Bessel van der Kolk | The Future of Trauma Healing Is Already Here

WEBVTT
1
00:00:02.799 --> 00:00:06.799
Welcome to the Radical Responsibility Podcast. I'm doctor Fleet Mala,
2
00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:09.320
and I'm excited to guide you on a journey of
3
00:00:09.400 --> 00:00:13.080
authentic transformation. In each episode, I'll bring you insights from
4
00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:18.480
leading experts to explore trauma recovery, mindfulness practices, positive psychology,
5
00:00:18.559 --> 00:00:23.199
and innovative breakthroughs in health, wellness and life optimization. This
6
00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:26.839
is a space for real conversations that inspire meaningful change,
7
00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:29.800
helping you find alignment with the person you are always
8
00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:30.239
meant to be.
9
00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:31.480
Let's get started.
10
00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:42.119
What if transformation isn't just about thinking differently, but feeling differently.
11
00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:45.479
Science shows us that true change happens when we align
12
00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:49.039
not just our minds, but also the neural networks in
13
00:00:49.079 --> 00:00:52.679
our hearts and guts. This heart mind connection is the
14
00:00:52.759 --> 00:00:57.000
key to deeper healing, resilience, and expanded awareness. That's why
15
00:00:57.039 --> 00:01:00.399
I created the Heart Mind All access membership and community,
16
00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:03.640
a space designed to help you rewire your nervous system,
17
00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:06.319
cultivate heart intelligence, and live.
18
00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:07.959
With greater clarity and purpose.
19
00:01:08.599 --> 00:01:13.640
With over one thousand hours of transformational teachings specifically curated
20
00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:19.840
to meet your needs, You'll learn from world renowned meditation teachers, neuroscientists,
21
00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:24.480
and experts in neuroplasticity, all sharing powerful tools to help
22
00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:28.920
you shift your mindset and heartset, regulate your emotions, and
23
00:01:29.239 --> 00:01:33.879
unlock your full potential. You'll also gain unlimited access to
24
00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:37.280
every summit and course we've ever produced, a Treasure Trouble
25
00:01:37.359 --> 00:01:41.680
Wisdom worth over ten thousand dollars in growing, plus live gatherings,
26
00:01:41.719 --> 00:01:45.560
and an inspiring global community to support your journey. If
27
00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:48.400
you're ready to step into a more heart centered, connected
28
00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:51.480
and conscious life, I invite you to join us. Clip
29
00:01:51.519 --> 00:01:55.079
the link to learn more and start your journey today.
30
00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:58.519
What if the very medicine you've been searching for to
31
00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:02.200
heal deep trauma was already here. In today's episode, I
32
00:02:02.239 --> 00:02:06.480
sit down with the legendary doctor bessel Vandercolt to explore
33
00:02:06.519 --> 00:02:11.719
the groundbreaking field of psycholic assisted therapy, particularly the remarkable
34
00:02:11.759 --> 00:02:15.759
role of MDMA in transforming the lives of people living
35
00:02:15.759 --> 00:02:20.319
with trauma. Doctor Vannakelet shares how MDMA creates a safe
36
00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:24.879
space for individuals to revisit painful memories without being overwhelmed
37
00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:28.840
by them. This shift allows for profound healing, especially for
38
00:02:28.879 --> 00:02:32.520
those with histories of childhood abuse or neglect, people whose
39
00:02:32.560 --> 00:02:37.639
suffering has often been resistant to traditional therapies. Together will
40
00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:41.919
dive into how MDMA fosters self compassion, helps break cycles
41
00:02:41.960 --> 00:02:45.719
of re experiencing trauma, and opens the door to integration,
42
00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:49.680
bringing the insights from therapy into daily life. This is
43
00:02:49.719 --> 00:02:54.680
an inspiring and hopeful conversation about what's possible when science, compassion,
44
00:02:54.759 --> 00:02:57.439
and courage meet on the path of healing.
45
00:02:57.759 --> 00:02:59.879
Let's get started. Miname is Slee.
46
00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:02.039
Malt your co host for the session, and I'm really
47
00:03:02.039 --> 00:03:04.599
happy to be here today with doctor bessel Mannicol.
48
00:03:04.759 --> 00:03:06.599
Welcome bessel Which to be here.
49
00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.719
Besil, you've been one of the pioneers and leaders in
50
00:03:10.080 --> 00:03:13.599
the use of psychaic therapies to treat specific mental health
51
00:03:13.639 --> 00:03:16.719
disorders and trauma and postmatic stress disorder.
52
00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:19.479
I consider myself as a student who is following in
53
00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:20.719
the footsteps of other people.
54
00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:25.039
Yeah, okay, but certainly a leader today. And Mama, we
55
00:03:25.080 --> 00:03:27.360
could just start with your journey. How did you find
56
00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:32.159
your way in the psychedelic assistant psychotherapy in particular, Well.
57
00:03:32.039 --> 00:03:36.280
Of course, it started a long time ago, because I
58
00:03:36.319 --> 00:03:38.960
grew up in the sixties. That's the time that people
59
00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:42.800
were using LSD and other mind altering substances. So my
60
00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:46.199
research team says, oh, we're part of the revolution. I
61
00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:49.319
always say, actually, I'm part of the second Revolution, because
62
00:03:49.800 --> 00:03:52.479
for me it started many years ago, and then so
63
00:03:52.879 --> 00:03:56.879
LSD was declared illegal and DMA was declared illegal, and
64
00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:02.080
about fifteen years ago right now, mcdublin and Michael Mitthoffery
65
00:04:02.599 --> 00:04:04.800
had lunch with me and asked me about of my
66
00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:09.240
opinion about psychedelics, and I thought, boy, that's really it's
67
00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:12.439
a terrific idea, because when you're traumatized, you live in
68
00:04:12.439 --> 00:04:15.919
a very narrow to reality and you might really closes
69
00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:19.959
down in many ways, and you're very vulnerable, and you
70
00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:24.519
try to control yourself and your reactions, and so you
71
00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:29.319
get very uptight. And psychedelics, clearly, I thought, might have
72
00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:33.279
the possibility of opening up people's minds because and that's
73
00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:37.439
very necessary. But I thought these drugs are illegal. I
74
00:04:37.480 --> 00:04:40.920
have met many people who used to do psychedelic research
75
00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.560
in the sixties. They all had terrible careers, and I
76
00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:48.160
told Mack and Michael I wouldn't do that. It's too hard.
77
00:04:48.639 --> 00:04:51.600
And as usually happens when they give people advised, it
78
00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:56.240
didn't take it and the events for it, and they
79
00:04:56.360 --> 00:04:59.959
sued the FDA to do a study and it was done,
80
00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:03.639
they had to sue again, and this beauty took an
81
00:05:03.800 --> 00:05:07.439
enormous mount of a hard work on that part. They
82
00:05:07.519 --> 00:05:10.160
made this happen. And when they started to phase free trial,
83
00:05:10.519 --> 00:05:13.279
they asked me if I wanted to be the PI
84
00:05:13.639 --> 00:05:17.160
of the Boston side of that study, which I eagerly
85
00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:19.800
accepted that. Boy, am I grateful that I got to
86
00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:23.399
do it, because it has been an amazing Volla coaster ride.
87
00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:28.480
It also has been show a technique that looked in
88
00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:32.199
some ways more profound than anything that I've studied in
89
00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:33.759
my fifteen years of doing this work.
90
00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:34.439
Wow.
91
00:05:34.759 --> 00:05:36.160
So that's what you've used.
92
00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:38.720
The metaphor, the common metaphor of rewiring the brain and
93
00:05:38.759 --> 00:05:41.800
talk about how trauma in the sense rewires our brain
94
00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:44.720
in ways that can be very debilitating. And then various
95
00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:47.759
treatments can be used to perhaps rewire the brain to
96
00:05:47.879 --> 00:05:51.160
heal trauma and to recover and so forth. And so
97
00:05:51.240 --> 00:05:53.040
I wonder if you good talk a little bit about
98
00:05:53.079 --> 00:05:57.240
how psychedelic assistant therapy in particular facilitates that kind of
99
00:05:57.279 --> 00:06:00.720
rewiring in positive ways that can heal rama.
100
00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:03.680
That's really interesting to me is that we have a
101
00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:07.680
group of six clinicians who were administering the MDMA treatment,
102
00:06:08.199 --> 00:06:10.720
and most of them I have trained and I know
103
00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:14.199
quite well, and I thought, boy, these people are very
104
00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:18.000
good therapists. I wonder if MDMA will add anything to
105
00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:21.839
it because these therapists are so good. And then that's
106
00:06:21.879 --> 00:06:24.560
the great thing about your research. You find things you
107
00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:27.920
did not expect. Some things that you were sure were
108
00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:30.639
good to happen don't happen, and other things come up.
109
00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:35.279
And so I thought that psychotherapy alone without MDMA would
110
00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:38.639
have a major impact, and it didn't. It had somewhat
111
00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:42.439
of an impact, but adding MDMA to it made a
112
00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:45.720
tremendous amount of difference. And so the guesses in the
113
00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:48.759
whole issue that's going to be an issue for our future,
114
00:06:49.240 --> 00:06:54.560
and that's the issue of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. And there's
115
00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:58.160
something in our culture, and certainly psychiatric culture is very
116
00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:01.279
much like, let's find the will to give to people
117
00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:04.480
so they get all fixed up and better. That's not
118
00:07:04.519 --> 00:07:07.879
how it's going to be. On psychedelics, including a VMA,
119
00:07:07.959 --> 00:07:11.600
which strictly speaking is not a psychedelic you have very
120
00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:18.839
profound experiences, sometimes very painful, sometimes very joyful. But the
121
00:07:18.879 --> 00:07:21.480
big thing is how do you integrated with the best
122
00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:24.160
of your life, but do you learn? And the psychotherapy
123
00:07:24.199 --> 00:07:28.879
part is terribly important actually, and as you've heard at
124
00:07:28.879 --> 00:07:33.319
this point, the advisory committed to the FDA, in their ignorance,
125
00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:37.639
voted nine to two and ten to one to not
126
00:07:38.199 --> 00:07:42.199
recommend legalization of VMA. And that does really stunning to
127
00:07:42.199 --> 00:07:47.920
me because the data we collected, particularly thanks to Dull
128
00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.360
and being able to raise sixty three million dollars to studies,
129
00:07:52.920 --> 00:07:56.839
the data are very clear outrage the benefits and in fact,
130
00:07:57.439 --> 00:08:02.399
we were so careful in sex every small detail of
131
00:08:02.439 --> 00:08:07.120
people's risk exposure and there were no side effects. And
132
00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:10.759
we studied over two hundred people and we had no
133
00:08:11.399 --> 00:08:15.759
medical adverse reactions. They have maybe a minor thing, maybe
134
00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:19.399
somethody got the headache, sometimes maybe somebody got a tiny
135
00:08:19.480 --> 00:08:23.160
increase in their blood pressure, but web found those side effects.
136
00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:27.079
And so the FDA turned this down because they said
137
00:08:27.319 --> 00:08:30.920
we need to know more about side effects. We studied that,
138
00:08:30.920 --> 00:08:33.600
that's why you do the research. So things really got
139
00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:36.960
very debailed. And in some ways you're talking to me
140
00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:40.240
one month too early. Months from now, the FDA is
141
00:08:40.279 --> 00:08:44.080
going to make his final bruling the issue better psychedelics
142
00:08:44.200 --> 00:08:46.480
are made legal or not. It's a very big one
143
00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:50.600
actually in that if they continue to be illegal, they
144
00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:54.519
will continue to be used because the Pandora's box has
145
00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:59.080
been opened and there's a huge underground culture and it
146
00:08:59.120 --> 00:09:02.440
will be you, but there will be studied. And so
147
00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:06.879
only if you legalize it ky you actually accumulate more
148
00:09:06.919 --> 00:09:09.960
and more data and more experiences. And so I very
149
00:09:10.039 --> 00:09:14.120
much hope that the FDA bailable come to its census
150
00:09:14.159 --> 00:09:19.840
and bed legalize these drugs under careful conditions. The conditions
151
00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:23.639
are important so as we open up the possibility of
152
00:09:23.759 --> 00:09:27.399
legal administration these drugs, so it doesn't open up the crunch.
153
00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:29.039
Hey, friends, fleet mall here.
154
00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:31.399
I just wanted to take a moment to thank all
155
00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:34.639
of you, our listeners and supporters for being part of
156
00:09:34.679 --> 00:09:37.799
the Heartline community. Thanks to your support, we've been named
157
00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:41.600
one of Ink five thousands fastest Growing Companies in America
158
00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:44.600
for the second year in a row, ranking at number
159
00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:46.159
one thousand, three hundred and five.
160
00:09:46.519 --> 00:09:47.960
It's an incredible honor and.
161
00:09:47.879 --> 00:09:51.399
A reflection of how many people are embracing mindfulness, compassion,
162
00:09:51.720 --> 00:09:53.320
and conscious living together.
163
00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:56.159
We're so grateful to be on this journey with you.
164
00:09:56.600 --> 00:09:58.639
Yes, I was planning on asking you a question about
165
00:09:58.679 --> 00:10:01.279
that later, but we'll address it now. So it was
166
00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:04.480
very disheartening to see the report from the advisory committee,
167
00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:06.679
the FDA Advisory Committee, and you know a couple of
168
00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:08.759
things that I found a number of things I found
169
00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:10.440
confusing there. And it seems to be a bit of
170
00:10:10.519 --> 00:10:13.440
a residue from the kind of drug war mentality and
171
00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:16.159
so forth. And I'm not sure how they conceived the
172
00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:19.080
composition of that committee and that their level of background
173
00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:21.759
in it. But you know, you mentioned the documentation of
174
00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:25.159
adverse effects or side effects, and from what I read,
175
00:10:25.360 --> 00:10:28.399
you know, what technically can be called diverse effects can
176
00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:31.360
be what may be considered positive effects for therapy. And
177
00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:35.039
so maybe the researchers weren't documenting every way in which
178
00:10:35.080 --> 00:10:38.720
the drug was impacting one state of mind or one's affections,
179
00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:40.440
and it was to be ported.
180
00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:45.120
By people m h. He collected the data with exquisite
181
00:10:45.159 --> 00:10:46.360
care mm hm.
182
00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:51.000
The other thing was they criticized the protocol around you
183
00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:53.799
know that it's very difficult to maintain a double blind
184
00:10:54.159 --> 00:10:57.679
condition and a randomized political trial, because one pretty well
185
00:10:57.759 --> 00:11:01.279
quickly knows whether one received the psycho active substance or not.
186
00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:04.399
And so this is almost like saying, well, then you
187
00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:07.200
can't get there from here. If you can't solve that problem,
188
00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:09.000
we're not going to prove it. That just doesn't make
189
00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:11.519
any sense at all. And then they were also addressing
190
00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:13.960
the risk. And it does seem like with all the
191
00:11:14.039 --> 00:11:17.759
research that's going on with psycholics, particularly the MDMA study,
192
00:11:17.799 --> 00:11:21.159
but even though it's been well established the low risk
193
00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:22.600
of medicines.
194
00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:27.440
Of course, the issue of blinding has always been foremost
195
00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:31.480
of the mind to the researchers, and in fact, Rick Dublin,
196
00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:36.279
who I measured will also interview, negotiated extensively with the
197
00:11:36.360 --> 00:11:40.679
FDA what the best protocol would be given this blinding issue.
198
00:11:40.840 --> 00:11:44.879
So the FDA approved the portocol we did, and they
199
00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:47.879
proved the notion that we don't give some substance to
200
00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:50.159
the other people that makes their body feel a little
201
00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:54.039
bit in turmoil. I said. Everybody's aware of that, and
202
00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:56.960
that's why we had blind waters, as the people who
203
00:11:57.240 --> 00:12:00.840
did the assessment had no idea what people were taking,
204
00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:03.360
and the people themselves didn't know what they had been taking.
205
00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:07.320
Although most people who took to MDMA were very aware,
206
00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:10.080
Oh my mind has changed and it is different. But
207
00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:13.360
this is actually surprising to me. A number of people
208
00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:16.080
in the study who did not get to MDMA, who
209
00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:19.279
call the placebo, actually thought they had been on MDMA
210
00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:25.000
because the setting was so unusual. You know, you lie
211
00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:27.360
the couch in a very nice space and played very
212
00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:30.600
nice music with two very nice people. Quite a few people,
213
00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:34.200
including the psychiatrists who was in the study, saw that
214
00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:37.919
on placebo they had to receive the MDMA. So I
215
00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:40.840
think that objection was really bizarre. And then the other
216
00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:44.399
CD based is that indeed, somebody who was part of
217
00:12:44.480 --> 00:12:49.600
an earlier MDMA study had very inappropriate reladyship with the
218
00:12:49.639 --> 00:12:53.879
patient and that was horrendous that he did that. But
219
00:12:54.120 --> 00:12:55.960
that has nothing to do with the drug. And there's
220
00:12:56.039 --> 00:12:58.440
people who are psycho analysts who have messed in the
221
00:12:58.519 --> 00:13:01.840
patients and people would CBT have measures. It doesn't mean
222
00:13:01.879 --> 00:13:05.840
that those methods are not useful. That somebody did a
223
00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:07.960
terrible thing, but it has nothing to do with the drug.
224
00:13:08.480 --> 00:13:10.679
Yeah, absolutely, well, it does give hope.
225
00:13:10.759 --> 00:13:13.559
And yes, that the FDA was very involved.
226
00:13:13.159 --> 00:13:16.639
In the research protocol all along, so maybe that gives
227
00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:19.360
some hope that despite this committee's findings that the FDA
228
00:13:19.519 --> 00:13:23.039
will go ahead and approve the rescheduling, so we can
229
00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:25.879
hope for that. So in our culture, we do have
230
00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:28.480
a tendency to look for panaceas. And of course we've
231
00:13:28.519 --> 00:13:31.000
all been and culturated to fix ourselves with a pill.
232
00:13:31.559 --> 00:13:36.279
And so although these psycholic medicines have proven incredibly powerful
233
00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:39.799
and create very powerful openings, as you said, it's the
234
00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:44.559
integration of these medicines with psychotherapy. So psycholical sis is psychotherapy.
235
00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:47.000
So I'm curious about your own experience in research and
236
00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:50.919
research interest because you've been involved with nuro feedback, with
237
00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:56.559
parts work with psychodynamic therapy, with psychodrama, with many different modalities,
238
00:13:56.879 --> 00:13:59.039
and I would think the exciting part of this research
239
00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:02.799
would now be because my understanding of the MDMA studies
240
00:14:02.840 --> 00:14:06.600
and some of the other ongoing political trials is that
241
00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:10.559
there wasn't much cyclotherapy going on during the session. It
242
00:14:10.639 --> 00:14:14.559
was pre session preparation, post session integration. There's kind of
243
00:14:14.559 --> 00:14:16.919
one camp that says, let the medicine do its work.
244
00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:20.080
But I would think some of the really interesting research
245
00:14:20.120 --> 00:14:23.679
going forward could be actually more actively integrating things like
246
00:14:23.759 --> 00:14:28.080
neuro feedback or psycho draw or mindfuless meditation training, yoga,
247
00:14:28.120 --> 00:14:32.759
these different modalities more integrating them even more proactively, possibly
248
00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:34.320
with the psychedelic medicines.
249
00:14:34.440 --> 00:14:37.600
Yeah. I think that's true the subdegree. But the downside
250
00:14:37.799 --> 00:14:41.120
is that psychotherapists tend to be a religious loss. They've
251
00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:44.840
earned a particular technique. I think this technique is the answer.
252
00:14:44.919 --> 00:14:49.480
And so people say I'm a Freudian analyst, and they go, oh,
253
00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:53.279
that's nice. You follow somebody from the last century, and
254
00:14:53.480 --> 00:14:56.080
it's some crazy ideas, and how do I apply this
255
00:14:56.159 --> 00:15:00.399
to fraudian psychanalysis? Other people say I'm an emd art therapist,
256
00:15:00.519 --> 00:15:04.240
how do I integrate with the MDR? And I go, actually,
257
00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:06.440
why can you learn how to be a psychedelics therapist
258
00:15:06.519 --> 00:15:08.919
and see if you still need your treating that you
259
00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:12.200
happen to have learned before, but it's still necessary. So
260
00:15:12.519 --> 00:15:17.000
I would not jump to let's do combined different methods
261
00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:22.000
with the psychedelics. Although, as you mentioned before, I'm very
262
00:15:22.039 --> 00:15:26.639
much into psychodrama and it's actually my favorite clinical activity
263
00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:31.080
because it's very interactive and you see profound changes. And
264
00:15:31.279 --> 00:15:34.720
my friend Guita vis where you also know, said let's
265
00:15:34.759 --> 00:15:37.480
combine it with psychedelics. So we set up a weekend
266
00:15:37.559 --> 00:15:41.200
about ten people and we did psycho Drama, and without
267
00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:45.440
Academy the movie is available. It's interesting people were slightly
268
00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:49.000
more open. But I'm not convinced that adding psycho Drama
269
00:15:49.080 --> 00:15:52.639
to Academy helped make it a better experience. I think
270
00:15:53.200 --> 00:15:57.200
they both are useful experiences in different ways, and I'm
271
00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:01.320
skeptical that one thing really profoundly hanced the other one.
272
00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:03.960
Well, so you mentioned why not just beginning to become
273
00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:06.879
a good psychoic therapist? So maybe I can explore what
274
00:16:06.919 --> 00:16:10.519
you mean by that exactly. So is that primarily just
275
00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:12.960
how to be a sitter, how to hold space for
276
00:16:13.200 --> 00:16:15.759
the journey itself, or is it the whole spectrum of
277
00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:19.279
preparation and integration. Following that, what do we learn to
278
00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:20.879
be a good psychoic therapist?
279
00:16:21.159 --> 00:16:25.200
Well, one very important part is that even though MDMA
280
00:16:25.279 --> 00:16:29.559
is called ecstasy out in the streets, for almost nobody,
281
00:16:29.600 --> 00:16:33.559
taking MDMA was an ecstatic experience that for most people,
282
00:16:34.279 --> 00:16:37.679
very painful material came up, very scary stuff comes up.
283
00:16:38.159 --> 00:16:41.279
And if you're by yourself, then the number of our
284
00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:44.879
subjects in our study actually said that I could never
285
00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.159
have done this without your presence. I never come as
286
00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:54.919
deep without you, And people oftentimes during their secular experiences,
287
00:16:55.159 --> 00:17:00.000
are confronted with very painful things, oftentimes that they had repressed,
288
00:17:00.200 --> 00:17:03.799
are not dare to go to and as you start
289
00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:09.279
re experiencing and notice what happens to you, that can
290
00:17:09.319 --> 00:17:12.680
be an extraordinary painful experience. And having people at that
291
00:17:12.759 --> 00:17:16.440
point who are there for you and who can help
292
00:17:16.519 --> 00:17:20.240
you to feel what you feel and to say it's okay,
293
00:17:20.680 --> 00:17:23.400
just go there and see what happens next. And so
294
00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:28.119
the role of the therapist is very much to encourage people.
295
00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:33.200
They give people hearts to face very difficult reality. So
296
00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:37.440
it's not true that during the experience itself nothing happens.
297
00:17:37.720 --> 00:17:42.000
That the pathic presence of people is terribly important, as
298
00:17:42.039 --> 00:17:45.160
you clouded depths of your mind, So.
299
00:17:45.079 --> 00:17:49.720
The ability to provide that empathic presence and encouragement in
300
00:17:49.759 --> 00:17:52.400
this context that a client or the patient is someone
301
00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:55.680
who has identified traumas and stuff, and so it's likely
302
00:17:55.759 --> 00:17:57.799
that very difficult things are going to come up. And
303
00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:00.720
the whole thing I would think could be very sentuated
304
00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:05.119
compared to our conventional psychotherapytic session in terms of the
305
00:18:05.119 --> 00:18:08.279
therapists themselves, it seems there would be a higher bar
306
00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:10.799
for the inner work they've done to be able to
307
00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:13.559
hold space in an empathic way, to not have their
308
00:18:13.559 --> 00:18:15.720
own material get triggered or if it is, to be
309
00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.680
able to work with that to understand the dynamics so
310
00:18:18.839 --> 00:18:20.480
transference and countertransference.
311
00:18:20.559 --> 00:18:21.400
It seems like the.
312
00:18:21.319 --> 00:18:23.880
Bar gets raised for the ability of the therapist to
313
00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:25.880
hold space in that really effective way.
314
00:18:26.359 --> 00:18:29.400
Well, you think about our culture is that we have
315
00:18:29.519 --> 00:18:32.599
really moved towards trying to We have moved from mental
316
00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:36.839
health to behavioral health. Behavioral health don't be paid in
317
00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:40.039
the ass, I suppose to mental health is how are
318
00:18:40.039 --> 00:18:42.920
you doing it with yourself? And so the greedy young
319
00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:47.319
people get treated is to fix people. That's how irmonstrated.
320
00:18:47.640 --> 00:18:53.000
But so when people get miserable and happy, something learned
321
00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:56.519
to fix it, say, oh, you should be grateful. Oh
322
00:18:56.559 --> 00:18:58.480
you should look at the bright sides, you should look
323
00:18:58.519 --> 00:19:02.799
at it. No, you should have courage to confront the
324
00:19:02.799 --> 00:19:07.559
pain of your past. And very few young therapists know that,
325
00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:11.759
and very young therapists have the trust that people have
326
00:19:12.200 --> 00:19:17.119
indge capacities to resolve things, provided they're able to go
327
00:19:17.240 --> 00:19:19.039
there and confronted.
328
00:19:19.480 --> 00:19:22.240
Yeah, so I think that is a really important distinction.
329
00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:24.759
And I think maybe in the history of psychotherapy, it
330
00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:27.039
was off, but more of a willingness to really go
331
00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:31.720
with the patient into whatever reality they were experiencing, to
332
00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:34.119
meet them there and join them there to validate and
333
00:19:34.279 --> 00:19:38.079
burn that, so that rather than that fix somebody approach.
334
00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:43.000
Another issue I think behind this advisory committee in general
335
00:19:43.519 --> 00:19:46.599
is that our professions are very much focused on what
336
00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:49.839
is wrong with you, and we made these enters what's
337
00:19:49.839 --> 00:19:55.559
wrong with you? And psychedelics also give you sometimes pleasure,
338
00:19:56.039 --> 00:20:01.240
joy and awe in your mind. Profession is not it's
339
00:20:01.240 --> 00:20:05.359
too pleasure, I see. Our profession hates the F words.
340
00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:10.000
But fun, the notion that people have fun doing something
341
00:20:10.359 --> 00:20:14.200
is anathema. It's psychiatory and psychology we are there for
342
00:20:14.359 --> 00:20:17.799
to help you to not be messed up. But I
343
00:20:17.799 --> 00:20:21.599
mean people having fun or people feeling joy, that's not
344
00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:25.440
what we do for a living as our puritanical society.
345
00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:26.920
People just might feel good.
346
00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:29.279
Yeah, yeah, I think that's very much a legacy of
347
00:20:29.319 --> 00:20:33.960
our kind of puritanical Western society. So another shift I
348
00:20:34.039 --> 00:20:37.720
think in psychotherapy, and that kind of works. Since let's
349
00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:40.559
say the sixties of the Human Potential movement, things like
350
00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:43.559
astalt and other things that were going on, is it
351
00:20:43.599 --> 00:20:48.119
seemed like psychotherapy became very risk averse. You know, safety
352
00:20:48.200 --> 00:20:50.680
is important and we don't want to retraumatize people, but
353
00:20:50.720 --> 00:20:53.799
it seemed like it became so risk averse that maybe
354
00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:56.640
not much was going to happen. It could really lead.
355
00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:57.519
To breakthroughs for people.
356
00:20:57.799 --> 00:21:00.960
And what I've seen what the world of psycholgical psychotherapy,
357
00:21:01.359 --> 00:21:05.240
it seems like like psychotherapists have rediscovered their bravery or
358
00:21:05.240 --> 00:21:08.039
the field. I mean, it's pretty brave work that's happening
359
00:21:08.079 --> 00:21:11.160
to take people into these experiences. So it seems like
360
00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:14.720
a real shift in the kind of bravery that's required
361
00:21:14.759 --> 00:21:18.599
to hold space and allow patients to experience things in
362
00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:21.240
a way that there really could be transformation, right.
363
00:21:21.519 --> 00:21:25.039
And as part of it, you mentioned already if you
364
00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:28.519
need to have your own experience, and when I trained,
365
00:21:28.759 --> 00:21:32.000
you know she could love see mcgeezer and I trained
366
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:35.640
do your own work. What's very much part of the requirements,
367
00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:40.039
and do this work that is nowhere considered necessary condition
368
00:21:40.119 --> 00:21:43.880
to become good psychotherapists. And in fact, in our submissions
369
00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:46.440
to the FDA, we said that people need to have
370
00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:49.160
to own the therapists need to have their own experiences.
371
00:21:49.640 --> 00:21:52.680
And I feel very strongly about it, like you can
372
00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:57.000
also really know what the psychotic experience is like without
373
00:21:57.079 --> 00:22:00.559
having heads, and so you need to also have had
374
00:22:00.599 --> 00:22:04.200
the experience as certainly I've ad two of going deep
375
00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:08.200
inside and finding some very painful and see that you
376
00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:11.960
can tolerate it, and you can confront it and you
377
00:22:12.039 --> 00:22:15.160
can come to terms with it. But that means that
378
00:22:15.240 --> 00:22:19.039
you're also very much open to feel your pain and
379
00:22:19.079 --> 00:22:22.519
to feel the burdens that you carry. And indeed, people
380
00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:25.400
get scared. The moment somebody gets agitated or upset, you
381
00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:27.240
go like, let's give you a pill, so he's no
382
00:22:27.319 --> 00:22:30.519
longer agitated. Let's give them advice about but to do
383
00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:33.519
sit they no longer upset. People are upset for a
384
00:22:33.559 --> 00:22:36.240
good reason, and it's perfectly all right for you to
385
00:22:36.279 --> 00:22:41.079
be very terrified and scared and angry. Let's see what
386
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:43.880
happens there. And so you need to have very open
387
00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:47.559
heart and open minds in order to help people with
388
00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:51.200
their secretary experiences and not try to control the process.
389
00:22:51.599 --> 00:22:53.400
You're both The body keeps.
390
00:22:53.400 --> 00:22:56.680
The score really emphasizes the somatic aspect of this work
391
00:22:56.799 --> 00:23:00.440
and trauma all together. So I wonderfully they sploil that
392
00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:05.160
a little bit. The somatic aspector dimensions of psychiaelical system psychotherapy.
393
00:23:05.279 --> 00:23:08.319
Part of what got me interested in psychedelics here is
394
00:23:08.359 --> 00:23:12.359
that a close friend of mine was diagnosed with metastatic
395
00:23:12.440 --> 00:23:16.240
positive cancer about twelve years ago, and he was going
396
00:23:16.319 --> 00:23:18.920
rapidly down hill and we all thought he would not
397
00:23:19.079 --> 00:23:22.440
live very long. And then he went to Johns Hopkins
398
00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:25.279
to get this cito cyber treatment for end of life,
399
00:23:25.359 --> 00:23:30.359
and he had a very profound experience and he is alive.
400
00:23:31.799 --> 00:23:35.119
He shouldn't have been alive. And that's one of several
401
00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:39.279
instances where I got to are these drugs keepable of
402
00:23:39.559 --> 00:23:46.119
changing your hormonial systems, your physiology, your core biological focus
403
00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:51.319
and mental health. People really are not interested or don't
404
00:23:51.319 --> 00:23:55.960
pay attention march to underlying physical illnesses. But we have
405
00:23:56.039 --> 00:23:59.000
known for a long time and the A study, for example,
406
00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:02.720
shortly are very clearly. But people know it well before
407
00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:06.519
the time that they you get traumatized, you die much earlier,
408
00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:12.359
you aren't more likely develop diseases. So trauma is not like, oh,
409
00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:16.559
your way of thinking and you understanding the work is
410
00:24:16.599 --> 00:24:21.039
your organism that is a traumatised organism. And so physical
411
00:24:21.079 --> 00:24:26.039
illnesses are extremely common among trauma tasts people. This is
412
00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:31.680
the gouts of musculture, fiber more algia, chronic fatigue, all
413
00:24:31.680 --> 00:24:35.039
these things are highly correlated with trauma. The system isn't
414
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:38.640
work and for me, what really would be good? But
415
00:24:38.839 --> 00:24:41.680
you know, we need to study effects of these agents
416
00:24:42.039 --> 00:24:47.240
on people's core immune systems, on their core physiological systems,
417
00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:50.680
way below what happens in the medical processes.
418
00:24:51.319 --> 00:24:53.920
So in my understanding of beleast the impact of trauma
419
00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:56.559
to one degree or another, and maybe memory specific or
420
00:24:56.599 --> 00:24:59.200
maybe ongoing, but our nervous system is getting locked in
421
00:24:59.240 --> 00:25:01.720
the brass levels fight or flight and somewhere or another.
422
00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:06.559
And so if that's ongoing, then there's this systemic inflammation
423
00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:08.920
that builds from that, which is really the root cause
424
00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:12.240
of many chronic illnesses. So I'm curious if even prior
425
00:25:12.279 --> 00:25:15.720
to psychical system psychotherapy are apart from that, with all
426
00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:18.079
the work that's been done around trauma and the research
427
00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:21.519
on various modalities for healing trauma, has there been research
428
00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:24.319
to show whether that has a correlated impact on a
429
00:25:24.359 --> 00:25:27.559
reduction of symptomology of things like chronic fatigue and some
430
00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:30.559
of these other immune system disorders and so forth.
431
00:25:31.039 --> 00:25:34.440
I don't think yet that's so my friend Sending McFarlane
432
00:25:34.759 --> 00:25:39.279
showed in a veteran population that even if the PTSD
433
00:25:39.400 --> 00:25:44.279
symptoms subside, the physical symptoms don't subside. So as long
434
00:25:44.279 --> 00:25:47.680
as just measure you have PTSD or not, you don't
435
00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:50.119
really get what you do. But I'm not aware of
436
00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:54.920
any studies that can demonstrate the defective treatment changes core
437
00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:58.480
neurobiological functioning that should be done. That should be the
438
00:25:58.519 --> 00:26:01.960
faultier of this work. And so the whole body piece
439
00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:06.839
is relevant. That again came up in my own MDMA experience.
440
00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:10.519
For example, as the principal investigator, I had to go
441
00:26:10.599 --> 00:26:15.319
through my own experience. During that experience, some very painful
442
00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:18.960
stuff came up. But also my body was cramping up.
443
00:26:19.079 --> 00:26:22.160
And my sisters Very Michael and I Mitwaffer, who are
444
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:25.640
a wonderful psychotherapist, but they don't know about work with
445
00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:29.119
the body, and they tried to figure touch my body
446
00:26:29.160 --> 00:26:31.680
to come self doubt, but they didn't how to do that.
447
00:26:31.759 --> 00:26:36.279
My wife, who is a spectacularly good body worker, happened
448
00:26:36.279 --> 00:26:37.920
to be across the streets, so he called it over.
449
00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:41.119
He k you piece work, and so she was able
450
00:26:41.160 --> 00:26:44.519
to really calm that body down. Now we do Kademy
451
00:26:44.519 --> 00:26:49.160
and assistance therapy trainings with Phil Wolfson and Kita, and
452
00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:51.759
we see a lot of people who really get into
453
00:26:51.799 --> 00:26:56.519
somatic expressions, and we first help each other to deal
454
00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:00.480
with the body experience and to help the bodies safe.
455
00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:06.279
But it's true for har anybody else because psychotherapists don't
456
00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:08.440
know about how to be with the body. In fact,
457
00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:13.160
they're terrified of touching bodies and the difference between touching
458
00:27:13.200 --> 00:27:15.400
somebody's arm and sexual intercourse.
459
00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:19.680
So interestingly in terms of the relationship between the psychic
460
00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:23.039
experience and the healing potential within that and the body
461
00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:26.839
psychic experiences, and of course it varies across different medicines,
462
00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:31.119
but can both lead to a powerful experiences of embodiment
463
00:27:31.240 --> 00:27:34.680
but also can be very disembodied at times. Even Ketamine
464
00:27:35.240 --> 00:27:38.720
my own experience with the being in some psychoic assistant
465
00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:43.279
therapy or retreats with ketamine, Initially there's a powerful body experience,
466
00:27:43.319 --> 00:27:46.440
and then at some point it's almost a completely disembodied experience,
467
00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:48.920
and then one comes back kind of in back into
468
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:51.519
the body, so to speak. I'm curious about your thoughts
469
00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:55.079
around this issue of embodiment disembodiment as it applies to
470
00:27:55.119 --> 00:27:56.400
the therapeutic effects.
471
00:27:56.519 --> 00:27:59.240
You know, kind ofmy is interesting that regard my first
472
00:27:59.240 --> 00:28:02.599
experience is kind of myself was also I lost my body,
473
00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:06.279
I lost my mind, and when I came back, I
474
00:28:06.319 --> 00:28:10.000
didn't particularly like it because I like my body and
475
00:28:10.039 --> 00:28:13.400
I like my mind even better. But my wife says
476
00:28:13.759 --> 00:28:17.039
that she felt that I really had some major alternations
477
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:19.200
in the way I behaved, even though I was not
478
00:28:19.240 --> 00:28:21.599
aware of this, And so you were always very bad
479
00:28:21.720 --> 00:28:24.640
judges for ourselves and and so you know kind of
480
00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:28.279
mean training that we do. We noticed that some people
481
00:28:28.359 --> 00:28:32.400
need to take huge doses of psychedelics before they feel anything.
482
00:28:32.799 --> 00:28:37.480
And actually licious observation, she said, is because these people
483
00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:41.559
have learned to dampen the input from that bodies. And
484
00:28:41.559 --> 00:28:45.000
that's what topic is. People do to ignore your body
485
00:28:45.319 --> 00:28:47.960
because your body gives you all these heart ventching and
486
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:52.519
gud venturing and heartbreaking sensations. And so one thing that
487
00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:55.519
you do and you're traveled is you try to suppress
488
00:28:55.960 --> 00:28:59.759
that body experience. So Adia had the idea that maybe
489
00:28:59.839 --> 00:29:04.119
if we do sabbatic experiencing before we do the psychedelics,
490
00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:07.440
that people may need lower doses. So now we spent
491
00:29:07.559 --> 00:29:11.680
the first day to half doing sabbatic experiencing well exactly
492
00:29:12.079 --> 00:29:15.200
people levine teachers, but something closer to that, and then
493
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:18.119
people need to bunch of lower doses for the same effect.
494
00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:20.599
I did some work with doctor Data and we had
495
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:23.200
a similar experience. We did a lot of very embodied
496
00:29:23.240 --> 00:29:27.920
meditation work, and then people with fairly low doses of
497
00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:30.519
ketamine had very potent experiences.
498
00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:35.119
So interesting. I interviewed doctor Andrew Wilde and he pointed
499
00:29:35.160 --> 00:29:37.079
to kind of what you were pointing to earlier, that
500
00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:41.559
the need to explore the potential physical healing benefits from
501
00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:45.519
psychaic medicines. He feels the tremendous potential there for physical
502
00:29:45.559 --> 00:29:49.119
healing and pain, transformational chronic pain and things like that.
503
00:29:49.960 --> 00:29:52.960
I agree with that it deserves a law of study.
504
00:29:53.319 --> 00:29:56.160
At this point, we just have a few anecdotes of
505
00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:00.440
surprising changes are consistent of this and how much you
506
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:03.119
can come to it, we have no idea. I became
507
00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:07.200
those living anecdotes alone because you may not be able
508
00:30:07.240 --> 00:30:08.839
to generalize from this anecdotes.
509
00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:13.160
So could explore a little bit the role of memory
510
00:30:13.279 --> 00:30:17.319
in trauma and in the healing process and psychoic sist therapy.
511
00:30:17.359 --> 00:30:19.200
And I know we've dissessed this before, and you were
512
00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:21.920
talking it's not so much about the stories and memories,
513
00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:25.519
per say, but the actual sensations, the physical experiences have
514
00:30:25.559 --> 00:30:28.359
come up that a client is what their complaint is,
515
00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:31.640
not the literal story that happened twenty years ago, but
516
00:30:31.680 --> 00:30:33.759
it's what they're experiencing right now, the fear of the
517
00:30:33.799 --> 00:30:36.559
anxiety they're experiencing right now in the moment. But I
518
00:30:36.559 --> 00:30:38.599
wonder if you could talk about how that's worked with
519
00:30:38.720 --> 00:30:43.160
and how that might get transformed in psychic therapy.
520
00:30:43.799 --> 00:30:47.519
SE. But you get framatized, you know, don't really remember
521
00:30:48.279 --> 00:30:51.359
you belived, And that's the critical issue. Don't real the
522
00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:56.359
only sense truma until you really know that. When somebody
523
00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:59.279
gets figured by the kids being noisy or the wife
524
00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:02.720
being something or not, they don't go, oh, did three
525
00:31:02.759 --> 00:31:04.599
might be about the time to ask for lesson. As
526
00:31:04.599 --> 00:31:09.640
a kid, you just blow up. So your body relives
527
00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:13.200
what happened in the past, but your capacity to understand
528
00:31:13.240 --> 00:31:17.000
the context of it disappears. And so the goal of
529
00:31:17.079 --> 00:31:19.799
trama a treatment is to make it into a memory
530
00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:22.599
so you can say, yes, this happened to me, and
531
00:31:22.720 --> 00:31:25.880
it happened when I was four or sixteen or thirty five,
532
00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:29.240
and so you know when it's happened and if you know,
533
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:33.039
it's over. In all the work that I've done, I
534
00:31:33.079 --> 00:31:37.279
saw EMDR sometimes being able to accomplish this, mainly in
535
00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:41.519
people with not early childhood trama. We're with adults at trama,
536
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:45.039
although sometimes also in childhood trama. But the issue that
537
00:31:45.240 --> 00:31:49.079
after people say, yes, it happened, and I did the
538
00:31:49.119 --> 00:31:52.240
best I could back then, but I was just a
539
00:31:52.279 --> 00:31:56.480
little kid, so you're laterally it becomes a memory. And
540
00:31:57.359 --> 00:32:00.559
what happens in m Dumay is so people go are
541
00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:05.319
capable of revisiting what happened back there and feel like
542
00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:08.759
that person who was baped, over lessed or whatever back then,
543
00:32:08.920 --> 00:32:12.279
but also have an observing capacity to go like, oh
544
00:32:12.359 --> 00:32:15.720
my god, that's what they went through back then. And
545
00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:18.759
then you get this deep sense of self compassion and
546
00:32:18.839 --> 00:32:22.079
you're like, this poor kid. The kid didn't know anything.
547
00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:25.000
This kid was totally dependent on these people. The kid
548
00:32:25.039 --> 00:32:28.079
did the best she could and that was really horrible
549
00:32:28.359 --> 00:32:32.799
for you back then, but that you created capacity for
550
00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:37.000
your mind to grasp the difference between past and presence.
551
00:32:37.440 --> 00:32:40.680
It's a huge issue, like in terms of people relive
552
00:32:40.759 --> 00:32:43.240
the past over and over again in their cenizations and
553
00:32:43.279 --> 00:32:47.240
their actions and after in the may people go, yeah,
554
00:32:47.480 --> 00:32:50.960
it happened, but it's over a very deep sense of
555
00:32:51.400 --> 00:32:54.519
it's happened back then. It's not happening right now. Pretty
556
00:32:54.519 --> 00:32:54.920
big deal.
557
00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:58.440
Like you, I have a strong interest in psycho drama work,
558
00:32:58.440 --> 00:33:00.279
and I've led a lot of psycho drama work, and
559
00:33:00.359 --> 00:33:05.519
my experience were often able to help people sort of
560
00:33:05.599 --> 00:33:09.480
reconnect with early childhood experiences and memories and shift their
561
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:12.480
relationship to it, maybe just simply in a kind of
562
00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:15.640
wise understanding or even in a cognitive way to see
563
00:33:15.640 --> 00:33:17.920
it differently. I was only a small child back then,
564
00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:21.000
it wasn't to understand it. But also sometimes in forms
565
00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:24.839
of psychodrama actually in the body creating a different experience
566
00:33:24.880 --> 00:33:27.039
of not being tracked, being able to fight back, being
567
00:33:27.039 --> 00:33:30.599
able to escape, being changing physically how they related to
568
00:33:30.680 --> 00:33:34.200
that situation, And that seems to be very powerful, and
569
00:33:34.279 --> 00:33:37.039
I would be really interested to see how that works
570
00:33:37.079 --> 00:33:38.480
with psycholic therapy.
571
00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:42.279
What I think app has been I do, whatever psycond
572
00:33:42.319 --> 00:33:45.519
drama I do, is that it's more for not what
573
00:33:45.720 --> 00:33:49.839
happened to you, but what didn't happen to you. Let's
574
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:51.839
say your mom didn't send up to you where your
575
00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:55.359
father would beat you up, or that's something just no protection,
576
00:33:55.839 --> 00:33:58.759
and the psycho drama people sort of regress in a way,
577
00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:03.440
and you get something to actually protect you back then,
578
00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:06.160
and some you pass it roll and you go like,
579
00:34:06.279 --> 00:34:10.800
oh my god, that's what who felt like if somebody
580
00:34:10.800 --> 00:34:13.360
would have protected me back then? And then they sort
581
00:34:13.400 --> 00:34:16.679
of rescript their lives. And so I still think there's
582
00:34:16.679 --> 00:34:21.000
an enormous amount of benefit from psycho drama, but most
583
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:23.960
much if you deal with the trauma, you deal with
584
00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:25.199
what didn't happen.
585
00:34:25.559 --> 00:34:28.440
Yes, absolutely that that seems to be a core thing
586
00:34:28.480 --> 00:34:31.440
that comes up in my experience of I wasn't protected.
587
00:34:31.559 --> 00:34:34.440
Nobody protected me, there was nobody there, or my mother
588
00:34:34.559 --> 00:34:36.880
or my father didn't protect me from the other or whatever.
589
00:34:36.920 --> 00:34:39.719
But that quality of being abandoned, not protected.
590
00:34:40.280 --> 00:34:44.360
And I don't see it. Mdmare getting per se would
591
00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:47.280
give you that experience, Oh now what I feel like,
592
00:34:47.480 --> 00:34:49.320
But it would have felt like if I'd been a
593
00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:52.760
loved child. Let's say, so, you know, the mind is
594
00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:56.719
incredibly complex and so one side never fits all, and
595
00:34:56.840 --> 00:35:00.960
even though our and the may data respectacularly good, it
596
00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:03.000
doesn't mean that it takes care of all the things
597
00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:04.079
that we're talking about.
598
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:06.800
Well, it certainly would seem the holding space of the
599
00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:10.519
therapist would be very important, and it does seem. Isn't
600
00:35:10.519 --> 00:35:13.320
always the case, but it's not uncommon that people have
601
00:35:13.480 --> 00:35:18.480
experiences on psychiatic journeys where one feels kind of held
602
00:35:18.599 --> 00:35:22.360
and this a profound sense of connectedness with the all
603
00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:24.800
the oneness the universe, and there is some sense of
604
00:35:24.880 --> 00:35:29.079
almost powerful sense of safety that isn't necessarily related to
605
00:35:29.119 --> 00:35:32.000
another human being directly, but just some sense of being
606
00:35:32.119 --> 00:35:34.639
this and connectedness that people experience.
607
00:35:35.079 --> 00:35:36.480
That would be the base is the whole issue of
608
00:35:36.920 --> 00:35:41.480
setting and the very important work of Guldolin about how
609
00:35:41.599 --> 00:35:46.480
psycho change critical periods, and that of course is very
610
00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:51.480
profound that research shows in the case suggests that all
611
00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:55.159
the psychoedelcts you can actually change your default mode network
612
00:35:55.519 --> 00:35:59.039
and your habitual way of dealing with the world, but
613
00:35:59.199 --> 00:36:02.239
comes into you you're in the secondary experiences. It is
614
00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:06.440
terribly important. And for example, in one of the pain
615
00:36:06.519 --> 00:36:08.440
needs I was part of, there were some people from
616
00:36:08.440 --> 00:36:10.840
the VA said, oh, yeah, we should do secondary therapy,
617
00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:13.079
or we have this corner in the waiting room in
618
00:36:13.159 --> 00:36:16.199
the office where we can do it, and I got
619
00:36:16.280 --> 00:36:18.840
to I mean in the waiting room, Well, everybody can
620
00:36:18.880 --> 00:36:22.880
walk by and we hear all the paging of stuff. Oh,
621
00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:27.400
you need to create a sa sacred space that's completely
622
00:36:27.400 --> 00:36:30.960
there to make you feel safe. And the music that
623
00:36:31.079 --> 00:36:33.760
you play and the companion films that you have is
624
00:36:33.800 --> 00:36:37.760
so important because d're in the secondary experiences. Your might
625
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:42.679
is wide open, and if you see unpleasant stuff, or
626
00:36:42.760 --> 00:36:46.559
you feel ignored, or you feel neglected, that becomes experience.
627
00:36:46.960 --> 00:36:50.639
So this is our opportunity to be the gift to
628
00:36:50.719 --> 00:36:55.519
people the sort of safe and pleasurable input that they
629
00:36:55.559 --> 00:36:58.159
need for them to create a new long term memory.
630
00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:02.440
And when you described earlier about the seeming placebo effect
631
00:37:02.480 --> 00:37:05.239
in the MDMA studies with those clients who that did
632
00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:08.599
not receive the medicine, it seems points of important. So
633
00:37:08.760 --> 00:37:12.119
set and setting even in regular psychotherapy without the medicine,
634
00:37:12.159 --> 00:37:14.639
there could be much more profoundly impactful if we paid
635
00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:15.960
more attention to that.
636
00:37:15.960 --> 00:37:19.679
That is true, but most of us are so looks
637
00:37:19.719 --> 00:37:24.519
in our habits that nothing is very hard to change us.
638
00:37:24.760 --> 00:37:27.199
You know, your friends try to change you, and your
639
00:37:27.199 --> 00:37:31.280
wife frish to change. It doesn't particular work all that well,
640
00:37:31.559 --> 00:37:34.239
but with your psychdelics, your mind is about to open
641
00:37:34.239 --> 00:37:37.719
it Stu. I mean, and that's really to my mind,
642
00:37:38.039 --> 00:37:41.920
if anything, so central to the secutive experience is that
643
00:37:42.119 --> 00:37:45.320
is what makes it so unique, is that your mind
644
00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:50.079
becomes wide open to change your habits. There's so many
645
00:37:50.199 --> 00:37:53.519
PTSDs and habits, so some of the more in my
646
00:37:53.639 --> 00:37:56.760
experience are more difficult to work with. Traumas a lot
647
00:37:56.840 --> 00:37:58.719
of us came up and then the psychodrama work there
648
00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:01.559
the trainings that I did for years, but also I've
649
00:38:01.599 --> 00:38:04.360
had close friends that really struggle. It seems to.
650
00:38:04.280 --> 00:38:09.039
Be very early childhood developmental traumas, even entry uterine, perhaps
651
00:38:09.119 --> 00:38:13.480
maybe feeling unwanted because maybe they weren't accidental pregnancy or something.
652
00:38:13.639 --> 00:38:15.599
But there can be theys where it just feels like
653
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:19.119
this person that can be fairly relatively normal functioning, but
654
00:38:19.159 --> 00:38:21.559
they have this trap door, and when this trap door opens,
655
00:38:21.559 --> 00:38:24.159
it's just right down the rabbit hole, and it seems
656
00:38:24.199 --> 00:38:26.400
to be very difficult for them to access because in
657
00:38:26.440 --> 00:38:27.920
many cases it's pre verbal.
658
00:38:28.519 --> 00:38:32.559
I think this is such a critical issue that when
659
00:38:32.760 --> 00:38:35.639
I became part of the May study of the map study,
660
00:38:35.880 --> 00:38:38.000
I've done a lot of research on the other methods,
661
00:38:38.440 --> 00:38:41.960
and what we discovered in our other research is that
662
00:38:42.039 --> 00:38:46.199
if you had this very early deep trauma, we couldn't
663
00:38:46.199 --> 00:38:49.280
get there. And so when a Georgia study, I told
664
00:38:49.320 --> 00:38:54.000
people of maps, now you study post tumatic stresses, meaning
665
00:38:54.280 --> 00:38:56.000
that there was a time in your life that you
666
00:38:56.079 --> 00:38:59.679
were okay and then something happened that upset the apple
667
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:03.559
cart because my research that I had done before showed
668
00:39:03.639 --> 00:39:06.320
that if you had never felt safe, if you never
669
00:39:06.360 --> 00:39:09.719
felt cherished, that it's very hard to change. Even the
670
00:39:09.920 --> 00:39:13.400
MDR did not work all that well for it second drama,
671
00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:17.400
so I discouraged people from having long term abuse. As
672
00:39:17.440 --> 00:39:20.159
a turn, I was overruled, and boy and my Dad,
673
00:39:20.159 --> 00:39:23.559
I got overruled because eighty eight percent of the people
674
00:39:23.599 --> 00:39:27.800
who were in our study had chronic child abuse neglects
675
00:39:27.920 --> 00:39:32.440
in that background, which often I have been pretty intractable problems.
676
00:39:32.679 --> 00:39:36.719
Those people did extraordinarily well. So to my mind, it's
677
00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:40.079
the biggest part of the MDMA study is that it
678
00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:44.400
really helped tremendously with developmental trauma. And all of us
679
00:39:44.440 --> 00:39:48.840
ex clinicians know people with developmental trauma, and we may
680
00:39:48.880 --> 00:39:51.199
sometimes be helped able to help them a little bit,
681
00:39:51.639 --> 00:39:54.360
but we can barely say, this person is walking out
682
00:39:54.400 --> 00:39:58.440
of my office just fine, because the lingering idea of
683
00:39:58.920 --> 00:40:02.239
I'm no good, I'm I wanted, I'm a lovable, I'm
684
00:40:02.239 --> 00:40:08.480
funda mentally damage is an extremely difficulty to shift, and
685
00:40:08.679 --> 00:40:09.159
you made it.
686
00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:12.800
I'm curious our colleague Dick Schwartz and his work with
687
00:40:12.880 --> 00:40:17.519
the parts work internal family systems, and in his clinical experiences,
688
00:40:17.599 --> 00:40:21.199
I think become convinced that there's this self energy one
689
00:40:21.320 --> 00:40:24.480
can get more contact and get more stabilized in what
690
00:40:24.519 --> 00:40:27.239
he calls self with the capital less, and that this
691
00:40:27.320 --> 00:40:30.039
is an aspect of our being that actually was never
692
00:40:30.239 --> 00:40:33.599
touched by the trauma, and that he feels that even
693
00:40:33.639 --> 00:40:37.119
people with those attachment issues and that lack of foundation
694
00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:39.920
of having been careful can connect with some level of
695
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:43.400
their being where that can be healed or can replace
696
00:40:43.800 --> 00:40:47.280
or you know, do that reparenting or the foundation of
697
00:40:47.360 --> 00:40:50.400
attachment even in a case where it didn't happen initially.
698
00:40:50.440 --> 00:40:53.000
I'm curious about your thoughts because it would be a
699
00:40:53.039 --> 00:40:55.440
close friend of mine and I love his work.
700
00:40:55.519 --> 00:41:00.320
But I'm skeptical. But I would call that hypothesis again.
701
00:41:00.679 --> 00:41:04.920
People who develop a particular treatment tend to believe that's
702
00:41:04.920 --> 00:41:08.719
a religion. It's all true. When I hear Dick say it,
703
00:41:08.719 --> 00:41:11.480
it's like, Okay, let's we have to do a study
704
00:41:11.800 --> 00:41:15.039
to see to bodygree that's actually true. I don't quite
705
00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:19.480
believe that. Actually, don't it little inside of you that's
706
00:41:19.840 --> 00:41:23.320
feel wonderful self to some degree, there's some relevance to that,
707
00:41:23.880 --> 00:41:29.519
but it is some people are extremely damaged and to
708
00:41:29.639 --> 00:41:32.840
get to a sense of self love and self respect
709
00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:35.760
and self awareness. You may be able to get there
710
00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:38.719
at the end, but you may not. And I'm not
711
00:41:39.039 --> 00:41:43.159
sure Dick doesn't have a long term therapy practice. He
712
00:41:43.239 --> 00:41:47.199
does his wonderful demonstrations with people short and these very
713
00:41:47.199 --> 00:41:52.960
important stuff happens. But I'm skeptical about the claim worth
714
00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:55.000
of all claim to investigate.
715
00:41:55.760 --> 00:41:57.880
Yeah, I think it's a very rich area for investigation,
716
00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:00.719
and it's something that feel this long. It's kept in
717
00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:03.920
my own experience. It also connects with I've been involved
718
00:42:03.960 --> 00:42:07.000
in fairly deep meditation path for the last fifty years
719
00:42:07.079 --> 00:42:10.679
or so, and I think there are true meditation methodologies.
720
00:42:10.719 --> 00:42:13.559
There are ways to relax in the very deep states
721
00:42:13.559 --> 00:42:16.119
of being and flow and what's called somebody in some
722
00:42:16.280 --> 00:42:19.360
traditions where I think there is a potential of connecting
723
00:42:19.400 --> 00:42:23.119
with something that is perhaps even pre trauma, preuter and
724
00:42:23.199 --> 00:42:25.039
pre attachment or something like that.
725
00:42:25.599 --> 00:42:29.159
Yeah, that's I know that people have seen that and
726
00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:32.920
this happened. But certainly if you're a personally love early
727
00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:37.400
time to abusically neglict, meditation is very hard and difically
728
00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:39.519
up because you know, you sit there and you meet
729
00:42:39.519 --> 00:42:43.159
the inner avoiding side and the damage side. Somebody called
730
00:42:43.199 --> 00:42:48.320
Billoughby Bitten actually is studying the negative effects of meditation
731
00:42:48.880 --> 00:42:52.960
and how terrifying it may be to meet yourself actually
732
00:42:53.039 --> 00:42:58.960
in meditation, and so yes, if you're really extremely hard working,
733
00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:01.400
you keep trying it, you may be able to get there.
734
00:43:01.440 --> 00:43:05.639
But boy, it's unbelievably hard work, as you know, and
735
00:43:06.360 --> 00:43:09.199
if you can speed that process up with MDMA, that
736
00:43:09.199 --> 00:43:10.039
it'd be terrific.
737
00:43:10.880 --> 00:43:13.400
So you're saying, maybe this could be our final question.
738
00:43:13.840 --> 00:43:17.000
You said, in the MDMA studies, you were seeing there
739
00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:19.960
were subjects or clients in the studies that had severe
740
00:43:20.079 --> 00:43:23.840
childhood trauma childhood abuse and you were seeing profound healing.
741
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:27.760
So is there some kind of reweaving of the attachment
742
00:43:27.880 --> 00:43:31.239
foundation you feel is happening through the psychaic drugs in
743
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:32.119
that case.
744
00:43:32.239 --> 00:43:34.639
I wouldn't dare to go speculate about it. What we
745
00:43:34.760 --> 00:43:37.440
know is that we got some measures in there. I
746
00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:40.639
got some measures in there about self compassion and self
747
00:43:40.639 --> 00:43:46.719
regulation and negotiating conflict and a lexosthymia, the ability to
748
00:43:47.239 --> 00:43:50.199
particularly if let's going almost you and all those very
749
00:43:50.239 --> 00:43:54.360
profoundly changed. But if I'd had Mike Rothers, I would
750
00:43:54.440 --> 00:43:59.159
also have given people rosehuc tests. It's something I never published,
751
00:43:59.159 --> 00:44:01.400
an a really big better not having done so. I
752
00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:04.960
did the first study on project for PTSD, and one
753
00:44:04.960 --> 00:44:07.440
of the art com measures I had back then was
754
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:13.679
the worshore. People's Warsharks profoundly changed all project, and I
755
00:44:13.679 --> 00:44:15.960
wish I'd published it because it's really quite a big deal.
756
00:44:16.480 --> 00:44:19.679
And so the war shock, to my mind, is the
757
00:44:19.679 --> 00:44:23.519
best way of measuring how you understand the world, how
758
00:44:23.559 --> 00:44:25.599
you engage in the world, how you see the world.
759
00:44:26.280 --> 00:44:28.719
And when you give worsharks to people, you see all
760
00:44:28.760 --> 00:44:31.840
of us make meaning in a different way. And that
761
00:44:32.079 --> 00:44:34.679
is actually surprising when you look at the different reports
762
00:44:34.719 --> 00:44:36.960
of the Warship card, that you and I can actually
763
00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:39.639
have a conversation even though internally we live in a
764
00:44:39.800 --> 00:44:42.519
completely different The world, you know, And my hunter is
765
00:44:42.599 --> 00:44:46.079
that the warshop could be the guide us to see
766
00:44:46.400 --> 00:44:49.599
how the mind changes. It's not very the culture. It
767
00:44:49.599 --> 00:44:52.239
says how does the brain change? And everybody wants to
768
00:44:52.280 --> 00:44:56.440
talk about you make the lie and serotonin receptors, but
769
00:44:56.639 --> 00:44:59.639
that has never really led us into a deeper understudy.
770
00:45:00.039 --> 00:45:02.159
We need to bring the mind back into our fields.
771
00:45:02.239 --> 00:45:05.159
How does your mental process change? How do you see
772
00:45:05.159 --> 00:45:08.000
the world differently? And I think that's that's the way
773
00:45:08.039 --> 00:45:10.679
to go. But to go directly into mechanisms at this
774
00:45:10.760 --> 00:45:15.159
point to my mind is hugris. It's really like, no,
775
00:45:15.559 --> 00:45:18.880
we don't know that. Teller's cap shows us how complex
776
00:45:18.880 --> 00:45:23.400
the universes and our brains are almost as complex as
777
00:45:23.400 --> 00:45:26.480
the universe out there. So anybody who comes up with oh,
778
00:45:26.519 --> 00:45:29.760
it's that or it's that I got it probably does well.
779
00:45:29.800 --> 00:45:32.880
Even bringing the mind back in, one could also suggest
780
00:45:33.119 --> 00:45:35.960
bringing consciousness back in, which gets us a little bit
781
00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:38.320
of an east west overlap there, but there could be
782
00:45:38.360 --> 00:45:40.199
propound changes in consciousness.
783
00:45:40.599 --> 00:45:45.199
See. That's why this legalization is so important because once
784
00:45:45.239 --> 00:45:49.360
it becomes legal, regardless of the strictures that you have,
785
00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:53.559
you can actually above guard study the sins and on
786
00:45:53.719 --> 00:45:56.199
the Guard. Nobody's going to study the sings.
787
00:45:56.480 --> 00:45:59.000
Well, let's hope for the best. What the FDA's decision
788
00:45:59.400 --> 00:46:02.079
about a month from now. So thank you so much
789
00:46:02.159 --> 00:46:03.519
for this has been very illuminating.
790
00:46:03.559 --> 00:46:07.000
As always uscle and thank you so much. Be will okay,
791
00:46:07.360 --> 00:46:08.519
see you, take care.
792
00:46:09.079 --> 00:46:12.920
Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember,
793
00:46:13.039 --> 00:46:15.719
real change happens when we commit to our growth, face
794
00:46:15.760 --> 00:46:19.320
our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If
795
00:46:19.360 --> 00:46:22.559
you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe
796
00:46:22.639 --> 00:46:26.000
and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment.
797
00:46:26.079 --> 00:46:28.840
Stay grounded, stay present, and stay true to you.
798
00:46:29.039 --> 00:46:29.559
Take care.