; a retreat center in Austin, Texas offering psychedelic-assisted therapy and community to veterans, first responders, and Gold/White Star families.

LaPree shares his personal journey of struggling to reintegrate into life after war and the daily traumas he lived as a firefighter leading to an eventual suicide attempt, and the healing he found when he rediscovered the community and purpose he had been longing for. And Leek tells her story of her spiritual emergency and the nonlinear path she found for coming to terms with her repressed trauma, further illustrating a common theme we see in this space of the wounded healer, and the challenge of taking care of yourself first in order to be able to heal others.

They discuss the importance of specialized communities for trauma healing; the need for a support system and the power of sharing experiences with others; how they both work with their clients, the idea of viewing preparation as “pre-integration”; why families and friends also need to be prepared; and how, if you feel like something needs to change or you’re in need of a community, maybe it all begins with you.

They also talk about how much they loved Vital and the impact it’s had on their life paths. The deadline for applications for the 2024 cohort of Vital is tomorrow, December 20, at midnight, so if you’re ready to take the leap, head to vitalpsychedelictraining.com to apply now!

Notable Quotes

“Coming together with small groups of people – …that’s really getting back to the roots. It’s getting back to the basics of civilizations. There’s just so much to be said there about coming together to support each other.” -Justin

“So many people that started doing psychedelics that I was working with either ended up divorced or having big breakups with friendships. It’s like when somebody in the system [changes], the system craves homeostasis. It’s like, ‘No, we don’t want to [change]. We liked how it was before; we don’t like this change.’ And so, either the relationship goes through this transformation that may be rocky, or it breaks. And so that’s a good thing to know going in. It’s actually sort of informed consent. It’s good to know your life might blow up after this in ways that you can’t even imagine.” -Angie

“I really want the entire community to be there for the shared experience of healing. I’s just as healing, if not more healing, for me to be able to facilitate these containers and be there with the individuals. That’s why [I], as the Founder and President, [am] at every retreat, because this is the medicine that I need without even taking the medicine. This is my medicine of community.” -Justin

Links

Angieleek.com

Holosfound.org

Heroicpathtolight.org

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, by Sebastian Junger

November 29, 2023November 29, 2023

From Stress Relief to Better Sleep: How Wearables Can Improve Psychedelic Outcomes

Though psychedelics have been used for thousands of years, modern technology is beginning to teach us more – much more – about their effects on our minds and bodies. We caught up with Apollo Neuro co-founder and neuroscientist and board-certified psychiatrist, Dr. David Rabin, to learn more about how people are using wearables to gather new insights about their trips.

Alexa: For anyone who isn’t already aware, can you give us a high-level overview of what wearable tech is for, who might want to use it, and why?

David: I think of wearable technology as a powerful tool in our health toolkits to help combat the stresses of modern life, just like mindful practices like meditation, breathwork, and exercise. The wearable technology that we’ve developed at Apollo is safe for children and adults alike, so it’s really for anyone who feels they could use a tool to help them feel more safe, in control, and calm and experience better sleep, less stress, and a brighter mood. When we feel more secure, we’re able to fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer, focus more effectively, socialize more freely, and sustain energy throughout your daily tasks

Alexa: Can you explain the synergy between technology and psychedelic treatments in achieving better mental health outcomes?

David: Psychedelic-assisted therapy can be scary or intense for people, especially during their first time. Wearables can serve as a somatic anchor for both the patient and the therapist so they can stay in tune with their bodies. It helps the therapist to remain impartial on any difficulties or challenges that the patient may be experiencing, and it helps the patient to have a smoother journey.

To date, we have never had access to modern tools to help us solve these challenges that exist within and around the psychedelic experience. Today, the Apollo wearable is the only patented technology to reduce uncomfortable experiences associated with medicine-assisted therapy. So far the results from Apollo plus psychedelic-assisted therapy in the real world have been tremendous, including reducing anxiety in advance of medicine administration for easier drop in, reduction in ‘bad’ or uncomfortable trips, and improved ease of integration afterward. Apollo represents the very first example of how wearable technology can empower us to make healing with psychedelic and non-psychedelic techniques easier and more accessible for all.

Alexa: Can you share some examples of scientific research or studies that support the effectiveness of wearable tech and its combination with psychedelic therapies?

David: Currently, the Apollo Neuroscience Clinical Research Team is running an IRB-approved clinical trial with the support of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit sponsoring the most advanced clinical trials of a psychedelic-assisted therapy. The purpose of this study is to understand how the Apollo wearable touch therapy impacts long-term outcomes and improves integration following MDMA-assisted therapy in people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Two large clinical trials evaluating the Apollo wearable in PTSD patients are currently underway and recruiting participants. The first is taking place at the Rocky Mountain VA in Denver, CO and the second, a nationwide trial, is evaluating the Apollo wearable to sustain remission from PTSD following MDMA-assisted therapy, described above. Anyone who has participated in a MAPS trial of MDMA-assisted therapy is eligible to join the MDMA-Apollo study and receive an Apollo wearable for the study.

We’ve seen tremendous results with the Apollo wearable in thousands of traumatized individuals and those who have participated in psychedelic-assisted therapy thus far. Some of the most promising responses were in people receiving ketamine-assisted therapy, particularly those new to psychedelic medicines or who have a lot of anxiety in anticipation of new experiences. We care about the outcomes, and anything we can do to help people stay in remission or feel better for longer periods of time is a big win for our field. We are very much looking forward to seeing how the Apollo wearable will contribute to the integration period following MDMA-assisted therapy.

Alexa: Have there been any clinical trials or user feedback demonstrating the positive impact on mental health?

David: The Apollo Neuro technology has been studied in over 1,700 research subjects in seven complete and 14 ongoing real-world and university clinical trials demonstrating very promising improvements in everything from sleep, pain, and fatigue to mood, anxiety, and focus. Ongoing studies of the Apollo technology include studies of PTSD, ADHD, and TBI, metastatic breast cancer pain, and severe autoimmune disorders.

Alexa: There are tons of wearable devices out there these days, could you share an overview about Apollo and how it’s different?? What specific features or technologies does Apollo employ to support mental health?

David: The Apollo wearable is different from other wearables as most wearables are trackers. They tell you what is going on with your health but leave it up to you to make decisions to improve it. The Apollo, on the other hand, actively improves your health through soothing vibrations that shift you out of “fight or flight” and into “rest and digest,” or a parasympathetic state. You can actively choose how you want to feel on the Apollo Neuro app on your phone – Focus, Social, or Unwind, for example – and the wearable plays vibrations that help to shift you into that state, much like the way certain songs pump you up or chill you out.

Alexa: What mental health benefits can users expect from your wearable technology on its own, and how does your wearable tech complement or enhance the effects of psychedelic therapies?

David: On average, users experience 40% less stress and feelings of anxiety, an 11% increase in heart rate variability (HRV), up to 25% more focus and concentration, and up to 19% more time in deep sleep. In an ongoing real-world sleep study, users get up to 30 more minutes of sleep a night. Less stress and feelings of anxiety is especially helpful in a psychedelic-assisted therapy setting, as well as an increase in HRV, as that is the biggest indicator of how well your body responds to stress.

Alexa: What does the future of this type of therapy look like? Do you collaborate with mental health professionals, therapists, or healthcare providers to integrate your technology into treatment plans?

David: The future of Apollo being used in this type of therapy is that it will be used by clinicians and patients in the office or treatment facility where medicine is administered, beginning in the waiting room or before arrival, to improve short term experiences. It will then be used, as it is today, by patients/clients after their experiences at home to improve clients engagement in treatment and enhance their outcomes from integration practices, which are the most important piece of treatment and often ignored.

Alexa: If a healthcare provider is interested in incorporating wearable tech into their practices, what is the process for going about that?

David: We work with hundreds of healthcare practitioners ranging from holistic health clinicians, centers for ADHD and autism, psychedelic assisted therapy clinics, trauma therapy practitioners, Chiropractors and more. Our goal is always to work hand in hand with them to tailor a program that meets the needs for their clinic and their patients. To learn more about partnership options with Apollo, Practitioners and Clinicians can reach our partnership team directly by filling out this form on our website.

Alexa: How do you see the intersection of technology and mental health evolving in the coming years? Are there plans for further advancements or updates to your technology to enhance its mental health benefits?

David: The future of mental health involves the convergence of technology, psychedelic techniques, and our current practices. As Apollo learns from people over time, it will personalize vibes for each individual user based on their needs at any given time today. This is already happening with Smartvibes for sleep, which is the first wearable technology AI collaboration to give us 30-60 minutes more sleep each night that is concentrated in deep and REM sleep, just by understanding our sleep signature and acting on it predictively to prevent unwanted middle-of-the-night wakeups. This will only get better over time!

Interested in trying the Apollo Neuro, or gifting it to a friend or loved one? Purchase through this link and save $50.

November 28, 2023November 28, 2023

PT464 – Bodywork, Somatic Literacy, and Understanding Trauma: The Mind and Body Connection

In this episode, Kyle interviews Bessel van der Kolk, MD: pioneer clinician, researcher, and educator on traumatic stress; Founder of the Trauma Research Foundation; Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School; Principal Investigator of the Boston site of MAPS’ MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study; and author of the #1 New York Times Science best seller, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Treatment of Trauma.

As of this recording, van der Kolk was publishing his last paper and closing down his laboratory, so he looks back on his past: being part of the group who put together the first PTSD diagnosis in the 80s; the early days of psychedelic research and how he discouraged Rick Doblin and Michael Mithoefer from pursuing MDMA research; how the DSM has no scientific validity and was never meant for the diagnosing it’s being used for; how science wasn’t seeing the whole picture and pushing us mindlessly from medication to medication; and how trauma research has evolved over the years as society learned more about how the mind actually works.

He discusses the struggle to validate “softer” sciences; the impracticality and price of the MAPS protocol and the need for more group and sitter/experiencer frameworks; the efficacy of psychodrama and how that plays out in group sessions; his interest in using the Rorschach test more; how rolfing helped him; the problem with diagnosis and people becoming their illnesses; bodywork, somatic literacy, and how disconnected most people are from their bodies; and how, in all the healing frameworks he’s explored, he has never seen anything work as profoundly as psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Notable Quotes

“I have quite a few friends who are sort of major scientists. And I asked my friends, ‘So, did you take acid also in college?’ All my friends said, ‘Yes, I did.’ And I say, ‘So, how do you think it affected you?’ And my friends generally say, ‘Well, I think it really accounts from my having become a good scientist, because I got to appreciate that the reality that I hold inside of myself is just a small fragment of the overall reality that is.’”

“It was really very gratifying for me to be part of a psychedelic team the past 10 years or so, where we got to see the astounding transformations that people go through on psychedelics – more than anything else that I’ve seen in my career, and I’ve studied many different methods. I’ve studied other things that also turned out to be quite helpful like EMDR and Internal Family Systems therapy and theater and yoga, but the transformations on psychedelics were really astonishing and made me really hopeful that we may enter a much more complex era of thinking about mental functioning.”

“It’s delicate, but we keep running away from it. But the reality is that if you really feel upset, getting a hug from somebody who loves you makes all the difference in the world, of course. That’s still our primary way in which we feel calm. And touch by other people may also scare the shit out of you and send you into a tailspin. So doing that right is very delicate and fraught with danger, but that doesn’t mean we can just keep running away from it.”

Links

Besselvanderkolk.com

Traumaresearchfoundation.org

Neurosciencenews.com: Why Our Brains Prefer Symbols to Words

Wikipedia.org: Rolfing

Mangu.tv: From Shock To Awe: A journey of hope and transformation

Apollo Neuro: Click here to get $50 off an Apollo wearable!

November 24, 2023November 28, 2023

PT463 – Bringing Intention, Ceremony, and Inner Healing Intelligence to Modern Medicine

In this episode, Joe interviews Dana Lerman, MD: a decade-long infectious disease consultant who has since been trained in psychedelic-assisted therapy, ecotherapy, and Internal Family Systems, and is the Co-Founder of Skylight Psychedelics, where she prescribes IM ketamine and trains therapists who work with it.

Lerman tells her story: how working with kids with cancer made her want to learn medicine, what it was like working as an infectious disease expert during COVID, and how fascinating it has been to start with modern medicine and then fully embrace the traditional frameworks of ayahuasca ceremonies. She has realized that part of her role is to bring that intention, ceremony, and inner healing intelligence to modern medicine – that that will greatly benefit patients as well as clinicians who naturally want to be healers but are burnt out by the bureaucracy and distractions of the faulty container they find themselves in. Skylight Psychedelics is working on opening a clinical research division, researching psychedelics for Long COVID, and bringing in-person psychedelic peer support services to emergency rooms.

She also discusses intergenerational trauma and how psychedelics have affected her parenting; the impossibility of informed consent in psychedelics and why there should be disclaimers as well as instructions; accessibility, the need for insurance to cover psychedelic-assisted therapy, and why the price of these expensive treatments actually makes sense; why we should be sharing stories of mistakes and things going wrong during ceremonies; and why one of the biggest things we can do to further the cause is to educate our children and parents about psychedelics.

Notable Quotes

“What’s come to me recently in ayahuasca ceremony is that part of my role in this space is really to bring intention and to bring ceremony and the inner healing intelligence and that concept to the modern medicine space. I mean, there’s so many places for improvement in modern medicine, like even: We have a few minutes for a timeout so you can check to make sure that’s the right patient [and] it’s the right limb you’re going to amputate, but we don’t have a moment to talk about who this person is and the intention of this surgery and what we want for this person. We just have this disconnect, and this disconnect; obviously, it’s not just in medicine. It’s in everywhere. It’s our food. It’s our community. All systems.”

“I have three small children. A lot of why I went to ayahuasca was because I knew [beside wanting] to heal myself of all the stuff that I’ve been carrying around, I wanted to shift my parenting and to be a better parent, and I felt that if I carried my anxiety, my control, all the stuff: It just keeps getting passed down because the kids are just learning from us. But if you can address that, if you can address where does that come from, what is the work that has to be done around it, and do that work, your kids see it. My daughter: When I came home from ayahuasca (she was probably seven); she looked to me and she said, ‘Why didn’t you go there sooner?’”

“Anytime people are using these medicines, I think: There’s a huge disclaimer that should be coming with these medicines, like: ‘Your life will be changed forever. You will never look at anything the same way again, and there’s a possibility that you enter into a space where you are experiencing the vastness of the universe, and that may be very overwhelming for you when the journey is over. You need someone to talk about it with.’ The whole concept of integration is so important.”

Links

Skylightpsychedelics.com

Enthea.com

Vera.org: John Ehrlichman’s quote about the war on drugs

A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life, by Ayelet Waldman

Uthscsa.edu: Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, MD

Apollo Neuro: Click here to get $50 off an Apollo wearable!

reMind: Get 20% off tickets here using code REMPT20

November 17, 2023December 19, 2023

PT461 – Holding Space, Hypnotherapy and Psychedelics, and the Importance of Courage

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David speaks with two current Vital students: Certified Depth Hypnosis Practitioner and Founder and Executive Director of Zoo Labs, Vinitha Watson, CHT; and artist and outdoorsman with decades of experience in bodywork, structural integration, and Vipassana meditation: Judson Frost.

They talk about their personal paths: Watson’s work educating musicians about the music business and their value with Zoo Labs and Frost’s work as an artist; as well as how their experience as parents has grounded them, and how they found Vital. They discuss the importance of integration, having a process, and recognizing how long that can take; being adequately prepared and learning mindfulness skills ahead of a journey; and bringing courage to the space (and as the space-holder, encouragement). They talk about how they hold space, and how one needs to view integration from a spiritually-open perspective to enable people to find their own meanings behind what they experienced.

They discuss how Watson uses a combination of hypnotherapy, transpersonal psychology, and buddhism to create a slowed down mystical experience; how hypnotherapy can benefit a psychedelic experience; bodywork and how we can’t view the mind and body separately; and more. And since they’re nearing the end of their Vital experience, they discuss what they’ve gotten out of it, and reflect on something they didn’t expect: a collective feeling of regenerative healing inside their Vital community.

Notable Quotes

“There is a lot of harm that can be done when there’s no space for integration. As much as we may feel that it’s alleviating our pain, there has to be space in between to really look at the material, to look at the symbols of our psyches, and to really be able to get this intimate understanding of the symbols of our psyches and what they’re telling us. And so, I think it’s such a special place to go into integration after a psychedelic journey, and to really have a process and someone holding that space for you.” -Vinitha

“The first thing I bring to a space (and I encourage other people to bring to the space) is courage, and that bravery and that ability to kind of face the unknown, and face our fears and still move forward into them. I feel [that] to encourage someone is really important; like support and encourage them to take a step towards something they feel uncomfortable with. …We don’t usually have that support to really face that and to learn from it.” -Judson

“Thinking about culture and how a lot of it is in this disembodied state, and what the result is is disease, is pain, is sorrow. I think that’s why psychedelics and altered states are just so important, because it just gives you a state to come back to yourself, and a doorway in.” -Vinitha

Links

November 10, 2023November 21, 2023

PT459 – Internal Family Systems Combined with Ketamine and Holotropic Breathwork

In this episode, Kyle interviews Ted Riskin, LCSW: psychotherapist running group KAP sessions and certified in Core Energetics, Internal Family Systems, and Holotropic Breathwork, which he has taught in various forms for 26 years.

He discusses group ketamine-assisted psychotherapy: how he runs sessions, why being welcomed and loved in a group seems to be a bigger factor than the psychedelic, how he came to combine IFS with ketamine or breathwork, and why exploring the parts work of IFS seems to work so well with non-ordinary states of consciousness. And he talks about two complications we often don’t think about with Group KAP: the challenge of getting our different parts to all truly consent to an experience (and how do you get them to?), and how very safe spaces can inspire oversharing, and sadly, subsequent shame.

He discusses knowing when to use a non-directive approach vs. intervening; how people often learn more about themselves as a sitter; using core energetics before experiences to move energy we’re often afraid to work with; the importance of embracing anger (when necessary); memory reconsolidation and bringing exiles from the past into the present; the concept of double bookkeeping; and finding the magic in realizing that sometimes, just being there (“being a useless person” as he says) is all that’s needed.

Notable Quotes

“I think people underestimate the power of breathwork. These days, a lot more, people are coming to do breathwork for the first time and they have done psychedelics. In the past, that was more the minority, now it’s probably the majority. And I’ll tell them, ‘The difference is, you’re used to riding a motorcycle, and now this is a bicycle. You’ve got to pedal this one.’ And yet they’re shocked sometimes how deep just the breathing takes them.”

“We’re realizing that there’s so many things happening that it’s impossible to tease it apart. We don’t know how much the ketamine increases self-leadership, we don’t know if it’s the IFS work that people are doing, but I suspect it’s a combination – that the ketamine seems to really lubricate the IFS work and invites protectors to relax so that people can do deeper, and the rearrangement of the techniques of IFS happens much more deeply.”

“We also think the group experience is as powerful as anything else that’s happening, especially when people are anxious or depressed. Often, they have assumptions about how they will be welcomed by other people, and to be in a loving group where people are vulnerable and find out, ‘I can say anything. I can talk about my shame and fears and people are just with me and accepting’: I sometimes wonder if that’s doing more than the medicine, even.”

Links

Tedriskin.com

Groupkap.com

IFSessentials.com

YouTube: Overview of our Group Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy program

November 3, 2023November 20, 2023

PT457 – Rites of Passage, Psychedelic History, and Rediscovering Our Hearts

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews Erika Dyck: Vital instructor, historian, professor, author, and editor of the new book, Expanding Mindscapes: A Global History of Psychedelics; and Jono Remington-Hobbs: graduate of the first cohort of Vital, coach, facilitator, and now, Co-Founder of Kaizn, an experiential wellness company with a strong focus on community, creating a feeling of safety, and modern rites of passage.

They talk a lot about rites of passage and how they create liminal spaces to reflect on the deeper questions we need to ponder but our culture doesn’t allow time for. They talk about how categorization took us away from tradition; how so much of what we get out of these experiences isn’t related to psychedelics at all; why we struggle with connection in the digital age; the power of community as medicine and recognizing a kinship in others; and why we need to integrate our heads and hearts and live more heart-led lives.

They also dive into why cultures have always sought out non-ordinary states of consciousness; how our current state of needing to make sense of a chaotic world is similar to the mindstate of the 60s; psychedelics’ success in palliative care; coaching and why it should be attached to therapy; the creation of the word “psychedelic”; flow states and discovering the intrinsic calling we all have; and the Vital question that starts the podcast out: Are psychedelics the future, or will psychedelics just bring about a different way to think about the future?

Reminder that we’re accepting applications for Vital 2024 now until December 21!

Notable Quotes

“I keep sort of wrestling with this question about whether the future of psychedelics is really about psychedelics or whether psychedelics are a tool for unlocking a different kind of future. …And to me, that’s really an exciting possibility for what this psychedelic renaissance holds: that it’s an opportunity to really take stock of what we want to revive about the past, whether it is psychedelic or not. It might be something more sacred, it might be a kind of humanity or a kind of way of thinking, that focusing on psychedelics allows us to think differently about how we want to organize those thoughts, those actions. And I think it’s a really exciting opportunity to invest in this kind of renaissance moment, to really blend these historical impulses with an opportunity to think about a different future.” -Erika

“The role of community with psychedelics: I think that we can occasionally get a little bit lost that it’s the psychedelics, the medicine. And the more I’m seeing is that the medicine is community and psychedelics are the implementation tool of that medicine.” -Jono

“Tolerance is a word that comes to mind as you were talking. I think that one of my hopes is that (and it doesn’t have to be everybody taking psychedelics) it can be just tolerance towards difference. I think psychedelics can help us to come into a place where we can appreciate that diversity is a strength, that difference is a strength, that sameness isn’t necessarily the strength or the goal that we should be striving towards.” -Erika

“[Psychedelics] are an offsetting of an eternal balance between these two hemispheres. And we’ve gone so far one way with this worldview where we are also gamified by what we do. The amount of information that I know because an algorithm wants me to know; it terrifies me when I actually think about it, but on the other side, the amount of wisdom …that’s available from us, from these experiences that we’re having that help guide us back to this other way of being gives me radical hope – radical, radical hope that things haven’t gone too far. It’s just the pendulum has swung very far one way, and I think psychedelics are some of the momentum to take us back the other way and back to ourselves, each other, and Mother Nature.” -Jono

Links

Expanding Mindscapes: A Global History of Psychedelics, edited by Erika Dyck and Chris Elcock

Psychedelics: A Visual Odyssey, by Erika Dyck

Audible lecture series: The History of Psychedelics, by: Erika Dyck

Kaizn.co

YouTube: Introducing Kaizn

YouTube: Kaizn – Deep Nature Reset

Springer.com: Psilocybin in Palliative Care: An Update

Wikipedia.org: Teleology

Psychedelic Experience: Revealing the Mind, by Aidan Lyon

Apollo Neuro: Click here to get $50 off an Apollo wearable!

October 29, 2023March 6, 2024

Real Harm Reduction Requires Redistribution of Wealth

Bogdan* is a 43-year-old asylee who lives in New York City. He has a Master’s degree from the University of Sussex. He used to live in student accommodation on the King’s Road near my old house in Brighton on the south coast of the UK, but he is currently homeless and living in what he calls a “ghetto.”

A series of highly traumatic ayahuasca trips with a famous ‘shaman’ led Bogdan to become seriously ill. It wasn’t helped by later trips with LSD and san pedro, either. Blighted by a debilitating mixture of chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and brain fog, he says he “feel[s] like a 100-year-old Alzheimer’s patient.” Bogdan suggests that successive traumas have left his central nervous system “fried.” He has no medical insurance, and so cannot pursue the Somatic Experiencing therapy people have encouraged him to try.

Bogdan did five sessions with ICEERS’ free integration service, but he doesn’t think “just talking with someone on Zoom will help” him. A cash handout from the local Eastern European community was helpful, yet it only lasted so long. One wonders how much processing his ‘stored trauma’ would alleviate living in a homeless shelter.

Or take Kristen*, a 39-year-old who participated in a Canadian clinical trial for psilocybin. In between each dose of psilocybin, Kristen developed debilitating spikes in anxiety that eventually manifested as a visual complaint, which in turn flowered into full-blown HPPD after two ‘therapeutic’ trips once the trial ended. What was driving Kristen spikes in anxiety? It wasn’t only the likely dysregulating effects of psilocybin’s serotonin dump. It was also significant financial stress. That didn’t just go away.

For those with severe HPPD, the visual presentation is so intense as to impair one’s ability to work. Reliance on scant welfare and disability benefits is not unheard of; I remember a phone call with one long standing HPPDer who was on the continual brink of homelessness for the destabilizing and disabling effects of his condition.

Possibly as many as 60% of homeless people have schizophrenia, and over half may have serious mental health problems. If we take seriously how dangerous psychedelics can be, these will be the outcomes. There will be many more people like Bogdan, Kristen, or those whose lives are destroyed by HPPD, increased anxiety, depression, or brain fog brought on from a challenging experience with no support, or simply the financial and life stress that continue on after even the greatest experience. Suicide is a tragic and occasional fact one cannot escape in HPPD communities – something that has been openly acknowledged by the late, great Roland Griffiths.

So what is the answer? As is hopefully becoming clear, ‘harm reduction’ is not just a matter of appropriate drug testing or set and setting and integration. It is a matter of having enough money to muffle a mental health crisis’ worst outcomes – to pay for help, stay housed, and stay healthy amid the stress and chaos that can follow a trip. Simply put, if we want to help those most affected by the challenges of psychedelic exploration, there may be a case for direct monetary transfers: giving people money to safeguard their material container.

A Cost of Living Crisis

There is a curious gap, a kind of Uncanny Valley, between our dreams of healing the ‘Mental Health Crisis’ with psychedelic mystical trips, while an arguably more primary Cost of Living Crisis is tearing apart people’s wallets. The association between anxiety, depression, addiction, and poverty is well known, and requires no elucidation. Even those who are not on the streets or actively facing homelessness in the future need money.

Have you looked at how expensive therapy is lately? $75-$150 a session is not viable for someone on a low income, so what could be a necessity becomes necessarily optional. It’s the same for gym memberships, exercise equipment, or good food and nutritional check-ups: all vital ingredients for good mental health and recovering from a psychedelic shockwave. The costs of therapy especially can add up while one shops around to find a suitable practitioner, or at least one who isn’t a weirdo – a genuine concern in psychedelic circles.

After an extremely destabilising LSD experience in September 2021 – whose sequelae included a deep depression, cannabis dependency, and suicidal ideation – I first tried a ‘psychedelic integration’ specialist based in Brighton. He wasn’t good. A couple of friends and I were wondering whether to do mescaline together, and I thought that might be a terrible idea. My ‘therapist’ urged me to wonder whether the second thoughts were perhaps the internalized voice of the “free market.” I burned through about £600 with this guy. I then burned through another £350 on another, thankfully more helpful therapist who gave me a discounted rate. It still amounted to £50 a session, or $60 USD.

Most people cannot afford to do this. And if they cannot afford to seek help while suicidal, they may die. We ought to consider the history lessons of psychiatric research. The ‘Decade of the Brain’ set in motion by President Bush in 1989 envisioned a future of revolutionary psychiatric treatments furnished by data from brain imaging and genetic research. This has not happened. Psychiatric outcomes have deteriorated. SSRI medications are of uncertain value relative to placebo and involve a staggering list of side-effects. Neurobiological markers have so far proved too wide and confounded to guide treatments – not least when our brains must exist in a world that’s crumbling.

“[W]hile we studied the risk factors for suicide, the death rate had climbed 33 percent. While we identified the neuroanatomy of addiction, overdose deaths had increased threefold,” Dr. Thomas Insel, the former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, reflected in his 2021 book, Healing. “While we mapped the genes for schizophrenia, people with this disease were still chronically unemployed and dying twenty years early.”

In many ways, we already know what works: people need social support, housing, good therapeutic rapport, and food on the table. What will spell the difference for many people is the possession of resources that will enable them to reach for such low hanging fruit.

What Would a Harm Reduction Fund Look Like?

It is already well-known that the psychedelic movement is overwhelmingly middle- and upper-middle class and white, and has a particular representation among the aristocracy. The psychedelic movement is mainstreaming, though, and more people of color and low income are joining ranks of users. This means more people are at unnecessary risk, for lack of social and economic resources, of the worst outcomes of psychedelic drugs.

The psychedelic movement needs to own this risk, because the public sector and existing infrastructure probably won’t. As discussed above, welfare support is measly and the most vulnerable will be without medical insurance – if such packages would even cover the debilitations of drugs illegal in many parts of the United States. The Zendo Project, DanceSafe, and Fireside Project are laudable, but their applications for those struggling after their trips are limited.

It is often accepted that some proportion – usually dismissed as a merely ‘rare’ occurrence – of people will be greatly damaged by psychedelic drugs, and end up homeless, dead, or struggling with severe mental illness. What if we stopped accepting these as inevitable?

If we are really interested in harm reduction, one option may be a fund for those harmed by the effects of psychedelic drugs.

Suppose there was a fund of $500,000 – similar to the resources required in a study – which was focused on those facing suicide, homelessness, or mental health crisis after a trip. The details can be discussed and fleshed out by anyone who wants to take my proposal seriously, but it would simply provide bursaries, cash transfers, and much needed subsidies to people struggling in the wake of psychedelic journeys to seek help. Perhaps the effects of the help they seek can be recorded to collect data. Perhaps it could fund legal action against therapists and ‘Shamans’ that leave their clients in tatters, much as Bogdan is facing now. Such projects would likely mean saving or seriously changing dozens of lives. I welcome feedback on my loose suggestion.

Of course, there would be a risk of people ‘gaming’ the system, but I imagine its wastage would be comparable to a study, which has large opportunity costs in terms of the direct help such a fund could provide. Search costs would be invested to ensure the person is who they say they are: interviews, conversations with family members and friends, possible documentation. Different priorities would be made. Do we invest 80% of our budget for search costs on that 20% at the greatest risk of peril? Or ought we to prioritize creating free support in other ways, like expanding free therapies along the lines of ICEERS? Alternatively, as I suggest in a new article for Ecstatic Integration, immediate support could occur through peer support groups organized through Reddit, whose potential is, in many ways, untapped.

Certain challenges would no doubt arise through using private money, as well as exporting what should likely be a government task, such as through a Universal Basic Income – there’s a risk that some measure (number of people helped vs. number of dollars invested) would become a core indicator rather than real value provided. There’s likewise a risk that the kinds of interventions and support deemed worth subsidizing will fit with donors’ own biases, or that the pool of therapists deemed acceptable will be narrow and normative.

I would not be surprised if the data were relatively unsurprising. Income support and housing for those most debilitated would be a clear game changer. Free CBT, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, membership to a local gym that has a sauna and a pool, or full blood work to scan people’s nutritional deficiencies and inform a better diet would all likely help. These are relatively inexpensive interventions, but the marginal gains are probably enormous, and could be, at the very least, comparable to the hundreds of thousands raised to fund studies – which will not necessarily translate into interventions and treatments, nor with any particular immediacy.

The Psychedelic Movement and Owning the Risk

One may wonder if a post-psychedelic fund is arbitrary. All mental health problems, including but not limited to psychedelics, vary with poverty and access to resources. Why have a post-psychedelic fund and not one concerned with mental health in general? How can we ever separate the two? I suppose similar questions can be raised about the psychedelic sector on the positive end as well. Why the interest in psychedelics, when similar experiences can be engendered by other means like meditation – including with similar risks? To focus on post-psychedelic risk is likewise only repeating the same distinction already explicit in psychedelic risk management: that psychedelic trips can meaningfully create adverse outcomes even while connected to broader life concerns.

Even if this proposal doesn’t make sense to you, something needs to be done to address post-psychedelic harm. I believe we know more than enough to do something right away – and something specifically targeted towards those worst affected, for whom every dollar of subsidy and support reaps massive gains in social benefit – and saves lives.

These are new ideas, but let’s start the dialogue.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of sources profiled in this writing.

October 20, 2023October 30, 2023

PT453 – Neuroplasticity, Individualized Integration, and Psychedelic Medicine – Israel 2024

In this episode, David interviews psychiatrist, main researcher behind the first US Phase II trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, and Senior Medical Director at MAPS Public Benefit Corporation: Dr. Michael Mithoefer; and Research Group Lead at the University of Zurich, and Principal Clinical Biomarker Lead at Boehringer Ingelheim, Katrin Preller, Ph.D.

Mithoefer, Preller (and David) are speakers at Psychedelic Medicine – Israel, which will now take place July 28 – 31, 2024, in Tel Aviv. They discuss the conference and their current research: Preller’s neuroimaging and work with psilocybin for alcohol use disorder, and Mithoefer (likely) being extremely close to seeing the FDA approve MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. He talks about how the therapeutic protocols for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy were created, what it’s like to be so close to legalization, and how the next challenges will be accessibility and not minimizing therapy in favor of faster turnover.

They discuss neuroplasticity and whether or not it actually translates into something in humans; the concept of performing brain scans before a psychedelic experience to look for trauma biomarkers (and how this could actually result in savings over time); the excitement of seeing clinical work and neuroscience progressing in parallel; why integration frameworks need to be individualized; and the importance of embracing different therapeutic approaches.

Notable Quotes

“We need to find ways to make it increase the cost effectiveness or the efficiency without losing the human connection and the inclusion of robust therapy in the process. So it’s a big challenge. But in the research, we’ve done everything we could think of to increase the chances of safety and success and efficacy. So we couldn’t individualize. So I think part of it will be figuring out: some people may need even more support than they had in the research, but some people may be able to do it in a more streamlined way, and also groups and things like that. So I think we need to be really creative about how to do it and also resist the pressures of minimizing the therapy and the human connection in favor of speed.” -Michael

“We’ve already shown in healthy participants that basically the way your brain is working without any substances on board is associated with the way your brain reacts to a psychedelic. And we’ve seen that across different brain metrics. That doesn’t tell us anything about clinical efficacy quite yet, but it tells us that there is something in your usual daily waking state that may have to do with how you react to a psychedelic. Now, the next step would then, of course be: well, can we close the gap on how you react to the psychedelic, whether that has something to do with whether or not you actually get better after psychedelic or MDMA-assisted therapy? So there are many gaps for sure at this point, but I think that doing this research, we may eventually be able to close these gaps and eventually maybe have an idea of who may benefit, who may not benefit, [or] whether MDMA is the correct or the most beneficial treatment versus psilocybin.” -Katrin

“One of the dangers I see if these drugs are approved is thinking you need more drug, you need higher doses, you need it more often or whatever, instead of: You need more integration.” -Michael

Links

Psychmedisrael.com

Pharmaco-Neuroimaging and Cognitive-Emotional Processing (PD Dr. K. Preller)

Novasupport.org

LSD Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Psychedelic Medicine, by Stanislav Grof

Crisis Support – Music Festival Victims in Israel- GoFundMe organized by Daniel McQueen and Kate Burleson

October 10, 2023October 31, 2023

PT449 – “Fantastic Fungi” and “Gratitude Revealed”: How Psychedelics Inspired a Cinematic Exploration of the Invisible

In this episode, Joe interviews Louie Schwartzberg: renowned filmmaker known for the award-winning documentary, “Fantastic Fungi”; and now, director of the new film, “Gratitude Revealed.”

He talks about his path to photography and filmmaking and how psychedelics were a huge inspiration – how his techniques of slowing down, speeding up, and zooming in were ways to capture the invisible aspects of reality – that which is “too slow, too fast, too small, and too vast for the human eye,” but is always there. He discusses the premiere of “Fantastic Fungi” and the waves it spread through the psychedelic space; The Louie Channel, his new streaming channel that will feature all his work in 4k and the work of other curated artists and friends; and the clinical trial he’s involved in to see if participants have better results in the treatment of their alcohol use disorder by watching his imagery set to music on an 80-inch screen while on psilocybin – research that hopefully leads to the concept of being able to prescribe images and music to people based on specific criteria.

He discusses his new film, “Gratitude Revealed,” which explores the power of gratitude: making it a daily practice (and especially a post-psychedelic integration practice), how resilience is one of the best benefits from practicing gratitude, and how easy it is to stop a rumination spiral by simply finding something to be grateful for. He also talks about the blessing of being a photographer and always thinking of beauty; how psychedelics make people more environmentally conscious; tripping with parents; how a shared love of nature could be the bridge between opposing sides; and how the best way to deal with the climate crisis is to start in your own yard.

Notable Quotes

“We’re talking about psychedelics on your podcast, but the truth is, I think the imagery I want to create for your community, this community, is exactly the same as I would do for a four-year-old or a five-year-old. How beautiful is that? It’s about wonder and awe. It’s about being open-minded.”

“The politicians, they understand how to press that fear button. They go right to the cultural differences and press the abortion button or the gun thing or whatever it might be, and all the lies and all that. I don’t want to even spend another second talking about that, other than [to say] we have to be conscious that pressing the fear button is easy to do because that’s survival, and you get an immediate reaction. The films I’m trying to make and what we’re discussing here is making people laugh, making people cry, making people fall in love. That takes a little more talent than pointing a gun at you. …Beauty and love and gratitude is the emotional energy we can employ to overcome fear.”

“It’s a great tool. It’s not like we have to practice meditation, become a Yogi for like ten years or 20 years of practice. It’s something you can do immediately. It’s not like a meditation thing that you have to become an expert in. It’s like, how easy is it just to ask yourself in the moment: what can I be grateful for? Pretty easy.”

Links

Gratituderevealed.com

Gratitude Revealed: Film Screening and Q&A with Director Louie Schwartzberg

Movingart.com

The Louie Channel

Fantasticfungi.com

Ted.com: Louie Schwartzberg

Pacificneuroscienceinstitute.org: Pacific Neuroscience Institute Launches New Psychedelic-Assisted Clinical Trial

Swimming in the Sacred: Wisdom from the Psychedelic Underground, by Rachel Harris, Ph.D.

Purplemountainsfilm.com

Wonderella.com

Themartiancircus.com

Mybrilliantblends.com (Use code PT10 for 10% off)

Remindmedia.com (use code REMPSYCTODAY for 10% off your registration)

September 12, 2023September 12, 2023

PT441 – The American Psychedelic Practitioners Association and the Mission to Integrate Psychedelics into U.S. Healthcare

In this episode, Kyle interviews General Stephen Xenakis, MD: an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist who retired from the U.S. Army in 1998 at the rank of Brigadier General and began a career starting up medical technology companies and clinical practice to support human rights and new methodologies of healthcare.

In June, he became the new Executive Director of the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association (APPA), whose mission is to bring practitioners together as a community; develop the best training programs and practices; shift to a more patient-centered, integrated model of care; eventually accredit practitioners to practice with legal substances; and overall, help to make these new modalities more mainstream.

He discusses their path to success, which began with their publishing of the first professional practice guidelines for psychedelic-assisted therapy practitioners, and will continue on with ethical guidelines and clinical practice guidelines in the future. And he talks about the idea of a safety net for people who have adverse effects from psychedelic journeys; what clinicians need to know about psychedelics; concerns over accessibility; and the importance of identifying the correct treatments for the correct patients, as each person’s path to healing will likely be drastically different.

Notable Quotes

“We live in a world of disease-centered treatments, and we want to shift to a patient-centered model. We want to know that we’re not just treating your symptoms, we’re not just treating the problems that you have; that what you’re getting out of this is, in fact, helping you live the life that you want to live. What do those outcomes look like? How do we know [what] they are? How do we collaborate with you? It’s a partnership, it’s a rapport. It’s an alliance between you and me so that you’re getting what you feel is most important and we’re doing our job in providing it. That’s a big shift in medicine.”

Links

Appa-us.org

Appa-us.org: Professional Practice Guidelines for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Practitioners

Globenewswire.com: American Psychedelic Practitioners Association Announces Appointment of Brigadier General (Ret.) Stephen N. Xenakis, MD as new Executive Director

Globenewswire.com: American Psychedelic Practitioners Association and BrainFutures Publish First Professional Practice Guidelines for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

Globenewswire.com: American Psychedelic Practitioners Association Retains The Daschle Group as Government Affairs Counsel

Brilliant Blends (Use code PT10 for 10% off)

September 5, 2023September 12, 2023

PT438 – The Psychedelic Medicine Association and Managing Medical Risk in Patients Seeking Psilocybin Therapy

In this episode, David interviews the President of the Psychedelic Medicine Association, host of the Psychedelic Medicine Podcast, and Psychedelics Today advisory board member and Vital contributor: Lynn Marie Morski, MD, JD.

She shares her journey with psychedelics and how they enabled her to leave a toxic job and pursue her passion for advocacy with vitality, and how important it is to focus your energy where it’s best used. She talks about where we find ourselves in the psychedelic space based on Psychedelic Science 2023, as well as her recent TV appearances and the responsibility of preaching to the non-choir. And she discusses the idea of perfectionism in today’s age; the need for psychedelic people to be involved in non-psychedelic conferences; the complications behind requiring physicians to experience psychedelics; the concept of it being malpractice for a physician to not mention psychedelic options; and the Psychedelic Medicine Association’s upcoming virtual conference: Sana Symposium 2023, which happens October 26-27.

Morski talks a lot about the importance of educating healthcare professionals about psychedelics, debunking myths, and the need for standards in training therapists and primary care providers. She highlights how there is still no nationally-recognized certification for even ketamine providers, so how can people make informed decisions on who to trust? The Psychedelic Medicine Association is taking steps to improve this paradigm, offering a new course called “Managing Medical Risk in Patients Seeking Psilocybin Therapy,” which will work to help clinicians make risk assessments for patients seeking psilocybin therapy – something that is not really being done today.

Notable Quotes

“It was just so clear that this little microdose was showing me basically what my soul was doing all the time: like, your soul is just constantly crying about this terrible toxic job that you feel you can’t leave, etc. And wow, that turned things around for me, where I was like, ‘I need to get out.’ …I was giving all these talks to doctors about if your mental health is suffering, quit that doctor job, while the whole time, my mental health was suffering and I was still in that same job. I was not taking my own advice. And this was kind of like a little psychedelic gift saying like, ‘Hey, take your own advice, do whatever you need to do, get out.’”

“Right now, the big question is: is it malpractice for me to mention psychedelics to my patients? And I envision a future where it’s malpractice not to, where you are keeping that information. Like, imagine somebody comes to you as a psychiatrist and you’re depressed and they don’t mention antidepressants? …With these PTSD findings, Phase III proving what they have: imagine in ten years, somebody goes to their psychiatrist with severe PTSD, nothing else has worked, and that psychiatrist still doesn’t recommend MDMA (assuming that it is FDA approved), that’s going to have to be malpractice. That’s the future that I envision.”

Links

Psychedelicmedicineassociation.org

Managing Medical Risk in Patients Seeking Psilocybin Therapy

Dr. Lynn Marie Morski on Morning in America (News Nation)

Dr. Lynn Marie Morski on NewsNation

Quitting By Design, by Lynn Marie Morski, MD, Esq.

Sanasymposium.com

Psychedelic Medicine Podcast

Psychedelic Medicine Podcast: Psychedelics for Substance Use Disorder with Kevin Franciotti, MA

Psychedelics Today: PT216 – Dr. Lynn Marie Morski – The Psychedelic Medicine Association

September 1, 2023September 1, 2023

PT437 – Exploring Psychedelic Therapies: Iboga, CBD, and Cannabis Paired With Ketamine

In this episode, Alexa interviews Chase Hudson: Founder of HempLucid, a premium CBD wellness brand.

Hudson discusses his journey from being a firefighter to becoming involved in the cannabis and hemp industry, the origins of HempLucid, the restrictions they faced, and their current genetics and flagship water soluble tincture. He talks about the benefits of CBD and cannabis used in conjunction with psychedelic therapy – especially ketamine-assisted therapy, which he gives to his employees as a benefit. And he talks about Lamar Odom and the documentary he executive produced, “Lamar Odom Reborn,” which chronicles how Odom came back from rock bottom through high dose CBD, iboga, and ketamine therapy.

He also discusses the idea of cannabis as a gateway drug to healing; the need for insurance to cover psychedelic therapy; the changing landscape of Utah from religious ideology to psychedelics; ketamine as the bridge between old and new models of healthcare, and more. And they talk about their own journeys a lot, with Hudson telling the story of his powerful and life-changing ibogaine treatment, and Alexa sharing stories from her tragic car accident and recovery, as well as the ketamine sessions she recently began. The conversation ultimately becomes one about the need for education and conversation to help us all climb out from decades of drug war propaganda.

Notable Quotes

“We do a lot with kids with seizures. I also do a lot of work with children with autism, and we’ve seen great results over the years. We’ve been in business seven years, so we’ve been fortunate to just see the impact and the change that happens within people personally, but then also within their family. And it’s been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”

“There’s this whole frontier that is going to open up here. I mean, it’s opening now, but it’s going to be accelerated as this old guard starts to collapse. We’re living in a time where Babylon is really falling. These pillars of what reality has been structured on are failing because it’s been built on a bed of lies. Our government, our financial system, our healthcare system, our media: these structures of the matrix, essentially, are failing. And as it fails, there has to be something to kind of transition people into the new world, and that new world is everything that we’ve discussed and are doing. And it’s exciting to see, but as Terence McKenna says: we’re in the birth canal for sure, and there’s going to be blood, it’s going to be hard. But we’ll make it out, and humanity will turn into something beautiful on the other side of this.”

Links

Hemplucid.com

YouTube: “Lamar Odom Reborn”

Numinus.com

Taramind.com

Thankyoulife.org

August 29, 2023August 29, 2023

PT436 – The Power of Sound: The Magic in Live Performances, Imperfections, and Music Curated Specifically for Journeys

In this episode, David interviews East Forest: Portland, OR-based producer, podcaster, ceremony guide, and musician, specializing in ambient, electronic, contemporary classical, and indie pop music largely to guide listeners through deep journeys.

Forest discusses his live performances and influences; how his music pairs with journeys and specific psychedelics; the difference in the connection and vibe from a live performance vs. a recording; the difference between single-artist music created specifically for sessions vs. Spotify playlists; the inhumanity of generative music; his Journey Space online music and journey platform; and the challenges of making money in a time when music is more prevalent than ever, but also more in-the-background and diluted.

He talks a lot about sound itself: the role of rhythm and sound in communication and personal transformation; how richer overtones and increased layers of sound increase effects; research into very low pulsating tones, and how more synthesized sound and the growth of AI has created a yearning for more authentic, imperfect sounds.

His newest album was just released August 18: “Music For The Deck of The Titanic,” an homage to the musicians who spent their last few hours playing songs for passengers amidst the chaos and tragedy – an album Forest sees as an offering to the chaotic moment we’re all in.

Notable Quotes

“I’m trying to make music that is intended to come directly into the foreground and pass the foreground into the place where you merge with the music, and the music becomes the sonic architecture by which you are having an experience inside, and perhaps become it, synesthetically. So I want to go way beyond it being in the background. I actually want it to be even more than a guide. It’s almost like you synthesize with it as one: like who’s guiding who? There can be a magic to those experiences that’s far beyond anything I’ve ever experienced in anything else in life, and that’s really the North Star that I want to be in service to. I don’t think, even, that that’s something that I can concoct or conceive totally. It’s more opening myself up to some kind of magic that’s way beyond anything I could decide.”

“What I love about humans’ creativity is the fact that we can be creative and we can celebrate that by making things like art. When I’m surprised by art is the best feeling. And so giving people support to create: as of now, we can’t beat that. You’re just asking yourself: how far can we go in this celebration and in this experience? I have never experienced a generative experience that’s even anywhere close to where we can go with one person sharing their humanity in a way that’s beautiful. If it’s innovative, even better.”

Links

Eastforest.org

YouTube: Who is East Forest?

East Forest discography

Ten Laws with East Forest podcast

Ten Laws with east Forest podcast: Ivy Ross & Susan Magsamen – Your Brain on Art! (#253)

Journeyspace.com

Love Service Wisdom podcast, with Marisa Radha Weppner

Hajbotanics.com (Receive 10% off your order with code Honeydrip10)

Join us in the Netherlands for the Kiyumí Psilocybin Retreat & Vital Training: September 6-11, 2023. Click here to learn more and apply!

August 22, 2023August 22, 2023

PT434 – Kiyumí Retreats, Building Somatic Literacy, and Navigating Group Facilitation Challenges

In this episode, Kyle interviews Lisa Wessing: Clinical Psychologist and facilitator specializing in harm reduction at Kiyumí retreats in The Netherlands.

Wessing shares her personal journey and the shift from being uninspired with studying psychology to being a part of space-holding in Mexico and finding her true path. She dives into the world of Kiyumí retreats, discussing their holistic healing approach using psilocybin, somatic movement, dance expression, and other methods supporting their four pillars of embodiment, nature, mindfulness, and art. She discusses their more long-term program with Dr. Gabor Maté integrating his Compassionate Inquiry framework; their Equity Program, which offers partial or full funding for people who may not have the financial resources or who come from marginalized communities (e.g. BIPOC & Queer); and the importance of integration as a continuous process and checking in with people much later to build their “Kiyumíty.”

Much of this discussion covers the challenges of somatic psychology and facilitation in group containers: how most people are somatically illiterate and the challenging journey of becoming more somatic; what to do about someone laughing or singing in a group context; what moving into one’s body really means; and different ways of using art to integrate an experience.

As part of our Vital program, we are running a psilocybin retreat with Kiyumí from September 6-11, and we have some available spots left! If you like what you hear, you’ll be in The Netherlands in September, and want to have an amazing experience with us, click here for more info!

Notable Quotes

“Something really important is expression: self-expression and expression in community. So seeing and being seen is something also that we value. And that seeing and being seen can create awkwardness and strangeness, and it’s something that we really like to also go into, because once we break through that awkwardness, there’s so much potential of creativity amongst people.”

“It’s the fostering of allowing discomfort that is just generally important in this kind of work and in self-work itself. …We live in context in which it’s all about escaping the discomfort. We want to have a really comfortable home and a great job, and our vacation has to be as comfortable as possible. And also in medicine, it’s better to take just a pill that will do the job for me. Psychedelic work is often really uncomfortable, and so the group process reflects that discomfort. So I guess one of the main missions and one of the main challenges is to present that: like, yes, you will be uncomfortable. And let’s work with that.”

Links

Kiyumí.org

Hajbotanics.com (use code Honeydrip10 at checkout for 10& off!)

More upcoming events, including retreats in Jamaica and Portugal

August 11, 2023August 11, 2023

PT431 – The Concept of Integration and the Need for Evolving Protocols of Psychedelic Therapy

In this episode, Kyle interviews The Susan Hill Ward Endowed Professor of Psychedelics and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins, and renowned researcher of nearly 20 years: Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D.

Recorded in-person at MAPS’ Psychedelic Science after running an 8-hour workshop on psychedelic therapy for addiction treatment, Johnson was still happy to sit down with PT to explore a wide range of topics: the under-researched concept of integration; how to best take advantage of optimal neuroplastic windows; why psycholytic therapy used to be more common; how our current protocols and research models are largely arbitrary; and his hopes for new, experimental, and flexible models of psychedelic therapy.

He also discusses his ongoing smoking cessation studies; the Oregon model (are we doing therapy or not?); misrepresentation in psychedelic therapy and knowing your lane; and the role of music in psychedelics: why shouldn’t people pick the music they know will give them goosebumps?

Notable Quotes

“How in the world could there be these beneficial effects that we can see in someone’s behavior (their substance use, their depression) 6 months, a year later from one, two, or three medication experiences that were time-limited? …People are changing the way they’re operating. And the more you start to do that, and that starts to become the new normal, so it’s not just ending at the psychedelic session or even in the explicit integration sessions where you talk about your psychedelic therapy or your psychedelic session; but then, if you put into practice – like actually changing the way you’re operating in the world and that becomes the new normal – I think that’s what’s happening to explain why we’re seeing these beneficial effects six months, a year later. It’s just kind of the causal nature of the therapeutic mechanisms unfolding over time in a kind of a living, organic way, because people are interfacing with reality in a different way, that can, if they’re doing it right, it can have a feed-forward effect, like, ‘Oh, this actually works. I feel better. I’m doing better in life when I do things more this way than the way I used to do them.’”

“The nice thing that’s probably going to happen once we get out of this phase, at least with, like, psilocybin and MDMA where it’s only in clinical approved research now, if they’re approved by the FDA for straight up treatment, FDA is not going to control what music you use or how you integrate and all these other things. And so there’s going to be this wave of naturalistic experimentation which is going to be really cool. And then hopefully people are safe, but hopefully there’s an integration of the communication of the art of the practice of medicine and psychology. It’s like just through that communication – like what tends to work, what tends not to work, people sharing ideas – I’m looking forward to that.”

Links

Hopkinsmedicine.org: Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D.

Psychedelics Today: PT229 – Dr. Matthew Johnson – What is Consciousness?

August 8, 2023August 8, 2023

PT430 – Psychedelics for Eating Disorders, Davos’ House of Psychedelics, and The Future of the Synthesis Institute

In this episode, Joe interviews Maya Albert: Co-Founder of the Psyched conference, and Director of Operations at Tabula Rasa Ventures and the Synthesis Institute.

She shares her journey of how she became involved in the psychedelic space through her mother, and her personal experience as a patient in a clinical trial on psilocybin for the treatment of anorexia – a much more common and deadly affliction than most people realize. She discusses her involvement with the various psychedelic gatherings surrounding Davos and the World Economic Forum, as well as the work she’s doing with Tabula Rasa and some of their clients seeking to expand insurance coverage to psychedelic-assisted therapy.

She discusses the Synthesis Institute’s recent struggles that shook up the psychedelic space, what they’re doing to save the company, how Retreat Guru has helped them, and the implications for the wider psychedelic movement. And she talks about much more: the legality and vetting process for training in Oregon and Colorado; truffles in the Netherlands vs. classic psilocybin; the idea of alcohol as poison and ‘Cali sober,’ and how can we all be more collaborative and not sling mud at each other?

Notable Quotes

“The limitations are really when you’ve been in therapy, you’ve seen a nutritionist for five, ten years; you have all the tools there, you know what you’re supposed to do (this can be applied to things like depression or anxiety or any other mental issue), but those neural pathways that have been connecting and forming with those negative thought patterns for decades: for people, they’re not going to undo themselves. It takes more motivation than I have ever had to break my cycles, and I really felt stuck. I don’t think I was going to ever get better than I was at the time without something like psychedelics.”

“It could set the temperature for a lot of other psychedelic organizations and movements to say, ‘This isn’t working and let me show you why. If this goes up in flames, then what else is possible?’ And the space is already greatly under-funded and financiers look at this and they’re like, ‘I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole. This is too early, or this is too risky, or X, Y, and Z.’ So that was really the scary part of the first few weeks of what this meant for the movement at large: if we can’t pull it off, then who can?”

“This whole thing has been like a great big psychedelic trip: use our learning towards being a facilitator, towards facilitating ourselves through this chaos. There has to be chaos within to give birth to a dancing star, I think is what Nietzsche said. We’ll be that dancing star.”

Links

Synthesisinstitute.com

Tabularasa.ventures

Psychedelicspotlight.com: Psychedelic Capitalism Takes a Trip to Davos

Enthea.com

Retreat.guru

Join Kyle and David on August 10th at 222 E 46th St, New York, NY, 7-10pm EST. Click here for tickets!

July 18, 2023July 24, 2023

PT424 – Psychedelic Spirituality: Religion, Mysticism, and the Psychedelic Experience

In this episode, Kyle interviews the Reverend Dr. Brian Rajcok, Lead Pastor at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Avon, Connecticut, who recently completed his Ph.D. in pastoral counseling.

Rajcok dives into the intersection of spirituality, religion, mysticism, and how psychedelics bring these topics together, discussing a transformative peyote ceremony and the awe-inspiring moments of surrender, connection, and divine presence that left a lasting impact on him and deepened his connection to God. And he talks about his recently completed dissertation that was inspired by it all: “The Lived Experience of Professional Mental Health Clinicians With Spiritually Significant Psychedelic Experiences,” which he created to gauge the relationship between religious spiritual commitment, tolerance, and multicultural counselor competency. He shares stories from the study and reflections on how these experiences have changed the way involved clinicians work.

And he discusses much more in the realm of psychedelics and religion: why he pursued pastoral counseling and how psychedelics come into play; the balance between tradition and reason and spiritual commitment and tolerance; the legal and regulatory considerations of religious psychedelic use; the concept of a faith quadrilateral; the need for psychedelic experiences in counseling training programs; the big question of ‘when is it religion and when is it mental health care?’; and how the future of psychedelic spirituality could be humanity’s biggest evolution.

Notable Quotes

“There were moments in the night where I felt like I was looking at the fire, having a feeling of being in Hell. And then there was this shift of when I said, ‘Okay, if I’m in Hell, accept that.’ And then I accepted that, and then there was this total emotional shift to like, ‘Wow, now I’m in Heaven!’ It was just this beautiful experience of accepting the worst, and then once that work was done, it shifted into this beautiful experience. That was a very profound moment for me.”

“People who are more religiously committed tend to have a reputation for being less tolerant, and people who are the most tolerant tend to have a reputation of being the least committed. But I think that what we see from people who have (whether it’s psychedelic experiences or naturally occurring) mystical experiences, there’s a level of religious spiritual commitment and tolerance at the same time that increases. So that was one thing that I wanted to explore.”

“That was another really profound one: people who experienced different spirit guides; experiences of the divine; encounters with deceased relatives was another one; there was someone who was not a Christian who had an experience with Jesus. So there’s a lot of these profound encounters. …And they’re so healing that it’s obvious that there’s something good going on here. It’s not just your imagination running wild, there’s a real [connection] to the spirit realm or to whatever other dimensions of reality, and it’s such a mystery, but it’s clear that there’s something real going on.”

Links

Stmatthewavon.org

Brian’s Dissertation: “The Lived Experience of Professional Mental Health Clinicians with Spiritually Significant Psychedelic Experiences”

YouTube: StMatthewAvon

Rickstrassman.com: Interview with The Rev. Brian R. Rajcok

PT231 – Dr. Hassan Tetteh – Human Care Over Health Care

July 14, 2023July 24, 2023

PT423 – The Watts Connectedness Scale, The Importance of Elders, and What We Can Learn From Trees

In this episode, David interviews Dr. Rosalind Watts: famed clinical psychologist, former clinical lead on Imperial College London’s first Psilocybin for Depression trial, and Founder of ACER Integration.

She discusses the awakening she had after having a child; her work at Imperial College and realizing the importance of staying in touch with patients; the challenges of balancing her work with being a mother; her ACER integration model and the interconnectedness of trees in a forest; how the Watts Connectedness Scale works (and David fills it out); and how much the outside-the-hype surrounding pieces matter – the therapy, the therapeutic relationship, the lessons learned, and the work done to integrate it all.

And she talks about another moment of awakening, at last year’s Psych Summit conference, where capitalism’s obsession with profit-over-care frameworks and “magic bullet” and “brain reset” narratives was on full display, which fully enforced what she hopes for in the future: a world where we embrace non-clinical, ceremonial, and nature-based practices; with healing centers (psychedelic and non); supportive communities; infrastructure around conflict resolution and restorative justice; and a shift towards collectivism and collaboration – and how that all starts by finding our psychedelic elders.

Notable Quotes

“I’m a tourist. I’m listening, I’m learning, but I know that I don’t have deep roots and that there are people that do. So it ties into that thing about finding the elders: as we find our elders for conflict resolution and for therapy and for healing and for psychedelic healing, I also hope we find the elders who are deeply rooted in Indigenous traditions, from Indigenous traditions all over the world, and that they can teach us and teach me, if they will, those stories and those ways, and that then, my daughter: if she can learn through her life, she can grow up with it in a way that I didn’t – so she can have deep roots in that tradition.”

“When we’re on the riverbank and we’ve had our cup of tea and we’ve warmed by the fire, we can look upstream and think: all the people that are coming down the river, what might they need? And then we can kind of run and chuck them the blankets or a chocolate biscuit or the things that they might need, or just shout to them and say, ‘Hey, you’re doing great. It’s crazy out there, there’s a riverbank soon. You can come and sit and join us.’ So it’s like, it’s also about thinking of what’s next for us, but also thinking of all the people that are coming and how we can support each other on the rapids as well.”

Links

Drrosalindwatts.com

ACERintegration.com

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, by Suzanne Simard

Finnpetcher.com

Jonhopkins.co.uk

Rosalind Watts’ Spotify playlists

July 7, 2023July 24, 2023

PT421 – The Impact of the Therapeutic Alliance on the Psychedelic Experience

In this episode, David interviews Dr. Roberta Murphy: training medical psychotherapist and member of the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research.

This is a rare impromptu podcast, recorded about a half hour after David heard Murphy speaking on a panel at UK’s Breaking Convention conference. He asked her if she wanted to be on the podcast sometime, and before they knew it, they were recording. Fastest turnaround ever?

She discusses her past research and what she’s doing at Imperial College; her work on a psilocybin for depression trial; her hopes for psychedelics treating people with Parkinson’s; and her recent co-written paper on the ARC Framework (Access, Reciprocity and Conduct), where she will be focusing strongly on the Conduct aspect through her work at Imperial.

And she talks about her other paper exploring the impact of one of the more important aspects of therapy: the therapeutic alliance on the psychedelic experience. How does the treatment dynamic between the therapist and the client impact the outcome (and course) of the therapy, and what determines whether it’s neutral, negative, positive, or very positive?

Notable Quotes

“It makes sense in a way that you might need to kind of work through those mistrust feelings before you get into a deeper layer, and then in the next session they were able to (I think because they felt a bit safer with us) let go and have a bit more of a typical psychedelic experience where they visualized things and saw things. …I think that that can often then be mistaken as resistance or like nothing’s happening. But there’s always something happening, it’s just sometimes it’s a little bit more nuanced or a little bit harder to pick up and work with. But there’s always something happening. You just might have to zoom in a bit to see it.”

“There’s a difference between a challenging experience that occurs, is processed, and worked through vs. a challenging experience where people kind of never really work with it, it doesn’t get processed, and they get quite stuck in it. …I do think that if you have a good container of a therapeutic relationship, it can help you to work through and process, and I think if you don’t have that, it’s more likely that you’ll end up with something a bit stuck, because I think in order to process, you often need to go in and go deep. And if you don’t feel safe to do that, you’re just going to kind of float on the edge, in a way, and never quite get through.”

Links

Researchgate.net: Therapeutic Alliance and Rapport Modulate Responses to Psilocybin Assisted Therapy for Depression

Researchgate.net: ARC: a framework for access, reciprocity and conduct in psychedelic therapies

June 16, 2023June 16, 2023

Psychedelics Weekly – The Power of Our Breath: A Deep Dive Into Breathwork

In this edition of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle dedicate the entire episode to one of their biggest passions: breathwork and the power of breath in reaching non-ordinary states of consciousness.

What many listeners may not know is that Psychedelics Today was created because of the lack of attention being paid to breathwork, transpersonal psychology, and the work of Stanislav Grof, so this episode serves as a deep dive into all the facets of our fascinating ability to reach psychedelic states simply by breathing in specific ways.

They discuss the history of breathwork; the various methods (box breathing, alternate nostril breathing, rebirthing breathwork, the Wim Hof method, Holotropic and Transpersonal breathwork, etc.); early and most powerful experiences; why Joe recommends becoming familiar with breathwork before a first psychedelic experience; how a breathwork practice can help enhance psychedelic experiences; and one of the most amazing things about breathwork: that it can give people a sense of agency they may never have felt before – that they can produce these experiences and insights with nothing but their own bodies.

If you’ve been curious about breathwork, this episode is a great starting point to learn more. And if you’re in the Northeast and are ready to attend a breathwork retreat and experience four Transpersonal breathwork sessions (two as a breather, two as a sitter), there are spots available in our upcoming Vital retreat on July 28 in Pennsylvania. Click here for more details.

Links

A Vital Journey: Transpersonal Breathwork Retreat in PA, July 28

A Vital Journey: Transpersonal Breathwork Retreat in Portugal this October

A Vital Journey: Transpersonal Breathwork Retreat in Costa Rica: January, 2024

Psychedelics Today: Kyle Buller and Joe Moore – A Clinical Approach to Trauma Resolution Utilizing Breathwork

Psychedelics Today: What is Breathwork?

Michellemahrerfilms.com: “Dances of Ecstasy”

Yogajournal.com: What is Pranayama?

Webmd.com: What Is Box Breathing?

Wilhelm Reich Museum: Research and Publications

Rebirthingbreathwork.com

Wimhofmethod.com

Psychedelics Today: PT316 – Lenny Gibson, Ph.D. – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Psychedelics Today: Lenny Gibson – Whitehead and Holotropic Breathwork

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor

Medicalnewstoday.com: What to know about tummo breathing

Trans4mind.com: COEX Systems

Verywellmind.com: What Is Somatic Experiencing Therapy?

Psychedelics Today: PT293 – Stanislav & Brigitte Grof – The Evolution of Breathwork and The Psychology of the Future

Grof-legacy-training.com

Dreamshadow.com

The Tim Ferriss Show: Stan Grof, Lessons from ~4,500 LSD Sessions and Beyond (#347)

LSD Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Psychedelic Medicine, by Stanislav Grof, M.D.

Healthline.com: What is the Vagus Nerve?

Psychedelics Today: PT286 – Joe Tafur, MD – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Check out the Lumenate app, and download it through the App store here!

June 20 in Denver: “Better Together: Stacking Mushrooms and Plants” – A communal conversation around mushrooms, a fungi feast and unique culinary experience, and afterparty featuring music from BOSA. Click here to buy tickets.

June 6, 2023June 7, 2023

PT413 – Queering Psychedelics, The Dark History of Conversion Therapy, and The EMBARK Approach

In this episode, David interviews Alex Belser, Ph.D.: clinical scientist; author; licensed psychologist; Co-Investigator for a psilocybin and OCD study at Yale University; and co-creator of the EMBARK approach, a new model of psychedelic-assisted therapy that focuses on six clinical domains that typically arise during psychedelic experiences.

He is also one of the editors of Queering Psychedelics: From Oppression to Liberation in Psychedelic Medicine, the new anthology from Chacruna featuring 38 essays from queer authors and allies looking at the heteronormative aspects of psychedelic culture and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, self-acceptance, psychedelics and pleasure, and ways the queer community can become allies with other groups. As they serendipitously recorded this episode on June 1, it only made sense to celebrate Pride Month by releasing it now, as well as launching a giveaway, where you can win one of five copies of Queering Psychedelics.

Belser talks about the concurrent emergence of the psychedelic and queer communities; the need to research the effects of transphobia and homophobia in psychedelic work (as well as the internalized phobias often realized during an experience); why it’s more important than ever to talk about the psychedelic space’s dark past with conversion therapy; why the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire needs to be updated; the idea of queer people being boundary walkers; recreating the Good Friday Experiment, the immense importance of long-form interviews and other forms of qualitative research, the power of love and community, and the question: how does anyone not want to change after a powerful psychedelic experience?

Notable Quotes

“When we talk about MK-Ultra and we talk about the abuses of boundary transgressions and sexual transgressions, we also need to be talking about how psychedelics have been used to harm people through conversion therapy and how they have repeatedly been used in this way. If we don’t look to our past and what’s happening currently, then I don’t think we’re ever going to have a truly integral reckoning with how we carry these medicines in ethical ways.”

“I spoke with an Orthodox Priest who said, ‘Before, I used to give sermons to my congregation and I would talk about God’s justice: the justice of the lord.’ And now, after taking psychedelics (he had a really powerful experience), he says, ‘All I want to talk about is God’s love.’”

“[The EMBARK model is] open architecture. It’s multidimensional, but it allows for the therapist to bring in their existing skill sets, and it allows for a patient-centered approach to what might actually emerge or arise, because I don’t think there’s one path for psychedelic healing. What we see are multiple trajectories, and we needed to build a comprehensive theoretical framework for psychotherapy that allows for different expressions of that for different people.”

“I don’t think psychedelics are a panacea or cure-all, but I think that they help us experiment with different ways of being together, and it doesn’t have to be one way. That’s what I’ve learned; it really does not have to be one way, and it does not have to be the old way.”