Explore every episode of the podcast Psychedelic Medicine Podcast with Dr. Lynn Marie Morski
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| Understanding Psychedelics and Neuroplasticity with Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD | 12 Jun 2025 | 00:44:46 | |
In this episode, Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD joins to elucidate the intersection of psychedelics and neuroplasticity. Dr. Carhart-Harris is the Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professor in Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. Robin founded the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London in April 2019, was ranked among the top 31 medical scientists in 2020, and in 2021, was named in TIME magazine’s ‘100 Next’ – a list of 100 rising stars shaping the future. Dr. Carhart-Harris begins by discussing the impact of psychedelics on neuroplasticity and mental health. He explains neuroplasticity as the brain's ability to change, emphasizing its role in mood disorders and substance use and describes how stress atrophies the brain, leading to mental illness. Dr. Carhart-Harris differentiates between neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, noting that while neurogenesis is limited in adults, neuroplasticity can be influenced by psychedelics like ketamine, psilocybin, and MDMA. In closing, he also discusses the entropic brain hypothesis, suggesting that increased brain entropy leads to richer subjective experiences.
In this episode, you'll hear:
Quotes: “So changeability is what plasticity is. And neuroplasticity—that's the ability of the brain to change. Okay, and how is neuroplasticity related to mood disorders like depression and anxiety or substance use disorder or something like that? Well, that's a great question cause we don't have it entirely nailed down. But one of the most reliable findings in biological psychiatry is that stress atrophies the brain.” [2:47] “The main thing with ketamine is that the window of increased plasticity is brief… That makes sense because that reflects how ketamine seems to work therapeutically—that it provides relief somewhat short-term, unless it is twinned with, say, psychotherapy or you do repeat administration and get someone out of the rut they were in.” [22:15] “We’ve seen in people with depression, brain networks can become quite segregated from each other—they are ordinarily, they’re quite functionally separate and distinct—but that modularity might be a bit elevated in depression. But what we’ve seen with psilocybin therapy is that separateness between systems, that segregated quality of organization of brain networks, brain systems actually decreases after psilocybin therapy for depression. I’ll put it another way: the brain looks more globally interconnected after psilocybin therapy for depression and the magnitude of that… correlates with improvements.” [39:19]
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| Myths and Misconceptions About Psilocybin with Dori Lewis, LPC | 28 May 2025 | 00:42:32 | |
In this episode, Dori Lewis, MA, MEd, LPC-S discusses the common myths and misconceptions surrounding psilocybin for healing. Dori is a psychotherapist, co-founder of Elemental Psychedelics, and owner of Reflective Healing in Fort Collins, CO, who specializes in psychedelic-assisted therapy, blending transpersonal psychology with spiritual practices. With experience facilitating ketamine sessions and training clinicians, she advocates for ethical standards in psychedelic medicine while championing a feminine-centered approach to facilitator training. The first myth that Dori addresses in this conversation is the idea that it is the psilocybin mushroom itself that does all the healing work. Contrary to this common misconception, Dori suggests that it is the client’s own initiative working in tandem with the mushroom that really spurs healing. She also emphasizes that there are not any set protocols for how often psilocybin should be taken for healing, instead suggesting that clients should be guided to attune to their own internal intuition to determine when a psilocybin journey may be particularly helpful. Another misconception Dori addresses is that healing with psilocybin can occur without causing deep transformations in one’s identity or shifts in one’s worldview. She suggests facilitators must be very transparent about these possible impacts to best prepare clients for these kinds of major changes that psilocybin can catalyze. In closing, Dori reiterates that clients should be supported and prepared to encounter intense emotional experiences with psilocybin, as some of the most difficult psychedelic journeys can actually be the most healing.
In this episode, you'll hear: The biggest myths and misconceptions Dori encounters working with clients in her practice The importance of a relational understanding of psychedelic healing The specific types of trauma where psilocybin may be a particularly effective healing modality The training for psilocybin facilitators in Colorado under the Natural Medicines Program and the importance of scope of practice Why some people’s mental health gets worse before it gets better following a psilocybin experience What can cause lack of response to psilocybin therapy and how better preparation can often mitigate this
Quotes: “Mushrooms are amazing and they can help us in our healing journey. But they are one tool in a mosaic of other tools that we can use to help ourselves heal and grow and change.” [6:54] “I don’t really know where this message came from—that mushrooms cure PTSD—but that is a huge myth. They can help—with certain types of trauma within the context of a healthy therapeutic relationship with a skilled provider, yes, at times when it is right. But ultimately the best medicine for trauma is going to be MDMA—and ketamine.” [18:18] “It is the responsibility of providers and facilitators to inform clients of the realistic expectations they should have for their [psychedelic] journeys—and that is also an ethical need and something that facilitators need to consider through an ethical lens.” [25:20] “There’s a lot to be said about the unique ways that mushrooms express through our bodies and through our minds and through our hearts that give us information about where we are at and where we need to work or continue to work in order to access the healing we so desire.” [37:34]
Links: Elemental Psychedelics on LinkedIn Elemental Psychedelics website Previous episode: Integrating Challenging Psychedelic Experiences with Keith Kurlander, MA Previous episode: The Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project with Jules Evans Previous episode: The Dangers of "Ayahuasca Told Me…" with Jerónimo Mazarrasa Psychedelic Medicine Association
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| Encore episode: Avoiding the Traps of Psychedelic Self-Absorption with Adam Aronovich, PhD(c) | 22 Jan 2025 | 01:08:52 | |
In this episode of the Psychedelic Medicine Podcast, Adam Aronovich, PhD(c) returns to discuss issues of psychedelic self-absorption—and how to avoid these traps. According to Adam, he is a PhD candidate in medical anthropology, the creator and curator of Healing from Healing, a trophy husband and dad. In this conversation, Adam revisits his previous discussion of psychedelic narcissism and explains why he’s now somewhat more critical of the term. However, Adam still sees issues around cultivating epistemic humility and acknowledging the political dimensions of healing in psychedelic contexts. He explains the issues he takes with forms of New Age, Neoliberal spiritual perspectives he sees as pervasive and typically unacknowledged amongst many engaging with psychedelics. He also discusses how some pop psychology terms have worked their way into the psychedelic realm and what impacts that has had.
In this episode:
Quotes: “One of the main things with plant medicine—particularly when people are sharing about it—is that people want to be really vulnerable and people want to be very authentic… But at the intersection with the spectacle, that vulnerability and authenticity become part of the spectacle in the sense that they become 100% performative.” [19:01] “The people who don’t have that modicum of self awareness and epistemic humility to really understand, with intellectual honesty, the scope of their understanding and knowledge, then it is very easy to overdo it. And then we do a disservice, not only to the actual traditions that we purport to be portraying, but also to the people that we’re working with.” [37:56] “If you don’t understand that your healing is political, because individual health, and individual happiness, and individual everything is intrinsically related to collective health, and social health, and cultural health, and environmental health, then you need to go back to square one because you haven’t understood anything. ” [40:02] “If we can’t even fathom that perhaps my own wellbeing is in constant dialogue with the wellbeing of a society, and the wellbeing of a culture, and the wellbeing of an environment—that nobody can be healthy and happy unless everybody else is relatively healthy and happy—then we are in big trouble and we haven’t really learned everything.” [40:20]
Links: Healing from Healing on Instagram Healing from Healing on Facebook Society Of The Spectacle by Guy Debord Wikipedia entry on the Satanic panic Previous episode: Navigating Psychedelic Narcissism with Adam Aronovich | |||
| The Dark Side of Ketamine (and how to Stay in the Light) with Dr. Mark Braunstein | 17 Mar 2021 | 00:31:40 | |
In this episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast, Dr. Mark Braunstein returns to discuss potential concerns surrounding the use of ketamine, especially use which is not overseen by a knowledgeable medical professional. Dr. Braunstein is a whole-health psychiatrist with 22 years of clinical experience. He is the medical director for multiple mental health and psychedelic psychotherapy clinics in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah and he also runs in-patient and out-patient programs for addiction. Additionally, Dr. Braunstein is involved in multiple projects focused on expanding access, awareness, research, and safety in the field of psychedelics.
To begin this conversation, Dr. Braunstein shares how his original exposure to ketamine wasn’t in a medicinal context, but rather as a recreational drug of abuse. However, since then he has seen the transformative effects this substance can have on patients when used in a physician-directed context and for therapeutic purposes. Nonetheless, Dr. Braunstein stresses that this does not mean ketamine use does not come with certain risks.
Ketamine can be addictive and even carries a risk of overdose, particularly when used recreationally in a context where the purity of the substance is unknown. Dr. Braunstein distinguishes recreational and therapeutic uses of ketamine, explaining that recreational doses are often lower and dosing is more frequent, whereas ketamine is used in high doses in a therapeutic context, with extended periods between sessions.
Dr. Braunstein stresses both the responsibility of physicians and of patients to ensure ketamine is prescribed responsibly and used as directed. Despite the dangers posed by recreational ketamine use Dr. Braunstein describes in this conversation, it is still a medicine he believes can have significant positive impacts for patients. This requires, however, that it not be treated merely as yet another quick fix pill. Instead, Dr. Braunstein emphasizes that ketamine treatment ought to coincide with psychotherapeutic work. This combination, he says, will maximize the therapeutic potential of ketamine while also helping to ensure that the medicine is used responsibly, under the close direction of a medical professional.
In this episode:
Quotes:
“Part of why ketamine works is because it lights up your brain in all these different ways and when done occasionally, intentionally, it moves you. But if you’re always doing that, it ends up having the reverse effect, causing damage.” [12:56]
“This is a heavy-duty medication that, if you cross the line, can cause you to stop breathing and then die. So there is an actual, real danger to ketamine.” [16:25]
“I think the organ that is most prone to damage from overuse of ketamine is the same organ we are touting it fixing: the mind.” [18:39]
“When we think about these medications, we should think about combining them with therapy and not just taking these medications as medications… So that’s why with ketamine I’m really recommending it with therapy.” [25:04]
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| Becoming an MDMA-Assisted Therapist with Shannon Carlin, MA, LMFT | 03 Mar 2021 | 00:46:36 | |
This episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast features a conversation with Shannon Carlin, MA, LMFT, to discuss how to become an MDMA-assisted therapist, including a discussion of the MAPS training program. Shannon is the Director and Head of Training and Supervision at the MAPS Public Benefit Corporation (MAPS PBC), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a 501(c)(3) non-profit where she oversees the development and implementation of clinical training programs that prepare mental health and medical professionals to deliver MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in approved clinical settings. Shannon started working with MAPS in 2011 before joining MAPS PBC in 2016.
In this conversation, Shannon discusses her personal background and some of the nuances of psychedelic-assisted therapy. Shannon shares her experiences being trained as an MDMA facilitator in 2014 when this therapy was much less mainstream and mentions how much the program has grown and evolved since then. In discussing her own background with various forms of therapeutic work, Shannon emphasizes the unique client relationship obtained in the longer sessions of MDMA therapy, saying that this therapy is very well-suited to meeting people in their time of need.
Shannon also discusses the details of the 100-hour MDMA-assisted therapy training program she leads and supervises at MAPS. The program consists of an online course, a training retreat with senior MDMA-assisted psychotherapy researchers, and opportunities for experiential and didactic learning.
Shannon additionally touches on the topic of MDMA therapists-in-training undergoing this treatment themselves as a learning experience, stating that this is an opportunity MAPS tries to make available and that many of those who have had this opportunity found it beneficial to their future work with MDMA in a therapeutic context. In closing, Shannon discusses MAPS’ commitment to equity and mentions that some scholarships will be available for the training program.
The MAPS MDMA Therapy Training Program is now accepting applications from trained mental health and medical practitioners. To learn more, visit https://mapspublicbenefit.com/training
In this episode:
Quotes:
“Our training program really focuses a lot on the therapeutic relationship in MDMA therapy and the ways that that relationship changes, deepens, becomes more complex.” [13:20]
“As we do our training program we have a really multidisciplinary group. We have physicians and psychiatrists and we have nurses, we have psychiatric nurses, social workers, therapists, psychologists, clergy people.” [15:56]
“We work in a cotherapy model so every session has two providers in the room, so we always have one person who is licensed to practice psychotherapy and then we have flexibility about exactly what the role of the second person is.” [26:09]
“We’re looking at possibly MDMA-assisted therapy becoming a legal treatment medicine, not only in the US, but in multiple countries, even as soon as in the next two years.” [28:21]
“It’s really difficult to do healthy volunteer therapist studies because the FDA thinks about clinical trials in terms of treating a disease.” [35:21]
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| Psychedelics and Parenting with Rebecca Kronman, LCSW | 17 Feb 2021 | 00:51:33 | |
This week’s episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast features a conversation with Rebecca Kronman, LCSW on the intersection of psychedelics and parenting. Rebecca is a licensed therapist with a private practice in Brooklyn, New York, where she helps clients integrate and prepare for psychedelic experience, in addition to providing therapeutic care for clients struggling with mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression. Rebecca is also the founder of Plant Parenthood, which is an online and in-person community of parents who use psychedelics, plant medicine and cannabis looking to de-stigmatize the conversation around psychedelics and parenting. In this wide-ranging discussion, Rebecca explores both practical and theoretical issues in the intersection of psychedelics and parenthood. The most controversial of these being, of course, minors using psychedelics themselves. Rebecca discusses the traditional cultural frameworks in societies which use psychedelics and how they handle this matter, contrasting this with the Western medical model where psychedelic use is highly stigmatized yet prescribing amphetamines to children is rather uncontroversial. Rebecca emphasizes that this is a topic which deserves more careful consideration, as ketamine treatments are already available and effective for treatment-resistant depression in teens. She also discusses how psychedelics can help us reparent ourselves and heal generational trauma, both of which can aid in improving parents’ relationship to not only their children, but to their own parents as well. In addition, Rebecca discusses some practical concerns, such as how parents ought to discuss psychedelic use with children. Here she draws a distinction between proactive and reactive conversations, the former being initiated by the parent, the latter by the child. Choosing to pursue a degree of proactive discussion with children around psychedelic use can have a positive impact, both in strengthening trust and openness between parent and child as well as preparing older children for encountering these things in their own lives as accessibility and awareness continue to increase. Rebecca closes this discussion talking about the high levels of scrutiny parents face socially, emphasizing the importance of parents having the opportunity to come together around this topic to determine the best solutions for their own families. In this episode:
Quotes: “It’s something that needs to be on our minds: how do we approach this topic without stigmatizing it so that when our children inevitably find out about it, we can have an open dialogue.” [11:39] “A lot of the work of psychedelics, is the work of reparenting yourself. It’s the work of healing intergenerational trauma.” [16:49] “For some parents it’s not a problem for their children to be around during their psychedelic experience itself, and for some parents they feel like ‘you know what, I want this time for myself–this is my time to go inward, to journey into my psyche, and I don’t want to be a parent during that moment.’” [24:25] “We can start talking about plant medicine or substance use or addiction from the very earliest time our kids can understand.” [29:28] “As kids get older it does become more important to be a bit more proactive because the reality is they will be exposed to this, especially as access increases.” [32:43] “There is a level of scrutiny that parents face that is different than what other people face and it makes people more reticent to be honest and to approach these topics in a way that feels healing and that feels complete.” [41:29] “[Psychedelics] make us be able to inhabit that open, neuroplastic state that children naturally inhabit. So in a sense, it makes us be able to understand them better. It makes us be able to get into their experience in a deeper way.” [46:42]
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| Psychedelic Apprenticeship: Validating Psychedelic Insights and Revelations with Chris Timmermann, PhD | 03 Feb 2021 | 00:53:39 | |
In this episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast, researcher Chris Timmermann, PhD joins to discuss his recent publication regarding psychedelic apprenticeship. Dr. Timmermann is a researcher at the Center for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London where he conducted the first neuroimaging studies of DMT in healthy volunteers to explore potential mental health impacts. He is also the president and founder of the Foundation for the Study of Human Consciousness in Chile.
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| Psychedelic Harm Reduction with Erica Siegal, LCSW | 20 Jan 2021 | 00:52:01 | |
This episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast features a conversation with Erica Siegal about the intricacies of harm reduction. Erica is a licensed clinical social worker and a professional harm reductionist, as well as an MDMA-assisted psychotherapy researcher. She is the founder of NEST Harm Reduction, a California-based clinical practice that offers private therapy, harm reduction training, workplace consulting, and direct care of workers on the frontlines of secondary trauma. In this discussion, Erica shares the basic principles underlying harm reduction while also unpacking the nuances involved in providing care. The four principles Erica shares from the Zendo project are: 1) creating a safe space, 2) sitting, not guiding, 3) talking through rather than talking down, and 4) remembering difficult is not the same as bad. These principles provide a basic framework for providing harm reduction services for someone who has chosen to experiment with psychoactive substances. Erica also discussed the acronym SPACE, which stands for sustainable, patient, authentic, consensual, and empathetic, with each of these terms playing a crucial role in effective harm reduction work. Sustainable refers to the emotional and energetic toll this work can take, and ensuring one isn't spread too thin and heading towards burnout. Patience is necessary when engaging with someone who is going through a challenging experience, especially when their needs are shifting or they are having difficulties communicating. Erica describes authenticity in the harm reduction context as staying grounded in one's training and expertise and not trying to improvise modalities while sitting. Consent is also crucial when providing care, and Erica explains how to approach this topic both in the context of a pre-planned psychedelic experience and when the opportunity for harm reduction arises more spontaneously. Finally the harm reductionist should strive to be empathetic, providing proactive support through open communication and attempting to meet needs as they arise. In this episode:
Quotes: "Harm reduction is a movement for people who believe in human rights and dignity for anybody, including people who are actively using drugs." [5:31] "When we go into an altered state or use psychedelics, we are obviously shifting our perspective and therefore we need to make sure we have some safe things that can ground us back into our bodies and our experiences." [11:57] "If you are burning out and you are becoming someone who needs help, you're not actually holding the space to do the work." [19:32] "I think all psychedelic practitioners, whether you are above ground or underground, should provide informed consent to clients." [30:23] "The only things that we do with somebody who is that significantly altered is be patient with them, and wait for them to be able to make decisions for themselves." [36:29] "Make sure you're checking in about peoples' basic needs because they forget. And that could be the thing that shifts it onto the right direction for them." [49:54] Links: NEST Harm Reduction | |||
| Psychedelics for Eating Disorders with Reid Robison | 06 Jan 2021 | 00:39:04 | |
This first episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast in 2021 features a conversation with Dr. Reid Robison, discussing the potentials of using psychedelics to treat eating disorders. Dr. Robison is a board-certified psychiatrist and the chief medical officer at Novamind. He is also the co-founder of Cedar Psychiatry, founder of the Polizzi Free Clinic, and adjunct faculty at the University of Utah. Dr. Robison serves as the medical director of Center for Change—a top eating disorder treatment center—and he is currently the coordinating investigator for the upcoming MAPS study looking at the potential for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy as a treatment for eating disorders. In this conversation, Dr. Robison dissects the intricacies of various eating disorders and shares his experience using ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. At Center for Change, Dr. Robison conducted an IRB-approved study looking at the use of ketamine as a potential treatment for eating disorders. In the study, participants were regularly administered ketamine in a small group setting with therapeutic and integration work happening between sessions. Dr. Robison shares some anecdotal reports as well as the objective data from the study, both of which show promising results. In particular, Dr. Robison notes how ketamine can promote a sense of embodiment for individuals struggling with eating disorders, helping them return to a more intuitive connection with food and eating. Additionally, Dr. Robison discusses topics such as neuroplasticity and the default mode network as potential key factors explaining why this type of treatment could be effective. Since compounds such as ketamine can promote neuroplasticity and downregulate the default mode network, this gives the therapist a window to do particularly effective work with the patient, as they are in a more malleable state and less burdened by routines and habitual thought patterns. Dr. Robison closes with a discussion of the upcoming MAPS study which will look at the possible efficacy of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for anorexia and binge eating disorders. In this episode:
Quotes: "If you look at eating disorders, they're pretty underfunded and there are no FDA approved medicine treatment options for anorexia, for example." [3:25] "Ketamine and other psychedelic medicines are therapy aids, therapy boosters, accelerators, or catalysts to the therapeutic process." [10:42] "But I do believe that there are lasting benefits, especially when you pair it with the psychotherapy—when you have this window of opportunity of neuroplasticity to do some deeper work." [21:07] "Healing can be disruptive sometimes and you do feel worse before you feel better in some cases." [25:23] "Downregulation of the default mode is such a powerful and welcome break from the day-to-day patterns in these conditions." [37:43] Links: Novamind
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| ENCORE EPISODE: Psilocybin Scientific Research with Dr. Albert Garcia-Romeu | 30 Dec 2020 | 00:53:14 | |
Today’s episode is the first in our series focusing on psilocybin’s potential uses as medicine. You are going to hear from one of the premier researchers into this drug, how he runs his studies, and what he has discovered concerning its effects and uses as a medicine. Dr. Albert Garcia-Romeu is a member of the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Guest Researcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Neuroimaging Research Branch. There, he studies the effects of psychedelic drugs in humans with a particular focus of psilocybin as a potential aid in the treatment of addiction. Dr. Garcia-Romeu explains the biochemical effects of psilocybin in the human body. He delves into what his research has uncovered about the drug’s potential to treat addiction disorders. What is noteworthy about his research is that is has shown that psychedelic treatments have been able to help some people make lasting changes in regard to alcohol and nicotine addiction. Dr. Garcia-Romeu also discusses psilocybin’s use in treating anxiety and depression. The research has shown that psilocybin has the potential to help patients with life-threatening and terminal illnesses cope with the psychological burdens of their disease. He also explains some of the ongoing research into the efficacy of psilocybin to have a lasting impact on depression in general. In this episode:
Quotes: “Administering high doses of drugs like psilocybin and LSD seemed to really help people make some breakthroughs into having greater insight into their alcohol abuse and having more plasticity in their ability to change their behavior going forward.” [7:06] “The more mystical effects that people are having, the better outcomes you’re seeing.” [23:25] “These were real improvements in the quality of life that were measurable, statistically significant, and enduring.” [28:42] Links: Get 20% off everything at Octogon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine’ Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research
Check out the full episode post | |||
| ENCORE EPISODE: Ayahuasca Scientific Research with Dr. Dan Engle | 23 Dec 2020 | 00:56:34 | |
Dr. Dan Engle is a psychiatrist with a clinical practice that combines aspects of regenerative medicine, psychedelic research, integrative spirituality, and peak performance. His medical degree is from the University of Texas at San Antonio. His psychiatry residency degree is from the University of Colorado in Denver, and his child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship degree is from Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Engle is an international consultant to several global healing centers facilitating the use of long-standing indigenous plant medicines for healing and awakening. He is the Founder and Medical Director of Kuya Institute for Transformational Medicine in Austin, Texas; Full Spectrum Medicine, a psychedelic integration and educational platform; and Thank You Life, a non-profit funding stream supporting access to psychedelic therapies. Dr. Engle is the author of The Concussion Repair Manual: A Practical Guide to Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injuries, as well as his new book, A Dose of Hope: A Story of MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy. Dr. Engle shares how he sees ayahuasca and other plant medicines as a bridge between traditional medical practices and contemporary medicine. This is particularly the case in the field of psychology. Ayahuasca can have the ability to create visionary states that lend insight into what individuals find most important at a deep subconscious level. There are ongoing efforts to understand the possible uses of ayahuasca as a tool in integrative therapy. Dr. Engle has particular experience applying it in TBI therapies. He describes what he has observed in how ayahuasca can create synaptic genesis and stimulate the growth of brain cells. This has huge implications for treating neurodegenerative conditions. Dr. Engle goes on to describe some of the scientific research surrounding ayahuasca. Its ability to treat a number of conditions has been closely examined in recent decades. This includes its effects on such a large range of issues including chronic inflammatory bowel conditions, addiction, depression, and brain injury. In this episode:
Quotes: “The opening that happens when medicines are facilitated well is orders of magnitude more powerful than the opening that I had experienced in talk therapy.” [6:30] “If you have brain trauma, or a neuro deficit or hypoactivity, many people feel like their brains come back online.” [19:16] “We started studying it. But we’re still in our infancy of understanding, whereas the traditional cultures have been working with this medicine for thousands of years.” [31:14] “The medicines are not here to save us. They aren’t here to fix us. The medicines are here to show us truth in our path. It’s still our work to do.” [50:05] Links: Check out the full episode post Keep up with everything Plant Medicine related here
The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical recommendation, diagnosis, or treatment. The use of information in this podcast is at one’s own discretion, and is not an endorsement of use given the complexity inherent in these medicines, and the current variable widespread illegality of their usage. | |||
| Cannabis Assisted Psychotherapy with Dr. Mark Braunstein | 16 Dec 2020 | 00:43:02 | |
This episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast features a conversation with Dr. Mark Braunstein discussing the potentials of cannabis-assisted psychotherapy. Dr. Braunstein is a whole-health psychiatrist with 22 years of clinical experience. He is the medical director for multiple mental health and psychedelic psychotherapy clinics in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah and he also runs in-patient and out-patient programs for addiction. In his own practice as a psychiatrist, Dr. Braunstein employs both cannabis and ketamine to meet the individual needs of his patients. Dr. Braunstein stresses how he came to these modalities after becoming disillusioned with the predominant model of psychiatry and its emphasis on treating symptoms with pharmaceuticals without much consideration for the patient as an individual. With cannabis-assisted psychotherapy, Dr. Braunstein started to notice real changes in his patients, allowing them to begin living more fulfilling lives. In this episode:
Quotes: "It increases someone's ability to be more productive in psychotherapy-you're able to talk, see things in a different way, have different perceptions." [13:15] "Cannabis is so readily accessible for so many people and they can safely do it in the comfort of their home while they engage in teletherapy." [14:40] "We want to put people into categories of usage to help come up with a protocol of what dose we're going to start them on." [19:18] "Sometimes we'll actually do some cannabis-assisted psychotherapy first to help them process and move through some of the trauma, and then we'll move on to the ketamine to work on the depression." [26:20] "Yes, guidelines are important, but I think that having well-educated physicians, having extensive, well-educated conversations with our patients, and making the right decisions is the best way to go." [34:08] Links: Reconscious Medical
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| The Art of Microdosing with James Fadiman & Adam Bramlage | 09 Dec 2020 | 00:58:34 | |
In this episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast, Dr. James Fadiman and Adam Bramlage join to discuss the finer points of microdosing and their upcoming Microdosing Movement course. Dr. Fadiman is a world-renowned psychedelic researcher and transpersonal psychologist who has made seminal contributions to the contemporary understanding of microdosing coach with clients from a wide range of backgrounds to help craft individualized protocols to best harness the potentials of microdosing. Together with the San Francisco Psychedelic Society and Jakobien & Hein of The Microdosing Institute, they will be leading the upcoming six-week Microdosing Movement course. In this discussion, Dr. Fadiman and Adam touch on many nuanced topics relating to microdosing, ranging from individualized protocols to current research. Dr. Fadiman tells of his experience gathering information on microdosing through his own study and how this originated what became known as the Fadiman protocol for microdosing. Dr. Fadiman also discusses some conclusions that can be drawn from experience reports, such as the efficacy of microdosing for combatting conditions such as addiction or depression. Additionally, Adam shares the details of the Microdosing Movement course, emphasizing how building community is foregrounded in the course design. In addition to lectures by experts like Dr. Fadiman, participants will have the opportunity to socialize with other students, integrate the content, and ask questions at weekly communiTEA gatherings over Zoom. The microdosing movement course runs from Sunday, December 13th through Tuesday, January 19th. Additional information and registration linked below: Dr. Fadiman can be reached at jfadiman@gmail.com. In this episode:
Quotes "The most important thing to get across is that each person is an individual and no one protocol is going to work for everybody. Everybody has different needs." [12:42] "And particularly people are saying, not that meditation improves your microdosing, but that microdosing absolutely improves your meditation." [15:36] "We're just seeing extremely positive results across the board, and we're seeing that the longer people microdose, the less often they need to microdose." [41:40] "There's so many different applications for this, with so many different conditions, and each day I get new emails or new contracts from people who are using it for totally new things." [43:54] Links | |||
| Psilocybin for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) with Sorcha O'Connor, PhD(c) | 09 Jan 2025 | 00:35:33 | |
In this episode, Sorcha O'Connor, PhD(c) joins to discuss the research into the use of psilocybin to address obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Sorcha is completing her neuroscience PhD at Imperial College London, specialising in mental health research. She led PsilOCD, a pioneering study investigating low-dose psilocybin as a treatment for both the clinical symptoms and cognitive features of OCD. In this conversation, Sorcha introduces obsessive-compulsive disorder and discusses the ways medical professionals are currently thinking about this and other related conditions. She mentions that current therapies for OCD often only minimally improve symptoms, emphasizing the need for better treatment options. This led to studies exploring psilocybin as a treatment for OCD - and Sorcha emphasizes that the early trials have shown positive results, often with significant decreases in OCD symptoms. In conclusion, Sorcha discusses the protocol for the PsilOCD study at Imperial College London, with results from this study soon to be published.
In this episode you'll hear:
Quotes: “[OCD] is this complex behavioral pattern and certain medications moderately help and nothing seems to be highly effective yet and that definitely points to the need for novel pharmacotherapy.” [12:46] “[By utilizing lower doses of psilocybin], people who maybe fixate on their health and on their mental health and sensations and things can benefit from psilocybin without having to overcome that barrier.” [18:25]
Links: PsilOCD Study details on the Imperial College London website Dr. Michael J. Greenberg’s website Psychedelic Medicine Association
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| Fireside Project: The World's First Psychedelic Hotline with Joshua White and Hanifa Nayo Washington | 02 Dec 2020 | 00:38:55 | |
This week's episode of the Plant Medicine podcast focuses on the new Fireside Project. Joining to discuss the launch of this peer-to-peer psychedelic hotline are the founder and director Joshua White and cultivator of beloved community Hanifa Nayo Washington. Joshua is a trial lawyer with experience both as a hotline crisis counselor and as a psychedelic peer support volunteer at the Zendo Project. Hanifa is a certified Usui/Holy Fire Reiki Master Practitioner with over twenty years of experience developing community-serving initiatives. Together with the rest of the Fireside Project team, they are working towards the April 14th launch of the world's first psychedelic hotline. Fireside Project aims to offer broad support for people using psychedelic substances, with volunteers able to both assist during difficult experiences and offer integration assistance after the fact. Users will also be able to choose between a phone call, texting, or a live chat to connect with a volunteer, allowing individuals in the midst of a vulnerable experience the ability to choose whatever form of communication they find most comfortable. In addition to this crucial support, Fireside Project also hopes to contribute to the psychedelic movement by imagining a more equitable future. Through efforts to recruit a diverse group of volunteers from groups often under-represented in the psychedelic community, Fireside Project hopes to contribute to building a new generation of diverse healers. This is the impetus behind the Fireside Equity Fund, which provides scholarships to volunteers who wish to pursue careers in psychedelic healing. Fireside Project launches April 14th, 2021 and the number is 1-833-2FIRESIDE. in the meantime, they are recruiting volunteers. If you are interested in being a volunteer, there are A&A sessions on December 9th at 5 p.m. PST and January 9th at 10:00 a.m. PST- register at https://firesideproject.org. In this episode:
Quotes: "Volunteering at the Fireside Project...will provide an opportunity to have a much longer-term experience helping people with their psychedelic experiences." [10:30] "We open up this opportunity for continued support, continued deepening, by following up the next week." [12:49] "It's just simply so beautiful to be with someone during such a moment of deep need and to provide support for them." [23:28] "And maybe you're having a beautiful psychedelic experience and your heart is just bursting to connect with someone, please reach out to us in that circumstance as well." [27:34] "Our hope is to compassionately hold someone in a space so that they can figure out the meaning of the medicine and so that they can feel empowered and comfortable." [33:06] Links: Fireside Project Website
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| Encore episode: DMT Scientific Research with Dr. Chris Timmerman | 25 Nov 2020 | 01:00:19 | |
Chris Timmermann, PhD, is a researcher at Imperial College, where he conducted the first neuroimaging studies of DMT in healthy volunteers and its potential for mental health interventions. He is also conducting research concerning the effects that psychedelics have on belief systems and the ethical implications associated with the mainstreaming of these substances. In this episode, Chris Timmerman discusses what happens neurologically when DMT is administered. He talks about his research into neuroimaging and how the brainwaves change during DMT experiences, and how those changes can help elucidate some of the mechanisms of psychedelic states. He also breaks down the concept of cortical activation and how DMT experiences lead to a pattern of cortical activation that mimics that of visual stimulation. Dr. Timmerman also discusses how DMT experiences are often compared to what happens to the body when it has a near-death experience. He explains some of the difficulties of studying these effects and how to ethically study the phenomenon of near-death experiences. In addition to his work on DMT, Dr. Timmerman also shares some of his research on the impact of music in psychedelic therapy, and how it can help comfort people facing trauma.
In this episode:
Quotes: "DMT is incredibly unique because it is able to generate simulations of sorts. The level of immersion is radical, complete. People with their eyes closed, they feel kind of detached from their environment, but they are experiencing a world of experience." [5:52] "We developed a map of this DMT story for each participant. We found three main components: one there was a visual component in the experience, we found a bodily component [a somatic effect], and an emotional effect. And we found that these different parts of the DMT story - the visual, the bodily, and the emotional - had different brain signatures." [18:55] "There have been some animal studies, or very promising ones, in which not only DMT but also LSD and ketamine has been shown to have important properties associated with neurogenesis." [35:09] "The use of psychedelics by western populations is fairly new. We don't have that know-how or that expertise like some indigenous cultures, has for generations." [46:49]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs (octagonbiolabs.com) with coupon code 'plantmedicine' Follow Dr. Timmerman on Twitter | |||
| How to Choose A Psychedelic Facilitator or Retreat Center with Joël Brierre | 18 Nov 2020 | 00:40:36 | |
This week's episode of the Plant Medicine podcast features a discussion of what to look for in a psychedelic retreat center or facilitator to ensure the experience is as safe, comfortable, and effective as possible. Joining the conversation is Joël Brierre, who shares his expertise as a 5-MeO-DMT facilitator to provide some concrete tips. Joël is the founder and CEO of Kaivalya Kollectiv, an educational platform that offers transformational retreats and training for plant medicines, yoga, meditation, and more. Joël has spent two decades studying yogic practice and has been a teacher for 15 of those years.
In this conversation, Joël shares personal stories and his expertise as a facilitator to help guide you in making good decisions when choosing psychedelic services. Joël starts by bringing up the idea of the "container," which is a term to describe the atmosphere, preparation, and expertise involved in the facilitation of psychedelic experiences. The idea of a container is helpful for evaluating what situations facilitators would be prepared to navigate: Do the providers have training to respond in case of an emergency? Do they have systems in place to prevent emergencies from happening in the first place? Joël then dives into the specifics of what makes for a good container. As safety is always important, especially when working with a substance as powerful as 5-MeO-DMT, Joël recommends facilitators have training to ensure they are able to respond to medical emergencies should they arise. Similarly, retreat centers should have professionals available to respond to any psychological emergencies, both during and after ceremonies. Joël also suggests that facilitators ought to have grounding in some practice or philosophy which allows them to respond with wisdom. And of course, facilitators should have deep personal familiarity with the substances they facilitate. In this episode:
Quotes: "I think people being extremely mindful of and holding space for those traumas and how they come up is really important." [8:03] "There is nothing more dangerous than an ego that thinks it's enlightened." [22:43] "Ask them what their preparation protocol is and ask them what their aftercare and integration protocol is. And they should have an answer ready for you." [24:57] "Discussion and boundaries are quite essential for a safe container." [35:50] Links: | |||
| The Psychedelic Election Winners with Noah Potter | 11 Nov 2020 | 00:26:41 | |
This week's episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast offers an overview of the three psychedelic ballot measures which passed this past election cycle. Attorney Noah Potter joins to share his expertise in psychedelic law and describes the details of Initiative 81 in DC and Measures 109 and 110 in Oregon. Noah is a New York-based attorney, media commentator, and psychedelic legalization strategist who has been discussing topics of psychedelic law on his blog for the past decade. Noah has also advised Decriminalize Denver with their successful Denver Psilocybin Mushroom Initiative and is involved in policy reform advocacy in New York for 2021. In this conversation, Noah describes the details of these three psychedelic measures, sharing what is accomplished by each. In DC, Noah explains how Initiative 81, Entheogenic Plants and Fungus Measure, follows the example of previous successful ballot measures dealing with psychedelics by focusing on a decriminalization approach that places activity involving entheogenic plants among the Metropolitan Police Department's lowest law enforcement priorities. Along with this success on the east coast, Oregon saw two psychedelic ballot measures pass on election day: Measure 109, Psilocybin Mushroom Services Program Initiative, and Measure 110, Drug Decriminalization and Addiction Treatment INitiative. In terms of Measure 109, Noah explains how the broad nature of the ballot initiative leaves many of the specifics to be determined by the Oregon Health Authority, with the measure focusing on determining a legal structure for providing psilocybin-based therapeutics services. This measure does not, however, legalize or decriminalize psilocybin for personal use. Measure 110, on the other hand, does focus on the decriminalization of a wide array of substances, as well as addiction treatment. In the last minutes of the conversation, Noah describes the interplay between these two intiatives as well as some of the objections given for the particular approaches they take. In This Episode:
Quotes: "Decriminalization is a far narrower approach. You're simply either removing criminal penalties or you're downgrading criminal penalties." [5:24] "[Measure 109] is a model for clinical, on-site consumption —you don't walk into a dispensary and take your medicine home. It's very narrowly focused on that inpatient clinical model." [13:15] "The [Oregon] health authority isn't even going to start accepting applications for any of the license categories until January 2nd, 2023." [19:50] "So you've got a fairly limited decriminalization and it doesn't apply to sale or distribution...that's the very simple version of [Measure] 110." [23:59] Links: Noah's Blog on Psychedelic Law Psychedelic Medicine Association Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' | |||
| Psychedelics and Autoimmune Disease with Caitlin Thompson | 04 Nov 2020 | 00:32:14 | |
On this week's episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast, Caitlin Thompson joins to discuss her recent article "Psychedelics as a Novel Approach to Treating Autoimmune Conditions" published in Immunology Letters. Caitlin is the founder of the nutritional supplement company EntheoZen, a certified kambo practitioner, and a research associate at the UCSD school of medicine. Drawing on personal experience with an autoimmune condition, Caitlin hopes her scientific research investigating psychedelics and kambo can help give credence to these healing modalities, allowing for more effective treatments of autoimmune conditions. In this conversation, Caitlin discusses the five major findings from her literature review published in Immunology Letters. Her findings draw important connections between the serotonergic mechanism of classic psychedelics and the immunomodulating function of the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor. Additionally, she discusses the impact of psychosocial stress and the gut microbiome on the immune system. As psychedelics can definitely improve psychosocial stress and may even impact the microbiome through serotonergic mechanisms, Caitlin sees significant potential for these compounds as treatments for autoimmune conditions. Caitlin closes by discussing kambo, which remains an under-investigated healing modality. She explains what little is known about how kambo is able to clear microbes from the body while at the same time being inert in relation to human cells. Now that her literature review has been published, Caitlin hopes to focus her research on kambo, and since kambo is not regulated like psychedelics, she will have more freedom to conduct original research leading to new discoveries.
In this episode:
Quotes "What's actually really fascinating is how important serotonin is for regulating all sorts of processes that are related to immune function." [8:40] "There are very real scientific explanations for the way that stress can influence our physical health." [12:32] "It's a bit useless to go through all these treatments, to have this pristine diet, to take all these supplements if you're not also approaching the core thing that compromised the person in the first place." [15:35] "When people are able to actually, consciously resolve and find peace with traumatic experiences, it actually completely changes how the nervous system responds." [22:41]
Links: Caitlin's article: Psychedelics as a Novel Approach to Treating Autoimmune Conditions Psychedelic Medicine Association Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' | |||
| Cannabis and CBD for PTSD with Dr. Mike Hart | 28 Oct 2020 | 00:45:42 | |
On this episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast, Dr. Mike Hart joins to discuss the therapeutic benefits of cannabis, focusing on his clinical work using this medicine to help treat PTSD. Dr. Hart is a Canadian family medicine doctor who opened the first cannabis clinic in London, Ontario - ReadyToGo Clinic. In his practice, Dr. Hart draws on his family medicine background and his cannabis expertise to help his patients tackle their unique conditions and make lifestyle improvements. In this conversation, Dr. Hart discusses his work using cannabinoid medicines, such as CBD and THC, to help veterans with PTSD better treat their symptoms. He talks about the different features of PTSD and how both CBD and THC can be effective at improving the wellbeing of individuals with this diagnosis. Drawing on both his clinical experience and the scientific literature. Dr. Hart provides an overview of how these cannabinoid medicines can be used to improve sleep, manage stress, reduce pain, and even help with trauma. In addition, Dr. Hart explains how he works with patients on an individual basis to create plans for transitioning off traditional pharmaceuticals such as SSRIs in cases where cannabinoid treatments are providing more relief with fewer side effects. Dr. Hart hopes to continue promoting cannabis education to help bridge the gap between the scientific research and popular awareness, allowing more people to take advantage of these treatment options. In this episode:
Quotes: "Cannabis isn't a cure-all per se, but it's definitely a medicine that can help initiate you to have a healthier lifestyle overall." [8:59] "If someone does have really severe PTSD that includes nightmares, including some THC in their regime would likely be very, very effective for them." [16:52] "By using CBD you may be able to unlearn these things that you've learned and then you can learn new things so you can transform yourself and become a new person." [22:14] "Generally CBD actually does work better when you are in stressful environments." [26:11] "The one really nice thing with CBD is you're gonna notice it right away, on your very first dose." [37:38]
Links: Dr. Hart's Book: Friendly Fire: Why Vets Are Ditching Pills and Lighting Up to Treat PTSD Psychedelic Medicine Association Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' | |||
| Working with an Integration Coach with Dr. Ryan Westrum | 21 Oct 2020 | 00:34:38 | |
In this episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast, Ryan Westrum returns to discuss the finer details of psychedelic integration. Ryan is a trained psychotherapist with a Doctorate of Transpersonal Clinical Psychology from Sofia University and an M.A. degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from the Adler Graduate School. He is also the founder of Healing Souls LLC and a registered integration therapist for Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, as well as the author of the Psychedelics Integration Handbook. Drawing on his 15 years of experience as a mental health practitioner, Ryan approaches integration with an intimate knowledge of human psychology, drawing on multiple modalities to best facilitate integration for his clients. In this conversation, Ryan talks about various roadblocks to successful integration and how these can be overcome, especially with the help of an integration coach. He emphasizes the importance of making the psychedelic experience one’s own as a central project in integration, explaining how this is essential for allowing new self-understandings to emerge. Ryan also discusses various practices he encourages as an integration coach, such as journaling, drawing mandalas, and movement practices, mentioning how these can all help better incorporate the work of integration into one’s life rather than keeping it an isolated project. Here again, Ryan emphasizes the importance of individual psychology and encourages people to choose practices that resonate and spur new insight. As a practicing therapist, Ryan also shares his thoughts on the distinction between psychedelic integration and therapy, noting how this boundary is often blurry. What Ryan stresses for both paradigms, however, is the interpersonal character of healing and growth. With the help of a skilled integration coach, the work of living out one's psychedelic insights and making lasting changes becomes all the more approachable. In This Episode:
Quotes: “Integration to me is the act of taking one thing and another and finding wholeness or links to wholeness.” [4:55] “[Integration] is reconciling past memories and incrementally getting prepared for future stories.” [14:22] “Integration exercises can also challenge you to see what you’re afraid of, what you’re not ready to look at, what potentially are growth points.” [18:27] “I would never encourage anyone, no matter how many sessions you’ve sat or how many ceremonies or how many cups of tea you’ve drank, to do this on your own. There’s a benefit in community.” [23:33] “There needs to be a purpose-driven motivation for this work. Just because it’s being talked about in corners, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right for everybody.” [31:30] Links: Psychedelic Integration Website The Psychedelics Integration Handbook Psychedelic Medicine Association Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' | |||
| How Western Medicine and Indigenous Traditions Differ in their Approach to Mental Health and Healing with Adam Aronovich | 14 Oct 2020 | 01:15:03 | |
Adam Aronovich is a doctoral candidate at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain, focusing on Medical Anthropology and Cultural Psychiatry. He is an active member of the Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC) and part of the Ayahuasca Community Committee at the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. In the last four years he has conducted extensive fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon, where he has been doing qualitative research in collaboration with ICEERS, the Beckley Foundation, and, more recently, the Centre for Psychedelic Studies at Imperial College. Beyond his work conducting and coordinating research, Adam regularly facilitates workshops at the Temple of the Way of Light, a prestigious healing center in the Iquitos area. In this episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast, Adam discusses a host of issues surrounding modern western paradigms of psychiatry and mental health and contrasts these with approaches taken by traditional cultures, such as those of the Shipibo people of South America. Adam has spent years studying traditional societies as an anthropologist and his research specifically focuses on the different approaches to medicine in various cultures, and how people in different cultural milieus experience health and illness differently. Through his work, Adam hopes to contribute to the field of medicine by translating the medical understandings of traditional cultures into terminologies and categories digestible by the Western medical establishment. In this conversation, Adam explains how the contemporary approach to mental health in the West is colored by a fixation on medicalizing peoples’ experiences into diagnostic categories and by a tendency to view health and illness exclusively on the level of the individual. In contrast to this approach, Adam draws on his ongoing research with the Shipibo people, showing how their approach to healing in ayahuasca ceremonies is much more communal and relational in nature.
In this episode:
Quotes “Every medical system or every medical approach is inseparable from the culture, the cosmology, the metaphysics that underlie the understanding of that culture.” [32:32] “The way the Shipibo medical system works… is that the healing doesn't necessarily only happen through the agency of the human healer, but the human healer works as a channeler of medical agency of different sources, of different spirits in the environment.” [36:34] “The most important benefits or the most important values that these substances have are not necessarily therapeutic in the sense of medical, or clinical, or psychological… but are actually much deeper than that and they’re epistemic, they’re ontological, they’re relational.” [52:25] “Ayahuasca oftentimes will get us to a place where we can actually experience that reconnection with the wider community of sentience that makes the ecosystem of our world.” [1:02:29] Links Adam’s lecture at Breaking Convention 2017 Adam’s lecture at the World Ayahuasca Conference 2019 Psychedelic Medicine Association Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' | |||
| Addressing Addiction through the Ayahuasca Tradition with Carlos Tanner | 07 Oct 2020 | 01:04:26 | |
In this episode of the Plant Medicine Podcast, Carlos Tanner Joins to share his story of addiction, and how participating in ayahuasca ceremonies not only led him to personal healing but started him down a path of becoming a traditional healer himself. Carlos is the founder of the Ayahuasca Foundation, an organization based out of Iquitos, Peru, which hosts retreats and leads educational programs to pass along training in the Shipibo tradition. The Ayahuasca Foundation is also home to the Riosbo Retreat & Research Center, which has received funding from the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom to conduct research on the epigenetic effects of ayahuasca ceremonies, with particular focus on anxiety, depression, and childhood trauma. Before becoming a pioneer in psychedelic science, Carlos had a long journey with addiction, leading him to seek healing in Peru through, Shipibo ayahuasca ceremonies. Participating in his first series of ceremonies in 2003, Carlos describes his challenging first experience with ayahuasca and the dramatic healings spurred by subsequent ceremonies. Going into these experiences very much in the midst of addiction, Carlos came face to face with childhood trauma and personifications of his illness. With the help of the plant medicine and the spiritual ambiance of the ceremonies, he was able to find incredible healing in the experiences. It was the profound impact of these first encounters with ayahuasca and the Shipibo tradition experienced curandero, and learning the intricacies of the ceremonies. In This Episode:
Quotes: "That's the magic of it- you could walk into a ceremony with zero faith and walk out with one hundred percent." [13:05] "When I left the third ceremony I knew it was my path to be a healer and that I was going to dedicate the rest of my life to this tradition." [29:10] "It was easy for me to heal that trauma. I know that might sound crazy but inside the ceremony, it wasn't such a crazy, difficult ordeal for me." [34:42] "You can't separate ayahuasca from the culture of its use, you can't separate the ceremony from the medicine, and there's so much that comes from the ceremony." [49:33] "If you're in the world of addiction it's going to be almost impossible to stay in that environment and not be an addict." [1:01:35]
Links: Psychedelic Medicine Association Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' NOTE: I said I'd add links to the study findings Carlos was referencing, but those are unfortunately not yet published- links will be added when available. | |||
| Announcing the Psychedelic Medicine Association with Dr. Lynn Marie Morski | 23 Sep 2020 | 00:25:28 | |
In this episode, host Dr. Lynn Marie Morski, who is also president of the soon-to-be-launched Psychedelic Medicine Association, discusses what services the association will be providing what needs it will address, and how the collaborations fostered in the association will contribute to real-world improvements in access to psychedelic therapies. With her background in the medical field, Dr. Moski outlines why it is so difficult for practicing clinicians to encounter information about treatments such as psychedelic therapy. As doctors mostly stay up-to-date through medical journals and association emails, the excitement around the therapeutic potential of plant medicines in the broader culture doesn't necessarily translate to clinicians knowing the subject in detail. The Psychedelic Medicine Association will seek to rectify this lack of awareness by providing content geared towards medical professionals- connecting them with the latest science and providing resources so they are better able to respond to patient questions regarding psychedelic therapies. The association will even provide a forum for clinicians to interact with each other as they navigate understanding these medicines, as well as a forum to connect health professionals with other experts in the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy. To celebrate the launch of the Plant Medicine Association, they will be hosting a webinar at 1:00 PM Eastern on September 29th featuring a panel discussion on bridging the gap between the psychedelic science and clinical medicine worlds to introduce the association and begin discussing how to best address the barriers to getting these medicines in the hands of patients in need. In this Episode:
Quotes "The vast majority of good-hearted doctors are not trying to keep their head in the sand when it comes to psychedelics — it just has not come across most of their journals." [6:57] "A big part of what the entire psychedelic science industry is trying to do is overcome that stigma which came from [psychedelics] being illegal for so long, and as you probably know, you overcome that stigma with education." [12:04] "We want doctors and clinicians and those on the front lines of patient care to be well-informed so that they can present a full range of options to their patients." [17:53] Links Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' | |||
| Ending Pill Shaming: How Psychedelics and Pharmaceuticals Can Both Support Healing with Erica Zelfand, ND | 18 Dec 2024 | 00:45:42 | |
In this episode, Erica Zelfand, ND joins to discuss the important topic of pill shaming in psychedelic communities and how psychedelic medicine and traditional pharmaceuticals can both support healing. Dr. Erica Zelfand specializes in integrative mental health, bridging the gaps between conventional and alternative medicine. In addition to seeing patients in private practice, she also teaches facilitation internationally and leads retreats through Right to Heal. In this conversation, Dr. Zelfand tackles the issue of pill shaming in psychedelic communities, showing why this rhetoric falls short and ultimately harms patients. She discusses complementary roles for psychedelic and traditional pharmaceutical medicines, suggesting that a medicine like ketamine may be particularly effective in contexts of acute intervention, whereas an SSRI antidepressant may be most effective for maintenance. Dr. Zelfand notes, however, that drug-drug interactions can be a significant concern and stresses the need for medical expertise and supervision in the context of concomitant usage of pharmaceuticals and psychedelics. In closing, she emphasizes that what is ultimately important is that patients are able to progress in healing, and any tools that are able to safely and effectively support this goal have an important role to play and should not be denigrated.
In this episode you'll hear:
Quotes: “When I went into medicine, I actually specifically went into integrative medicine, functional medicine, because I didn’t like that patients were being in this position of having to choose: the conventional route or the alternative medicine route. Both routes have their merits and both routes have their shortcomings and I felt like we all deserve to be able to access both and have it be an integrated model.” [3:06] “The only form of ketamine that is FDA approved for depression—which is Spravato—is only approved in the context in which the person is also taking an oral antidepressant.” [20:48] “We have data showing that if you feel really really freaked out and anxious during your [psychedelic] trip, your outcomes aren’t necessarily as good. And the biggest predictor of having a positive experience is actually feeling awe. You don’t have to do the ego death thing, but if you can feel awe, if you can feel inspiration during a trip, your outcomes are better. And there’s even data showing that individuals who are on an SSRI and then trip—they may actually have better outcomes than people who don’t take medication.” [24:12] “I think part of this trepidation is we don’t want to harm anybody through a dangerous, or potentially lethal, drug-drug interaction. That’s one thing. It’s another thing to be like ‘yeah but if you’re using these [pharmaceutical] drugs you’re doing it wrong and you’re not healing right.’ And I think the one often is used as a camouflage for the other—and they’re two separate things.” [38:59]
Links: Psychedelic pill-shaming article by Jules Evans and Shayam Suseelan Previous episode: Integrating Challenging Psychedelic Experiences with Keith Kurlander, MA Previous episode: Warning Signs When Selecting a Psychedelic Facilitator with Juliana Mulligan Previous episode: How to Choose a Psychedelic Facilitator or Retreat Center with Joël Brierre Psychedelic Medicine Association
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| Treating Depression with Ketamine with Dr. Ken Adolph | 16 Sep 2020 | 00:43:24 | |
Dr. Adolph is a board-certified cardiac anesthesiologist and medical director of the Illumma Ketamine Clinic, as well as a member of the American Society of Ketamine Physicians. Dr. Adolph shares the brief history of how Ketamine was originally created, how it came to be used in the mental health arena, and its effectiveness for those with depression. He covers what the research has shown, as well as what he's seen in his clinic and in his own personal journey with the medicine. In this Episode:
Quotes "By accident, they found that some of these patients (who were given ketamine) were able to work through some difficult issues and on the backside of that have less depression associated with their trauma" [10:07] "And then it begins to open them up to 'you know what, I'm ready. I'm ready to start taking a look.' Because that's what we see. Patients are more open to take a look at trauma. They're more open to see that their mindset is important in being able to produce a positive response." [22:04] Links | |||
| Psychedelics' Ability to Help Heal Traumatic Brain Injury with Dr. Kate Pate | 09 Sep 2020 | 00:33:19 | |
Dr. Kate Pate is a neurophysiologist who has been conducting research for 15 years in a variety of different areas, including neurotrauma, respiratory neurobiology, mental health, redox biology, and combat trauma. She is the CEO and co-founder of Coruna Medical and the director of research for both the Heroic Hearts Project and Unlimited Sciences. In this episode, Dr. Pate discusses how traumatic brain injuries (TBI) share many commonalities with the symptoms of PTSD. She discusses why it may be wise to tend to heal the physical brain prior to or in parallel to attempting to heal one’s mental trauma. Dr. Pate also shares about the healing potential of the ayahuasca brew, independent of its DMT content.
In this episode:
Quotes: “Ayahuasca and other psychedelics that are acting on the serotonin system are actually promoting an incredibility anti-inflammatory profile in the body, which is extremely important, especially in the case of traumatic brain injury.” [15:00] “[Increased neuroplasticity] happens through the serotonin system and the ability of these plant medicines to activate this compound called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, called BDNF.” [19:54] Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' Psychedelic Medicine Association | |||
| CBD: Beyond the Basics with Cannabinoid Researcher Hunter Land | 02 Sep 2020 | 00:39:16 | |
Hunter Land is the director of cannabinoid research at Canopy Growth Corporation. He has devoted his career to researching cannabis-derived medicines and their application across a variety of conditions, leading the clinical development of the first FDA-approved CBD medication, Epidiolex. In this episode, Hunter shares the science-based reality of dosing guidelines for using CBD for various conditions and purposes. He answers questions regarding sublingual delivery, whether you can develop tolerance to CBD, the difference between broad-spectrum full-spectrum CBD, and much more.
In this episode:
Quotes: “It’s tough to come up and say: “well you need this amount for sleep, you need this amount for anxiety, you need this amount for epilepsy.” So, with a lot of other medications, a lot of physicians, like yourself, probably know, it’s not uncommon to start low and go slow and see where you might land.” [5:00] “At low doses, we do think there might be some enhanced stimulation effect. But we also know it’s not like a stimulant like amphetamine or caffeine. It seems to function differently than that.” [6:20] “We don’t have guidance on pesticides either. So I think beyond just knowing what’s in products based on standardization techniques, also what contaminates could be present is also of importance.” [25:40]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' | |||
| Antidepressants and Psychedelics with Clinical Pharmacist Ben Malcolm, PharmD | 26 Aug 2020 | 00:54:58 | |
Dr. Ben Malcolm completed a Doctorate in Pharmacy and a Masters in Public Health, prior to post-graduate training and board-certification in psychiatric pharmacy. He currently holds a position in academia teaching psychiatric pharmacy, as well as providing consulting services for those seeking information about psychedelics at SpiritPharmacist.com. In this episode, Dr. Malcolm discusses how antidepressants react with MDMA, psilocybin, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, ayahuasca, and ketamine. He also explains the risk profiles for interactions between psychedelics and medications such as benzodiazepines, sleep medication, antipsychotics, and lithium.
In this episode:
Quotes:
Links:
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| Microdosing Q&A with James Fadiman | 19 Aug 2020 | 01:31:57 | |
James Fadiman, PhD, was a part of the first wave of pioneering psychedelic researchers in the 1960s in the US. He’s the co-founder of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, now known as Sofia University, and he’s the author of several well-known psychedelics books, including The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide. From his initial rediscovery of microdosing and developing a protocol based on early reports, Dr. Fadiman teamed up with Dr. Sophia Korb to record and pattern-map the microdosing experiences of several thousand individuals from 51 countries. In this episode, Dr. Fadiman answers listener-submitted questions regarding microdosing psilocybin and LSD. He discussed dosing recommendations, tolerance, microdosing's general effects on healthy normals, and its specific effects on a number of conditions, ranging from depression to PMS. He also covered a variety of additional areas where people benefit from microdosing, including academic performance and athletics. In the last part of the episode, Dr. Fadiman discusses his new book, Your Symphony of Selves. He points out that we have not one, but a multitude of selves, and that we can learn to shift between them consciously. Further following this idea, he illustrates how we can save a lot of mental distress by not over-identifying with any particular one of our selves, and how we can extend that concept to those around us. This helps us not only forgive others when one of their selves may have acted in a displeasing way but also helps us forgive and go easy on ourselves when we act in a way that we later find distressing or shameful.
In this episode:
Quotes: “A lot of people have found that when they’re tapering off of an SSRI, which means taking it down very, very slowly over a period of maybe a couple of months from full dose to zero, that microdosing helps. That makes it easier. Makes it maybe even a little faster.” [14:13] “I’m an enthusiast for the effect of microdosing, but I never recommend that anyone microdose. That’s a personal decision based on information, but the nice thing is the risk/reward ratio, which is how dangerous versus how beneficial. It’s very good for microdosing. Meaning, if you take it, it’s very low risk, and yeah, from the reports, we have a lot of possibility of benefits.” [35:00] “What we’ve found is that about 80% of the people who come in with heavy depression, and again, most of them having failed medications or other therapies, we’ve about an 80% turnaround rate where they’re not depressed. That’s really striking.” [42:00] “They (students) say: “Microdosing is very much like Adderall, except with none of the very disturbing side effects.” Adderall includes crashing, by the way. And addiction.” [49:18] “Individual neurons in the laboratory, exposed to microdoses, grow into more healthy, more complex neurons with more dendrites, meaning more communication capacity.” [52:17] In discussing his new book, Your Symphony of Selves: “The inconsistencies you see in yourself and particularly in the people you love are not inconsistencies. It is that they have several selves, and you do too. And if you begin to think in that way, curiously, the world becomes easier. You understand things differently and you are kinder to yourself and more compassionate to others.” [1:10:43]
Links: Psychedelic Medicine Association James Fadiman’s website and email: jfadiman@gmail.com Studies mentioned: A Really Good Day by Ayelet Waldman The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide by James Fadiman PhD Your Symphony of Selves by James Fadiman PhD, Jordan Gruber JD | |||
| Kambo Practioner Methods with Mike Salemi | 12 Aug 2020 | 01:26:58 | |
Mike Salemi is a certified kambo practitioner who utilizes a completely holistic approach when guiding and supporting his clients toward accessing their own inner wisdom to heal and grow. His motivation is to help all people discover their true potential from the inside out. In this episode, Mike discusses what a kambo ceremony looks & feels like, and how to both prepare for it beforehand and integrate it afterward. Mike shares how he was first introduced to kambo as “the warrior’s medicine” and the comprehensive training he underwent to be able to hold space for others. He also gives an overview of the uses of two other plant medicines called rapé and sananga. Kambo is an intense experience and Mike discusses who may benefit and who may be better served by other medicines. He also covers the importance of movement before the ceremony, the dietary recommendations for before and after kambo, and why it’s wise to find an experienced practitioner with whom you feel safe.
In this episode:
Quotes: “I would attribute it, personally, directly to kambo. That’s been the biggest change. I’ve made in the last few years. And that for me is like the single biggest thing. My adaptability and resiliency toward stress has been hugely improved.” [10: 39] “Kambo’s going to do what it needs to do. I believe the ceremony is really between that person and kambo. I’m a part of the process, but my job is mainly to keep them safe, my job is to hold space. And then, if they’re a little stuck, I can drive the process through specific tools.” [32:00] “I still sit with as many kambo practitioners as I can, that I’ve heard good things about. It helps put it (the kambo experience) into context. And you start to realize that everyone brings their own life experience. Everyone brings their own process. And no one is right or wrong. You learn so much sitting with different people.” [46:49] “When it’s people’s first time, we’ll spend almost thirty minutes talking the whole process, answering every question they have, talking about what the experience may potentially feel like, because everyone is going to be individual, but also how the medicine comes on, and working in waves and the duration and stuff like that. What I’ve found is that that can subdue a lot of the anxiousness and fears around it. That’s actually a really important piece; explaining things thoroughly.” [58:15]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs (octagonbiolabs.com) with coupon code 'plantmedicine' Preparation support & Integration coaches | |||
| Kambo Scientific Research with Caitlin Thompson | 05 Aug 2020 | 00:40:01 | |
Neurobiologist Caitlin Thompson is a certified kambo practitioner, administering unique traditional frog medicine rituals. Caitlin is also the founder of a nutritional supplement company called EntheoZen. She’s an independent scientific researcher and research associate at UCSD School of Medicine and is currently conducting research on the potential of psychedelic compounds as a novel approach to autoimmune conditions as well as the first human kambo studies. In this episode, Caitlin Thompson discusses what we know and what we don’t know about kambo is and how it actually works. Having served kambo over 800 times, she shares the physiological and psychological changes people undergo when they experience the cocktail of peptides present in kambo. Caitlin also discusses the progress being made on creating synthetic variations of kambo. She explains how she’s observed kambo to be most effective for those who have insufficient detox pathways and usually have trouble clearing out metals, mold toxins and toxins in general, and those who have fairly low neurotransmitter production. She also discusses how she titrates dosages in her ceremonies.
In this episode:
Quotes: “I suffered with a chronic illness for most of my life and I sort of stumbled upon this [kambo] practice and accidentally started recovering from it. And the contrast between recovering from the illness and noticing how sick I used to be was quite startling. And that gap got bigger and bigger as time went on.” [4:00] “They [tribal hunters] would find that it [kambo] is a bit of an adaptogenic sort of substance with increased resilience, endurance and alleged reduced need for food or water, and I’ve also heard something about it covering their human scent, allowing them to hide from animals more effectively.” [17:30] “I try not to be dogmatic about anything but it’s hard because [...] it’s really great for inflammatory and immune dysfunction conditions, especially when there’s a psychosomatic element to it.” [33:45] “The kambo interfaces with the chemical systems that are the interface between our spirit and our physiology. I think psychedelics hit on that as well. They work with these molecular systems, these receptor-sites that happen to sort of tickle where the soul meets the meat. I see these amazing emotional and spiritual resolutions happen for people that results in these physiological and biological cascades throughout the body.” [35:10]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs (octagonbiolabs.com) with coupon code 'plantmedicine' Medicine Frog kambo - Caitlin’s Practice EntheoZen - Caitlin’s Supplement Company | |||
| Kambo Patient Experience with Lucrecia | 29 Jul 2020 | 00:35:33 | |
Lucrecia has been on a long healing journey, both physically and spiritually. Physically, she had endured a number of chronic issues, like celiac disease and exposure to mold toxicity. She had felt like she had tried it all and did not know what else to do. In talking with some ayahuasca practitioners, she was introduced to a Kambo practitioner. Even though the intense experience of Kambo seemed scary for her, she was in a place where she was willing to try anything. At first, her physician recommended that she not try it and she concurred. Later, she found herself to be so depressed that she was willing to act irrespective of her physician’s recommendation. In having done so three different times (including once the day before this episode was recorded), she experienced such a significant reduction and even disappearance in her chronic migraines, gut, skin, and immune system issues that her own doctor voiced interest in trying Kambo as well.
In this episode:
Quotes: “The after-glow was so amazing. I finished the ceremony and I went home. I sat in silence for an hour - which is very uncommon for me. It wasn’t even a meditation, I was just sitting there, empty; which was a really nice break from myself, which doesn’t happen very often. After that hour, I grabbed my journal and started writing things down and suddenly, I just got this burst of energy, and I felt happy and clear and light. After feeling so crappy for so long, where it was really hard to get out of bed, this was amazing!” [19:16] “I was having chronic migraines, (after the Kambo ceremony) those started going away. A lot of the gut issues -I was having severe food allergies and sensitivities- and those calmed down too. It’s like my whole immune system relaxed ." [20:30] “Kambo is not psychedelic at all. At all. Which is different. Usually, with Ayahuasca, there’s a purging but then it’s like you’ve got these cool insights and cool visions. No. There is nothing cool with Kambo.” [30:45] Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs (octagonbiolabs.com) with coupon code 'plantmedicine' Learn more about Kambo / find a practitioner - International Association of Kambo Practitioners | |||
| How YOU Can Participate in The New Psilocybin Study from Unlimited Sciences and Johns Hopkins | 22 Jul 2020 | 00:40:48 | |
Del Jolly is co-founder and director of Unlimited Sciences, a psychedelic research non-profit. He was the outreach director for the Decriminalize Denver team that passed the historic legislation which decriminalized psilocybin in Denver, leading to a nation-wide movement. Before that, he worked for Charlotte’s Web CBD in business development and is on the board of community advisors for the Realm of Caring, a cannabis non-profit. Along with research, Unlimited Sciences hosts a webinar series called Unlimited Voices and produces content educating the general public on entheogens. Unlimited Sciences’ first study, in conjunction with Johns Hopkins’ Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, intends to understand how the community is using psilocybin in real-world settings. The goal of the study is to learn more about the effects of using psilocybin outside of the research setting, and any potential factors that could affect those outcomes. By collecting data from individuals who are already planning to use psilocybin, the researchers aim to investigate variables such as demographics, lifestyle, mindset, and personality traits—as well as characteristics of the experience itself, such as dosage, ingestion method, intention, and setting. Anyone planning to use psilocybin (single dose; not a microdose regimen) outside a research laboratory in the next 6 months is invited to participate. In this episode:
Quotes: “As we were moving forward with the decriminalize initiative, I just knew and saw that there’s going to be this huge wave of psychedelic naive folks who are going to hear these stories that are going to come out, whether it’s veterans, or smoking cessation, or whatever it might be, and they’re going to need a safe place to land.” (11:01) "I continued to grow my knowledge of plant medicine and then I had a personal experience a couple years ago and that was it. I absolutely knew that there is so much potential in these entheogens, and our choice to not study them will go down as probably one of the biggest crimes against the human race." (16:07) "If you say: “Hey, how can I get involved in this cause? What can I do?” Most people don’t have time to petition, to collect signatures. They don’t have time to start a non-profit. Their focus is on other things but this is very important to them. This study is a really good opportunity to anonymously provide information on how you’re using psilocybin." (21:18) "People are not using psilocybin in a lab, on a couch, with one or two therapists. They don’t. It’s not happening. This way of collecting information allows us to see how the community is using it, what does that look like, and what can we learn from that type of information?" (22:18) "It’s not our role to get people to vote for psilocybin. It’s more our role to make sure they’re not necessarily voting against it, just like for me (referring to his past), if you’re on the fence, just stay there. If you don’t know, just stay on the fence. Don’t jump on one side because it’s what you think you’re supposed to do." (38:29)
Links: Participate in the Unlimited Sciences/Johns Hopkins psilocybin research study Unlimited Voices webinar series Follow Unlimited Science on Instagram Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine | |||
| DMT Scientific Research with Dr. Chris Timmerman | 15 Jul 2020 | 00:59:29 | |
Chris Timmermann, PhD, is a researcher at Imperial College, where he conducted the first neuroimaging studies of DMT in healthy volunteers and its potential for mental health interventions. He is also conducting research concerning the effects that psychedelics have on belief systems and the ethical implications associated with the mainstreaming of these substances. In this episode, Chris Timmerman discusses what happens neurologically when DMT is administered. He talks about his research into neuroimaging and how the brainwaves change during DMT experiences, and how those changes can help elucidate some of the mechanisms of psychedelic states. He also breaks down the concept of cortical activation and how DMT experiences lead to a pattern of cortical activation that mimics that of visual stimulation. Dr. Timmerman also discusses how DMT experiences are often compared to what happens to the body when it has a near-death experience. He explains some of the difficulties of studying these effects and how to ethically study the phenomenon of near-death experiences. In addition to his work on DMT, Dr. Timmerman also shares some of his research on the impact of music in psychedelic therapy, and how it can help comfort people facing trauma.
In this episode:
Quotes: "DMT is incredibly unique because it is able to generate simulations of sorts. The level of immersion is radical, complete. People with their eyes closed, they feel kind of detached from their environment, but they are experiencing a world of experience." [5:52] "We developed a map of this DMT story for each participant. We found three main components: one there was a visual component in the experience, we found a bodily component [a somatic effect], and an emotional effect. And we found that these different parts of the DMT story - the visual, the bodily, and the emotional - had different brain signatures." [18:55] "There have been some animal studies, or very promising ones, in which not only DMT but also LSD and ketamine has been shown to have important properties associated with neurogenesis." [35:09] "The use of psychedelics by western populations is fairly new. We don't have that know-how or that expertise like some indigenous cultures, has for generations." [46:49]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs (octagonbiolabs.com) with coupon code 'plantmedicine' Follow Dr. Timmerman on Twitter | |||
| Integrating Challenging Psychedelic Experiences with Keith Kurlander, MA, LPC | 04 Dec 2024 | 00:40:17 | |
In this episode of the Psychedelic Medicine Podcast, Keith Kurlander, MA, LPC, joins to discuss the important topic of integration practices for challenging psychedelic experiences. Keith is the Co-Founder of the Integrative Psychiatry Institute, the largest professional education company specializing in integrative mental health and psychedelic therapy. In this conversation, Keith begins by exploring the different types of challenging psychedelic experiences and various lingering effects one may experience following a difficult psychedelic journey. He discusses these from a trauma-informed perspective, explaining how a traumatized nervous system can lead to dissociation on the other side of an intense ego-disrupting experience. Keith also shares practices and insights from internal family systems (IFS) for integrating challenging psychedelic experiences. In closing, he emphasizes that psychedelics are not lazer-targeted therapies, so they do carry inherent risks, but through effective integration practices, patients can make healthy meaning out of even negative experiences.
In this episode you'll hear:
Quotes: “The concept of pendulation [is] that we can be more flexible to ease our way into these overwhelming states. So once we are totally overwhelmed, we have to work our way back out gracefully, but as we are doing that, you get a gem as you are coming back… you learn something as you are coming out of that state.” [18:02] “If people have a psychotic disorder that emerged after their psychedelic use, you need a psychiatrist at that point… If it’s really a psychotic emergence, whether a previous psychotic disorder got triggered or whatever, you need a psychiatrist to work with you on that.” [20:07] “I believe all these mental health conditions have a trauma process underneath them. I don’t know how you isolate a trauma process from a mental health condition” [25:30] “It’s about working with a person’s meaning-making structure: is the meaning they’re making creating more psychological flexibility or less psychological flexibility? That’s a really important question to hold as a therapist because people will make all kinds of meaning up from these experiences but if they’re creating meaning that’s creating more rigid structures of how they see the world, then they get disappointed more often.” [34:21]
Links: Previous episode: The Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project with Jules Evans Psychedelic Medicine Association
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| DMT Patient Experience with Adam Meredith | 08 Jul 2020 | 00:27:49 | |
Adam Meredith is an entrepreneur, podcasting consultant, speaker, photographer, health and movement coach, martial artist, and retired pro fighter based in St. Louis, MO. In addition to hosting Outside Perspective, Adam is also the founder and CEO of Imposed Will, a lifestyle brand dedicated to empowering others to impose their will on life, through mental strength and healthy habits. In this week's episode, Adam goes into detail about what he experienced during multiple DMT journeys. He talks about how intense his first experience was and what he felt in the DMT space. He also compares how different his later experiences were. Initially, Adam avoided setting expectations for his DMT experiences. However, he shares how it has helped him develop his spirituality and realize that he was more than just his physical body.
In this episode:
Quotes:
“I feel like expectations are the quickest way to disappointment. So it's like, I just wanted to be open to the experience and see what I actually get from it.” [7:25] "I look on the walls and I'm seeing the geometric patterns and all of a sudden I'm just yanked away from this physical space." [10:12] “This is a place that you can go to, and we are a part of that thing, whatever that is. Whether you call it the universe, you can call it God, you can call it energy, it's like, there is a whole lot more going on than we really understand, and maybe we will never be able to explain it with science, but it's there." [25:12]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs (octagonbiolabs.com) with coupon code 'plantmedicine' | |||
| Helping Veterans Access Treatment with the Founders of The Ketamine Fund | 01 Jul 2020 | 00:52:49 | |
Michael "Zappy" Zapolin and Warren Gumpel co-founded The Ketamine Fund, a 501(c)(3), that provides free ketamine treatments to veterans suffering from PTSD or having suicidal ideations, with the mission of lowering suicide rates by 75 percent. The Ketamine Fund has donated more than 400 free treatments to veterans suffering from PTSD. In this week’s episode, Zappy and Warren share their stories, and what led them to advocate for ketamine treatments. Noticing how expensive this therapy can be, Zappy and Warren wanted to help veterans who would benefit the most by subsidizing this treatment. Zappy and Warren also discuss some additional projects they work on to increase awareness of ketamine treatments, such as their upcoming documentary about Lamar Odom and their work with the Mind Army Movement. They also talk about why a proper ketamine facilitator is so important and how certain ketamine treatments are not as effective due to underdosing.
In this episode:
Quotes: “After my ketamine treatments, my depression and anxiety were gone. Nothing had ever happened so quickly and so miraculously.” [7:29] "Probably the most beautiful thing about ketamine is it needs the least integration of what I've seen because some of the plant medicine takes a long time." [18:50] “It became very apparent to us that one of the most underserved communities in this country that deserves it [ketamine treatment] is the veteran community.” [25:38] "We think if we can fund that [the Ketamine Fund] properly, and then anybody in the country who says that they're having suicidal ideation; we can get them into a clinic, in our network, within 24 hours in a clinic and get a free treatment." [40:10]
Links: | |||
| Mescaline History and Legality with Mike Jay | 24 Jun 2020 | 00:44:40 | |
Mike Jay is an author who has written widely on the history of science and medicine. His books include High Society: Mind-Altering Drugs in History and Culture and his latest, Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic. In this episode, Mike discusses his research into mescaline and its extended history. Mike shares the cultural significance of huachuma and peyote for indigenous tribes in Mexico and Peru dating back over 3000 years. He also talks about western research into mescaline starting in the 19th century, and even mentions how peyote was almost incorporated into the Mormon Church! Mescaline is considered a class A drug by many countries, and Mike discusses some of the legal "blurry areas" based on different types of cacti containing it. He also covers the environmental impact of improperly harvesting peyote, how industrial mining is destroying peyote’s environment, and what native tribes in Mexico are doing to protect this endangered plant. In this episode:
Quotes: “All those kind of great early accounts of peyote from the 1890s are all very full-on, first-person (what we would call trip reports), written by people who are often doctors, but who are also often poets and writers. People who are very, very good at medical description. So these are kind of beautiful pieces of psychedelic literature.” [6:14] "There are reports from the 17th/18th century of villages where everybody would get together, usually around a fire, usually at night. peyote would be passed around and people would sing and dance through the night." [21:04] “Your average cactus supplier, or sometimes even your cactus garden center will have huachuma. So the legal status of the cactus is kind of blurry.” [25:38] "We kind of go, 'Oh Psychedelics! That story started in the '60s or '50s.' If you look at mescaline it's like, no. I mean there are western stories starting way back in the 19th century." [36:50]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs (octagonbiolabs.com) with coupon code 'plantmedicine' Fundraiser for Peyote Conservation and Cultivation Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic | |||
| Mescaline Practitioner Methods with Tah and Kole Whitty | 17 Jun 2020 | 01:07:30 | |
Tah Whitty spent 25 years as a nurse in emergency medicine, and Kole Whitty has spent 17 years educating professionals about life’s addictions. Together, they have 17 years of combined experience in various shamanic traditions, guiding performance-driven entrepreneurs. In this week’s episode, Tah and Kole discuss how their paths led to facilitating huachuma (San Pedro) ceremonies. While they both were initially resistant to using plant medicine, they discovered how impactful huachuma ceremonies can be to resolve pent up trauma. Tah and Cole describe huachuma as more gentle compared to other plant medicines, though the effects of the medicine can often be present for 10-12 hours. They also discuss the pre-journey intake process, the preparation and support that goes into a participant’s experience, and the post-care support to help integrate the experience into their healing journey. In addition to explaining the huachuma ceremony, Tah and Cole talk about trauma and healing. They emphasize the importance of avoiding the Transformation TRAPP (Tirelessly Repeating A Painful Process) which can be harmful to an individual’s growth, and the importance of being in a state of relaxation to optimize healing.
In this episode:
Quotes: "When your nervous system is relaxed, you can actually get to the deeper space that you need to get to, and that's where healing takes place the most." [5:03] "You are not controlling the [Mescaline]experience. You are co-creating the experience." [13:03] “The trauma response, physiologically, is your response to an activity. Trauma is not what happens to you, it is how your body and your organism responds.” [27:56] “What does it feel like to be free of the conditioning, of the expectations, of the trauma, and drama? It doesn't mean you stop feeling, it means it stops being so much weight on your wings.” [42:06] "We have had countless people come to us and to work with us, and they're like 'I've got trauma that is holding me back!’ No, what is holding them back is that they are not allowing themselves to have fun." [43:16]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs (octagonbiolabs.com) with coupon code 'plantmedicine' Subscribe to Tah and Kohle’s Texting List by texting ‘Optimize’ to 22999 Follow Tah and Kole on Instagram
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| Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians with Joe Moore of Psychedelics Today | 11 Jun 2020 | 00:38:52 | |
Joe earned his BA in philosophy in New Hampshire. After stumbling upon the work of pioneering psychedelic psychiatrist Dr. Stanislav Grof in 2001, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003 and he later began helping facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops. In this week’s episode, Joe discusses how he and his co-founder, Kyle Buller started Psychedelics Today, and how their podcast led to them developing a number of online courses. Their upcoming course is Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists. This 8 week course is good for both those wanting to learn how to better understand a client’s needs as a physician or a therapist and for those looking to get a taste of what the psychedelic therapy world is like before embarking on official training. Joe also talks about how mystical and spiritual experiences can play a role in psychology. While often overlooked in the current psychiatric system, Joe believes these spiritual and mystical experiences may help to heal patients in certain situations.
In this episode:
Quotes: “We just thought the psychedelic world is really interesting, but it is really lacking regular discussion of Dr. Stan Groff and Holotropic Breathwork. So really it [The Psychedelics Today podcast] was a way that we could contribute and bring voices that we thought were important back to the foreground" [5:13] "I don't want to be the Tony Robbins telling you how, you know, this is exactly how you should be charging at your problems. It's like no - you need to take an individualized approach." [13:03] "If more people had a lot more support like we could see people self resolve things [trauma and psychological issues] instead of going into the psychiatric system for decades." [26:13] "You don't get educated and then you're done. This is a lifelong process." [36:53]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs (octagonbiolabs.com) with coupon code 'plantmedicine' psychedeliceducationcenter.com Navigating Psychedelics: For Clinicians and Therapists Follow Psychedelics Today on Instagram | |||
| Mescaline Patient Experience with Ian-Michael Hebert | 03 Jun 2020 | 00:36:06 | |
Ian-Michael Hebert is committed to healing the relationship between humanity and the Earth. His formal training has been in eco-resort design and he holds a Masters degree in Counseling Psychology and community mental health. He is the founder of Holos Global, a network of holistic healing centers. Ian-Michael has catalyzed many teams in creating enduring structures and institutions that will benefit generations to come. In this week’s episode, Ian-Michael describes his very personal journey as he experienced mescaline while hiking through the Grand Canyon. This Mescaline experience helped Ian-Michael work through his negative internalizations, reconnect spiritually to nature, and even helped him strengthen his relationship with his father. He also discusses how this experience led him to his current work with Holos Global and the services they provide.
In this Episode:
Quotes: “What I find with this particular ally or this particular plant medicine, is that it deeply amplifies our feeling states.” [8:17] “That particular experience was less like an actual visual experience and more of a felt sense.” [18:47] “The overall journey of being on the Grand Canyon and that bigger context was very much a reset of my life, and I came out very inspired." [26:55] "The integration arc is as important as the journey. If you really want to mine the gems, if you want to, like, get the benefits of the medicine you really have the opportunity to reflect on it and to practice it." [28:33]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Octagon Biolabs with coupon code 'plantmedicine' Follow Holos Global on Instagram | |||
| 5-MeO-DMT Scientific Research with Dr. Joseph Barsuglia | 27 May 2020 | 00:53:33 | |
Dr. Joseph Peter Barsuglia is a clinical psychologist focused on bridging ancestral medicines and wisdom with best clinical practices, in order to catalyze personal healing and spiritual awakening. He has worked as Research Director of a psychedelic treatment center which utilized 5-MeO-DMT and ibogaine for the treatment of addiction, as a psychotherapist in the MAPS-sponsored trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, and is an initiate of the African tradition called Bwiti which uses iboga as its sacrament. In this episode, Dr. Barsuglia discusses what happens to the body when 5-MEO-DMT is consumed. He also discusses the origins and history of 5-MEO-DMT, as well as some of the scientific research being conducted on the molecule. He also shares some research on how he observed the mystical effects 5-MEO-DMT had on patients and some of the consistent experiences patients described. The increasing popularity of this psychedelic often brings up a discussion on the environmental impact of harvesting Sonoran Desert toads. Dr. Barsuglia uses this to discuss differences between synthetic vs naturally occurring 5-MEO-DMT, and how synthetic developments can help protect the environment and preserve tribal tradition.
In this episode:
Quotes: “This is one of the oldest psychedelics found in archeology.” [8:30] “Some kind of basic science studies on cell lines that showed that 5-MEO-DMT does in fact stimulate brain cell growth, antidepressant properties, and might boost the immune system.” [13:24] “In many psychedelics, you are getting formed visuals, you can kind of interact with what’s happening. This medicine kind of takes you beyond your biography, beyond your memory, beyond form into a very energetic experience.” [16:07] "80 percent, I think, of people that had this experience said it was profoundly sacred or holy." [28:48] “I also think that people don't need to be demonized that are using this medicine.” [51:31]
Links:
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| Trauma-Informed Plant Medicine Facilitation with Atira Tan | 20 May 2020 | 00:38:37 | |
Atira Tan is currently a PhD candidate in Expressive Arts Research at the European Graduate School in Switzerland. She possesses an MA in Art Therapy, has a background in Transpersonal Art Therapy and Holistic Counseling, and is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner with decades of training in various somatic trauma-informed approaches. Atira worked as a trauma-informed integration specialist in retreat centers such as the Temple of the Way of Light, and she is currently the head of Ayahuasca integration at AYA Healing Retreats. In this episode, Atira discusses the concept of trauma-informed therapy, and how facilitators can respect and support participants in healing circles. As everyone experiences traumas in their lives differently, Atira discusses how trauma can impact an individual’s experience in healing circles. She also establishes the importance of communication between the facilitator and participants. Atira’s upcoming workshop covers several important topics to help teach facilitators how to integrate trauma-informed principles into their ceremonies. There will be a large focus on the core of the essentials of trauma and how to intervene. Some other topics that will be discussed include boundaries, safety, and consent during ceremonies, how trauma shows up in the body, identifying trauma and trauma recovery, and the cross overs of shamanism and mental health.
In this episode:
Quotes Trauma happens when there is a boundary violation. [10:07] As part of the trauma-informed lens, facilitators need to kind of think about what's important to be communicated first. [19:59] Part of giving people's choice and agency is really about consent. [22:10]
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| 5-MeO-DMT Practitioner Methods with Tricia Eastman | 13 May 2020 | 00:44:28 | |
Tricia Eastman is a medicine woman, author, and pioneer in the psychedelic movement. Eastman offers highly curated retreats in countries where use is legal, working with iboga, psilocybin mushrooms, and 5-MeO-DMT. She has been initiated into Bwiti Fang traditions and the Ngonde Missoko tradition, and she facilitated the psychospiritual iboga program for Crossroads Treatment Center in Mexico. She supports projects related to the preservation of the sacred medicines and sacred sites for future generations and working with the ancient wisdom traditions with respect and reverence. In this episode, Tricia discusses the start of her journey into becoming a healer working with psychedelics. At a 5-MeO-DMT retreat, she learned how to love herself, and decided she wanted to lead others on this healing experience. Since 2016 she founded Psychedelic Journeys, which offers guided retreats with a number of medicines. Tricia shares the many ways 5-MeO-DMT can be administered, and how facilitators can support participants during this ceremony. While she does discuss the positive experiences many people have, she speaks frankly about how 5-MeO-DMT can greatly affect others based on their previous experience, both with psychedelics and past trauma. One of Tricia’s passions is promoting sacred and ethical use of 5-MeO-DMT. She discusses how encroaching farming practices and unethical harvesting has impacted the source of 5-MeO-DMT, the Sonoran Desert Toad, and some practices for minimizing harm
In this episode:
Quotes: 12:00 "You are in a space of timelessness where your perception of where you are could feel like eons even though it has been seconds." 14:59 "I try not to be a character in the movie. I don't want it to ever be about me, or doing anything, because they are there to do their own healing work. 19:43 "We don't want to set you up in a way that you are going to get in your own experience, and not actually receive whatever the medicine wants to show you." 37:48 "For me, I really feel that it's important that everything is done in a sacred way. That they are done in an ethical thing." 41:14 Everything I do is a very deeply intuitive process of really following and listening, and that's just how you learn when you work in the shamanic traditions.
Links: 3rd Eye Mushroom Immune Elixior Follow Tricia on Instagram | |||
| 5-MeO-DMT Patient Experience with Mikey | 06 May 2020 | 00:37:54 | |
In today’s 5-MeO-DMT patient experience episode, Mikey, a former Navy SEAL, shares his phenomenal story of how an experience with 5-MeO-DMT changed his life. Mikey explains what he experienced when he tried 5-MeO-DMT, and the effect that experience had on him. 5-MeO-DMT experiences have helped Mikey better understand and accept the presence of a higher power in his life, which has helped him accept his mistakes, grow as a person, and improve his outlook on life. Mikey also discusses how these experiences helped him come to a better understanding of acceptance and love for himself. In addition to accepting himself, he also discusses how this higher power and the concept of infinite love helped him learn to love and support others.
In this episode:
"Where I am at today, there is a peace about me. There is a willingness to want to think of others, and to be of service." [4:09] My arms, my brain-- everything is like drifting and kaleidoscoping away. I feel like I am being turned inside out. Not in a painful way, but in an awareness way." [27:16] "You have never been judged a day in your life. There is no wrong you can possibly do. There is no wrong you can possibly do because there is no judgment. This is the stuff that is coming out of me!" [29:21] "I was literally jettisoned right into the lap of God. There is no other way to put it." [30:12] “For every situation that we find ourselves in, it is not about any one of us, but it involves all of us. We are all the star players in our own movie. We're all the co-star of everyone else's." [32:45] "When we heal, we heal others." [36:02]
Links: Get 20% off everything at Proper Hempco CBD with coupon code “PLANTMEDICINE” | |||
| Crafting Soundscapes for Psychedelic Transformation with East Forest | 20 Nov 2024 | 00:41:07 | |
In this episode of the Psychedelic Medicine Podcast, East Forest joins to discuss several aspects at the intersection of music and psychedelics, including how he created the music that so many have used when facilitating psychedelic journeys. East Forest’s latest project, a feature length documentary film called Music For Mushrooms, follows him through the psychedelic renaissance on a mission to pair music with psychedelics to bring about transformative healing to a world in crisis. In this conversation, East Forest discusses how he first got started making music for psychedelic journeys and the considerations that go into curating the right sound to best support these types of deep inner experiences. He emphasizes the importance of avoiding music that sounds overly sentimental and lacks the depth and richness important for effective psychedelic exploration. He also discusses the importance of maintaining the container, whether in the context of psychedelic facilitation or purely music-focused ceremonies, and suggested that sternness and fortitude have an important function in this context. In closing, East Forest suggests that music is so powerful because of the way it is able to be a point of connection to integrate experiences and bring people together.
In this episode you'll hear:
Quotes: “If we look at psychedelic experiences and ceremonies from indigenous use, all of them that I know of were guided by music.” [3:16] “I think it’s more the intention behind the music. I don’t think there’s a particular thing you have to do or not do, but I don’t think you can just play any music. So I think it’s the intention of the music and the intention of the room and the intention of the participants… There has to be an invitation on all of those fronts for that doorway to open.” [16:11] “I think we’re looking for music and for space that is supportive of that through-line and gives us enough time to be in a process—and that’s another advantage of having these longform, intentional, bespoke songs because they are probably going to give more of that time and space for these processes to occur.” [32:43]
Links: Music for Mushrooms documentary website Music for Mushrooms Official Documentary Soundtrack Winter Solstice Retreat at Esalen Music for Psychedelic Therapy by Jon Hopkins | |||
| Ibogaine History and Legality with Dr. Thomas Kingsley Brown | 29 Apr 2020 | 00:27:18 | |
Dr. Thomas Kingsley Brown is back on the show to discuss the history and legality of ibogaine. With a master’s degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in anthropology, he has conducted extensive research into altered states of consciousness, religious conversion, and the use of ibogaine in the treatment of opioid addiction. In this episode, Dr. Brown describes the origin of ibogaine which is derived from iboga, a plant indigenous to west-central Africa. Its bark has been sacramentally used by the Bwiti people for countless generations. At the turn of the 20th Century, ibogaine was first isolated from iboga. Various drugs were derived from this in Europe and North America throughout much of the century. During the war on drugs, this obscure psychedelic was regulated and criminalized in the United States in 1967. In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act declared ibogaine to be a Schedule 1 drug. In the 1980s, efforts to explore ibogaine’s potential to treat chemical addiction got underway. With opioid use linked to the transmission of HIV/AIDS, various groups began looking at ibogaine as a tool for recovery. There have always been a few countries where ibogaine remained unregulated. However, it wasn’t until 2009 that New Zealand became the first country to legalize it as a medicine for use in opioid recovery. In several US cities, such as Oakland, ibogaine was recently decriminalized. That said, its legal future remains uncertain.
In this episode:
Quotes: “It’s sort of a twisted history in a way. There are a lot of different things that go into it. But chemically ibogaine was first isolated and purified from the iboga shrub in 1901.” [4:09] “Psychedelics are not addictive, ibogaine among them. Ibogaine is usually a difficult trip, especially for people who are using it for getting off opioids.” [10:11] “I think it will be at least some time before we are able to see legal ibogaine treatment here in the US.” [24:03] Links: Episode 34: Ibogaine Scientific Research Episode 28: Decriminalize Nature Check out the full episode post | |||
| Same Summit, Now Virtual! Chacruna Founder Bia Labate, Ph.D. tells us all about the upcoming Psychedelic Liberty Summit | 15 Apr 2020 | 00:37:25 | |
This week we discuss the upcoming Psychedelic Liberty Summit (April 25th and 26th) with Bia Labate, Ph.D. As the executive director of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, public education and culture specialist at MAPS, co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies in Brazil, editor of the Mexican blog Drugs, Politics, and Culture, and the author and editor of numerous books, special edition journals, and several peer-reviewed articles, Dr. Labate is a wealth of information and knowledge. Dr. Labate explains how she started the Chacruna Institute in 2017 with the mission of promoting education around plant medicines. With a focus on the cultural side of plant medicines, Chacruna works to help spread the idea that these plants have a place in society. This involves creating a bridge between traditional uses of plant medicine and scientific advances being made in the field. Chacruna’s upcoming conference might be the largest virtual event of its kind. There will be a large focus on the emerging politics of plant medicines. Other themes include the responsibilities that practitioners and patients have to use them in an informed and ethical way. With more than 70 speakers and 35 community partners, this will be an inclusive and expansive event.
In this episode:
Quotes: “We’re trying to create legitimacy around the idea that these drugs are legitimate and should be respected as such and be incorporated into our legal and health systems.” [5:06] “We have activists, researchers, community leaders, lawyers, religious leaders, and practitioners. We have a really incredible lineup.” [22:00] “In the field of psychedelics science, we have often fetishized shamans from South America and forgotten the people of the land. So I’m really proud that we have a series of different Native American representatives.” [32:54] Links: Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines Transform Drug Policy Foundation “The Emergence of a New Market: Psychedelic Science Conferences” by Bia Labate Ph.D. Episode: Decriminalization of Psilocybin with Attorney Sean McAllister Check out the full episode post | |||
| Considering Taking Psychedelics During the Quarantine? A Discussion with Therapist Rebecca Kronman | 08 Apr 2020 | 00:31:32 | |
Thanks to the current pandemic, most of the population is quarantined at home. During this time, some may want to consider using psychedelics. However, there are some additional considerations to keep in mind when deciding whether to undergo a psychedelic journey during the quarantine. Rebecca Kronman is a licensed therapist and the founder of Plant Parenthood, a community of parents who use psychedelics. She is a psychotherapist with a private practice in Brooklyn, NY where she works with clients to help them prepare for and integrate after psychedelic experiences. In this episode, Rebecca discusses the concept of harm reduction. This means that no one is advocating what anyone else should or shouldn’t be doing. Rather, it is about asking that people explore the topic of psychedelics with all the information available. With the right knowledge and confidence, people will feel better prepared for whatever they decide to do. Given that hospitals are currently overtaxed and undersupplied, considering what might happen if a psychedelic experience goes wrong is more important than ever. Rebecca talks about how heightened levels of anxiety are going to play into this and how is more crucial that someone is attuned to their mindset before undertaking a psychedelic experience. Rebecca shares some tools that people can use to listen to what their mind and body are telling them. If, after taking everything into account you decide this isn't the proper time to be journeying for you, then it can still be used to prepare for one in the future or integrate one from the past. That being said, for some individuals this time may be too overwhelming for that and it might be best to wait for another time. Rebecca stresses that everyone needs to evaluate their own situation and make an informed decision. In this episode:
Quotes: “Are we okay with the fact that the hospital might not be available to us right now?” [6:20] “Any way that you can create space for yourself and pause - any kind of contemplative practice - is going to be extremely useful.” [11:10] “This is an entropic period for all of us. Our whole lives look different. We may be in a different place. Definitely, we’re doing different things. Our whole routine has shifted. Greater entropy gives us greater opportunity for shifting patterns. That’s what psychedelics are about.” [20:07] “If it feels accessible to us to add something new into our integration practices, this is a great time. If we’ve got too much on our plate, have compassion for ourselves and say ‘drop the technique.’” [22:27] Links: Follow on Instagram The Psychedelics Integration Handbook by Ryan Westrum, Ph.D. Check out the full episode post | |||