543: Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy + IFS with Sunny Strasburg, Martha Sweezy, PhD + Dr. David Lovas

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[SPEAKER_04]: It's an approach, a therapy modality that is based on the idea that the mind is plural, not unitary, not singular.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And for years, I was calling that hours after a psychedelic journey, the golden hour, because what I was finding was people were merging out and really soft and relaxed, protect your system back, and I could get so much done with IFS with them and
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[SPEAKER_00]: we want to hear from the parts that are maybe a little hesitant, but don't even want to speak.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is the therapy chat podcast with Laura Regan.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Laura Regan, and today I'm so thrilled to be speaking with three wonderful guests who are talking about a topic that I know all of you listening are
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[SPEAKER_01]: My guests today are Sunny Strasburg.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Sunny, for being here.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much, Laura.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really excited to have this conversation today.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Me too, and David Loves.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having us.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're so welcome.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And Martha Sweasy, Martha, thank you for being here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, wonderful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to talk about your new book
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[SPEAKER_01]: Psychedelic medicine and IFS therapy, a clinical skills manual.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is something that I can't wait to get my hands on as someone who's training in psychedelics and uses IFS informed therapy now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that so many people are using IFS and using psychedelics now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So having this clinical skills manual is invaluable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm super thrilled about this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So before we get into what's in the book, can we start off with each of you telling just a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Want to start with Sunny?
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[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, not to start.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I've been a trauma therapist for about 20 years.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I have been a psycho not my entire adult life and I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be able to merge psychedelics with therapy.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So I was a super early adopter.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I got, you know, in the psychedelic revolution started gearing up.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I was really involved early on in 2006.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I hosted an event premiering, uh, documentary on psychedelics and head Ralph Messner at the event.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So I got trained early, which was really lucky.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Be like, get to watch this whole thing gathering momentum.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, IFS is great on its own, EMDR great on its own for trauma treatment, but when I could combine ketamine, because ketamine is illegal, it's like, wow, it just accelerated the work that I was doing.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And I went from there trying to, you know, help clients individually, and then I started thinking,
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[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I'm just an emotional janitor cleaning up trauma in the world.
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[SPEAKER_03]: How can I have more impact?
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[SPEAKER_03]: So I started creating groups and retreats and I've been doing retreats.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I started training clinicians.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I wrote my book The Therodelica Proach in 2023 trying to help bring in things like MDR, IFS, and archetypal psychology into psychedelics therapy because all the training programs were just saying set and setting,
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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, journey and integration, but they weren't really showing you what to combine.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So I started doing that pretty early.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And now I host retreats.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'm working with a lot of people in leadership positions, trying to move out on the Archimedes lever of really helping.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Detraumatize the world working with people who are, you know, having a love influence in the world.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And how can we help them come to a place is more self energy using an IS term.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So that's why I'm at right now is really working on.
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[SPEAKER_03]: trying to change collective systems with IFS and psychedelics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Fabulous, thank you.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Martha, do you want to tell us a little more about you and your work?
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[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I am an IFS therapist and research in clinical consultant at Cambridge Health Alliance and the system professor, our time at Harvard Medical School,
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[SPEAKER_04]: And I've worked in community mental health, most of, you know, all bike career actually.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And that's kind of where my heart is.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And, and I wanted to bring IFS to community mental health that's been my mission and also get more research done on IFS.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And, and I write books and co-authent books.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So, and I know Dave from those, the same, the hospital we worked in together and his training days.
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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, some of the teams are about you.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, I was, yeah, really fortunate actually to be able to have both of these great people as teachers of mine.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'll just say that
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, my path is actually almost like the inverse of sunnies that I I got into IFS way back and I was really fortunate to get into it during my psychiatrist training at the Cambridge Health Alliance and I just so happened to have supervisors who were doing a lot of that really early work in Boston back in early 2000s and so yeah, so Martha was one of my one of my mentors and supervisors and
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was really interested in mindfulness, meditation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I did a lot of meditation research, and then got interested in IFS, because it seemed like a really practical,
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[SPEAKER_00]: way of using this, this, you know, what we now call an IFS self-energy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So using this compassionate center to heal parts of ourselves and just the really experienced near quality of IFS was really impressed me and I just, you know, did all my training in it while I was training for psychiatry.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I sort of started to, you know, be hearing about the application of psychedelics and so started to train in, um, ketamine assisted psychotherapy and that's where I'm at sunny.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, and then, uh, yeah, and then we can talk more about sort of how the book came into being, but that's basically how I came to this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Abbeyless.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'll tell you very briefly.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For me, before I was at therapist, long before I was ever at therapist, I experimented a lot with psychedelics when I was young, and it was really something that I didn't even know why I was doing it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's just something that I just kept being drawn toward.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was so much backlash against psychedelics in the 90s when I was a young adult.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that once I got married and became a parent, I didn't, I just, that was like, close that door, lock it, deadbolt, like stay away from that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I never considered.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My psychedelic experiences and therapy, once I decided to become a therapist, as anything that would ever relate to each other.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's been a really interesting experience now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I come back to it as someone who has all this background from like teen in early 20s and this straight, like therapist training very traditional,
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[SPEAKER_01]: to combining those things, it's like, whoa, so I find.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I find it really beautiful that there is, I'm glad that this movement is growing the way it is, but I also think that there's a lot of kind of that wild west feeling of where people are doing whatever and not necessarily having a lot of training or background because it's been illicit and other than ketamine which can be used in health settings.
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[SPEAKER_01]: not available.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So having resources that people can learn from that's grounded in research, so valuable, so important, and not over medicalizing it at the same time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think that's one of the things that some people are like not relating to the medicalization of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So just bringing it all together with all the flavors of how this work is showing up in people's lives from ceremonial to health care settings is really needed, I feel.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you for what you're all doing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_03]: If I may add
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'm with you on the concern about medicalizing something that is not a point A to point B situation.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's nonlinear and ineffable.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And we go into the spiritual realms with psychedelics.
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[SPEAKER_03]: This is why I understand that IFS is so compatible with psychedelics because it's a very open-ended consent-based model that can be a bridge between, you know,
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[SPEAKER_03]: science or art and science and mystical, right?
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[SPEAKER_03]: And it and it lends itself so well to them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I wanted to start off with Martha if you would will you give us kind of an overview of what I've vases for people who might not really be familiar with that.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to make this quick because we have a lot to talk about, but I'm sure there are some listeners who don't know that much about IFS.
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[SPEAKER_04]: It's an approach, a therapy modality that is based on the idea that the mind is plural, not unitary, not singular.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The idea is that we all have what I have as close parts as in, you know, one part of me wants to go for a walk and another part of me wants to take a nap, right?
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[SPEAKER_04]: But it can also be much more consequential than that.
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[SPEAKER_04]: It can be one part of me is ready to have children and other part of me doesn't want to be a parent yet, right?
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[SPEAKER_04]: choices that you have to make that are become an issue of discussion internally and so I have this focuses on
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[SPEAKER_04]: on tracking, basically people come in to therapy and are invited to pay attention to their internal experience and parts can show up in any number of ways from, you know, you're hearing, you hear something in your head
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[SPEAKER_04]: or you see a part or you some these images or stories from the past come up repeatedly that have some significance so parts can show up to you, they can show you things they can talk to you, they can cause sensations in your body but they have a lot of different
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[SPEAKER_04]: and trying to influence your behavior and sometimes they can take over completely so that you're seeing the world through one card's eyes.
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[SPEAKER_04]: If it has a big agenda and wants to keep you safe and a particular way, it may sort of take over the whole stage of consciousness.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And then another part might come in and you feel something completely different, you know, the next morning.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So
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[SPEAKER_04]: You can notice these kinds of shifts and if you turn your attention inside, you can actually
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[SPEAKER_04]: communicate with parts, they're not just something to notice, they are kind of characters or individuals internally that live in a community internally and have roles, and you can interact with your parts, and that's what IFS is based on is not observing or guessing about them, but actually,
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[SPEAKER_04]: getting into relationship with parts and getting them to make some space so that they're not just arguing with each other or busy trying to do something protective or feeling bad and trying to get some attention, all of which can happen and you're trying to sort of slow things down and say,
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[SPEAKER_04]: a resource that Dick Schwartz discovered as he was launching into this approach to internal experience.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And that is what his clients called self.
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[SPEAKER_04]: That's me.
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[SPEAKER_04]: That's myself.
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[SPEAKER_04]: His clients would say, well, that's self came to be the word that Dick used for this kind of
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[SPEAKER_04]: qualitatively different form of consciousness, which is characterized by not by all the kind of distress or extremes that you can find in parts for involved with the problem.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But what I have
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[SPEAKER_04]: And I'll just name like compassion, curiosity, clarity, confidence, courage, creativity.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if I've got them all there.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But that's the kind of middle-sea range of open-hearted, open-minded.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But...
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[SPEAKER_04]: kind of zoomed out perspective that everybody can get access to internally if their parts are willing to make some space and sort of dial it down a little bit.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So that's what we're looking for in IFS is that relationship.
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[SPEAKER_04]: between this resource called self, which is this qualitatively different kind of consciousness, and parts who are in distress and need health, and who may be the other thing that I didn't say yet about parts is that there are a lot of different developmental ages.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So some of them can be very young, and if they've been in some way hurt or traumatized at a young age,
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[SPEAKER_04]: They can have, they often have beliefs of, I'm not loveable, not valuable, and they're in intense emotional pain and protective parts for kind of form a shell around them and get engaged in these various kinds of behaviors.
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[SPEAKER_04]: that are aimed to hide this emotional pain or suppress it so that life can go on.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So when I have us, we're trying to negotiate with protectors to kind of dial, dial down their protective strategy to see it off so that we can reach self can reach those exiled parts and take them out of bad places and and we and affirm to them,
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[SPEAKER_04]: and you are good and I will take care of you now.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So that kind of reorganizes this whole system that has organized around, around trying to be safe and not in a very unpredictable and safe world, to being having a kind of internal safety and attachment that's secure.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So that's that's IFS and in that show.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You did explain that very clearly and succinctly and quickly, so, that's pretty impressive.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, I have asked right now, like you said, for those who haven't heard of it, there's probably not that many people, because it's really, it's really, really spreading now that people are familiar with it, which is wonderful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: As I mentioned before, yeah, so a lot of people are using IFS with clients who are doing psychedelic journeys and who are participating in those journeys.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But why do you feel maybe you could take this one sunny?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you feel that IFS is a good fit for psychedelic work?
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[SPEAKER_01]: There was a recent research
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[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it was a paper, but they did a questionnaire on how many people, I think it was a paper.
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[SPEAKER_03]: A questionnaire on how many clinicians are using IFS2 psychedelics, and it's something like over 70%.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So it's very commonly paired with psychedelics now, which is great because that wasn't really, you didn't find that five years ago with psychedelics as I was mentioning earlier.
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[SPEAKER_03]: IFS, as I was saying earlier, is like a bridge, it's very innate.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We just naturally talk about parts of ourselves and paired with psychedelics.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's even more obvious when you have someone in a ketamine state.
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[SPEAKER_03]: What happens in the brain is it quiet down the amygdala, in ket with ketamine, not with others, psychodups, but with ketamine.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And the way that it works in a permedial frontal cortex, it creates kind of like a distance where you can be often in self-energy and looking at your life and your stories and your parts for a little bit of a distance.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And when you have a practitioner that knows how to do IFS, we can really leverage that to help people
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[SPEAKER_03]: be able to work with their part system.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So what I found is psychedelics can soften that protect your system and we can talk about gaining
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[SPEAKER_03]: consent before we go deep into journeys, right?
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[SPEAKER_03]: But we can work with that protector system to titrate them into relaxing back so that we can get access to deeper the exiles and to work with the protectors when they're not so defended.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So what I found is that it takes 10 sessions to work with someone's protector system and get them to soften back when they're not with psychedelics, they can soften that protector system so we can get a lot more done.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And for years, I was calling the hours after a psychedelic journey, the golden hour, because what I was finding was people are merging out and really soft and relaxed, protect your system back.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And I could get so much done with IFS with them and their system.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then those changes would stick.
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[SPEAKER_03]: They would come back the next week, you know, and they would say, wow, I still feel really good.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So I was calling that the golden hour
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[SPEAKER_03]: fantastic researcher, and she started looking at how the brain, the brain and toddlers is super-maliable tons of neurons, you know, connecting and then our brain's pruned back to be to prioritize what's important.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Psychedelics are one of the only things that releases a ton of what's called brain-driven atrophic factor.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Floods of brain with that creates new neuronal flexibility, and so she was saying there are these critical learning windows that open up again with psychedelics that happens almost nowhere else in adulthood.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And so what I was calling the golden hour was actually this neuronal flexibility where we could go in and really change these ruminative thinking patterns.
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[SPEAKER_03]: and do some deep IFS work and get new connections made and they would be durable.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And so it just felt like when I was, I was just tinkering out of desperation early on.
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[SPEAKER_03]: No one I knew was doing IFS with psychedelics and then I started seeing, oh wow, this is really, these effects are really durable.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So it's just a natural pairing.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And anybody that knows IFS and has done psychedelics, it was like, oh yeah, I totally understand that pairing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I agree it does just feel right and it's there's something about the way that in IFS you can you can tap into the art of therapy as was mentioned before, you know, like that alchemical experience that happens during therapy or that can happen.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that fits right into the psychedelic experience.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So let's go into why you all with Dick Schwartz wrote this book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for that, we turned to David.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I'll just say, as I said before, I really feel fortunate to be teamed up with these folks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were all, you know, teachers of mine.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, this really came about, Martha had been talking to Dick.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She had seen some interview he had done talking about psychedelics and IFS.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and was aware that Sunny Dick and I had been doing these retreats, Sunny sort of brought together this great team that includes many other people and we had been running these retreats and seeing, like Sunny said, these just amazing results with folks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we were
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[SPEAKER_00]: becoming increasingly aware that folks were using IFS and psychedelics and yet there wasn't a treatment manual at the time and Martha had been involved in making these treatment manuals with for IFS with other
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[SPEAKER_00]: co-authors, like Dick and others, and was just aware that this was a need.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we were also aware that we were seeing these really impressive results empirically, you know, with our clients, but, you know, they're needed to be more research.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so
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[SPEAKER_00]: a treatment manual is a really key element to help support research because we want to have we want to have something out there that says, you know, something that has fidelity, which honors the model that that decorated all those years ago, and that applies well, you know, for this unique scenario of using psychedelic medicines.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So,
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that was really the need and so we got the team together and it's been a really fun few years of creating that.
23:27.968 --> 23:44.172
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, our hope is really that it's going to support a lot of what people are already doing but also support research and help to put some more, you know, put some more evidence behind this because we need the research also to make this more accessible to folks
23:48.239 --> 23:49.760
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that makes sense.
23:52.141 --> 24:06.089
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just wondering, this is like, a little off topic, but I'm wondering Martha, are you working to bring IFS and psychedelics to community mental health settings?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And, or is that already happening?
24:09.737 --> 24:11.558
[SPEAKER_04]: I am not aware of it happening.
24:11.958 --> 24:20.862
[SPEAKER_04]: It could be as possible, but there is a colleague of ours who's doing a lot of research.
24:21.643 --> 24:26.045
[SPEAKER_04]: And we have talked about it, but there's no particular plan in the works at the moment.
24:27.085 --> 24:34.248
[SPEAKER_04]: He's kind of a lot of other things going, but he's interested in maybe other maybe one of you
24:36.465 --> 24:42.806
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I will say a lot of people have been reaching out to us, you know, since, since, you know, words got out that we were making this.
24:42.846 --> 24:45.487
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we are involved in research collaborations.
24:45.567 --> 24:50.988
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do think that that's a really, like, ketamine is one of those things that is being used.
24:51.428 --> 25:00.530
[SPEAKER_00]: And like Sunny was saying, the more the research reveals that it opens these critical learning windows and induces neuroplasticity.
25:01.612 --> 25:12.028
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like a shame how much when you look at how much ketamine is being used in clinics where there's not support, there's not psychotherapeutic support, it feels like a real missed opportunity, right?
25:12.588 --> 25:17.275
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, this is something that I do think needs research.
25:18.166 --> 25:28.731
[SPEAKER_00]: though because it is, you know, for funders, it's more expensive, obviously, to have somebody in the room with them, then to just have them in there and have, you know, say a nurse or doctor check in on them.
25:28.831 --> 25:39.977
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so there's an added price, but I suspect and, you know, the the research is just beginning to show that there may be added benefit by really, you know, doing some good intensive work.
25:40.437 --> 25:49.004
[SPEAKER_00]: like Sunny was saying in that in the acute stage and also in that golden hour, like once the medicine is sort of wearing off, but the neuroplastic windows still there.
25:49.965 --> 25:51.686
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, we want to support that.
25:52.126 --> 25:52.727
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you both.
25:53.267 --> 26:00.933
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just, you know, the question of access is definitely one that's a big piece as well as we all know.
26:01.114 --> 26:03.816
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, there's a lot of complexities.
26:05.077 --> 26:07.639
[SPEAKER_01]: I think like I won't go into it now, but
26:08.768 --> 26:11.512
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe a future conversation with one or all of you.
26:13.034 --> 26:14.856
[SPEAKER_01]: But for now, let's start talking.
26:15.037 --> 26:21.886
[SPEAKER_01]: We've talked a little bit about ketamine but let's talk about some of the other psychedelics and how they can also work with IFS.
26:23.773 --> 26:25.354
[SPEAKER_01]: when you go into that sunny?
26:25.994 --> 26:26.255
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
26:26.775 --> 26:28.396
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really fascinating, actually.
26:28.416 --> 26:36.521
[SPEAKER_03]: It becomes kind of an interesting thing to plan how you're going to weave the support therapy in with the different psychedelic medicines.
26:37.062 --> 26:41.064
[SPEAKER_03]: And I've been trained and certified and used all kinds of different medicines.
26:41.104 --> 26:43.786
[SPEAKER_03]: And each of them have their own, what we call signature.
26:44.427 --> 26:49.450
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like they have their own kind of flavor in how they behave in the brain and in the psyche.
26:50.190 --> 26:52.472
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, so and they also have different durations.
26:53.133 --> 26:58.258
[SPEAKER_03]: So ketamine is very amazing and flexible because it reliably quiets that right, amygdala.
26:58.358 --> 27:00.620
[SPEAKER_03]: It binds to the NMDA receptor system.
27:00.640 --> 27:08.287
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's so many people that can't do the classic serotonergic psychedelics, like that bind to the 5HT2A receptor.
27:08.307 --> 27:12.690
[SPEAKER_03]: So things like psilocybin and NDMA and ayahuasca can do ketamine.
27:12.991 --> 27:14.172
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's applicable for that.
27:16.092 --> 27:29.877
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know that trajectory is like the journey itself, depending on how you're dosing it in the root of administration is about 90 minutes right so you can it's it's much more conducive to a therapy practice to do ketamine than something like LSD which is a 10 hour day right.
27:31.394 --> 27:48.437
[SPEAKER_03]: But you know, I work in Costa Rica with plant medicines and when we do IFS with the IOSCA, it's it's it's it's it's kind of like a waves in the ocean where it comes on the medicine and then it's really intense and then it retreats back and this goes on and on for like six hours.
27:49.078 --> 28:00.062
[SPEAKER_03]: So you can do the IFS work in the, as it kind of recedes back and doing parts work with that and using that malleable neural plasticity and then the next wave comes on.
28:00.622 --> 28:07.065
[SPEAKER_03]: So a clinician needs to understand the medicines as well as be trained in IFS.
28:07.085 --> 28:13.147
[SPEAKER_03]: You have to understand what the trajectory is of the metabolization and kind of the signature of the medicine.
28:13.887 --> 28:20.334
[SPEAKER_03]: something like MDMA is very hard opening and and and soothing to the system and also comes in way.
28:20.435 --> 28:27.523
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, you can really get into that deep self energy of compassion and work with trauma that way, right?
28:27.643 --> 28:29.485
[SPEAKER_03]: And knowing when to time
28:30.882 --> 28:38.147
[SPEAKER_03]: talking to your your journey or and when to just be quiet and hang back right and and understanding the medicine as well.
28:38.267 --> 28:44.972
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's a totally different session depending on which psychedelic you use, right?
28:46.842 --> 28:52.147
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's great with all I've used it with many different medicines and it works wonderfully with all of them.
28:52.707 --> 29:01.234
[SPEAKER_01]: I do have a question about that, too, because that's fascinating what you said and I didn't know that about the Ayahuasca and M.D.M.A.
29:01.294 --> 29:02.816
[SPEAKER_01]: have coming in waves like that.
29:03.396 --> 29:07.200
[SPEAKER_01]: But when we were talking about this,
29:11.723 --> 29:26.828
[SPEAKER_01]: And this, it was this year and it was a therapeutic experience and the, the guide was doing an IFS meditation for the whole journey, which was like two and a half to three hours.
29:27.008 --> 29:31.009
[SPEAKER_01]: She was just leading this IFS meditation, but for me.
29:32.807 --> 29:35.329
[SPEAKER_01]: I barely heard anything.
29:36.571 --> 29:49.222
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, occasionally, I would kind of hear her voice, like just sort of rhythmic talking or something like the ones who, the ones who, you know, it was like, but I was in a very, very different place.
29:49.282 --> 29:50.943
[SPEAKER_01]: And I couldn't talk at all.
29:50.983 --> 29:56.308
[SPEAKER_01]: So I keep thinking about, and this was intermuscular, not IV.
29:57.576 --> 29:59.917
[SPEAKER_01]: for those who are listening and just being curious about this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I've been thinking about like, how will I use IFS with clients who are on ketamine if they can't engage with me?
30:10.344 --> 30:12.445
[SPEAKER_01]: And I guess it's just a different dosing.
30:12.505 --> 30:13.966
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a great question.
30:14.046 --> 30:15.467
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very applicable to this.
30:15.587 --> 30:19.089
[SPEAKER_03]: And ketamine's amazing because it's such a different medicine at different doses.
30:19.769 --> 30:42.901
[SPEAKER_03]: So at my degree, it's the, you know, Dick and David band at the, how I dose is a low dose first on the mid dose and so it's really low entry muscular and then and then during the mid dose it's a higher dose and then we do sometimes boosters and we don't talk we just have music we have this amazing music producer David star fire who comes and does pre-record a music and layers of live music.
30:43.421 --> 30:52.483
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'll do an invocation that first 15 minutes, but I understand the metabolization of the medicine is they're not going to be able to do parts work in that depth of the mid-dose.
30:53.003 --> 31:03.044
[SPEAKER_03]: So during the mid-dose that's 60 minutes, whether I just have them have eye masks on and listening deep deeply to the music, which becomes a therapeutic agent in and of itself.
31:03.104 --> 31:12.046
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really remarkable how it becomes a therapist in the room, and then when they come back and they're feeling like they're wanting to engage and talk about it, then we're doing the
31:13.146 --> 31:23.949
[SPEAKER_03]: So you really have to work with the medicine and when it's coming in waves, because it can stress out the parts because they're thinking, oh, I should, I should be paying attention to this, I should be tracking with happening.
31:24.389 --> 31:34.972
[SPEAKER_03]: And you don't want to introduce more distress to the parts you want to invite them to relax back and really, you know, because you don't have as the therapist, you don't have to have a constant narrative of what's going on.
31:34.992 --> 31:35.572
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot
31:40.893 --> 31:42.053
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that makes sense.
31:42.333 --> 31:43.034
[SPEAKER_03]: That makes sense.
31:43.394 --> 31:48.855
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's helpful to just, like, obviously, I'm out through with my program yet, so I'm still learning.
31:49.856 --> 31:52.296
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll still be learning even when I'm finished with that program.
31:52.316 --> 31:54.657
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll still be doing more training, too, for the record.
31:54.717 --> 32:07.381
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I feel like it's really, there's so much complexity, and it's not like, oh, you do, you know, 50 hours of training, and then you know, everything you need to know, especially this is such an evolving
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[SPEAKER_01]: experience.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so we're being so open to my questions.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you have to have your journeys, too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One thing I'll add, too, and I'll just invite people to take a look at the book because one of the things we talk about as well is, you know, for the most part like what something was saying, it is very, you know, consistent with other models that are very just like being open, curious, just helping people have their experience letting the
32:39.155 --> 32:49.820
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are some instances where we've found there are ways of using IFS to help folks when they get into some difficult spots during the medicine journey itself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we go into a lot of detail under that in the book and have some examples of that, but just to say that
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's there's troubleshooting that we can do with the IFS model because one of the great things about it is that it really helps you understand, you know, the layers of the mind and also not really impose anything on the person's experience, but it helps you use that self-led curiosity to connect with wherever they are.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and sometimes kind of help them out of a little bit of a tangled spot because, you know, one of the things that, you know, stand graph, describe that psychedelics do is they're they're a non-specific amplifier.
33:26.367 --> 33:30.052
[SPEAKER_00]: So sometimes you can get into a spot that on the journey,
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not actually self that's being amplified, but sometimes it might be an exile.
33:34.916 --> 33:35.857
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's be an amplified.
33:36.298 --> 33:43.924
[SPEAKER_00]: And they may not have quite enough self-energy in that moment to make it a really a healing process.
33:43.964 --> 33:46.246
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead they're just basically flooded.
33:46.306 --> 33:51.170
[SPEAKER_00]: You could say with another therapeutic language or in IFS we'd say blend it.
33:51.310 --> 33:53.372
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're just really blended with an exile.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And there's ways that we've found of helping people
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just notice the self that might be just in their periphery, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's right there and the medicines are really helping it actually be a lot more online than they're used to, but it often needs a little pointer, you know, just a little pointer and with a self-led therapist, we can often do that very effectively and turn a journey that might be really difficult into one that's actually quite beautiful and quite healing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I just want to name that as well.
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[SPEAKER_01]: great.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, since we're talking about that, will you hold up the book because you have a copy right there by you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it looks like everyone.
34:40.025 --> 34:46.848
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a pretty natural segue to go into the next thing I was going to ask you about, which is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it important to work with protect our parts?
34:51.701 --> 35:03.255
[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned how exiles can be blended with the person and the experience of why is important to work with protectors when we're doing eye-effects with psychedelics.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I always do a meditation before we begin working with the protectors.
35:08.841 --> 35:10.623
[SPEAKER_03]: Instead of just saying, oh, you're going to be fine.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Don't worry about it.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We're just going to dissolve your ego and give you a huge amount of psychedelics and we just terrifies the protector system, right?
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[SPEAKER_03]: And so, and especially if people come in and they say, this is my last hope.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I've tried everything.
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[SPEAKER_03]: This needs to heal me.
35:25.415 --> 35:27.436
[SPEAKER_03]: I've heard that you take psychedelics once and it heals you.
35:28.217 --> 35:33.360
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, what's behind that over enthusiastic part is usually a protected that's terrified.
35:33.961 --> 35:36.482
[SPEAKER_03]: So the name of the game is really slowing everything down.
35:37.063 --> 35:43.547
[SPEAKER_03]: Doing, I do a little meditation that we have a conversation and all of my retreats, inviting the protectors to voice their concerns.
35:44.467 --> 35:46.549
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the other thing is that I go low and slow.
35:46.769 --> 36:06.709
[SPEAKER_03]: I always dose people super low so that their protector system can be softened and kind of, you know, scope out what's going on before we're doing super deep journeys and I have found particularly with people with PTSD that this is a really remarkable strategy because then we don't have backlash after the journey.
36:07.729 --> 36:15.712
[SPEAKER_03]: So those protectors aren't coming back online and saying why did you share that secret that we have never told another person you should have never done that, right?
36:16.032 --> 36:24.554
[SPEAKER_03]: We're working with that protector system on the front end and some and I give people permission if you don't want the injection or you don't want to take the medicine you don't have to.
36:24.674 --> 36:27.815
[SPEAKER_03]: If those protectors aren't ready, that's therapy too.
36:28.616 --> 36:33.137
[SPEAKER_03]: Life is a psychedelic journey that's part of your therapy is saying no sometimes, right?
36:34.452 --> 36:37.114
[SPEAKER_03]: and Dave, I'm sure you have more to add with this.
36:37.455 --> 36:38.475
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I love that.
36:38.555 --> 36:47.503
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, like Sunny was saying, that's been one of the really cool experiences, even on our retreats where people have put in time and resources to get there.
36:47.763 --> 36:49.805
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, everyone's noile.
36:49.885 --> 36:55.690
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody will have this, as Sunny was saying, we do a lot around preparation as well.
36:56.270 --> 37:02.571
[SPEAKER_00]: to ask for our protectors experience and checking with them in preparation sessions as well.
37:03.112 --> 37:15.694
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, as Sunny was saying, the invocation invites those protectors and really invites them, you know, with all the preparatory work we've done to relax and soften and let go.
37:16.374 --> 37:18.455
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, if anyone has any issues,
37:19.235 --> 37:23.820
[SPEAKER_00]: They do not, you know, if the protectors are holding out, we don't want to blow past them.
37:23.840 --> 37:25.282
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually want to really honor them.
37:25.702 --> 37:39.117
[SPEAKER_00]: And so folks have actually not taken medicine and how amazing experiences, you know, in the group and actually reported them as deeply psychedelic, just being in that field of a lot of self-energy, even without medicine.
37:39.337 --> 37:39.578
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
37:41.000 --> 38:08.409
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, working with protectors, some of the other observations we've had is that when we do that work with protectors often folks will come on these retreats with a lot of experience with different you know medicine and they'll have a sense of like, well, yeah, I need this amount and what have you and very often they will go very deeply once their protectors have been worked with with a very small amount of medicine so you know a lot of what keeps
38:09.369 --> 38:19.593
[SPEAKER_00]: our system on guard is not just that we didn't have enough medicine, but it's just that the protectors haven't worked with adequately and haven't really given their full consent.
38:20.553 --> 38:35.499
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, a lot of around psychedelic safety is around doing really good consent work, and we really feel that IFS does a particularly nuanced and deep piece of consent work, because we're not just asking for
38:36.979 --> 38:41.521
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what's the, what are the surface level parts of you think of doing psychedelics?
38:41.541 --> 38:49.043
[SPEAKER_00]: We really want to hear from the nasaers who maybe aren't going to peep up unless we really explicitly invite them, right?
38:49.063 --> 38:53.225
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to hear from the parts that are maybe a little hesitant, but don't even want to speak.
38:54.181 --> 39:00.687
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that I was thinking about my original training and psychedelics, was that the mantra was trust be open and let go.
39:01.368 --> 39:04.831
[SPEAKER_03]: And I thought, oh, the protectors don't like that.
39:04.951 --> 39:07.533
[SPEAKER_03]: Like trust me, that's the worst thing for someone to say to you.
39:08.014 --> 39:13.419
[SPEAKER_03]: So I often say, be curious, be compassionate, and just ask.
39:14.905 --> 39:21.387
[SPEAKER_03]: instead of like empowering the protectors to see how they feel about all of this, be curious, be compassionate, just ask.
39:22.187 --> 39:22.347
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
39:22.867 --> 39:36.331
[SPEAKER_01]: I love how you're really emphasizing the importance of consent because, you know, one thing I've heard that relates to parts work is you never go faster than the slowest part is ready to go.
39:36.692 --> 39:40.473
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, so many of the abusive experiences that people
39:43.175 --> 40:10.531
[SPEAKER_01]: Consent is one of the reasons why there was that it was problematic for them and or the fact that they weren't able to consent and I was just thinking about something you were saying when you were both talking about that, I was thinking about the first training I received about psychedelics was in an IFS training and it was like an offshoot not a level
40:12.895 --> 40:29.679
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were talking about the trainers were speaking about their own experiences with psychedelics with ketamine and using IFS and one of the trainers was saying that
40:40.142 --> 40:46.286
[SPEAKER_01]: create the shift, so they were taking the medicine, but they weren't feeling any different.
40:46.547 --> 40:49.469
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then they were taking more and taking more.
40:50.149 --> 40:58.275
[SPEAKER_01]: And it became where someone said, hey, I think that they've had more than enough, like, I don't think that's the problem.
40:59.776 --> 41:08.862
[SPEAKER_01]: And the person was saying, if I hadn't had that colleague to kind of intervene there, it was starting to feel really desperate,
41:11.637 --> 41:12.178
[SPEAKER_01]: terrified.
41:13.260 --> 41:18.811
[SPEAKER_01]: So just, you know, it's not about like more necessarily.
41:19.172 --> 41:22.719
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about how we can show
41:24.532 --> 41:31.195
[SPEAKER_01]: protective parts that we're actually, you know, the whole idea is no bad parts, right?
41:31.215 --> 41:33.397
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not trying to just make them go away.
41:33.957 --> 41:36.298
[SPEAKER_01]: We're trying to develop relationship with them.
41:37.198 --> 41:46.123
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's like important for people who are listening to and if you think about it's not about overcoming someone's objections and getting them to go ahead and do something.
41:46.163 --> 41:50.205
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about them consenting when they're ready.
41:50.868 --> 41:53.190
[SPEAKER_01]: when it feels authentic to be consenting.
41:53.850 --> 42:01.076
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it's just like you don't remember as how to huge narrative about ego dissolution and taking heroic doses.
42:01.176 --> 42:07.982
[SPEAKER_03]: Like this is a big narrative in psychedelics and I think it's really faulty because you have then you have bad trips, right?
42:08.122 --> 42:12.926
[SPEAKER_03]: And so one of the first places that I was training, you know, back in 2020, I was training,
42:13.446 --> 42:21.934
[SPEAKER_03]: clinicians with a company and they had all clinicians coming to the trainings and they were doing I am ketamine and people were screaming through the whole thing.
42:22.495 --> 42:35.207
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't really have a lot of screaming at our retreats because we're working with the protector system beforehand and that particular group would just give them more and more injections because they say, well, you just have to kind of get them to stop screaming and
42:36.448 --> 42:48.459
[SPEAKER_03]: It was really problematic because you're fighting with the system and creating a lot of you're traumatizing people with that kind of approach.
42:48.959 --> 42:55.725
[SPEAKER_03]: That's when a huge mission of Dick and I when we teach at our workshops and talking about that a lot.
42:56.466 --> 42:59.048
[SPEAKER_03]: Slow down, you don't need to take a ton of medicine.
43:00.389 --> 43:28.109
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that really appreciate the whole setting and the whole preparation and the integration or as important as the journey itself don't overfocus on the molecules and people can have a psychedelic experience in the process, even if they don't have medicine, so we're here to talk about medicine, but, you know, like, it's like the person the facilitator can't be.
43:29.627 --> 43:34.810
[SPEAKER_01]: so stuck on certain outcome that they're missing the human in front of them.
43:35.770 --> 43:46.436
[SPEAKER_01]: That fits really well with wanting to talk about ethics, which was a really important piece that we want to get to and the need for more research.
43:46.916 --> 43:54.740
[SPEAKER_01]: So can we kind of weave those two together, maybe, as we wrap up, because I know we don't have too much more time,
43:57.376 --> 44:05.498
[SPEAKER_01]: everything you were just sharing about Sonny and what we were talking about with consent and and working with protectors relates to ethics.
44:05.578 --> 44:15.060
[SPEAKER_01]: But what other ethical considerations would you want people to hear as they're thinking about psychedelics and IFS?
44:15.280 --> 44:24.603
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I mean, you know, in terms of that ethical piece of this, I think we're talking about a big core part is, it's certainly the
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, psychedelics have come, there's been a lot of concern and I think appropriately so about some of the of uses that have occurred in the context of psychedelic use and certainly one of the big things that's important about, you know, one of the things where we really wanted to get across in the book is how important, you know, therapist ethics is training,
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[SPEAKER_00]: and using the model to highlight those self qualities that therapists have to lead with a lot of self.
44:57.748 --> 45:03.713
[SPEAKER_00]: And they have to do a lot of work on themselves to identify their parts that can get folks in trouble, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So parts that like to be seen in a particular way,
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[SPEAKER_00]: parts that want to be a savior or who knows, right?
45:12.960 --> 45:15.561
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so many things that, and it's so human, right?
45:15.581 --> 45:18.283
[SPEAKER_00]: We all as therapists come in with a whole bunch of parts.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing wrong with that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just that when we're doing deep work, especially with medicines that make people very open and vulnerable and suggestible, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because their protectors are essentially what we say, they're sort of going to sleep for a little while.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we really owe it to our patients, to our clients, to our selves, to really do a lot of work on our parts and really befriend our own parts that come up in therapy and with or without medicine.
45:52.770 --> 46:00.453
[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, that's a, I think that's a really cornerstone part of the IFS training in general, but certainly I think almost like the,
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[SPEAKER_00]: the need to get really, really tuned into our own parts, just amplifies the more we enter into altered states, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're just the folks are more vulnerable, more suggestible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we really, we have to really up our game in that way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it means that we need to hold each other accountable.
46:18.705 --> 46:21.066
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to form practice communities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We need to have good supervision, good training,
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[SPEAKER_00]: And just real attention to those elements developing ourselves, developing our practice and continually looking for our blind spots, looking for these parts that are just out of view.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why I feel really lucky to work with great teams like what Sonny's put together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we all need to find good practice communities to support that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's part of ethics.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, you guys probably have other things to add, so what else do I, what am I missing?
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[SPEAKER_03]: It was pretty good.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I was thinking about something I say to all my trainees, which is, with more power, comes more responsibility.
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[SPEAKER_03]: The, like, Dave just said, these are non-specific amplifiers.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And there's even more awareness that needs to be paid to how vulnerable people are when they're in deep psychedelic spaces, and to really honor that sacred space that you're in with someone.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And working with your own system is imperative because you have to understand your own motivations and your own parts to come in and, you know, and and in IFS when we when we're trained in IFS is a whole process where you're asking your parts to step aside when so when you're a client triggers something new and you have a part come in.
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[SPEAKER_03]: to just take a moment and be willing to say to your client and I do this, you know, sometimes with my clients, oh, that brought up something in me.
47:48.146 --> 47:52.668
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me just take a moment to ask my parts together the way so that I can get into self energy to be with you.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, having that self awareness and humility is really important, right?
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[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have more to add about training
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[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I did want to say that the book talks about the history of psychedelics and cultural issues and
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[SPEAKER_04]: And you might be able to say more about that, but I think that's very important to the respect for cultures that have long used these medicines and have a lot of knowledge about them and the kind of Western sort of Renaissance scene of psychedelics is new to this.
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[SPEAKER_04]: It's important to understand that and understand
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[SPEAKER_04]: and be respectful about other traditions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a great point.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's an important ethical piece.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I great that there are a lot of people who've been harmed because they've used psychedelics as part of their ceremonial indigenous practices.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And this current enthusiasm doesn't always capture the whole picture.
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[SPEAKER_01]: of what is going on and what has gone on and the importance of, I think like humility in that way, too, to humility toward the medicine, as well, with our own background.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But what about IFS training, because there's, you know, there's a lot of different ways to get trained in IFS, and
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's now available beyond therapists.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any specific things that you want to say?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Any of you about the training people should have if they're going to be using IFS with psychedelics or anything like that?
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[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, let me just say a word about IFS training in general.
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[SPEAKER_04]: This is a deceptively simple approach to therapy and the training that IFS, the IFS Institute does is experiential, it's an intensive training.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't think there's any substitute.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's good to get introduced to IFS and decide if you're interested, but if you're interested, it's good to go actually do this long,
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[SPEAKER_04]: over the course of 90 hours or 120 hours, I can't remember how many it is now, but it's important to really sink in and do this because it's about you and you have to get there first before you're not going to take your clients anywhere where you can't go.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm sure this drew us like it all looks too, but it's certainly true with life.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Well, so you've got to, you've got to do this, you've got to practice it in order to be able to guide other people in it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there are there are books and there are trainings for therapists.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There are trainings now for coaches and people who aren't therapists, but there's a lot of formal
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[SPEAKER_01]: available.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what I, oops, sorry, someone who hasn't ever gotten into a level one, but have done other IFS trainings.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I always was extremely cautious about using it because there were certain aspects of,
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[SPEAKER_01]: working with my most of my clients have developmental trauma and I know that surprises can come up very suddenly and you know we think we know what we're doing until suddenly something happens that we don't know what to do and we don't want to do harm in those moments which also I feel is something I don't know if you all have any thoughts on this but one of the pieces about
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[SPEAKER_01]: Psychedelic work that I think is really important for everyone to understand from an ethics perspective is that trauma is so much more widespread than people think so, you know, people are like, oh, well, I won't do it with anyone who has trauma and then they'll ask people, do you have any trauma and people saying no and then when they have their journey, all the trauma comes up and it's not like anyone was trying to do anything wrong, but.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to approach it as, well, I won't use this with people who have trauma when trauma's often not even something that an individual may be aware of having because of the protectors.
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[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that they don't have trauma.
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[SPEAKER_03]: What part is that?
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[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
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[SPEAKER_03]: All the time, all the time in my sessions, people have trauma that they've forgotten about the percolates of, you know, it's super, I was just thinking about a group that I was that one needed to do some training for their company.
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[SPEAKER_03]: that we're doing five and meal pens.
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[SPEAKER_03]: That's a very like the most powerful psychedelic on earth.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I've had people come with PTSD because of taking five and meal without a practitioner.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And I said, who, you know, do you have trauma-trained practitioners on your staff that are doing the work?
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[SPEAKER_03]: And they said, no, we just don't give them enough to have their trauma come up.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, that's a problem, right, because even a small amount can, you know, bring trauma up.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So it's, I really want to drive home how important it is to be trained in, in trauma, therapies that work, and so you can handle.
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[SPEAKER_03]: as a clinician what comes up for clients.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It happens a lot in psychedelics because it softens back the protectors that stuff can emerge that people are, you know, they're part system or unaware of before.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you for, thank you for that reflection, too.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, if it can come up with that psychedelics, then it certainly can come up with psychedelics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And any dose I would assume, if it's there, and it's there, and at least 65% of the adult population.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Probably more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So last thing we have time for for now is let's talk about the need for more research.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You've kind of touched on this bit, but would love for you to expand upon that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You want to take that one, Dave?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'd love to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that is now kind of emerging in the psychedelic world is there's actually the majority would say, yeah, we need important.
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[SPEAKER_00]: psychological structure to support psychedelic journeys, and there's this small, but vocal group that's actually questioning that and trying to say, no, it's just the molecule just give people the medicine, that's the act of ingredient.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And there's, you know, there's sort of strategic reasons why that vocal minority is speaking up, which often has to do with
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[SPEAKER_00]: you know FDA approvals and trying to appeal to investors that you know want something fairly simple to invest in and get a fast track drug approval.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it's it's kind of understandable why they're pitching it in that way but it could potentially be dangerous and so we're really hoping that research can support the need for good psychological
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[SPEAKER_00]: support in the preparation phase in the acute phase of taking the medicine and also in the integration phase.
55:48.337 --> 55:52.263
[SPEAKER_00]: And we really feel like we've said that that IFS is in a good position for that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're hoping the manual will support that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And, yeah, we do know there have been studies that have basically said that things like the therapeutic alliance.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So in the preparatory stages, the depth of the therapeutic alliance, they've shown has been associated with how deep the person then goes on medicine and what we would say in IFS is probably that work with their protectors is helping them go deeper.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's basically what they've shown.
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[SPEAKER_00]: which then in turn means better depression, in this case, they were studying a population with depression, better depression outcome at follow-up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there is some evidence there that's supportive of it, but we don't really know what models work better than others.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We just sort of know that some kind of support seems to be helpful, but we'd really like to show that models like IFS can be helpful, so we're hoping to support this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anything that you would want people who are listening to know could be beneficial in advancing that research?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've got to plug the book, but I'll also say there's a lot of organizations that are doing good research work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're interested, I would take a look and see what you can support.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a, you know, I think there's a lot of places to support around that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sounded you have specific places you'd God people, or Martha?
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[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the foundation for self leadership actually is a specifically IFS-oriented foundation that supports research.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So if you want to give some money, give us a good place to give it if you're interested in supporting IFS, psychedelic assisted therapy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Perfect.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So for anyone who's listening and you can pick up this book and you can get Sonny's other book, they're a delic as well, and support the IFS, the foundation for self-leadership and their research.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I am so grateful to the three of you for spending all this time with me today, Sonny Strasburg, Martha Swiezy, and David Loves.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for being my guests on
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Laura.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was really fun.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having us.