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Post Tag: Training

Posted on January 26, 2023January 26, 2023

PT384 – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

In this episode, David interviews two people from different sides of Vital: clinical psychologist, adjunct professor, Co-Founder of the Psychedelics R2R nonprofit, and Vital instructor, Dr. Dominique Morisano, CPsych (the teacher); and writer, psychedelic-assisted medicine facilitator, integration coach, and Women On Psychedelics Co-Founder, Jessika Lagarde (the student). 

With the 2023-24 edition of Vital set to begin in April and applications closing at the end of February, we thought it would be interesting to relaunch Vital Psychedelic Conversations, but with the spin of speaking to both instructors and students to hear their different perspectives on retreats, facilitation, psychedelic education, the quickly advancing psychedelic space, and of course, Vital itself. 

Morisano and Lagarde mostly discuss experience: how it’s gained, how it changes perspectives and methodologies, how one decides they’ve experienced enough to be able to know the terrain enough to help others, the importance of knowing when a patient needs a facilitator/therapist who has had the same life experience, and knowing when one’s own skills and limitations means a patient would be better off seeing someone else. And they discuss safety, the importance of being trauma-informed (and what does that mean, really?), and the puzzling cases when facilitators haven’t had their own psychedelic experience but feel the need to use psychedelics to help others. 

And of course, they talk about Vital: the joy in joining together in community with people they’ve only known virtually; how interesting these retreats are compared to others due to the level of the participants’ experience; how partnering up and taking turns as the sitter and experiencer shows how little of a difference there is between student and teacher; and how many people have reported the most impactful part of the retreats was not their own experience, but being there for someone else.

Notable Quotes

“Do you know the terrain? Let’s say you’ve taken ketamine once, and you’re doing six sessions of ketamine with a client. Do you really know what they’re going to be experiencing, and can you have had the full range of experience? …How do we define this? I can tell you: You have a hundred psychedelic experiences; most likely you’re going to have a different experience each time, and a different connection to inner/outer terrain or different realms or different ways of thinking and being. So when is enough enough? When did you learn your lesson? When did you gain the experience necessary to navigate someone [else’s experience]?” -Dominique

“You learn a lot about yourself as well, I find at the end of a day. Every journey is also a journey for the facilitator, and we are constantly mirrors to each other, so it’s very interesting work to do in that sense as well, because your own inner work is continuously being done.” -Jessika

“It’s never the same. Two sessions are never the same, and even how you show up on that day for that session, or set and setting; all of that influences [the experience], so we have to constantly be placing ourselves between being a student [and being] a teacher sometimes, but never put ourselves in the spot that we think, ‘Okay, now I know everything. Yeah, I’m done.’” -Jessika

“How do you develop wisdom? The way to develop wisdom is through experience, and often, pain.” -Dominique

Links

Drmorisano.com

Fromresearchtoreality.com: Global Summit on Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Medicine

Celebrating Women in Psychedelics podcast: Mental Health for the Masses – The Potential and Pitfalls of Scaling Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, with Dr. Dominique Morisano and Sonia Stringer

Psychedelics Today: PT315 – Dr. Dominique Morisano – From Research to Reality: Planning a Global Psychedelic Summit

Jessikalagarde.com

Womenonpsychedelics.org

Psychedelics Today: Reclaiming Ownership of Your Body With Psychedelics, by Jessika Lagarde

Spotify: The Jimi Hendrix Experience- Are You Experienced (it’s an album, not a song, David!)

Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers, by Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hoffman, & Christian Rätsch

CIIS.edu

Synthesisretreat.com

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com

Journals.sagepub.com: Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists

Posted on January 20, 2023

Psychedelics Weekly – Client Data Concerns in Oregon, Hopeful Legalization in New Hampshire, and Vital & The Five Elements

In this week’s episode, Joe is joined by Kyle, calling in from The Atman Retreat in Jamaica, where he’s running the fourth of five retreats offered through our Vital program. 

They first discuss some news: Oregon Senator Elizabeth Steiner introducing a bill (SB-303) to essentially override many of the recommendations of the Oregon Health Authority, especially around client data – which would be provided to government agencies instead of staying private (which the people voted for); a reparations proposal in San Francisco recognizing the harms of the drug war; GOP lawmakers in Missouri and New Hampshire proposing bills for psilocybin therapy and psychedelics legalization (respectively); and Canada’s Apex Labs being granted approval for a take-home psilocybin microdosing trial.

Then, Kyle gives us an update on his very busy last few months, running Vital retreats: breathwork in Costa Rica, breathwork and cannabis in Colorado, and psilocybin in Amsterdam and Jamaica. He talks about the retreats themselves, the five components of breathwork, the idea of safety and “brave spaces,” the power of community and being witnessed, the concept of focusing on technique over the substance, what students have been saying, and finally: how the five elements relate to Vital, psychedelic therapy, seasons, and the process of growth. Reminder that applications for Vital’s 2023 edition (beginning in April) close at the end of February, so if you’re curious, head to the site to learn more or attend an upcoming Q+A here!

Links

Psychedelicweek.com: Psychedelic Surveillance Bill Would Raise Social and Economic Cost of Oregon Psilocybin Services

Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative

Msn.com: San Francisco reparations committee proposes a $5 million payment to each Black resident

Cnn.com: North Carolina city votes to approve reparations for Black residents

SF.gov: African American Reparations Advisory Committee

Marijuanamoment.net: GOP New Hampshire Lawmaker Files Bill To Legalize Psychedelics Like LSD And Psilocybin

Marijuanamoment.net: Lawmakers Are Already Pursuing Psychedelics Legislation In Nearly A Dozen States For 2023

Marijuanamoment.net: New Hampshire GOP And Democratic House Leaders Team Up On Marijuana Legalization Bill For 2023 (there is progress!)

Wcia.com: Illinois lawmaker introduces bill to create regulated psychedelic therapy program

Newswire.ca: Apex Labs Granted Approval for 294 Patient Take Home Psilocybin Clinical Trial

Marijuanamoment.net: GOP Missouri Lawmaker Files Psilocybin Therapy Bill For 2023 Session

Psychedelics Today: What is Breathwork? (The five components)

Umaryland.edu: The 6 Pillars of a Brave Space

Brenebrown.com

Posted on January 3, 2023January 3, 2023

PT380 – Microdosing, Talking to Physicians About Psychedelics, and Nurses as the Scalability Solution

In this episode, Kyle interviews C.J. Spotswood, PMHNP-BC: author and board-certified psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner currently enrolled in CIIS’ Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research certificate program.

Spotswood has worked with Psychedelics Today, teaching masterclasses for our Vital and Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists courses, but this is his first appearance on the show. His first book, The Microdosing Guidebook: A Step-by-Step Manual to Improve Your Physical and Mental Health through Psychedelic Medicine came out last year, and we’re giving away three signed copies (US and Canada only). Click here to enter!

He talks about his introduction to psychedelics and his first patient immediately asking him about microdosing; why he changed his mind on microdosing and why he wrote his book; microdosing studies he’s most excited about; the terms: treatment-resistant depression, risk reduction, and flight nurses; Irving Kirsch’s work uncovering the bad science of research studies; the need for physicians to know enough about psychedelics to be able to meet their patients where they are; the importance of group work; and how, while they’re already so well-versed in caring for patients, using nurses to their full licensure could be the answer to the quickly growing psychedelics and scalability problem.

Notable Quotes

“When you look at the early research into the 50s in the 60s; they were doing microdosing research, they just didn’t have a title for it. They thought they were using placebo levels but they were actually looking for threshold levels; things like that. Really, it was what by today’s standards [would be an] amount that we would consider as a microdose.”

“I don’t like the term [treatment-resistant depression] when we use that because if you’re using [it] when you’re looking at the standard medications like SSRIs [or] SNRIs, they’re basically all the same. …So when you say that someone’s ‘treatment-resistant’ for three medications, four medications that are all basically working the same pathways and in the same amount; is that truly treatment-resistant, or are we just trying the same thing with just different medications, whereas doing microdosing is a different pathway [and] is a different approach?”

“My first patient I ever saw as a new clinician, like, literally my first patient: I come in and I’m starting to talk to them for the first interview and I got to the point and I’m asking them: ‘Where are we going, what do you need?’ and they said to me, ‘Do you know anything about microdosing?’ …I said to them, I go, ‘Yeah, I know a little bit.’ …So I asked her what she knew, and she knew quite a bit. And she goes, ‘What do you know?’ and I kind of just said to her: ‘I don’t really know how to put this, [but I] wrote a book on it and it’s going to be coming out next year.’ …It reinforced my feeling [that] I’m doing the right thing: this career suicide I’ve thought of, going into working with psychedelics and being open and talking about it, hearing my first patients talking about it – it’s got to be serendipity.” 

Links

Entheonurse.com

Win a signed copy of The Microdosing Guidebook: A Step-by-Step Manual to Improve Your Physical and Mental Health through Psychedelic Medicine here!

Wmtw.com: ‘Zombie’ drug Spice worsening Maine epidemic, officials say

The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys, by James Fadiman, Ph.D.

Journals.sagepub.com: A low dose of lysergic acid diethylamide decreases pain perception in healthy volunteers

Psychedelics Today: Surprising Results: Psilocybin Trial for Depression Alleviates Chronic Pain

Psychedelics Today: PT369 – Chronic Pain and Phantom Limb Pain: Could Psilocybin Be the Answer?, featuring Timothy Furnish, MD & Joel Castellanos, MD

Pubmed: Low doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) increase reward-related brain activity

Nature.com: The Discovery of Serotonin and its Role in Neuroscience

Psychedelics Today: PTSF50 – Microdosing and the Placebo Effect, with Balázs Szigeti and David Erritzoe

Psychedelics Today: PTSF89 – A Macro Dive Into Microdosing

Pubmed: Positive expectations predict improved mental-health outcomes linked to psychedelic microdosing

Madinamerica.com: Irving Kirsch: The Placebo Effect and What It Tells Us About Antidepressant Efficacy

Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, by Irving Kirsch, Ph.D.

Spiritpharmacist.com

Psychedelics Today: PT285 – Andrew Penn, NP – The Need for Nurses in Psychedelics, The Placebo Effect, and Appreciating the Subtle

Maps.org: Notes From a Psychedelic Research Nurse

Grecc.org: Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists, Janis Phelps 2017

Watsoncaringscience.org: Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy Practices and Human Caring Science: Toward a Care-Informed Model of Treatment

Posted on December 20, 2022

PT378 – Course Corrections, Preparation, and High-dose Experiences: “Who Are You Now?”

In this episode, Joe interviews Zach Leary: host of the MAPS podcast, facilitator at Evo Retreats, author, and of course, son of psychedelic legend, Timothy Leary. 

Leary was last on the podcast four years ago, so this episode serves as a bit of a check-in and reconnection, and truly goes all over the map. He discusses his relationship with Ram Dass and reconnecting to psychedelics (and himself) after a 13-year spiritually-bankrupt career and not quite understanding his identity outside of his father’s shadow; why the psychedelic facilitation role shouldn’t be standardized; Dave Hodge, Kilindi Iyi, and super high-dose experiences; ancestor work; solo ski trips compared to the Vipassana experience; the ease with which people play Monday Morning Quarterback with the story of his father; floatation tanks and the birth of ketamine; why Ram Dass held a grudge against Dr. Andrew Weil; and critiques of Michael Pollan – how much How to Change Your Mind skipped, how little experience Pollan had before essentially jumpstarting a revolution, and how many people now think they’re ready for a psychedelic experience when they’re likely not.

Leary just recorded with Rick Doblin for the MAPS podcast, he’s finalizing his first book (tentatively titled And Now the Work Begins – Psychedelics in the 21st Century and How to Use Them), and launching an online 8-week course called “Psychedelic Studies Intensive,” which begins February 8. He will also be a guest at our first conference, Convergence (March 30 – April 2).

Notable Quotes

“I don’t believe that the psychedelic facilitation role or experience should be standardized. There are just so many ways to do it. There’s no one way to do it. Sure, there are some wrong ways to do it, there’s no doubt about that. But it shouldn’t be standardized. It shouldn’t be generic. It shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. It really doesn’t matter to me if somebody has gone through the MAPS training program or CIIS; that doesn’t make them any more qualified than some of the amazing underground visionaries who are doing healing work as well. …No one psychedelic experience is the same. Why should the facilitation experience be the same?”

“It sort of becomes like a catch 22: If you have to ask if you’re ready for psychedelics… I don’t know, maybe you’re not.”

“If you look at every iteration on the war on drugs; every single one, going back to the late nineteenth century criminalization of opium against Chinese immigrants in the bay area, to African Americans [and] cocaine, to [the] Hispanic population and ‘Reefer Madness’ to white, long-haired, anti-authoritarian hippies dropping LSD, African Americans [and] the crack epidemic – every single time (I mean, this list is endless), it always goes back to a war against people [they] don’t like. And once you do that, you create an inherent system of corruption to fuel that, because it’s a civil war. It’s not a war against the drug. It’s a civil war against behavior [and] against consciousness.”

“This isn’t a political issue. It’s a human rights issue. Like it or not, every single society on the face of the Earth since recorded history has used mind and mood-altering chemicals. And that is never going to change, ever.”

Links

Zachleary.net

Zach’s Psychedelic Studies Intensive 8-week course

MAPS Podcast

Evoretreats.com

Psychedelics Today: Zach Leary – Trans-humanism, psychedelic use, over-use and taking a break

Spotify: The Joe Rogan Experience #891 – Zach Leary

The Wayback Machine: Maps.org

Zidedoor.com (Dave Hodge’s church)

Psychedelics Today: Remembering Kilindi Iyi

Theancestorproject.com

Goodreads.com: Lon Milo DuQuette’s quote

Floatworks.com: John C. Lilly: The pioneer of floating

Marijuanamoment.net: DEA Admits ‘Racial, Ethnic and Class Prejudice’ Led To Drug Criminalization And The Agency’s Own Founding

Thedailybeast.com: A Drug Kingpin, the CIA, and Prisoners: Freeway Rick Ross and America’s Mass Incarceration Problem

Newsweek.com: Two-Thirds of American Voters Support Decriminalizing All Drugs: Poll

Psychedelics Today: PT377 – Integrative Medicine: Health, Wellness, and Psychedelics, featuring Andrew Weil, M.D.

The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America, by Don Lattin

From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything You Need to Know about Mind-Altering Drugs, by Andrew Weil, M.D.

Posted on December 16, 2022December 16, 2022

Psychedelics Weekly – Proposition 122 in Action, The Economics of Psychedelics, and Could States Legalize by 2037?

In this week’s episode, Joe and David team up again to discuss what news interested them the most this week: the DA dropping a felony drug charge against a mushroom rabbi in Denver due to the passing of Proposition 122; Numinus Submitting a Clinical Trial Application to Health Canada that would give in-training practitioners the ability to experience psychedelics with their psilocybe-containing EnfiniTea; and a University of Exeter-led trial moving forward with the next step in a study using ketamine for alcohol use disorder (with 2/3 of the money coming from the National Institute for Health and Care Research).

They also review a paper that analyzed the economics of psychedelic-assisted therapies and how insurers come into play; as well as The Journal of the American Medical Association stating that, based on current trajectories compared to cannabis legalization, they believe the majority of states will legalize psychedelics by 2037. So nice to see these continued steps in the right direction!

And if you missed it, we just announced that applications are open for the next edition of Vital. There are incentives to paying in-full by certain dates, so if you missed out on last year’s edition or have been curious, attend one of our upcoming Q+As!

Links

Cure for common cold? New research finds immune response in nose that plummets when temps drop

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com (Applications open now!)

Vital 2023: Informational Session and Q&A (Have questions about Vital? Attend one of these sessions)

Convergence: Where Conference Meets Festival

The Way of the Psychonaut Vol. 1: Encyclopedia for Inner Journeys, by Stanislav Grof, MD, Ph.D.

Microdosing Masterclass: Investigate the history, science, and best practices for safe and effective microdosing

The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys, by James Fadiman, Ph.D.

Denverpost.com: DA drops felony drug charge against Denver’s mushroom rabbi, citing voter legalization of psilocybin

Congress.gov: H.R.1308 – Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993

Thesacredtribe.org

Numinus.com: Numinus Submits Clinical Trial Application to Health Canada for Experiential Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy Training Research

Frontiersin.org: The economics of psychedelic-assisted therapies: A research agenda

Therapsil.ca: Quebec first province to cover costs of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy, done by two physicians

Jamanetwork.com: Psychedelic Drug Legislative Reform and Legalization in the US

Marijuanamoment.net: Most States Will Legalize Psychedelics By 2037, Analysis Published By American Medical Association Predicts

Psychedelicalpha.com: Psychedelic Legalization & Decriminalization Tracker

Bbc.com: Ketamine for alcoholics trial goes to next stage

Psychedelics Today: Webinar: Psychedelic Integration and Depth Relational Process – 12/9

Posted on November 22, 2022December 9, 2022

PT374 – Personalizing Psychedelic Integration

In this episode, Kyle interviews psychologist, psychotherapist, author, and certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator: Marc Aixalà.

Aixalà is part of the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (ICEERS), offering integration psychotherapy sessions, developing theoretical models of intervention, and training and supervising therapists. He is also the writer of the recently released, Psychedelic Integration: Psychotherapy for Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness, of which you can win a copy by entering our giveaway here!

Aixalà wrote the book after receiving more and more emails from people asking for guidance on how they were supposed to process a recent experience, and he realized that so much was unknown around the concept of integration: What exactly does it entail? Has the psychedelic space created a narrative that you need integration when maybe you don’t? When is the work considered integration and when is it psychotherapy?

He talks about some of the metaphors he uses to explain integration; the seven scenarios he typically sees in people seeking integration (and how to respond to each); philosophical constructivism and the importance of working with someone within their preferred cosmology; how the psychedelic hype has created a marketplace full of competition (and why that could be bad); and why he thinks being trained in Holotropic Breathwork is perhaps more important than being trained in facilitating a psychedelic experience. 

Notable Quotes

“One of the things that psychedelics show us (or for me, the main thing) is that somehow, healing is inside of us and growth is inside of us, and they teach us accountability, they teach responsibility, and they teach us that we are the expert of ourselves – that our journey does not depend on an external person. So in my way of practicing integration, I also want to honor that, and do integration when it’s needed, but not create an additional need for people that don’t have it.”

“I think that that’s the richness and the beauty of psychedelics and the psychedelic experience, is that it cannot be understood from just one prism. No, it’s a trans-disciplinary approach that will give us a more subtle understanding of different dimensions included. I don’t think that there’s one way that is better than the other of using psychedelics, [just] as I don’t think that there’s one Shamanic tradition that is better than another Shamanic tradition. Things are there for a reason and we find what resonates more with us.”

“I believe that breathwork can be more effective than psychedelics to deal with certain emotions; things like anger, rage. The body and the somatic part of a traumatic event; that has worked very well with breathwork in my opinion – better than with other substances because it provides some sort of mental clarity that is not distorted by the archetypal aspects of psychedelics.”

Links

Marcaixala.com

Psychedelic Integration: Psychotherapy for Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness, by Marc B. Aixalà

Win a copy of Psychedelic Integration here!

Iceers.org

Psychedelics Today: PT368 – Ketamine, Group Work, and the Power of Just Being There

Wikipedia.org: Constructivism (philosophy of education)

Psychedelics Today: PT316 – Lenny Gibson, Ph.D. – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Posted on June 20, 2022October 4, 2022

PT329 – Dr. Scott Shannon – The Board of Psychedelic Medicine and Therapies

In this bonus episode, Kyle interviews Dr. Scott Shannon: psychiatrist, Founder of Wholeness Center in Fort Collins, CO, and Co-Founder and CEO of the Board of Psychedelic Medicine and Therapies (BPMT); a non-profit public benefit corporation which was recently created to certify healthcare professionals in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy – and which was just in the news last week when they received a $900,000 matching grant from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation.

Shannon feels that the majority of people who are interested in (and could benefit from) psychedelics would prefer that their experience be as close to a conventional medical setting as possible. And especially with the risks of rogue practitioners, licensing boards want to see predictability, uniformity, regulation, and (perhaps most importantly) that we as a psychedelic culture are placing importance on being accountable and self-governing. He wants to establish a certification process that’s standard enough that which medicine the patient is using will become secondary. 

He discusses what the certification process will likely look like; why uniformity is so important; the challenges of respecting and integrating Indigenous traditions into a medical model that’s drastically different; what people should look for in psychedelic education; and the importance of breaking from a siloed and hierarchical model into one that’s cross-disciplinary, where professionals of all types can work together for the betterment of the patient.

Notable Quotes

“The premise of the certification board is that we’re trying to certify a process …of medication-assisted, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy that looks at integration [and] prep, that looks at set and setting, that looks at the sacred container of this relationship; and that we build that, and that is the core of it, and the medications become a little bit secondary. We can bring ketamine in, we can bring DMT in, we can bring psilocybin [in], [and] we can bring MDMA in; because these medications, frankly, they’re not really chemically-related or that similar, but what’s similar is the process that patients go through with them.”

“There’s always the question of: ‘How do I get training?’ …The Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative just did a survey of the field of education and found that there are now over 50 providers of psychedelic education, and four years ago, there might have been a handful. But someone coming [up]: What do they do? ‘How much do I need to study?’ These things are expensive. It’s confusing. So we want to create a clear, professional path [where] someone says: ‘I’m going to step into this and do this as a career. Here’s what I need to do? Good. I can do that.’”

Links

Psychedelicsboard.org (The Board of Psychedelic Medicine and Therapies (BPMT))

BPMT’s press release: Certification Board for Psychedelic Medicine Launches and Receives $900,000 Grant

Wholeness.com (Wholeness Center)

Psychedelics Today: Dr. Scott Shannon – Ketamine Therapies

Pratigroup.org

Businessinsider.com: Johns Hopkins, Yale, and NYU are teaming up to tackle a key bottleneck that will arise as psychedelics come to market

About Dr. Scott Shannon

Scott has been a student of consciousness since his honor’s thesis on that topic at the University of Arizona in the 1970s. Following medical school, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy became a facet of his practice before this medicine was scheduled in 1985. He then completed a Psychiatry residency at a Columbia program in New York. Scott studied cross-cultural psychiatry and completed a child/adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the University of New Mexico. Scott has published four books on holistic and integrative mental health including the first textbook for this field in 2001. He founded Wholeness Center in 2010 with a group of aligned professionals to create innovation in collaborative mental health care.

Scott is a past President of the American Holistic Medical Association and a past President of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine. He serves as a site Principal Investigator and therapist for the Phase III trial of MDMA assisted psychotherapy for PTSD sponsored by Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. He has also published numerous articles about his research on cannabidiol (CBD) in mental health. Scott founded the Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI) to train professionals in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and deliver clinically relevant studies. Scott co-founded the Board of Psychedelic Medicine and Therapies in 2021 and currently serves as the CEO for this non-profit public benefit corporation. He lectures all over the world to professional groups interested in a deeper look at mental health issues and a paradigm shifting perspective about transformative care.


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Navigating Psychedelics

Posted on May 6, 2022October 4, 2022

PT316 – Lenny Gibson, Ph.D. – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews philosopher, clinical psychologist, Grof-certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator, and long-time mentor to Joe and Kyle: Lenny Gibson, Ph.D. 

They talk at length about shamanism, Greek mythology, tribal cultures, and the overlapping themes across them. They discuss how religion became but a shadow of the ancient wisdom these cultures held; the commonalities between physics and poetry; how Holotropic Breathwork is a shamanic technique appropriate to 20th century western culture; and the battle between attainable knowledge and the vice of ignorance.

Gibson discusses the “dying before dying” that took place at Eleusis; how practices like meditation and breathwork can help us in recovering what in Zen is called “original mind;” achieving mystical enlightenment by studying mathematics; and the philosophical parallels between Plato, Kurt Vonnegut, Alfred North Whitehead, and the ancient Greeks.

He also shares how LSD has reshaped shamanism along with a fun story from the first time he met Albert Hofmann. When considering the most vital conversations people should be having, Gibson encourages us to return to the origins; to study the lineages that embodied the mystical wisdom discovered through non-ordinary states – something he believes our modern culture is missing. In the words of Leon Russell, “May the sweet baby Jesus shut your mouth and open your mind!”

Notable Quotes

“Lao Tzu says, ‘The secret awaits the vision of eyes unclouded by longing.’ The secret is in plain sight. All one has to do is step back and pay attention.”

“Conformity and deep understanding don’t go together.”

“I try to discourage the focus on substances because one of the most important means in Greek culture was poetry. Homer may or may not have been a person identifiable, but his poetry survived as a body. …The Greeks gathered in large festivals and they would recite the poems of Homer, The Iliad, and The Odyssey, and get thousands of people together chanting the same poems – a huge rave!”

“The absolutely most impressive thing about Stan Grof’s discovery …that if you empower people in accessing their deepest Self, you will get more than you could get by having a psychoanalyst talk to them about themselves.”

Links

Dreamshadow.com

Psychedelics Today: Lenny Gibson – A Brief History of Psychedelics in the Western World

Psychedelics Today: Lenny Gibson – Whitehead and Holotropic Breathwork

Whitehead Word Book: A Glossary with Alphabetical Index to Technical Terms in Process and Reality, by John B. Cobb Jr.

Process and Reality, by Alfred North Whitehead

Alan Watts: “The World as Just So (Part 2)“

Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research, by Stanislav Grof

The Republic, by Plato

“The Beach Boys,” Disney Girls

About Lenny Gibson, Ph.D.

Leonard (Lenny) Gibson, Ph.D., graduated from Williams College and earned doctorates from Claremont Graduate School in philosophy and The University of Texas at Austin in counseling psychology. He has taught at The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served a clinical psychology internship at The Veterans Administration Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and trained in Holotropic Breathwork with Stanislav Grof. Most recently, he has taught Transpersonal Psychology at Burlington College. Together with his wife Elizabeth, he conducts frequent experiential workshops. He is a founding Board member of the Community Health Centers of the Rutland Region. As a survivor of throat cancer, he has facilitated the Head and Neck Cancer Support Group at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Lenny is President of Dreamshadow Group. He raises vegetables, fruit, and beef cattle on a homestead in Pawlet, Vermont, and plays clarinet in local bands.

 


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  • Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes
  • Share us with your friends
  • Join our Facebook group – Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community.

Navigating Psychedelics

Posted on April 29, 2022October 4, 2022

PT314 – Daniel McQueen, MA – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Kyle interviews Daniel McQueen, MA: psychedelic specialist, educator, and author of Psychedelic Cannabis: Therapeutic Methods and Unique Blends to Treat Trauma and Transform Consciousness. McQueen is the Executive Director of the Center for Medicinal Mindfulness in Boulder, CO, where he facilitates psychedelic sessions with cannabis and ketamine. 

This talk covers a lot but really hits home on a few very important topics: the clinical model’s limited perspective; the importance for psychedelic boards to self-organize before government agencies step in; and how cannabis can actually be as powerful a psychedelic as DMT. They mull over where the field of psychedelics is going and wonder: Who gets to do this work? And can psychedelics really fit within our current medical models? 

McQueen digs into the non-licensed approach to facilitation; the difference between coaching, counseling, and psychotherapy; and describes valuable harm reduction strategies, vital self-care practices for facilitators, and ways to navigate the (not talked about enough) transformational process of being a guide for others. If you experience anxiety or paranoia from cannabis, you’ll learn how Nano CBD can shut it down almost instantaneously. Last but certainly not least, McQueen shares all about the transformative work and trainings he and his colleagues are doing at both the Center for Medicinal Mindfulness and Psychedelic Sitters School. 

Notable Quotes

“We’ve got to have our boards, we’ve got to become members of those boards, and we’ve got to self-organize and regulate. Otherwise, the government agencies are going to do it for us. It’s going to become super clinical, super medical. It’s going to limit the scope to only people who are really suffering and I think that’s a trap.”

“I’m thinking [cannabis is] probably one of the best psychedelics for trauma resolution work and other things. So I’m way past ‘Is this psychedelic?’ I’m stepping into: ‘This might be one of the best medicines for psychedelic therapy and guiding that we have available.’” 

“I just was intuitively drawn from the beginning to do blends – to blend multiple strains [of cannabis] together – and I started to experiment on my friends. …One of my friends …sat up and said, ‘Daniel, if I didn’t trust you, I would swear you put DMT in that.’ And I hadn’t, it was just pot. And that was the moment. I’m like, ‘Okay, maybe there’s something to this.’”

“Sometimes these stories that we hear are the hardest stories to hear from another human being. So there’s an emotional impact to process. I’ve had to really evaluate my existential understanding of reality because of this job, so there’s that whole thing too. It’s not the same as psychotherapy, it’s just not. Professionally speaking, I tell people it’s more like being an emergency medicine doctor. You’ve got to take time off. Self-care is vital.”

Links

Medicinalmindfulness.org

Psychedelicsittersschool.org

Psychedelics Today: Daniel McQueen – DMTx and Future Psychedelic Technologies

Psychedelics Today: Daniel McQueen – Extended-State DMT Research (DMTx)

Psychedelics Today: Daniel McQueen – Medicinal Mindfulness & Conscious Cannabis Circles

Psychedeliceducationcenter.com: DMTx Psychonaut Training Webinar

Naropa.edu: Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies Certificate

Thepsychedelicassociation.org

Psychedelic Cannabis: Therapeutic Methods and Unique Blends to Treat Trauma and Transform Consciousness, by Daniel McQueen

Cannabisanimus.com: Nano CBD 

Dr. Michael Harner: The Foundation for Shamanic Studies

About Daniel McQueen, MA

Daniel McQueen, MA, is a psychedelic specialist, educator, and author of the book, Psychedelic Cannabis: Therapeutic Methods and Unique Blends to Treat Trauma and Transform Consciousness. In 2012, he co-founded one of the first legal psychedelic plant medicine therapy clinics in the United States, the Center for Medicinal Mindfulness, which is located in Boulder, Colorado, and is currently celebrating its 10-year anniversary. The same year, Daniel also founded Psychedelic Sitters School, which continues to train students from around the world in mindfulness-based psychedelic therapy and cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapy.

Socials: Instagram / Twitter / Facebook


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Navigating Psychedelics

Posted on April 26, 2022October 4, 2022

PT313 – Christine Calvert, LCDC – Holotropic Breathwork, Ethics, and Dying To Ourselves

In this episode of the podcast, Joe interviews Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator, Christine Calvert.

At age 19, Calvert left Los Angeles and found her way to breathwork, spending four years in Grof Transpersonal Training. She quickly discovered that the technique served as a gateway back home to herself – her sacred self. Together, Christine and Joe cut through the many layers of the holotropic paradigm and transpersonal experiences, discussing how willingness for accountability & repair in facilitation are more important than perfection; the role of touch in breathwork sessions and the potential harm in not providing it; how amplification over suppression of symptoms in breathwork can heal; and how doing less as a facilitator can actually do more.

She also talks about the inner healing intelligence we all possess; how celestial nostalgia leads to mystical yearning; the ethics of spaceholding; the excitement and terror in expanded states of consciousness; saying yes to the entire archetypal pool; how Grof was (and still is) decades ahead of psychology; and what it means to die to ourselves.

Notable Quotes

“There [were], I don’t know, 175 people there. So that was my first big group breathwork. I was sitting first and I remember just looking out at the room which was just absolute pandemonium. It was like the display of the full human experience. I remember just crying because I was both totally intrigued and excited – like ‘Finally, I’ve arrived’ – and then I was also just incredibly terrified. I feel like that’s an interesting and kind of truthful reflection of how expanded state work is for a lot of people. There’s this part of me that feels home and also maybe a little healthy resistance to knowing what that also means for me.”

“One of the greatest gifts we can do for someone is to trust that what is happening for them is exactly what is needing to come through for their healing and that there’s nothing that we necessarily need to do in order to manage that.”

“I can’t imagine that continuing to just treat symptoms and see everything through a pathological lens is really all that fulfilling. Also we’re just the doers in that world. And as much as I think our ego wants that, behind that is always the desire to be a part of something that’s actually truly healing, and to know that we’ve empowered somebody to heal themselves. This is one of the things I love so much about the holotropic paradigm; is that it is about radical self-empowerment.”

“I think we have to stop being afraid to just be vulnerable. We have to stop being afraid of our humanity. As facilitators, as practitioners, as spaceholders, as participants in medicine and breathwork – this is what we have to really be willing to share. …When we’re willing to sort of knock ourselves off the saint pedestal as facilitators and spaceholders, I think then we might be able to hold this.”

Links

Austin Holotropic Breathwork

Holotropic.com: Grof Transpersonal Training

Holotroic.com: Tav Sparks

Jacquelyn Small

Esalen.org: Diane Haug

Eomega.org: Omega Institute

The Ethics of Caring: Finding Right Relationship With Clients, by Kylea Taylor

Exploring Holotropic Breathwork, Edited by Kylea Taylor

About Christine Calvert, LCDC

Christine Calvert is a teacher and module facilitator for Grof Transpersonal Training and a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor. In addition to bringing Holotropic Breathwork® and other experiential workshops to mental health and addiction facilities, she is passionate about the ethics and integrity needed in facilitating expanded-state work; supporting the integration of Holotropic and psychedelic sessions through somatic resourcing; and creative expression, personal ritual, and group support. Her own personal healing journey was greatly influenced by the Holotropic perspective and she feels deeply dedicated to sharing this work with those seeking healing. She enjoys finding ways to weave her personal and professional experience of different therapeutic and spiritual systems such as Shamanism, Somatic Experiencing, Jungian psychology, attachment theory, and mindfulness practices into her work with others. Christine is currently studying to become a Naturopathic Doctor and maintains a private counseling and consulting practice in addition to facilitating Holotropic Breathwork® nationally.


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Navigating Psychedelics

Posted on April 8, 2022October 4, 2022

PT308 – Dr. Ido Cohen, PsyD – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Kyle interviews clinical psychologist and integration facilitator (and now 3-time guest), Dr. Ido Cohen.

The topic of integration sits center stage for this discussion, as the two peel back all the nitty gritty and nuance of this psychedelic cornerstone, breaking down why integration is so important, where it stands currently, and where it needs to go as psychedelic-assisted therapy grows. They discuss the importance of taking it slow when it comes to exploration of these non-ordinary states – something that can be so difficult for us in our fast-tracked, clock-watching, Western culture, where it’s quite common for people to get blasted into inner-space on a Saturday, be shaken and perplexed by the experience on Sunday, and then have to go back to work and act like it never happened by Monday. 

He discusses the value that both individual and group integration holds; what happens when you sit in groups of the same people over time; why Carl Jung never tried psychedelics; and the importance of tolerance, trust, and critical thinking when processing peak experiences.

And he raises some important questions like: What does long-term care in psychedelic-assisted therapy look like? What frameworks can be experimented with and implemented now to offer real movement from peak experiences to sustainable change? What is that bridge between peak experience and long-lasting change which allows us to become the insight? Is every insight true? Where does trauma work fit into this treatment? And what is the difference between symptom reduction and real healing?

Notable Quotes

“My mission has been: what does that bridge [look like] between experience and the steps that we have to take to really integrate in a deep embodied way to move from, ‘Oh, I can become this thing’ or ‘I have this insight’ to becoming the insight or becoming the thing?”

“I always use this catchphrase because I don’t like it, but it sells the psychedelic science: ten years of therapy in one session. I always say if you get ten years of therapy in one psychedelic session, then you had really bad therapy.”

“The psyche has an organic life. It opens up in the way it opens up. You can bathe yourself in ayahuasca and eat fifty grams of mushrooms per week [but] there are certain processes you can’t rush.”

“It’s funny how when we slow down, things become clearer faster.”

Links

Psychedelics Today: PTSF79 – Psychedelic Facilitator Abuse and Space Holding Ethics with Dr. Ido Cohen

Psychedelics Today: Ido Cohen – Re-Turn to Wholeness: Jung and Integration

Psychedelics Today: PT271 – Jeremy Narby, Ph.D. – Anthropology, Ayahuasca, and Plant Teachers

Psychedelics Today: Katherine MacLean – Imagining Interesting Future

Psychedelics Today: PT305 – Emma Farrell – Plant Spirits, Entities, and Remembering Lost Traditions

About Dr. Ido Cohen, PsyD

Dr. Ido Cohen, Psy.D, serves individuals, couples, and groups in San Francisco. As part of his practice, Ido works with a diverse range of challenges – childhood trauma, inner critic, relational issues, as well as integration and preparation sessions with individuals and groups. His doctoral dissertation was a 6-year study of the integration process of Ayahuasca ceremonies, while applying Jungian psychology to better understand how to support individuals in their process of change and transformation. He is also the founder of The Integration Circle and facilitates workshops on the different dimensions of integration and the intersection of mental health, spiritual health, and the entheogenic experience. Ido is passionate in supporting individuals to create longterm, sustainable change leading to vibrant, authentic, expressive, and love-filled lives.

Socials: Instagram / The Integration Circle Instagram


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Navigating Psychedelics

Posted on April 1, 2022October 4, 2022

PT306 – Dr. Devon Christie – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Kyle interviews Dr. Devon Christie: Senior Lead of Psychedelic Programs with Numinus Wellness, clinical instructor, counselor, and Co-Investigator and study therapist for a Canadian MAPS-sponsored trial investigating MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD.

Christie talks about the importance of biomedical ethics and the unique considerations of psychedelic-assisted therapy: how psychedelics enhance the vulnerability and suggestibility in a well-established power dynamic, and how being aware of your power and biases is of the utmost importance towards not influencing your patient’s experience. They discuss just how much that experience is affected by every detail of preparation, and how it’s a very thin line between scaring someone off, setting impossible expectations, or even giving away too much of the experience (and with limitless possibilities, is that even possible?).

And she talks about the complications of touch and establishing (and honoring) informed consent; how true mindfulness can cultivate a greater capacity for self-regulation; how to handle situations where the client wants to know if a memory is real or not; the idea of psychedelics as a placebo; and many other complicated therapeutic concepts like harm of neglect, undue influence, making pleasure a virtue, cultivating agency, combating physician burnout, and the expectation effect. 

Notable Quotes

“We don’t really know, but there may be aspects of psychedelics and their impacts that may make them ultimately like super placebos.”

“From my training as a relational somatic therapist, it’s actually not about the facts or details of what happened that matter. In fact, we can resolve trauma without even recollection of facts or details because we’re working with how it shows up in the body and how it’s showing up emotionally.  …We can assist that process through working with what’s actually emergent in the felt experience and not needing to stay adherent to the narrative around it.”

“I think the yardstick on how far we’re going with this psychedelic work is that, either personally in our own journeys or even in the folks we’re supporting, we’re getting to a place where we don’t need the psychedelics – where the psychedelics have given us a reference, they’ve opened up new vistas of possibility, they’ve helped us to approach our lives differently, such that we are now cultivating the quality of presence and the quality of investigation and curiosity and flexibility and all those things that psychedelics can bring us – in our ordinary lives. …We’ve got these tools and they can help us learn and they can help us connect, and then hopefully we can come full circle and we can drop the tools and just be able to live meaningful lives that are sustaining for ourselves and for each other.”

Links

DrDevonChristie.com

Numinus.com

PT259 – Dr. Devon Christie and Will Siu, MD, DPhil – The Mind-Body Connection, MDMA, and Chronic Pain

Spotify: Cover Story

Nurturing Resilience: Helping Clients Move Forward from Developmental Trauma – An Integrative Somatic Approach, by Kathy L. Kain and Stephen J. Terrell

Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy: Awareness, Breath, Resonance, Movement, and Touch in Practice, by Susan McConnell

Healing Moments in Psychotherapy, Edited by Daniel J. Siegel and Marion F. Solomon

PT297 – Laura Mae Northrup, LMFT – Radical Healership in a Profit-Driven World

About Dr. Devon Christie

Dr. Devon Christie is a medical doctor and registered counselor with a focused practice in chronic pain and trauma. She is trained to deliver both MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and she serves as Senior Lead of Psychedelic Programs with Numinus Wellness. Devon is also a certified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction teacher, Functional Medicine practitioner, and clinical instructor with UBC Family Medicine. She is currently Co-Investigator and study therapist for a Canadian MAPS-sponsored trial investigating MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, and co-investigator on a pilot study investigating MDMA-assisted therapy for fibromyalgia.

Devon is passionate about educating future psychedelic therapists on trauma-informed, relational somatic skills. She also teaches for the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) Certificate Program in Psychedelic Therapy and Research, the Integrative Psychiatry Institute Certificate Program in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy, and the ONCA Foundation Psychedelic Therapy program.

Socials: Instagram / Facebook
Numinus: Instagram / Facebook / Twitter 


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