July 25, 2025 • 51 mins
Let’s talk about ketamine—and not the kind of convo you’d have at a college party.
In this week’s episode, I sit down with Dr. David Caldwell and Dr. Melissa Briggs-Phillips of Mindset Integrative Ketamine Care for one of the most powerful, personal, and mind-expanding conversations we’ve ever had on this show.
Together, they’re pioneering a new approach to healing trauma through ketamine infusion therapy (aka KIT)—backed by decades of medical expertise and lived experience. We talk about what it actually feels like, who it’s for, how it compares to psychedelics like psilocybin or MDMA, and the kind of inner peace that’s possible when you finally quiet the noise in your head.
But this episode isn’t just about the science. It’s about grief, forgiveness, masculine vulnerability, healing from scars instead of open wounds, and what it means to start over—again and again. These two aren't just experts. They're the real deal. And after hearing their stories, you'll understand why.
Heads up: My mic was having a moment during this recording, so the audio’s not as crisp as usual on my end—but hang in there, because the conversation is so worth it.
If you’ve ever struggled with anxiety, depression, or feeling stuck—or if someone you love has—this episode is a must-listen.
Connect with Mindset:
Website: mindsetketamine.com
Instagram: @mindset_ketamine
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey there you beautiful badass.
Welcome to the Keri Croft Show.
I'm your host, keri Croft,delivering you stories that get
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Dr David, dr Melissa, welcometo the Keri Croft Show.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You guys are, aside from being probably brilliant,
worldly Good one, but I knewthat because I had curved and
you know like blowing up yourphotos make sure I was like your
hair's a little bit lighter,which I like, than what I saw
just recently done.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, I like it.
I didn't pick it, I just was inthe hands of the people and
this is what happened.
Don't you love that sometimes?
But sometimes you just gottalet go which is gonna be kind of
the theme of the day withketamine infusion therapy.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Ketamine infusion therapy, which we call KIT.
Right, everybody's talkingabout this.
They're also talking aboutpsychedelics.
I'm so pumped to get into justactual technical side of that.
But there's so much to uncoverwith you two as human beings.
So what I'd like to do is Iwould like to start with how the
both of you sort of you hadtrauma at sort of young ages
(02:52):
yourself, so like you wereadopted right, and so that
creates a fault line and youwere super sick as a kid because
you were bit by a dog.
So talk about that for for aminute.
You went sepsis.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, I was probably six or seven years old.
I have three black labs at home.
I've always been a dog lover.
My dad never let us have a dog.
He always told me my sister wasallergic.
But it was on our back porch.
I got bit by a small dog andwithin 24 hours I got infected
by a small dog.
And within 24 hours I gotinfected and I developed
something calledpost-streptococcal
glomerulonephritis,streptococcal being the
bacterial strain that I wentthrough my bloodstream and shut
(03:35):
my kidneys down.
So I remember spending mybirthday in Children's Hospital.
I remember people saying heshould live, he should be okay.
My mom was there the whole time.
But yeah, that was just one ofmany things.
I was very sick as a kid.
I missed a lot of school.
Actually, I'm on immunotherapynow after they finally figured
(03:59):
all this out.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And you also said you were bullied, which surprises
me a little bit because of how,when you were describing
yourself as just this very highvibration, active sort of
confident guy.
When did that happen?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
We were just talking about this.
So my dad wasn't around a lot.
He worked a tremendous amount.
He worked a tremendous amountand when he wasn't, he was
usually either asleep in the onechair that he slept in after
dinner every night or just goneworking on stuff.
My brother's five years older,sister's nine years older I was
noobs.
So very early I was like asingle, like an only child in a
(04:40):
single-parent home.
I was recalling to Melissabeing chased home after school
from the bus stop.
I played varsity lacrosse as afreshman.
I was only one of two freshmenthat traveled, but I remember
being swirly held up over atoilet and dunked, eyebrows
(05:01):
being shaved, those sorts ofthings, and I finally got to a
point where I could startlifting and getting bigger and
stronger and then I got to paysome people back.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Well, I mean it's important, and so I love the way
you set it up in your intakeform, where you were like.
You know, my mom bravely gaveme up because she didn't want me
to suffer from these things and, as it turns out, I was turned
right over into these things.
So talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
So, first and foremost, I view adoption as
this like radical act of love.
It is I will, I choose you, I'mgoing to love you.
Like it's a, it's powerful, andso the my story is shaped not
so much by the adoption itselfbut the family dynamic that I
(05:54):
was adopted into, thatreplicated, because, you know,
the universe got the last.
Laugh the system that I wasadopted out of, laugh the system
that I was adopted out of, andI can share as much or as little
of that as feels relevant.
But the way I explain it topeople, given what I do
professionally, is that I had asort of inoculation that
(06:17):
happened because of my adoption.
So the addiction, abuse,religious fundamentalism, the
painful things that werehappening around me, I was one
step off because I did not sharetheir biology.
So from a young age, even thoughthere was stuff happening, I
(06:38):
was sort of there was just thisspace between the thing
happening and me taking it in orletting it penetrate my sense
of self.
From a very young age I waslike, well, this isn't mine to
carry, and I think it is a pieceof how I show up in a room with
my clients to this day.
(06:58):
So my birth mother was 15.
And she didn't tell me thisuntil maybe a few years ago.
I was delivered when the battlefor the sexes tennis match was
happening between Billie JeanKing and Bobby Riggs.
You guys remember that thebattle of the sexes and she said
(07:21):
, to cope with the thing I wasabout to do, I was obsessed with
that tennis match.
I watched all the news.
It was on in the hospital roomso perhaps some of your gender
equity stuff was like baked intoyou in your final like weeks
inside of me, which was a littledata point I thought was kind
(07:43):
of funny, one of those littlepuzzle pieces that I think
adoptees look for.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, Before we move on from that?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
when did you get to meet her?
I never quested for my biologyuntil the state of Ohio in 2015
passed a law that opened closedadoption records from the late
60s and early 70s.
So if you were adopted at thatage, your original birth
certificate was sealed and putin the Ohio Bureau of Statistics
(08:12):
downtown like in some sort ofcourthouse in Franklin County,
and I think adoption advocates Iwas not a piece of this worked
to unseal those things, becauseit used to be quite an ordeal to
unseal those things and afriend cut out the article.
This is what girlfriends do,right?
(08:33):
She cut out an article in thedispatch and just sort of handed
it to me, like just, you knowthey do that like subtle, slid
it across the table, like Ithink maybe you should do
something about this and I didnothing about it for six months,
and then decided to write mylittle half a page application
and a $22 check to the OhioBureau of Statistics and within
30 days I had my original birthcertificate with her name on it.
(08:56):
And I did nothing with it foranother six months, like I
wouldn't show friends because Iknew they would immediately
Google it.
And so when I did finallyGoogle it, a law firm popped up
that had the same last name andI thought it cannot be this easy
.
And it turned out it was herbrother.
(09:16):
It was her brother's law firm,because I read his bio and it
seemed like, ok, he has to knowwho she is.
Based on this, and it took meanother three months to draft a
perfect email like I'm not crazy.
If she's crazy, please don'tpass this along.
I don't need anything.
Uh, if it's gonna hurt anybody,please don't say anything.
(09:38):
And within 24 hours she emailedme.
So it was pretty easy for me.
Once I once I pushed over thatfirst domino okay.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
So, kit, your entrance into that was that with
your own journey.
Is that how you discovered itand sort of started to believe
it, because you're ananesthesiologist?
You've been putting peopleunder for how long, which is a
wild thing too.
Man, don't you feel like thisultimate sense of control?
You're like, oh, I'm puttingyour sleep, you're going under,
you're getting sleepy, like Ijust think that's a while, like
(10:08):
you're standing there, you'rejust like you have total control
uh, you do.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Patients who want to argue uh with their doctor tend
to fall asleep faster than nicepatients who we like to visit
with and and get to know alittle bit.
Um, kit started as a result ofa good friend of mine who had
suffered from depression for thebetter part of his adult life,
and he went to the only clinicin town in 2021, was located in
(10:37):
Gahanna is located in Gahannaand said hey, you know, you know
this medicine, this issomething you should look into
because it's changed my life.
And said hey, you know thismedicine, this is something you
should look into because it'schanged my life.
So I was emerging from adivorce during the pandemic and
really starting my own recoveryjourney, looking myself in the
mirror, realizing I needed tomake some significant changes in
(11:02):
my life.
And the more I read aboutketamine infusion therapy, the
more I realized hey, first ofall, I'm burned out.
I had taken a step back fromwork in what's called a job
share position, so there wereessentially two people for one
FTE, so I had a lot of free time, and the more and more I dug
(11:22):
into it, the more I realizedthat's what I was meant to do.
Around that time, a med schoolclassmate of mine who is good
friends with Melissa said hey,this good friend of mine, who's
a PhD psychotherapist, is veryinterested in this modality, and
I realized, if I was going todo this, I wanted to do it
(11:46):
better than anyone else.
I know this medication insideand out.
I've administered it fordecades.
I wanted to set something upthat was unique and special.
I wanted it to be a place wherepeople come to heal, not not a
doctor's office.
Our office does not look.
It looks like a spa.
It looks like a place where,okay, I can, I can be vulnerable
(12:06):
here, I can let my guard down.
This is a place of healing.
Um, it's warm, it's it's soft,um.
But we teamed up.
We met I don't know three, fourtimes.
Uh, I drove out to Bexley tomeet her at a coffee shop, and
I'm not that easy to.
Um, I'm a perfectionist.
That's part of that's one of myproblems, that's part of my
(12:29):
trauma is, if I'm perfect, thensome things might be different.
So I had to make sure Melissawas someone that I could be
myself around and that wouldwork as hard as I'm working and
she does, she is.
So we synced and we clicked.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
It's also funny because what he's not telling
you is that my friend Dr Nyland,when she text introduced me to
him, his response was is thisOprah?
And I thought, okay, ananesthesiologist with a sense of
humor, okay, this is worth acoffee, because I had talked to
people who were in this ketaminespace, who I felt were being
(13:09):
opportunistic, in sort of amonetizing something, way like
somebody from New York, somebodyfrom California, but they
weren't healers.
I was looking for somebody witha healer's heart and somebody
with a little bit of humorbecause you do have that too.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
You have that sort of upper echelon like one percent
but I want to talk to you alittle bit for me.
I feel your emotion on thesurface, which I think is
amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So where am I?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
so are you.
Is there a reason why you'reemotional right now?
Like I felt like you kind oflike got really emotional there
when you were talking aboutperfectionist.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, I would.
I've realized that for methere's no finish line from a
very dark place 2019 to today.
I am as grateful and as lucky ahuman being as you'll ever meet.
I have an amazing wife and I'mstill working on me.
(14:05):
I'm sort of untangling thetrauma of my parents.
My mom died from dementia in2017.
That was really hard because wewatched.
I was in charge of all themedical decisions not by choice,
that's just.
I was drafted into that and Idid it because I could make sure
(14:28):
she got the best care.
My dad passed away in 2022.
He was tough and I'm still inthe process of working through
all that.
So it is.
It's still on the surface forme, but I think it helps me with
my patients.
We all have trauma.
How you handle it, if youchoose to well, it helps you get
.
It's how you get healthy.
(14:49):
It's how you realize it's okaythat everyone should have
self-esteem.
So yeah, I do.
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
Gets me in trouble sometimes,but it's authentic.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I think it's important for this conversation
too, for the male pretty goodmale population, and for them to
be able to see this and see youand and it reinforces the fact
that, like we're all vulnerableand this whole gender
specification around who isallowed to show, and so I don't
know, I I'm feeling like I feellike you almost made, I'm
(15:23):
feeling a very emotional pullhere with you because of that,
and I know you've been through alot.
I know you mentioned that yourwife took you back.
You know that has to have and Ithink that's another message to
people that it's never overunless you really say it's over.
And there's a lot of for, likeyou said, forgiveness, that's a
lot to be packaged in a shortperiod of time.
(15:44):
Covid parents dying, you know,death and birth of marriage my
gosh, yeah, what the value youcan bring to people as their
healer I I.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Something's really important to me is is, in fact,
exactly what you're talkingabout men.
Men suck at talking about theirfeelings.
They, they do.
I work really hard with thefriendships that I have.
They're limited because I wantto be around men that are
authentic and vulnerable and cantalk about their feelings.
If I can show other men in ourcommunity, hey look, we all have
(16:19):
this and it's okay to talkabout it.
Certainly, it's okay to talkabout it at Mindset.
It's safe, it's not going to berepeated.
I, it's okay to talk about itat mindset.
It's safe, it's not going to berepeated.
I'm bound by confidentialitythrough HIPAA.
Please come, let's have aconversation.
I think I can help you.
I can help you.
Ketamine is a beautiful modalityto take a really hard look in
the mirror.
(16:39):
You can't lie to yourself whenyou're under ketamine.
You can't lie to yourself whenyou're under ketamine.
You can't lie to anybody.
It's just you and your higherpower, if you will.
It's that powerful.
And when you take thatinformation that you get out of
these sessions and you work withsomeone as talented as Dr
Melissa, the healing isexponential.
It's been beautiful to watch.
So I get to invest in mypatients, but they benefit me.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I grow with each one of them, I learn something, and
that's a gift, and you saidsomething else, but you were
talking about healing from ascar versus healing from a wound
Very dangerous and I feel likeyou guys have the scars to
really be able to take somebodyin a place that you wouldn't be
(17:24):
able to do otherwise.
Drug or no drug, because youhave that along with the
ketamine, and what was it?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
exactly that you said about the scar and I don't know
where.
I heard it a few years ago butit's stuck.
It is powerful to teach from ascar.
It can be dangerous to teachfrom an open wound and I watch
healers and other folkssometimes not miss that lesson
(17:52):
that something is still sort ofthis open, open wound, at least
in my line of work.
There's so much opportunity foryou know the classic terms you
hear transference or projectingyour stuff onto somebody else's
story and not being able to holdthe room for somebody else.
(18:13):
But it is so powerful to justlike hint at your scar.
You know I will probably 20percent of my clients know I'm
adopted.
I mean this isn't a thing thatI would talk about and maybe 5%
have ever heard me talk aboutsome of my other own personal
loss, trauma or grief.
It's only when it's relevantfor them and I might hint at it
(18:38):
only if it's.
I know it's good and scarredout.
You know you can feel it, notif it's still there and kind of
raw and tender.
So I do believe that at Mindsetyou know where we come at it
from a place of personal painthat we've reckoned with
authentically and sincerely, andit is.
(19:02):
It informs everything that wedo.
It is.
It is a place of feeling andI'm so glad you brought up men
and masculinity.
We were just talking about thisthis last like couple months.
We've had lots of brainstormingconversations about we got to
save the dudes, we got to savewhat's going on with the men,
and I am an outlier.
(19:23):
A slight majority of my clientbase are men, which is unusual
for a talk therapist, and I aman outlier.
A slight majority of my clientbase are men, which is unusual
for a talk therapist.
And I think it's because I havedone so much executive stuff
over the last decade or twowhere it's sort of this like
word of mouth thing that it'ssort of hey, you know this, this
person was helpful to me and Iam deeply committed to that as a
(19:44):
mother of a son.
I have a 22 year old I, if wedeclare that as a as a mission
at Mindset, I'm all down for ittoo.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I think it's important to note as well very
much on this topic.
We've both done ketamineinfusion therapy.
I can't sit here and talk aboutit.
I can't sit in the room with mypatients and guide them through
the journey that it is withouthaving experienced it myself.
It's very difficult.
I think any one of our patientswill say you can't explain this
to somebody, you just need togo through it.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So that's a great segue.
So let's explain it to someonelike me.
I know there's other people whofeel exactly the way that I do.
First question is is that whatMichael Jackson did?
So you have these ignorantquestions, right, because that's
the first thing.
I would think Okay, wait, whatwas he taking?
He was taking an anesthetic.
Prograf of think okay, wait,what was he taking?
(20:36):
He was taking an anesthetic.
Okay, so like you've got thosepeople.
And then you've got people whoare a little more educated,
because they're seeing it on thegram and the top and they're
like okay, you know, they'relike sheep.
They're like, well, somebodyelse is doing it, but they still
don't understand.
Okay, when, the?
What's the difference betweenketamine and psychedelics and
how is all this?
But what I want to really knowis what does it feel like
Exactly?
Can you create the imageryaround what happened?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Well, so there's two pieces of that.
I think that, if you want, hecould give you 30 seconds, three
minutes, 30 minutes, threehours on the scientific, the
medical explanation of ketamine,the molecule, the ways it gets
in your body.
So if you want that from him,he's so good at explaining it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, a high level Ketamine was FDA approved, I
think, in 1973 or 4.
Used extensively on thebattlefield in Vietnam.
Why?
Because narcotics, opioids,morphine, when given for pain,
depress your respiratory drive.
People stop breathing.
Ketamine doesn't do that, so itwas a great pain reliever
without the concerns about therespiratory status.
(21:44):
Use at Children's Hospitaltoday.
Why?
For conscious sedation.
Kids keep breathing.
It works on the NMDA receptor inyour brain.
Ssris Prozac et al, prozaccoming out around what 93, 94.
Every other Lexapro, zoloft,all of those, just variants of
Prozac.
Right, they're SSRIs.
They work on the monoamineoxidase system, that's dopamine,
(22:07):
norepinephrine and serotonin.
Ketamine works on glutamate, acompletely different
neurotransmitter in your brain.
It's an excitatoryneurotransmitter.
Ketamine blocks the NMDAreceptor.
Through that action, a lot ofthings chemically happen in your
brain, and that's just alsotrue of psychedelics in general.
The term neuroplasticity ismaybe something you've heard,
(22:27):
maybe you haven't.
It has to do with the actualscientific proof of forming new
connections in your brain.
Dendrites are the very tips andends of nerves.
They actually can show onelectron microscopy and
functional MRIs.
This happening that allows youto see the world differently.
I believe it allows you to seedifferent answers.
It allows you to make adecision that you know you need
(22:49):
to make in life, but you can't.
It's just too big, it's toomonumental, and through this
process you're just able to seea better, different way to live
your life.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Okay.
So then my next question.
So I go in and I do it and I'mseeing this when I'm on this,
but like you stay that way, likeso I guess I'm trying to figure
out how that works.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
So let's say you come in today, this afternoon, I
greet you at the door, we goback to one of the three
infusion rooms, sit in a verycomfortable, lazy boy-like chair
, peaceful music playing, get anIV started.
Everything we do is intravenous.
We don't do any other form ofketamine.
We don't do Spravata, which isa nasal spray.
We don't do the troches orsublingual oral forms of
(23:32):
ketamine, it's all IV.
It goes through a medical gradeinfusion pump like I use in the
operating room.
It goes in over 40 minutes.
So once that IV is in, that pumpstarts running and the
medication is going into yourbody.
Three to five minutes afterthat starts you start to have a
sense of movement.
It could be floating, flying,sliding and your world just
(23:52):
becomes completely different.
I had a conversation with myparents.
Literally, people will talk.
You're wearing very peacefulmusic, instrumental music, so
you're wearing headphones.
You have eye shades on.
They're kind of concave so youcan open your eyes if you want
to, but you'll see people duringthe infusion talking, pointing,
having a literal conversation.
(24:14):
It is your subconscious justcompletely opened up.
It allows you to accessrepressed memories, things that
you have blocked, things youdon't want to deal with.
And then when that infusionends at 40 minutes, about 10
minutes after it's done, oh yeah, I'm back, okay.
Oh hey, dr Caldwell.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
So I meant like are you?
You're not just fixed though,Like so like you have to go
through a series, and that's whythe psychotherapy is so
important too.
So maybe what I'm trying to sayis this just accesses things in
your brain and allows you tosee them, and then you can't
unsee them.
So now that I've gone in, notalways Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I would also say it's objective.
You may see you when you were 8, 10, 12 years old from a bird's
eye view.
You see that person, youobjectively.
You may be going through a verydifficult experience, but you
aren't triggered in that momentyou can see.
Okay, look.
Yes, that still bothers metoday.
There's something there Ihaven't grieved, I haven't
forgiven, I haven't processed.
There's something there Ihaven't grieved, I haven't
(25:13):
forgiven, I haven't processed.
That's the information you takeand sit down with Dr Melissa.
She's able to put all thesepieces of a puzzle together to
help you identify some thingsthat you can process and let go
of.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
And that's where I think healing really really
happens and I defer to her onthat.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I stay in my lane.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
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Speaker 3 (27:23):
So let's say, here's a way of understanding it.
So we could sit here and have aneuro-ophthalmologist give us a
little lecture on how the brainsees the color blue, right
Rhoads and cones.
Isn't that in?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
our eye the occipital lobe.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
You know we could get a lecture on how we see the
color blue, but that is a verydifferent experience than
experiencing cerulean blue on aCaribbean beach.
So psychedelics ketamine allowspeople to have an embodied
(28:02):
experience, with the defenseslowered, and it is an accelerant
to a therapy process that I'm avintage trauma therapist, so my
first gig was in the FamilyViolence and Sexual Assault Unit
in the city of Philly.
So I have tens of thousands ofhours of doing this sort of work
(28:24):
with humans and sometimes thepace of healing is glacial.
It's glacial and so when Iheard about this maybe in 2021,
2022, I went to a conference andwas blown away.
I thought okay, and then I wenton a deep dive about.
This is an accelerant to ahealing process.
(28:46):
So the ketamine does a couplethings.
Some folks what we're going foris that NMDA network Depression
.
People with crushing depression,like can't, can barely move
through a day because it's likemoving through molasses.
Or folks with intrusive,suicidal ideation who are so
(29:09):
exhausted by batting thosethoughts away because they're
running their law firm and ittakes a lot of emotional capital
to bat those thoughts away, orpanic attacks.
The biology of the ketaminemolecule in the brain does a
certain sort of thing all byitself with lifting the floor
(29:29):
for depression, and the researchis clear If people respond
after one infusion it's probablygoing to be.
You can get over 50% completeremission in depression if
somebody is an early responder.
So there's the biology of itjust in your brain.
Then there is the experienceyou have within the infusion
(29:51):
that becomes fodder fortherapeutic work and so you can
set intentions.
Now my first ketamine infusion.
I watched the movie Contact thenight before.
Do you know the movie Contactwith Matthew McConaughey and
Jodie Foster?
It's my comfort movie.
Love that movie.
I mean I went in with all thismeditation, all these clear
intentions.
I wanted to deal with some ofmy own, like religious trauma.
(30:15):
So I was looking at thisreconciliation of science and
spirituality within 10 minutesbecause of that movie, consuming
more and more stars until Istopped existing and maybe at
like 15 minutes I thought, well,I've done it now I'm not real
anymore.
(30:35):
I thought, oh fuck, like mypoor husband and kids I no
longer exist, like it was this.
But I was still a psychologist.
So it was this meta experiencefor me of retaining my biography
while still being convinced Iwas stars and my feeling was one
of love and connection and Ithought, oh, but where does the
(30:59):
love go, even when we don'texist anymore?
It's so powerful, it transcendsus.
That was.
And then I came out of it andthought, whoa that was.
And then I came out of it andthought, whoa, it was just this
embodied experience of a thing Ihad set an intention for and
not everybody gets that, wherethe thing in your infusion is
(31:21):
what you go in intending.
But there's always a nugget.
I don't think we've had anyonedo one infusion and stop, which
is compelling for how we do, howwe care for people at Mindset.
So so I share that as anexample of that's what my first
ketamine infusion.
That is what I experienced andI had, and 24 hours later I had
(31:48):
a bump.
I don't have depression oranxiety right now in my life,
but I did experience a stunningquieting of my inner life.
It was so quiet in there andwhen I've told my girlfriends
that they're like sign me uplike the the.
It was so quiet.
It was a gift so.
So for me I thought, oh, ifthat inner chatter is a like
(32:11):
relentless self-loathing, what agift for somebody that a
traditional SSRI is going totake 30 to 45 days to work and
it only works for about 30percent of people, which Big
Pharma probably doesn't wantpeople to know, but it's true,
it's only about 30 percent.
For those people it's a lifechanger, it saves people's lives
, but that's a big chunk offolks it doesn't work for.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Well, it doesn't have to be one or the other, right?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
It does not have to be one or the other.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Do people have bad trips?
The word dissociation would bethe medical term for trip Set
and setting, as mentioned byTimothy Leary.
It's important, that experiencethat you're alluding to.
I tell you there are no badtrips.
It's you.
Everything that comes up, it'syou.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I'm getting anxiety just sitting here thinking about
.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
It's peaceful.
Like what if you got there andyou were like get me the hell
out of here?
It's generally people.
When those eye shades come off,there's a sense of peace that
they don't get to experience ona daily basis.
You get your inner critic.
During ketamine infusion,therapy is muted, silent, gone.
You're in a space for a lot ofthese people like I don't want
(33:18):
this to end, I don't want thisto end, I don't want this to end
.
Countless people say that,especially towards the end of
the infusion process.
It's six treatments in afour-week period, so typically
we do two a week for the firsttwo weeks to develop some rhythm
, gain some momentum, get somebreakthroughs.
With Dr M, those last two willspread out, but people look
(33:38):
forward to that time in thechair.
They're not afraid.
It's peaceful, you do.
You feel a sense of connectionand love that it's visceral.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Okay, so then I guess that leads me to another little
pasture over here.
What about people gettingaddicted to it?
You're like, okay, I saw thisperson.
They just come as much as theywant, they just want to come.
Do that have that feeling, ordo you not get that?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So over half of our patients have not returned at
all.
There's a subset that mightcome once every three months,
once every six months.
I have some people working withaddiction that are still coming
once a month to help themmaintain sobriety.
We tailor it to what thepatient needs.
I'm not going to let anyoneabuse it.
That's why I only give IV.
(34:20):
The safety profile isexceptional.
We've heard recently about ElonMusk taking so much that he's
having bladder problems you haveto take a massive amount of
ketamine to have interstitialcystitis, an inflammation of
your bladder.
That's what he has because ofthe byproducts of ketamine which
are eliminated through thekidneys.
There's zero incidence of thatif you work with us, because I'm
(34:45):
not going to let you get tothat point, I'm going to protect
you.
It's safe, it's reallyeffective and I just wish
insurance covered it.
I could help so many morepeople.
Yeah, can we tease out thepsychedelics?
(35:05):
So what's the?
So the spectrum is ketamine,psilocybin, mushrooms, ayahuasca
mushrooms, ayahuasca, ibogaine,lsd fits in that category.
Mdma, ecstasy recently failedFDA approval last year,
psilocybin being available inOregon and Colorado, texas
(35:26):
putting up the state of Texasputting up $50 million to
research Ibogaine specificallyin the veteran community.
They have found for a lot ofthose people with PTSD Ibogaine
is really, really helpful.
What makes it a psychedeliccategory?
Typically the dissociating, thetripping aspect puts you in
that category.
But all of those medicationsalso cause neuroplasticity,
(35:49):
those reconnections in yourbrain.
I believe that is probably asbroadly as you can define
psychedelics.
The thing about ketamine isit's pure.
It's by far and away has themost scientific data supporting
its use, its efficacy, itseffectiveness in
treatment-resistant depression,anxiety, ptsd, people who are
(36:11):
suicidal.
One treatment, it's gone.
We have numerous patients likethat.
It only takes 40 minutes.
If you go in Oregon or Colorado, the protocol for the use of
psilocybin therapeutically istwo psychotherapy sessions with
two counselors, then a five-hourceremony where you drink tea
(36:33):
that has psilocybin in it.
Five hours with twopsychotherapists then two more
psychotherapy sessions, thenanother five-hour session.
First of all, I don't know thatmany people have that much time
or that much money to have twopsychotherapists available for
every one of these infusions.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
It's scary to think like if something's going
sideways and I wish that Iwasn't in it, to be in it for
five hours, like you said.
Okay, this is 40 minutes.
I mean you can do anything forshort period, it's just.
I think mentally it's a.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Three hours after you leave our office you can drive
again, you can go back aboutyour day.
We ask for people to protecttwo hours after they leave.
Number one a journal to dictate, journal whatever, write, draw
whatever in a nice soft, quietplace.
You're investing a lot inyourself.
Protect that time to sort ofcome down.
Don't reintegrate yourselfright into life.
(37:24):
Protect that time to sort ofcome down.
Don't reintegrate yourselfright into life.
So really it takes three hoursand most of that's just on your
own.
It's easier than any of theother psychedelics.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
I want to go back to this bad trip I was thinking
back to when I was in college wewould take mushroom.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Yeah, I was gonna say okay, so that there's a,
there's something behind that.
So do you remember thatexperience?
Speaker 1 (37:45):
So my experience with shrooms.
It wasn't like I did them a ton, but I always had a really good
trip and I was always laughingand then my friend would always
have a really bad trip and thenit would make me laugh.
It was just like it's a funnything we talk about.
So I never I didn't have a badexperience.
I've seen other people havethem Now with weed.
I am not a weed we.
I've seen other people havethem Now with weed.
(38:06):
I am not a weed.
Weed does not do well with me.
So when I have done weed, thatis where I say done weed.
When I'm smoked weed orwhatever, that's where I'd be in
a headspace that I can't getaway from, where I'm like I
would do anything to get out ofthis headspace right now, but I
can't.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
It doesn't feel like that, the dissociation does not
feel like that, having sampledall those goods that you just
shared with me, so it does not.
So thank you for answering thathonestly.
So let's talk about bad.
So I think a culturalcatastrophe we are facing which
(38:41):
is maybe a differentconversation is there is no such
thing as a dangerous emotion.
The fact that we have made ouraffective experiences dangerous
has consequences that are it'sjust, it's a problem because we
(39:02):
bubble wrap children, we removeresiliency and skill building
experiences.
There's all kinds of reasonsthat this is a this is dangerous
, to call emotions dangerous.
So when we say bad, it's, it'sjust an experience, and there
are times it may not be pleasant, but it's not bad.
(39:26):
So I think I see it through thatlens of I am with human beings
trying to rumble with theirinner life, their affective life
, and we have over 100 uniqueemotional flavors we can access
and most people can come up withthree to five when you ask them
.
My goal is, when they leave me,they have access to a
(39:48):
cornucopia of affective language, because you can't solve a
problem if you're not definingit the right way.
So people say, oh, I feelanxious, but really what they
are is bored or underutilized atwork and so they have too much
horsepower up there and sothey're spinning.
People will say you know X andit's actually Y.
So in a ketamine infusion youbump out of your for us, and
(40:13):
especially for my client base,the sort of unapologetically
ambitious they live in theirprefrontal cortex and they
intellectualize everything andso, with a dissociative
experience, you bump out of thatset of train tracks into
another set.
So it is felt, sense, it isembodied.
You know that whole thing about.
(40:33):
You can explain a color, youcan experience a color.
So you bump people out of theirnormal talk track and then the
ketamine leaves those dendritictrees at the end of your neurons
flexible and bendy.
It's like having a juicy brainfor 72 hours in particular, and
(40:54):
up to like 10 days where you'remore able to change your mind.
I can sit with someone and I'vewitnessed this happen.
I can sit with someone and weknow the mindset shift that
needs to happen and they justcan't get there.
And ketamine infusion therapyis their.
Their body language changeswhen they talk about the thing
(41:17):
they need to change their mindabout.
So that flexibility piece of itis, that's the.
That's what we're getting to.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I'd love to give you an example of what Melissa is
talking about, just in terms ofwhat it does From a recent
patient who came in with herhusband, completely distraught
because her daughter hadoverdosed.
She had lost her daughter froma drug overdose, overdose, she
had lost her daughter from adrug overdose, and as she worked
through being completely shutdown, not even having emotion,
(41:48):
to then feeling the pain,feeling emotion, to the final
treatment when she started toyell out a name and a name that
I hadn't heard before.
And I talk, I get to knowpeople very, very well over six
treatments and it turns out thatthis is her husband or her
daughter's boyfriend who got herhooked on drugs.
And the husband comes back fromthe waiting room because he
(42:11):
hears her yelling this person'sname and I'm like who is that?
And it's like that'sso-and-so's boyfriend.
I need to find him and I needto forgive him.
That's the kind oftransformation that can happen
from hating this man,self-loathing, being suicidal,
to, at the end, wanting to findhim and forgive him.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
That's what we see because we can talk about it.
Right, I could sit there andtalk about it, but to experience
, so I will send folks into aninfusion because we do intention
, integration, integration andintegrity work.
So I can say I want you to goin and your intention is this is
what grace feels like or thisis what forgiveness feels like,
(42:57):
that's it.
And then let the medicine doits work and see if that felt
sense happens.
And it's not a guarantee thatit happens every time, but for
that deep soul work likeforgiveness, which is a sticky
(43:18):
word for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
So is you know, before you go in for surgery and
they give you a littlesomething to take?
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Versed midazolam.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Is it something similar to that where?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
it's almost no, that's a benzodiazepine, the
valium family.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
By definition it's an anxiolytic.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
It's a medicine that reduces anxiety.
Unfortunately, there are three.
Well, not unfortunately, butthere are three categories of
drugs that you can't be on whenyou receive ketamine infusion
therapy.
And those drugs,benzodiazepines, which would
include xanax, ativan thatinhibits ketamine, stimulants
like adderall, and then, lastly,the other category is an anti
convulsant called lymictal.
(43:52):
But what ketamine does?
It's peaceful.
You, you have this sense, like.
You know what matters to you.
Your inner critic is quiet andwhen you come out, it's it's
about as peaceful as it gets.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
My fourth infusion was epiphanic.
I went in to it thinking abouthow and I think I wrote in my
intake that I'm a foundingmember of the club of too much
and shout out to my fellowmembers, shout out, shout out so
(44:30):
making myself smaller toaccommodate the system that I
was adopted into.
I was an eagle soaring over aforest.
I was a mountain this likepurple giant, unapologetically
(44:50):
massive mountain and a totemthat just came up out of the
earth.
It was tall and you almostcouldn't see the bottom and I
think my pulse went up my bloodpressure and I think my pulse
went up my blood pressure.
(45:10):
It was like the voice I heardwas go, be that thing it was.
I know it sounds to say it, butto experience that was holy
shit.
I mean, I still remember whatthat felt like.
I can think about shit all daylong, but to feel it is, it's
like a cellular thing, uh, thatstays with people, so that that
(45:34):
gift for um, for people tryingto heal, like deep, deep, deep,
deep, deep stuff.
And it's not that I don't havedeep stuff to heal, but I also
did a lot of that work in my 20s.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
You might see me in the facility here in the next 24
hours Just come take a look,see what it looks like it's very
disarming when you get there.
Oh, I'm sure, so I'm going togo back for you.
So when I asked on the forumabout the hard things you've
gone through and you had kind oftalked about some things in the
positive category that werehard, so I'd rather talk about
(46:07):
them than write them Was theresomething additional that you
didn't write in there?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Or was that just yeah ?
I think it more comes down tojust the realizations that I'm
working through as an adult, aparentless adult, and the impact
my father had on who I am.
The fact that I'm a doctor, Ithink, is because of my dad.
I know it's because of my dad.
I wanted to play lacrosse atWest Point.
I wanted to play lacrosse atCornell.
(46:34):
I wanted to play lacrosse atOhio State.
I wasn't allowed to do any ofthat.
You go to college to get aneducation, david, not play
lacrosse.
Okay, dad and off.
I went to four years of college, four years of medical, four
years of residency and nextthing, you know, you're 30, 29,
30 year old man who's incrediblyimmature because he hasn't had
any real life experience.
Um, he's had his head in a bookand gave up his twenties and he
(46:58):
wasn't the greatest, uh,husband over you know the
following 18 or 20 years, 20years, um, he was a good dad
because he didn't want to belike his dad.
My kids will tell you that, uh,but those are the things I
guess I was alluding to and it'slike I said, there's no finish
line.
I'm just continuing to work onum understanding and there's a
(47:19):
lot of men.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
I think that hit this like you know, you get to your
50s and you start doing the lookback.
You know, windshield living,rearview mirror, living and
going, wait a minute, and theydon't have a place to talk about
it.
Um, that is empowering, thatfeels affirming of their whole
story and so I love that and Ithink that's why, when I met
(47:47):
David, I thought, okay, likehe's willing to just like kind
of rend open or drop the veilsand tell a real human story.
And I think it's kind of rare,to be honest, especially for a
physician to talk so candidly.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
That's like the thing where it's like, you know, I
think, off-putting in the bestof ways to come and do an
experience like that and havehim almost starting to cry yes
over, you know, like becausehe's not because of it's about
him, it's because he is, so, youknow, dealing from the scar and
wanting to help other people inthat really authentic way that,
(48:26):
like you are just disarming.
Ok, anything else we didn't tapon that.
You'd be like damn it.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
I think just getting the message out.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
There's a lot of misinformation.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yes, about its recreational use.
It's unsafe.
Matthew Perry is really, reallysad.
Elon Musk and all that stuffthat came out, I told Melissa.
You know what?
I like him, don't like him.
He's obviously going throughsomething really difficult.
He's got to be profoundlydepressed.
He's using all these things.
(48:57):
Right, there's so many men,professionals, they're like well
, this is just what I do do.
That's not a way to live life.
It, ketamine, allows you to bepresent.
It allows you to experiencemoments of joy every day that I
just couldn't appreciate beforea sunrise, a sunset, um little
things that if you are justpresent each day, it just builds
(49:22):
on itself and life is.
It's easier because none of usare in control, right, that's
one thing I talk about all thetime.
You're in control of how yourespond, but you're not in
control if that bus comes alongor it doesn't come along.
Accepting that and movingthrough life one day at a time
for me has been profound.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
It's a behavioral activator.
So the, whether it be we'restarting from here, because
depression is so oppressive, orfrom here, that that the
accelerant to the therapyprocess, but also allowing
people to be to do new behaviors, because then it becomes the
flywheel, um, and anybody in thefitness industry knows that you
(50:02):
know, like you start, you youstart, and then you build, and
you build, and you build, andit's the same way for that
muscle up there, and so it.
It is sort of the, it's theaccelerant and then the
behavioral activator, which ishow you change your life.
Like we put behavior in theworld, we get behavior back, and
so that's our currency, that'shuman currency you can change
(50:24):
your life.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I watch it.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
You know people say, oh, you people can't change.
Well, they don't change becauseyou want them to change.
That is true, but I'm in thebusiness of people transforming
their lives, so people changeall the time.
Um, and this is, this is to me,the.
I'm the most excited about thisas a tool in my arsenal that
I've been in 20 years for thework that I do, which I love.
(50:49):
I love my job.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Well, I'm feeling a little more bullish about this
process.
You never know, I might try it.
Well, thank you, beau, and thentell me your website.
Where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Mindsetketaminecom.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
And if you're still out there following your girl,
follow me on YouTube, spotify,apple or wherever you get your
podcasts.
Give Mindset a try.
Go check them out on Instagram,go to their website, maybe set
up a consultation.
Hey there you beautiful badass.
Welcome to the Keri Croft Show.
I'm your host, keri Croft,delivering you stories that get
you pumped up and feeling likethe unstoppable savage that you
are.
So grab your coffee, put onyour game face and let's do this
thing, baby.
Face and let's do this thing,baby.
(00:31):
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Dr David, dr Melissa, welcometo the Keri Croft Show.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You guys are, aside from being probably brilliant,
worldly Good one, but I knewthat because I had curved and
you know like blowing up yourphotos make sure I was like your
hair's a little bit lighter,which I like, than what I saw
just recently done.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, I like it.
I didn't pick it, I just was inthe hands of the people and
this is what happened.
Don't you love that sometimes?
But sometimes you just gottalet go which is gonna be kind of
the theme of the day withketamine infusion therapy.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Ketamine infusion therapy, which we call KIT.
Right, everybody's talkingabout this.
They're also talking aboutpsychedelics.
I'm so pumped to get into justactual technical side of that.
But there's so much to uncoverwith you two as human beings.
So what I'd like to do is Iwould like to start with how the
both of you sort of you hadtrauma at sort of young ages
(02:52):
yourself, so like you wereadopted right, and so that
creates a fault line and youwere super sick as a kid because
you were bit by a dog.
So talk about that for for aminute.
You went sepsis.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, I was probably six or seven years old.
I have three black labs at home.
I've always been a dog lover.
My dad never let us have a dog.
He always told me my sister wasallergic.
But it was on our back porch.
I got bit by a small dog andwithin 24 hours I got infected
by a small dog.
And within 24 hours I gotinfected and I developed
something calledpost-streptococcal
glomerulonephritis,streptococcal being the
bacterial strain that I wentthrough my bloodstream and shut
(03:35):
my kidneys down.
So I remember spending mybirthday in Children's Hospital.
I remember people saying heshould live, he should be okay.
My mom was there the whole time.
But yeah, that was just one ofmany things.
I was very sick as a kid.
I missed a lot of school.
Actually, I'm on immunotherapynow after they finally figured
(03:59):
all this out.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And you also said you were bullied, which surprises
me a little bit because of how,when you were describing
yourself as just this very highvibration, active sort of
confident guy.
When did that happen?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
We were just talking about this.
So my dad wasn't around a lot.
He worked a tremendous amount.
He worked a tremendous amountand when he wasn't, he was
usually either asleep in the onechair that he slept in after
dinner every night or just goneworking on stuff.
My brother's five years older,sister's nine years older I was
noobs.
So very early I was like asingle, like an only child in a
(04:40):
single-parent home.
I was recalling to Melissabeing chased home after school
from the bus stop.
I played varsity lacrosse as afreshman.
I was only one of two freshmenthat traveled, but I remember
being swirly held up over atoilet and dunked, eyebrows
(05:01):
being shaved, those sorts ofthings, and I finally got to a
point where I could startlifting and getting bigger and
stronger and then I got to paysome people back.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Well, I mean it's important, and so I love the way
you set it up in your intakeform, where you were like.
You know, my mom bravely gaveme up because she didn't want me
to suffer from these things and, as it turns out, I was turned
right over into these things.
So talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
So, first and foremost, I view adoption as
this like radical act of love.
It is I will, I choose you, I'mgoing to love you.
Like it's a, it's powerful, andso the my story is shaped not
so much by the adoption itselfbut the family dynamic that I
(05:54):
was adopted into, thatreplicated, because, you know,
the universe got the last.
Laugh the system that I wasadopted out of, laugh the system
that I was adopted out of, andI can share as much or as little
of that as feels relevant.
But the way I explain it topeople, given what I do
professionally, is that I had asort of inoculation that
(06:17):
happened because of my adoption.
So the addiction, abuse,religious fundamentalism, the
painful things that werehappening around me, I was one
step off because I did not sharetheir biology.
So from a young age, even thoughthere was stuff happening, I
(06:38):
was sort of there was just thisspace between the thing
happening and me taking it in orletting it penetrate my sense
of self.
From a very young age I waslike, well, this isn't mine to
carry, and I think it is a pieceof how I show up in a room with
my clients to this day.
(06:58):
So my birth mother was 15.
And she didn't tell me thisuntil maybe a few years ago.
I was delivered when the battlefor the sexes tennis match was
happening between Billie JeanKing and Bobby Riggs.
You guys remember that thebattle of the sexes and she said
(07:21):
, to cope with the thing I wasabout to do, I was obsessed with
that tennis match.
I watched all the news.
It was on in the hospital roomso perhaps some of your gender
equity stuff was like baked intoyou in your final like weeks
inside of me, which was a littledata point I thought was kind
(07:43):
of funny, one of those littlepuzzle pieces that I think
adoptees look for.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, Before we move on from that?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
when did you get to meet her?
I never quested for my biologyuntil the state of Ohio in 2015
passed a law that opened closedadoption records from the late
60s and early 70s.
So if you were adopted at thatage, your original birth
certificate was sealed and putin the Ohio Bureau of Statistics
(08:12):
downtown like in some sort ofcourthouse in Franklin County,
and I think adoption advocates Iwas not a piece of this worked
to unseal those things, becauseit used to be quite an ordeal to
unseal those things and afriend cut out the article.
This is what girlfriends do,right?
(08:33):
She cut out an article in thedispatch and just sort of handed
it to me, like just, you knowthey do that like subtle, slid
it across the table, like Ithink maybe you should do
something about this and I didnothing about it for six months,
and then decided to write mylittle half a page application
and a $22 check to the OhioBureau of Statistics and within
30 days I had my original birthcertificate with her name on it.
(08:56):
And I did nothing with it foranother six months, like I
wouldn't show friends because Iknew they would immediately
Google it.
And so when I did finallyGoogle it, a law firm popped up
that had the same last name andI thought it cannot be this easy
.
And it turned out it was herbrother.
(09:16):
It was her brother's law firm,because I read his bio and it
seemed like, ok, he has to knowwho she is.
Based on this, and it took meanother three months to draft a
perfect email like I'm not crazy.
If she's crazy, please don'tpass this along.
I don't need anything.
Uh, if it's gonna hurt anybody,please don't say anything.
(09:38):
And within 24 hours she emailedme.
So it was pretty easy for me.
Once I once I pushed over thatfirst domino okay.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
So, kit, your entrance into that was that with
your own journey.
Is that how you discovered itand sort of started to believe
it, because you're ananesthesiologist?
You've been putting peopleunder for how long, which is a
wild thing too.
Man, don't you feel like thisultimate sense of control?
You're like, oh, I'm puttingyour sleep, you're going under,
you're getting sleepy, like Ijust think that's a while, like
(10:08):
you're standing there, you'rejust like you have total control
uh, you do.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Patients who want to argue uh with their doctor tend
to fall asleep faster than nicepatients who we like to visit
with and and get to know alittle bit.
Um, kit started as a result ofa good friend of mine who had
suffered from depression for thebetter part of his adult life,
and he went to the only clinicin town in 2021, was located in
(10:37):
Gahanna is located in Gahannaand said hey, you know, you know
this medicine, this issomething you should look into
because it's changed my life.
And said hey, you know thismedicine, this is something you
should look into because it'schanged my life.
So I was emerging from adivorce during the pandemic and
really starting my own recoveryjourney, looking myself in the
mirror, realizing I needed tomake some significant changes in
(11:02):
my life.
And the more I read aboutketamine infusion therapy, the
more I realized hey, first ofall, I'm burned out.
I had taken a step back fromwork in what's called a job
share position, so there wereessentially two people for one
FTE, so I had a lot of free time, and the more and more I dug
(11:22):
into it, the more I realizedthat's what I was meant to do.
Around that time, a med schoolclassmate of mine who is good
friends with Melissa said hey,this good friend of mine, who's
a PhD psychotherapist, is veryinterested in this modality, and
I realized, if I was going todo this, I wanted to do it
(11:46):
better than anyone else.
I know this medication insideand out.
I've administered it fordecades.
I wanted to set something upthat was unique and special.
I wanted it to be a place wherepeople come to heal, not not a
doctor's office.
Our office does not look.
It looks like a spa.
It looks like a place where,okay, I can, I can be vulnerable
(12:06):
here, I can let my guard down.
This is a place of healing.
Um, it's warm, it's it's soft,um.
But we teamed up.
We met I don't know three, fourtimes.
Uh, I drove out to Bexley tomeet her at a coffee shop, and
I'm not that easy to.
Um, I'm a perfectionist.
That's part of that's one of myproblems, that's part of my
(12:29):
trauma is, if I'm perfect, thensome things might be different.
So I had to make sure Melissawas someone that I could be
myself around and that wouldwork as hard as I'm working and
she does, she is.
So we synced and we clicked.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
It's also funny because what he's not telling
you is that my friend Dr Nyland,when she text introduced me to
him, his response was is thisOprah?
And I thought, okay, ananesthesiologist with a sense of
humor, okay, this is worth acoffee, because I had talked to
people who were in this ketaminespace, who I felt were being
(13:09):
opportunistic, in sort of amonetizing something, way like
somebody from New York, somebodyfrom California, but they
weren't healers.
I was looking for somebody witha healer's heart and somebody
with a little bit of humorbecause you do have that too.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
You have that sort of upper echelon like one percent
but I want to talk to you alittle bit for me.
I feel your emotion on thesurface, which I think is
amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So where am I?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
so are you.
Is there a reason why you'reemotional right now?
Like I felt like you kind oflike got really emotional there
when you were talking aboutperfectionist.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, I would.
I've realized that for methere's no finish line from a
very dark place 2019 to today.
I am as grateful and as lucky ahuman being as you'll ever meet.
I have an amazing wife and I'mstill working on me.
(14:05):
I'm sort of untangling thetrauma of my parents.
My mom died from dementia in2017.
That was really hard because wewatched.
I was in charge of all themedical decisions not by choice,
that's just.
I was drafted into that and Idid it because I could make sure
(14:28):
she got the best care.
My dad passed away in 2022.
He was tough and I'm still inthe process of working through
all that.
So it is.
It's still on the surface forme, but I think it helps me with
my patients.
We all have trauma.
How you handle it, if youchoose to well, it helps you get
.
It's how you get healthy.
(14:49):
It's how you realize it's okaythat everyone should have
self-esteem.
So yeah, I do.
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
Gets me in trouble sometimes,but it's authentic.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I think it's important for this conversation
too, for the male pretty goodmale population, and for them to
be able to see this and see youand and it reinforces the fact
that, like we're all vulnerableand this whole gender
specification around who isallowed to show, and so I don't
know, I I'm feeling like I feellike you almost made, I'm
(15:23):
feeling a very emotional pullhere with you because of that,
and I know you've been through alot.
I know you mentioned that yourwife took you back.
You know that has to have and Ithink that's another message to
people that it's never overunless you really say it's over.
And there's a lot of for, likeyou said, forgiveness, that's a
lot to be packaged in a shortperiod of time.
(15:44):
Covid parents dying, you know,death and birth of marriage my
gosh, yeah, what the value youcan bring to people as their
healer I I.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Something's really important to me is is, in fact,
exactly what you're talkingabout men.
Men suck at talking about theirfeelings.
They, they do.
I work really hard with thefriendships that I have.
They're limited because I wantto be around men that are
authentic and vulnerable and cantalk about their feelings.
If I can show other men in ourcommunity, hey look, we all have
(16:19):
this and it's okay to talkabout it.
Certainly, it's okay to talkabout it at Mindset.
It's safe, it's not going to berepeated.
I, it's okay to talk about itat mindset.
It's safe, it's not going to berepeated.
I'm bound by confidentialitythrough HIPAA.
Please come, let's have aconversation.
I think I can help you.
I can help you.
Ketamine is a beautiful modalityto take a really hard look in
the mirror.
(16:39):
You can't lie to yourself whenyou're under ketamine.
You can't lie to yourself whenyou're under ketamine.
You can't lie to anybody.
It's just you and your higherpower, if you will.
It's that powerful.
And when you take thatinformation that you get out of
these sessions and you work withsomeone as talented as Dr
Melissa, the healing isexponential.
It's been beautiful to watch.
So I get to invest in mypatients, but they benefit me.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I grow with each one of them, I learn something, and
that's a gift, and you saidsomething else, but you were
talking about healing from ascar versus healing from a wound
Very dangerous and I feel likeyou guys have the scars to
really be able to take somebodyin a place that you wouldn't be
(17:24):
able to do otherwise.
Drug or no drug, because youhave that along with the
ketamine, and what was it?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
exactly that you said about the scar and I don't know
where.
I heard it a few years ago butit's stuck.
It is powerful to teach from ascar.
It can be dangerous to teachfrom an open wound and I watch
healers and other folkssometimes not miss that lesson
(17:52):
that something is still sort ofthis open, open wound, at least
in my line of work.
There's so much opportunity foryou know the classic terms you
hear transference or projectingyour stuff onto somebody else's
story and not being able to holdthe room for somebody else.
(18:13):
But it is so powerful to justlike hint at your scar.
You know I will probably 20percent of my clients know I'm
adopted.
I mean this isn't a thing thatI would talk about and maybe 5%
have ever heard me talk aboutsome of my other own personal
loss, trauma or grief.
It's only when it's relevantfor them and I might hint at it
(18:38):
only if it's.
I know it's good and scarredout.
You know you can feel it, notif it's still there and kind of
raw and tender.
So I do believe that at Mindsetyou know where we come at it
from a place of personal painthat we've reckoned with
authentically and sincerely, andit is.
(19:02):
It informs everything that wedo.
It is.
It is a place of feeling andI'm so glad you brought up men
and masculinity.
We were just talking about thisthis last like couple months.
We've had lots of brainstormingconversations about we got to
save the dudes, we got to savewhat's going on with the men,
and I am an outlier.
(19:23):
A slight majority of my clientbase are men, which is unusual
for a talk therapist, and I aman outlier.
A slight majority of my clientbase are men, which is unusual
for a talk therapist.
And I think it's because I havedone so much executive stuff
over the last decade or twowhere it's sort of this like
word of mouth thing that it'ssort of hey, you know this, this
person was helpful to me and Iam deeply committed to that as a
(19:44):
mother of a son.
I have a 22 year old I, if wedeclare that as a as a mission
at Mindset, I'm all down for ittoo.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I think it's important to note as well very
much on this topic.
We've both done ketamineinfusion therapy.
I can't sit here and talk aboutit.
I can't sit in the room with mypatients and guide them through
the journey that it is withouthaving experienced it myself.
It's very difficult.
I think any one of our patientswill say you can't explain this
to somebody, you just need togo through it.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So that's a great segue.
So let's explain it to someonelike me.
I know there's other people whofeel exactly the way that I do.
First question is is that whatMichael Jackson did?
So you have these ignorantquestions, right, because that's
the first thing.
I would think Okay, wait, whatwas he taking?
He was taking an anesthetic.
Prograf of think okay, wait,what was he taking?
(20:36):
He was taking an anesthetic.
Okay, so like you've got thosepeople.
And then you've got people whoare a little more educated,
because they're seeing it on thegram and the top and they're
like okay, you know, they'relike sheep.
They're like, well, somebodyelse is doing it, but they still
don't understand.
Okay, when, the?
What's the difference betweenketamine and psychedelics and
how is all this?
But what I want to really knowis what does it feel like
Exactly?
Can you create the imageryaround what happened?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Well, so there's two pieces of that.
I think that, if you want, hecould give you 30 seconds, three
minutes, 30 minutes, threehours on the scientific, the
medical explanation of ketamine,the molecule, the ways it gets
in your body.
So if you want that from him,he's so good at explaining it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, a high level Ketamine was FDA approved, I
think, in 1973 or 4.
Used extensively on thebattlefield in Vietnam.
Why?
Because narcotics, opioids,morphine, when given for pain,
depress your respiratory drive.
People stop breathing.
Ketamine doesn't do that, so itwas a great pain reliever
without the concerns about therespiratory status.
(21:44):
Use at Children's Hospitaltoday.
Why?
For conscious sedation.
Kids keep breathing.
It works on the NMDA receptor inyour brain.
Ssris Prozac et al, prozaccoming out around what 93, 94.
Every other Lexapro, zoloft,all of those, just variants of
Prozac.
Right, they're SSRIs.
They work on the monoamineoxidase system, that's dopamine,
(22:07):
norepinephrine and serotonin.
Ketamine works on glutamate, acompletely different
neurotransmitter in your brain.
It's an excitatoryneurotransmitter.
Ketamine blocks the NMDAreceptor.
Through that action, a lot ofthings chemically happen in your
brain, and that's just alsotrue of psychedelics in general.
The term neuroplasticity ismaybe something you've heard,
(22:27):
maybe you haven't.
It has to do with the actualscientific proof of forming new
connections in your brain.
Dendrites are the very tips andends of nerves.
They actually can show onelectron microscopy and
functional MRIs.
This happening that allows youto see the world differently.
I believe it allows you to seedifferent answers.
It allows you to make adecision that you know you need
(22:49):
to make in life, but you can't.
It's just too big, it's toomonumental, and through this
process you're just able to seea better, different way to live
your life.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Okay.
So then my next question.
So I go in and I do it and I'mseeing this when I'm on this,
but like you stay that way, likeso I guess I'm trying to figure
out how that works.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
So let's say you come in today, this afternoon, I
greet you at the door, we goback to one of the three
infusion rooms, sit in a verycomfortable, lazy boy-like chair
, peaceful music playing, get anIV started.
Everything we do is intravenous.
We don't do any other form ofketamine.
We don't do Spravata, which isa nasal spray.
We don't do the troches orsublingual oral forms of
(23:32):
ketamine, it's all IV.
It goes through a medical gradeinfusion pump like I use in the
operating room.
It goes in over 40 minutes.
So once that IV is in, that pumpstarts running and the
medication is going into yourbody.
Three to five minutes afterthat starts you start to have a
sense of movement.
It could be floating, flying,sliding and your world just
(23:52):
becomes completely different.
I had a conversation with myparents.
Literally, people will talk.
You're wearing very peacefulmusic, instrumental music, so
you're wearing headphones.
You have eye shades on.
They're kind of concave so youcan open your eyes if you want
to, but you'll see people duringthe infusion talking, pointing,
having a literal conversation.
(24:14):
It is your subconscious justcompletely opened up.
It allows you to accessrepressed memories, things that
you have blocked, things youdon't want to deal with.
And then when that infusionends at 40 minutes, about 10
minutes after it's done, oh yeah, I'm back, okay.
Oh hey, dr Caldwell.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
So I meant like are you?
You're not just fixed though,Like so like you have to go
through a series, and that's whythe psychotherapy is so
important too.
So maybe what I'm trying to sayis this just accesses things in
your brain and allows you tosee them, and then you can't
unsee them.
So now that I've gone in, notalways Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I would also say it's objective.
You may see you when you were 8, 10, 12 years old from a bird's
eye view.
You see that person, youobjectively.
You may be going through a verydifficult experience, but you
aren't triggered in that momentyou can see.
Okay, look.
Yes, that still bothers metoday.
There's something there Ihaven't grieved, I haven't
forgiven, I haven't processed.
There's something there Ihaven't grieved, I haven't
(25:13):
forgiven, I haven't processed.
That's the information you takeand sit down with Dr Melissa.
She's able to put all thesepieces of a puzzle together to
help you identify some thingsthat you can process and let go
of.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
And that's where I think healing really really
happens and I defer to her onthat.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I stay in my lane.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
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Speaker 3 (27:23):
So let's say, here's a way of understanding it.
So we could sit here and have aneuro-ophthalmologist give us a
little lecture on how the brainsees the color blue, right
Rhoads and cones.
Isn't that in?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
our eye the occipital lobe.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
You know we could get a lecture on how we see the
color blue, but that is a verydifferent experience than
experiencing cerulean blue on aCaribbean beach.
So psychedelics ketamine allowspeople to have an embodied
(28:02):
experience, with the defenseslowered, and it is an accelerant
to a therapy process that I'm avintage trauma therapist, so my
first gig was in the FamilyViolence and Sexual Assault Unit
in the city of Philly.
So I have tens of thousands ofhours of doing this sort of work
(28:24):
with humans and sometimes thepace of healing is glacial.
It's glacial and so when Iheard about this maybe in 2021,
2022, I went to a conference andwas blown away.
I thought okay, and then I wenton a deep dive about.
This is an accelerant to ahealing process.
(28:46):
So the ketamine does a couplethings.
Some folks what we're going foris that NMDA network Depression
.
People with crushing depression,like can't, can barely move
through a day because it's likemoving through molasses.
Or folks with intrusive,suicidal ideation who are so
(29:09):
exhausted by batting thosethoughts away because they're
running their law firm and ittakes a lot of emotional capital
to bat those thoughts away, orpanic attacks.
The biology of the ketaminemolecule in the brain does a
certain sort of thing all byitself with lifting the floor
(29:29):
for depression, and the researchis clear If people respond
after one infusion it's probablygoing to be.
You can get over 50% completeremission in depression if
somebody is an early responder.
So there's the biology of itjust in your brain.
Then there is the experienceyou have within the infusion
(29:51):
that becomes fodder fortherapeutic work and so you can
set intentions.
Now my first ketamine infusion.
I watched the movie Contact thenight before.
Do you know the movie Contactwith Matthew McConaughey and
Jodie Foster?
It's my comfort movie.
Love that movie.
I mean I went in with all thismeditation, all these clear
intentions.
I wanted to deal with some ofmy own, like religious trauma.
(30:15):
So I was looking at thisreconciliation of science and
spirituality within 10 minutesbecause of that movie, consuming
more and more stars until Istopped existing and maybe at
like 15 minutes I thought, well,I've done it now I'm not real
anymore.
(30:35):
I thought, oh fuck, like mypoor husband and kids I no
longer exist, like it was this.
But I was still a psychologist.
So it was this meta experiencefor me of retaining my biography
while still being convinced Iwas stars and my feeling was one
of love and connection and Ithought, oh, but where does the
(30:59):
love go, even when we don'texist anymore?
It's so powerful, it transcendsus.
That was.
And then I came out of it andthought, whoa that was.
And then I came out of it andthought, whoa, it was just this
embodied experience of a thing Ihad set an intention for and
not everybody gets that, wherethe thing in your infusion is
(31:21):
what you go in intending.
But there's always a nugget.
I don't think we've had anyonedo one infusion and stop, which
is compelling for how we do, howwe care for people at Mindset.
So so I share that as anexample of that's what my first
ketamine infusion.
That is what I experienced andI had, and 24 hours later I had
(31:48):
a bump.
I don't have depression oranxiety right now in my life,
but I did experience a stunningquieting of my inner life.
It was so quiet in there andwhen I've told my girlfriends
that they're like sign me uplike the the.
It was so quiet.
It was a gift so.
So for me I thought, oh, ifthat inner chatter is a like
(32:11):
relentless self-loathing, what agift for somebody that a
traditional SSRI is going totake 30 to 45 days to work and
it only works for about 30percent of people, which Big
Pharma probably doesn't wantpeople to know, but it's true,
it's only about 30 percent.
For those people it's a lifechanger, it saves people's lives
, but that's a big chunk offolks it doesn't work for.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Well, it doesn't have to be one or the other, right?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
It does not have to be one or the other.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Do people have bad trips?
The word dissociation would bethe medical term for trip Set
and setting, as mentioned byTimothy Leary.
It's important, that experiencethat you're alluding to.
I tell you there are no badtrips.
It's you.
Everything that comes up, it'syou.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I'm getting anxiety just sitting here thinking about
.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
It's peaceful.
Like what if you got there andyou were like get me the hell
out of here?
It's generally people.
When those eye shades come off,there's a sense of peace that
they don't get to experience ona daily basis.
You get your inner critic.
During ketamine infusion,therapy is muted, silent, gone.
You're in a space for a lot ofthese people like I don't want
(33:18):
this to end, I don't want thisto end, I don't want this to end
.
Countless people say that,especially towards the end of
the infusion process.
It's six treatments in afour-week period, so typically
we do two a week for the firsttwo weeks to develop some rhythm
, gain some momentum, get somebreakthroughs.
With Dr M, those last two willspread out, but people look
(33:38):
forward to that time in thechair.
They're not afraid.
It's peaceful, you do.
You feel a sense of connectionand love that it's visceral.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Okay, so then I guess that leads me to another little
pasture over here.
What about people gettingaddicted to it?
You're like, okay, I saw thisperson.
They just come as much as theywant, they just want to come.
Do that have that feeling, ordo you not get that?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So over half of our patients have not returned at
all.
There's a subset that mightcome once every three months,
once every six months.
I have some people working withaddiction that are still coming
once a month to help themmaintain sobriety.
We tailor it to what thepatient needs.
I'm not going to let anyoneabuse it.
That's why I only give IV.
(34:20):
The safety profile isexceptional.
We've heard recently about ElonMusk taking so much that he's
having bladder problems you haveto take a massive amount of
ketamine to have interstitialcystitis, an inflammation of
your bladder.
That's what he has because ofthe byproducts of ketamine which
are eliminated through thekidneys.
There's zero incidence of thatif you work with us, because I'm
(34:45):
not going to let you get tothat point, I'm going to protect
you.
It's safe, it's reallyeffective and I just wish
insurance covered it.
I could help so many morepeople.
Yeah, can we tease out thepsychedelics?
(35:05):
So what's the?
So the spectrum is ketamine,psilocybin, mushrooms, ayahuasca
mushrooms, ayahuasca, ibogaine,lsd fits in that category.
Mdma, ecstasy recently failedFDA approval last year,
psilocybin being available inOregon and Colorado, texas
(35:26):
putting up the state of Texasputting up $50 million to
research Ibogaine specificallyin the veteran community.
They have found for a lot ofthose people with PTSD Ibogaine
is really, really helpful.
What makes it a psychedeliccategory?
Typically the dissociating, thetripping aspect puts you in
that category.
But all of those medicationsalso cause neuroplasticity,
(35:49):
those reconnections in yourbrain.
I believe that is probably asbroadly as you can define
psychedelics.
The thing about ketamine isit's pure.
It's by far and away has themost scientific data supporting
its use, its efficacy, itseffectiveness in
treatment-resistant depression,anxiety, ptsd, people who are
(36:11):
suicidal.
One treatment, it's gone.
We have numerous patients likethat.
It only takes 40 minutes.
If you go in Oregon or Colorado, the protocol for the use of
psilocybin therapeutically istwo psychotherapy sessions with
two counselors, then a five-hourceremony where you drink tea
(36:33):
that has psilocybin in it.
Five hours with twopsychotherapists then two more
psychotherapy sessions, thenanother five-hour session.
First of all, I don't know thatmany people have that much time
or that much money to have twopsychotherapists available for
every one of these infusions.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
It's scary to think like if something's going
sideways and I wish that Iwasn't in it, to be in it for
five hours, like you said.
Okay, this is 40 minutes.
I mean you can do anything forshort period, it's just.
I think mentally it's a.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Three hours after you leave our office you can drive
again, you can go back aboutyour day.
We ask for people to protecttwo hours after they leave.
Number one a journal to dictate, journal whatever, write, draw
whatever in a nice soft, quietplace.
You're investing a lot inyourself.
Protect that time to sort ofcome down.
Don't reintegrate yourselfright into life.
(37:24):
Protect that time to sort ofcome down.
Don't reintegrate yourselfright into life.
So really it takes three hoursand most of that's just on your
own.
It's easier than any of theother psychedelics.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
I want to go back to this bad trip I was thinking
back to when I was in college wewould take mushroom.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Yeah, I was gonna say okay, so that there's a,
there's something behind that.
So do you remember thatexperience?
Speaker 1 (37:45):
So my experience with shrooms.
It wasn't like I did them a ton, but I always had a really good
trip and I was always laughingand then my friend would always
have a really bad trip and thenit would make me laugh.
It was just like it's a funnything we talk about.
So I never I didn't have a badexperience.
I've seen other people havethem Now with weed.
I am not a weed we.
I've seen other people havethem Now with weed.
(38:06):
I am not a weed.
Weed does not do well with me.
So when I have done weed, thatis where I say done weed.
When I'm smoked weed orwhatever, that's where I'd be in
a headspace that I can't getaway from, where I'm like I
would do anything to get out ofthis headspace right now, but I
can't.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
It doesn't feel like that, the dissociation does not
feel like that, having sampledall those goods that you just
shared with me, so it does not.
So thank you for answering thathonestly.
So let's talk about bad.
So I think a culturalcatastrophe we are facing which
(38:41):
is maybe a differentconversation is there is no such
thing as a dangerous emotion.
The fact that we have made ouraffective experiences dangerous
has consequences that are it'sjust, it's a problem because we
(39:02):
bubble wrap children, we removeresiliency and skill building
experiences.
There's all kinds of reasonsthat this is a this is dangerous
, to call emotions dangerous.
So when we say bad, it's, it'sjust an experience, and there
are times it may not be pleasant, but it's not bad.
(39:26):
So I think I see it through thatlens of I am with human beings
trying to rumble with theirinner life, their affective life
, and we have over 100 uniqueemotional flavors we can access
and most people can come up withthree to five when you ask them
.
My goal is, when they leave me,they have access to a
(39:48):
cornucopia of affective language, because you can't solve a
problem if you're not definingit the right way.
So people say, oh, I feelanxious, but really what they
are is bored or underutilized atwork and so they have too much
horsepower up there and sothey're spinning.
People will say you know X andit's actually Y.
So in a ketamine infusion youbump out of your for us, and
(40:13):
especially for my client base,the sort of unapologetically
ambitious they live in theirprefrontal cortex and they
intellectualize everything andso, with a dissociative
experience, you bump out of thatset of train tracks into
another set.
So it is felt, sense, it isembodied.
You know that whole thing about.
(40:33):
You can explain a color, youcan experience a color.
So you bump people out of theirnormal talk track and then the
ketamine leaves those dendritictrees at the end of your neurons
flexible and bendy.
It's like having a juicy brainfor 72 hours in particular, and
(40:54):
up to like 10 days where you'remore able to change your mind.
I can sit with someone and I'vewitnessed this happen.
I can sit with someone and weknow the mindset shift that
needs to happen and they justcan't get there.
And ketamine infusion therapyis their.
Their body language changeswhen they talk about the thing
(41:17):
they need to change their mindabout.
So that flexibility piece of itis, that's the.
That's what we're getting to.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I'd love to give you an example of what Melissa is
talking about, just in terms ofwhat it does From a recent
patient who came in with herhusband, completely distraught
because her daughter hadoverdosed.
She had lost her daughter froma drug overdose, overdose, she
had lost her daughter from adrug overdose, and as she worked
through being completely shutdown, not even having emotion,
(41:48):
to then feeling the pain,feeling emotion, to the final
treatment when she started toyell out a name and a name that
I hadn't heard before.
And I talk, I get to knowpeople very, very well over six
treatments and it turns out thatthis is her husband or her
daughter's boyfriend who got herhooked on drugs.
And the husband comes back fromthe waiting room because he
(42:11):
hears her yelling this person'sname and I'm like who is that?
And it's like that'sso-and-so's boyfriend.
I need to find him and I needto forgive him.
That's the kind oftransformation that can happen
from hating this man,self-loathing, being suicidal,
to, at the end, wanting to findhim and forgive him.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
That's what we see because we can talk about it.
Right, I could sit there andtalk about it, but to experience
, so I will send folks into aninfusion because we do intention
, integration, integration andintegrity work.
So I can say I want you to goin and your intention is this is
what grace feels like or thisis what forgiveness feels like,
(42:57):
that's it.
And then let the medicine doits work and see if that felt
sense happens.
And it's not a guarantee thatit happens every time, but for
that deep soul work likeforgiveness, which is a sticky
(43:18):
word for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
So is you know, before you go in for surgery and
they give you a littlesomething to take?
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Versed midazolam.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Is it something similar to that where?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
it's almost no, that's a benzodiazepine, the
valium family.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
By definition it's an anxiolytic.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
It's a medicine that reduces anxiety.
Unfortunately, there are three.
Well, not unfortunately, butthere are three categories of
drugs that you can't be on whenyou receive ketamine infusion
therapy.
And those drugs,benzodiazepines, which would
include xanax, ativan thatinhibits ketamine, stimulants
like adderall, and then, lastly,the other category is an anti
convulsant called lymictal.
(43:52):
But what ketamine does?
It's peaceful.
You, you have this sense, like.
You know what matters to you.
Your inner critic is quiet andwhen you come out, it's it's
about as peaceful as it gets.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
My fourth infusion was epiphanic.
I went in to it thinking abouthow and I think I wrote in my
intake that I'm a foundingmember of the club of too much
and shout out to my fellowmembers, shout out, shout out so
(44:30):
making myself smaller toaccommodate the system that I
was adopted into.
I was an eagle soaring over aforest.
I was a mountain this likepurple giant, unapologetically
(44:50):
massive mountain and a totemthat just came up out of the
earth.
It was tall and you almostcouldn't see the bottom and I
think my pulse went up my bloodpressure and I think my pulse
went up my blood pressure.
(45:10):
It was like the voice I heardwas go, be that thing it was.
I know it sounds to say it, butto experience that was holy
shit.
I mean, I still remember whatthat felt like.
I can think about shit all daylong, but to feel it is, it's
like a cellular thing, uh, thatstays with people, so that that
(45:34):
gift for um, for people tryingto heal, like deep, deep, deep,
deep, deep stuff.
And it's not that I don't havedeep stuff to heal, but I also
did a lot of that work in my 20s.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
You might see me in the facility here in the next 24
hours Just come take a look,see what it looks like it's very
disarming when you get there.
Oh, I'm sure, so I'm going togo back for you.
So when I asked on the forumabout the hard things you've
gone through and you had kind oftalked about some things in the
positive category that werehard, so I'd rather talk about
(46:07):
them than write them Was theresomething additional that you
didn't write in there?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Or was that just yeah ?
I think it more comes down tojust the realizations that I'm
working through as an adult, aparentless adult, and the impact
my father had on who I am.
The fact that I'm a doctor, Ithink, is because of my dad.
I know it's because of my dad.
I wanted to play lacrosse atWest Point.
I wanted to play lacrosse atCornell.
(46:34):
I wanted to play lacrosse atOhio State.
I wasn't allowed to do any ofthat.
You go to college to get aneducation, david, not play
lacrosse.
Okay, dad and off.
I went to four years of college, four years of medical, four
years of residency and nextthing, you know, you're 30, 29,
30 year old man who's incrediblyimmature because he hasn't had
any real life experience.
Um, he's had his head in a bookand gave up his twenties and he
(46:58):
wasn't the greatest, uh,husband over you know the
following 18 or 20 years, 20years, um, he was a good dad
because he didn't want to belike his dad.
My kids will tell you that, uh,but those are the things I
guess I was alluding to and it'slike I said, there's no finish
line.
I'm just continuing to work onum understanding and there's a
(47:19):
lot of men.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
I think that hit this like you know, you get to your
50s and you start doing the lookback.
You know, windshield living,rearview mirror, living and
going, wait a minute, and theydon't have a place to talk about
it.
Um, that is empowering, thatfeels affirming of their whole
story and so I love that and Ithink that's why, when I met
(47:47):
David, I thought, okay, likehe's willing to just like kind
of rend open or drop the veilsand tell a real human story.
And I think it's kind of rare,to be honest, especially for a
physician to talk so candidly.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
That's like the thing where it's like, you know, I
think, off-putting in the bestof ways to come and do an
experience like that and havehim almost starting to cry yes
over, you know, like becausehe's not because of it's about
him, it's because he is, so, youknow, dealing from the scar and
wanting to help other people inthat really authentic way that,
(48:26):
like you are just disarming.
Ok, anything else we didn't tapon that.
You'd be like damn it.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
I think just getting the message out.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
There's a lot of misinformation.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yes, about its recreational use.
It's unsafe.
Matthew Perry is really, reallysad.
Elon Musk and all that stuffthat came out, I told Melissa.
You know what?
I like him, don't like him.
He's obviously going throughsomething really difficult.
He's got to be profoundlydepressed.
He's using all these things.
(48:57):
Right, there's so many men,professionals, they're like well
, this is just what I do do.
That's not a way to live life.
It, ketamine, allows you to bepresent.
It allows you to experiencemoments of joy every day that I
just couldn't appreciate beforea sunrise, a sunset, um little
things that if you are justpresent each day, it just builds
(49:22):
on itself and life is.
It's easier because none of usare in control, right, that's
one thing I talk about all thetime.
You're in control of how yourespond, but you're not in
control if that bus comes alongor it doesn't come along.
Accepting that and movingthrough life one day at a time
for me has been profound.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
It's a behavioral activator.
So the, whether it be we'restarting from here, because
depression is so oppressive, orfrom here, that that the
accelerant to the therapyprocess, but also allowing
people to be to do new behaviors, because then it becomes the
flywheel, um, and anybody in thefitness industry knows that you
(50:02):
know, like you start, you youstart, and then you build, and
you build, and you build, andit's the same way for that
muscle up there, and so it.
It is sort of the, it's theaccelerant and then the
behavioral activator, which ishow you change your life.
Like we put behavior in theworld, we get behavior back, and
so that's our currency, that'shuman currency you can change
(50:24):
your life.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I watch it.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
You know people say, oh, you people can't change.
Well, they don't change becauseyou want them to change.
That is true, but I'm in thebusiness of people transforming
their lives, so people changeall the time.
Um, and this is, this is to me,the.
I'm the most excited about thisas a tool in my arsenal that
I've been in 20 years for thework that I do, which I love.
(50:49):
I love my job.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Well, I'm feeling a little more bullish about this
process.
You never know, I might try it.
Well, thank you, beau, and thentell me your website.
Where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Mindsetketaminecom.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
And if you're still out there following your girl,
follow me on YouTube, spotify,apple or wherever you get your
podcasts.
Give Mindset a try.
Go check them out on Instagram,go to their website, maybe set
up a consultation.
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