October 10, 2025 • 31 mins
Dr. Jessica Punzo is a licensed clinical psychologist and President of the APA’s Division on Trauma Psychology. She specializes in trauma and PTSD and owns two practices: Middle Path Psychotherapy, focused on complex trauma, and Rooted Journey Wellness, where she provides ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Certified in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy through the Integrative Psychiatry Institute, Dr. Punzo is passionate about educating both clinicians and the public on the promise of psychedelic therapies.
In This Episode
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
You can learn more about what I do here:
The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
———
If you’d like to support The Trauma Therapist Podcast and the work I do you can do that here with a monthly donation of $5, $7, or $10: Donate to The Trauma Therapist Podcast.
Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
Thank you to our Sponsors:
Incogni - Use code [traumatherapist] and get 60% off annual plans: https://incogni.com/traumatherapist
Jane App - use code GUY1MO at https://jane.app/book_a_demo
Journey Clinical - visit https://join.journeyclinical/trauma for 1 month off your membership
Therapy Wisdom - https://therapywisdom.com/jan/
In This Episode
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
You can learn more about what I do here:
The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
———
If you’d like to support The Trauma Therapist Podcast and the work I do you can do that here with a monthly donation of $5, $7, or $10: Donate to The Trauma Therapist Podcast.
Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
Thank you to our Sponsors:
Incogni - Use code [traumatherapist] and get 60% off annual plans: https://incogni.com/traumatherapist
Jane App - use code GUY1MO at https://jane.app/book_a_demo
Journey Clinical - visit https://join.journeyclinical/trauma for 1 month off your membership
Therapy Wisdom - https://therapywisdom.com/jan/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Trauma Theripists podcast. My name is gaming
Person and I interview incredible people who share the story
of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
and our sponsors. So five four three two one our folks,
(00:24):
welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
my guest today, Doctor Jessica Punzo.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Jessica, welcome, Hi, Thanks for having me awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Doctor Punzo is a licensed clinical psychologist and president of
the APA's Division on Trauma Psychology. She specializes in trauma
and PTSD and owns two practices, Middle Path Psychotherapy focused
on complex trauma and Rooted Journey Wellness where she provides
Kenmine assistant psychotherapy. Certified in psychedelic assisted therapy through the
(00:56):
Intricatives Psychiatry Institute, Doctor Punzo is passionate about educating both
clinicians and the public on the promise of psychedelic therapies,
and we're doing this interview in conjunction with one of
our sponsors, Journey Clinical, so I'm really excited to learn
more about that. But first off, I just got to say,
(01:17):
after reading a bio busy enough, damn.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yes. Yes. I have a hard time saying no to things.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I get super excited about things. I love what I do,
so when opportunities present them to me, I almost always
say yes, and then I have a very full schedule.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Awesome. So let's start if we can learn a little
bit about you, what got you into this field, and
then we'll segue into KAP kind of an assisted psychotherapy
and journey. So how did this start for you? How
did all this is passion begin?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Let me ask a clarifying question question about it? How
did I get into psychology in general? Or how did
I get in the eketymene world?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
First psychology trauma?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
And then we'll do Yes, that's a long journey.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So yeah, you know, I actually.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Started undergrad as a pre law major and really thought
I wanted to do be a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And so a little bit of a backstory.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Both of my parents are immigrants and so I'm first generation,
and I think there was a sort of unspoken uh rule,
might you say of that you know you're going to
do something. Yeah, so it was like doctor lawyer, that
was kind of I mean, they never said that to me,
(02:44):
and they never pressured me in any way, but it
was sort of just an unspoken expectation.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
They they left everything to come here, you know, and
made a life for themselves, so you know, and I'm
an only child, so I feel ahead of additional pressure
to make them proud. And so, like I said, I
was like, all right, I'll be a lawyer. So I
went pre law and quickly learned that that was not
for me. It was very boring and no offense to
(03:12):
the lawyers out there, but wasn't for me. Simultaneously, I
was taking an abnormal psychology class and it's just part
of like general education requirements, and I was like, wow,
this is like really interesting, really fascinating. And then I
learned you could be a doctor of psychology, and sort
of the rest was history. Finished, I changed my major
(03:33):
to psychology and a minor in biology and finished undergrad
and then went straight to graduate school at Adler and
got my side. And then initially when I was when
I first went to Adler, I thought I was going
to do neuroscience because I had the science.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
As my minor. I was really interested in biology and
the brain.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It was another field where I'm like I love this
and it's super interesting but not for me, right, I
really wanted to do therapy. I realized, like I love
talking to people, I loved helping people in that way,
and neuroscience was a little less personal for me, and
so I started taking more classes. And then I found
(04:14):
out that we had a trauma concentration in our school
and my mentor was the head of that program. And
so again sort of rest is history. I was on
my first internship and saw a very complex trauma case
and like fell in love with the work and fell
in love with the clients, and that was it. So
(04:34):
I went through the concentration, graduated, and here we are.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
That's I mean, just trauma's intense. Yeah, what you know,
you said you encountered a complex case. How what was
that like for you?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:55):
You know, I think and I still remember this client
like it was ya yesterday, right, And this was probably
twenty years ago at this point, And I think what
struck me is the depth of the work that was there, right,
that there was something that so terribly happened to this person,
and that they had had and this person in particular
(05:17):
had years worth like they were coming to me in
their sixties and had not and still had been dealing
with trauma symptoms since a child, and I just found
it so sad that they didn't have any help up
until that point, because they didn't have someone who knew
a lot about trauma.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And just the relationship.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
It's hard to kind of explain in words when you
work with trauma survivors, it's sort of an unspoken thing.
There's just a depth in the relationship and a specialness
about being able to be a safe place for people
that have historically been harmed by other people. So I
think that was sort of what drew me in, and
(05:56):
just being able to see them get to a place
where they could get better was so rewarding.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Did you feel scared at all? Was there hesitancy at all?
Was there a feeling like holy crap, but still you
wanted to walk into that.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yes, yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I mean I remember this client was probably highly, highly dissociative,
and at that point in time, I hadn't been experienced
like now, looking back, you know, I've heard so many things,
but at that point, the level of trauma that I
heard it was a lot. It was a lot for
a young therapist, and but you know, a lot of
(06:43):
people ask me, how do you do this? How do
you hold all that? And my answer is I don't
really know.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I just I just love the answer. It's it's I know,
it's so weird.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I just I feel called to that work, and I don't,
you know, like some people work with sex offenders and
I'm like, how do you do that? And They're like,
I don't know, I just do it. I think there's
a specialty for everyone. And this was what called me,
and so yes it was and it has been over
the years, like it has affected me personally, you know,
(07:14):
listening like you can't not Yeah, I mean, you're a
robot if it doesn't, right.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Okay, So you find your one, one of your multiple callings,
one of your passions. What happens after that? Do you
start you graduate and you start opening up your clinic
or what.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
So I did a two year fellowship at the VA
in San Diego, so when I had did my internship
out there in California as well, and so I was
mostly working with military sexual trauma in the VA, so
veterans who had been sexually abused while on active duty,
another population.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Very near to my heart.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
And you know, I in that space, you know, I
was living in California, but I'm from Chicago, and so
I knew I wanted to come back home and be
with my family. So I transitioned here. And at the time,
I don't think the VA here had any openings, so
just that wasn't an option, and so I started looking
(08:20):
at other jobs, and another one of my areas of
expertise is queer LGBTQ folks, And there was an opening
at the Center on Halstead, which is a large, major
health community health organization in the city, and the position
was for an anti violence director and so basically I
was able to do all of this free trauma therapy
(08:44):
for victims of violence who also identified as a queer
in some capacity. So I went and I got that position,
took that position, did that for a few years, and
then got pregnant and then decided, Okay, I don't know
if I can do full time anymore. I want to
spend time with my child, and then opened my practice
when he was like three months old, and I've been
(09:08):
there ever since.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
It's just interesting and fascinating to hear the specialties. I mean,
you've really kind of dived into these particular specialties, which
is very interesting to me, and all of which are
so demanding, not that being a general practitioner isn't. But
(09:29):
so let's talk about your interest in psychedelics. How did
that come about?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
So no surprise here my clients, I say, my clients
teach me so much, and over the years have taught
me so many things. I'm indebted to them. But I
actually had a client who was doing ketamine infusions. This
was probably prior to the pandemic, so maybe around twenty
eighteen twenty nineteen, and she was getting these infusions and
(09:57):
I was academy, and I was like, isn't that.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Like a horse tranquiliz Like, what what is happening?
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Like?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
At this point, I had heard nothing about psychedelicasist that therapy,
nothing about katamine. It was all very new to me
at that time. And she would come in and report
her experiences and I'm like, what, Wow, that sounds really interesting.
And so I said, you know, as as as I
as I I say, as a good therapist would do
(10:22):
uh sort of understand real life understanding of what that meant.
So I asked the provider that was working with her
if he would give me an infusion of kadamine.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
WHOA yeah, whoa in.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Terms of for an educational purpose, to understand what my
clients were experiencing in those moments. And he agreed, and
he felt that it was important that therapists working with
clients undergoing catamine infusions did understand that process to really
help them. So went in had an infusion and was like, whoa,
(10:55):
this is uh now I get it.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And then I kind of did a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
You cannot just gloss over that. What the hell? What
did you experience? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I mean I had a beautiful experience, you know, and
at that point I was extremely psychedelic naive, had never
you know, had never had a traditional psychedelic drug at
that point in time, and so I was so scared.
I was so nervous. But it also then gave me
that understanding of what clients feel going into that experience,
(11:31):
you know, and and knowing.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Let me just interrupt you here for s because you're
saying a lot of interesting things here. So you said
you were so scared, Yeah, and you were so nervous,
but you did it.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Wow, I have so much respect for you and admiration
for you. Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, So you do this?
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Was it in an office? Was it in Costa Rica? Somewhere.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, no, no, this was it was more metal base.
So typically ketamine infusion clinics will be more of a
medical model of ketamine tend to be a little more
sterile because right they're doing an IV and so at
that time, yeah, it was just a little little chair,
comfy chair he had. He hooked me up to the IV,
he gave me some music, put the headphones on, and
(12:20):
sort of off.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I went, what did you experience?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And this is this is why I did it, because
it's almost hard to describe, right, and this is where
it becomes challenging. You know, A lot of it was
feeling sort of very warm and like enveloped in like
a marshmallow. I had that sort of feeling almost like
probably like being back in the womb of some sort
of h space. And then there was just a lot
(12:48):
of nature, a lot of abstract like figures, shapes. I
had a lot of themes of like as tech Mayan
visions that came. It was a lot of randomness, but
all in all was like very cool.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
And how long did it last?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
That was probably about forty five minutes, like the the
extent of the journey, but usually you know, you get
about thirty minutes till it like comes on and then
you have this peak experience and then you're sort of
coming out. So from start to finish maybe two to
three hours.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And do you go in with an intention?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So at that time again no, at that time I know,
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
It was just to learn and to see, so it
was kind of more educational. But if I, you know,
after that having other experiences, would try to be more.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Intentional about that. But I didn't know what I was
walking into.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So you have that experience, what happens next? How do
things unfold?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, So after that I was like, oh, wow, this
is this is interesting. And I was seeing my clients
have a lot of like positive benefits from a depression
sort of antidepressional sort of effect from the ketamine. I
was like, Wow, this is this is cool. And then
I started doing a little research and found that you
could pair this with psychotherapy, and I said, oh, how
(14:16):
cool is that? And then I dug a little deeper
and was like, oh, yeah, they also do this with
psilocybin and other compounds like MDMA. And then I, again
digging a little deeper, saw that at that time MAPS
was in the process of clinical trials for MDMA for PTSD.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
And I was like, oh my god, like I do
PTSD work, You're something really cool.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Like I have to do this, And so I researched
a couple of programs that were offering certifications and ended
up choosing IPI And yeah, I finished that program last
year and it was wonderful. And now I'm doing CAP
in my office with my clients. It's so cool with
Journey Clinical.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So yeah, Now, for those who maybe who are listening
who aren't very familiar, how does ketamine differ from the
other psychedelic therapies out there.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, so there's a lot of different compounds, but ketamine
right now is a legal drug that is available medicine.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Is legal all in all states.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It is not a classic psychedelic like we would look
at psilocybin LSD. Those are your true psychedelic drugs, right versus,
Ketamine is technically classified as a dissociative anesthetic drug. So
it's routinely used in surgeries and in the er. A
lot of times they'll give people ketamine, even children, to maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Stitch up a wound. If a small child has a.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Wound, it kind of helps them to dissociate a little
bit so that they can work on the area that's affected.
And high high doses of ketamine, that's where we see
it being an anesthetic and people going to sleep. Sub
anesthetic doses is where we use it in the psychotherapy component.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Now, does that mean that the patient is not going
to experience the degree of psychedelic images that one might
experience on with psilocybin.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
It's different, right, because I think it depends on the person,
and some of my clients their journeys will be very
similar to what I've heard and experienced in psychedelics myself,
and then others will be just more of a dreamlike state,
more like my personal experience in psychedelics where it's more abstract.
(16:37):
But every client is so different. That's what I love
about ketamine. You kind of never know what you're going
to get when you get when you get into it.
So and the dose it's dose dependent too, right, So
higher doses we're going to see more dissociative qualities, potentially
more visuals, but some clients just don't report visuals.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
But they will feel like a more.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Somatic dissociation from the body, kind of what I mentioned
earlier with that hugging sort of feeling or yeah, all.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Right, let me just remind me what I'm speaking with,
doctor Jessica Punzo. We're talking about ketamine therapy, and now
let's get into your relationship with with Journey Clinical. How
did that come about?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
So after I was done with my training and IPI,
I was thinking, all right, now I've been trained in psilocybin,
MDMA and ketamine. I live in Illinois. The only thing
that's legal is ketamine. So that was the option I
knew I had to go. And actually in our IPI program,
they did mention Journey as a potential way to start
(17:41):
doing this work. And so, you know, after I was done,
I was trying to figure out, all right, how am.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I going to do this? How does this work? Right?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Because it's very similar to opening up like a therapy practice.
Now I'm opening a ketemine practice. I wasn't trained on
that per se, you know, so I was trying to
figure out all the logistics of that, how I was
going to charge, was I going to take insurance?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
What would that look like? All of this stuff?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And so technically you need a prescriber to prescribe the kedemine, right,
whether you're going to do.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
That, ivy.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
That can be a nurse practitioner too, anyone who can prescribe.
I mean, so typically it's either an MD or a
nurse practitioner, Okay. And so you know, I could have
partnered with, you know, someone in the community, even the
person that I who did the first infusion for me,
but it felt very isolating. It felt like I would
(18:34):
just I was there, like the only therapist doing this,
and I had no one to kind of talk to.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So I stumbled upon.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Journey because you know that MD's and they just administer
the medicine that they're not trained in keteminicisted psychotherapy, right,
So they have a very medical model way of doing that.
And I think people should know there is a difference
between ketamine infusions medical model versus kedeminicists and psychotherapy and
what we do in Journey clinical.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Because they're different, very different.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
And so stumbled upon Journey, And you know, I think
I ended up getting like a free free month from
a referral from another Some of the other people in
my cohort had signed up and were enjoying it, and
I signed up and taught. It's a whole community of
therapists doing this, right.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
So also in person online this is all virtual, all virtual.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, So Journey's platform is like a sort of online
platform that the whole point of it is they're connecting
therapists with prescribers. So the prescribers will do the medical
intake and prescribe the ketamine, but they will only do
that if.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
The client has a therapist.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
So this is also different than sort of our mail
home sort of ketamine subscriptions that are bordering on probably problematic,
where you just get ketamine shipped to your door and
you don't have to be doing any therapy.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Journey's motto is very strict.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
They will only prescribe in a therapeutic container, which is
something that I really appreciated.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So, for example, give us how an idea is how
this would work?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, so how it worked for me.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
The first client I ran through was one of my
long term clients, right, so someone I had been seeing
for at this point probably three or four years, right,
trauma survivor childhood sexual abuse. We had done a ton
of great work, but we're kind of getting to a
plateau which happens in therapy, right, and sometimes sure, you know,
(20:33):
you just you do a lot of work and you
kind of get stuck. And it wasn't that the client
again hadn't made progress or wasn't feeling good, but we were.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Kind of like, there's something else, we need to get
something else.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
So the client knew that I was doing this training
and was interested, and so I make the referral and
say the client said, I do want to do this,
I want to try this, and I make a referral.
She sees the Journey Clinical prescriber. They do a medical
intake to ensure, say for ketamine, make sure you know
everything's good from a medical perspective, and then they prescribe
(21:05):
her her prescription. Now, Journey Clinical use rapid dissolving tablets
of ketamine, so ketamine can be done intravenously, intramuscularly, intrnasally,
or sublingually.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So we at.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Journey use sublingual tablets. This way, the client can do
the journeying in the therapist's office, so we don't need a
medical person in the room for monitoring. The clients come,
they take their blood pressure before we make sure that's
in range. It has to be within a certain range
to proceed. Then the client will take the pills themselves
or the tablets. They let them dissolve in their mouth,
(21:42):
They swish it around, and then they spit it out,
and then they lay back on the couch and have
their experience, all while I'm sitting there sort of supporting them.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
How long are you setting aside for that experience?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's about a three hour session, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
And obviously well not obviously, but with a client with
the understanding that all everyone's different, is there more of
a intention set in this kind of setting?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Mm hm yes, So I should back up before we
even do. That's that's called the dosing session, that three
hour block. Before that, we have what are called two
preparation sessions. So in those preparation sessions, we're talking about
what is what can they expect when they take ketamine?
What is kind of meine, how does it affect the body?
So a little psycho education about ketamine. And then we
(22:36):
spend the second session all about expectation management and intention setting,
So we're very We spend a whole session just talking
about what are their intentions, what do they want to
get out of it, but also realizing what they want
to get out of it might not exactly be what
they get and how do we manage that?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well, that was I was thinking, does it even matter
if you set an intention?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I think it does matter, I do, I think.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
But what clients will realize was, and this has been
my experience personally, often what they want to come in
and work on is.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Not what comes up in the ketemine session.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
So I still think it's important to say, like, why
are we doing this right? And be grounded in that,
but be okay and be flexible with whatever presents itself
in the medicine session. And really the medicine session is
just one part of the work. The real work is
in the integration session. So the integration sessions happen within
(23:34):
usually twenty four to forty eight hours after.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
That dosing session.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
The reason that we do it in close proximity is
because ketamine is a neuroplastic agent, right, so it really
helps the brain be open to new sort of experiences
or thoughts, right, And so when we have a therapy
session after that, the client's brain is sort of open
in a.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Way that it hasn't been before.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
And that is the sort of gold soss of ketamine.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Not the dosing session.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Like, because clients can have no experience sometimes in those sessions, right,
and that can be disappointing for them, and then we
process that. But it's everything that follows that. It is
really has been really amazing to watch.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Wow, So who would you recommend? Who's this four?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
It's a great question, you know.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I think when ketamine first came out, or when you
see IV ketamine specifically, most often it's targeted and spravado
is the nasal form, the FDA nasal spray form of ketamine.
It's actually different model. It's esketamine versus racemic ketamine. Probably
could talk your ear off about all this cool scientific steff,
but that is specifically for treatment resistant depression. Typically, that's
(24:56):
what ketamine has been associated people who've tried multiple medication
for their depression without any avail, without symptom reduction. I
think it's like only two, but most of my clients
have probably tried five upward of five different medications. Oh yeah,
and you know when we look at complex PTSD, we're
(25:16):
looking at a ton of symptoms, right, and there is
no there is no medication for PTSD.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So that's how it's been marketed.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
But what I say, I really think kindamine can be
for lots of different things. I think it is good
for depression. I've seen it great for anxiety for PTSD,
but I also think it can be for people who
are just feeling stock and or want to do some.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
More self growth. Like I don't think people have to be.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
So struggling to access this type of treatment. Right, Maybe
you're doing well, but you're just feeling like you don't
know where to go with your life, or you've plateaued
in your therapy, right and you want to try something different.
So I think it could cut across a lots of like,
who could this be for? I think it can be
for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And what about who who is maybe is contraindicated for?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, so right now, contraindications typically are any sort of
active psychosis, right, or thought disorder. But it's interesting they're
still doing research, right, And it is hard because I
feel like a lot of people who have psychosists or
thought disorders are ruled out from every sort of treatment thereas.
And it's really sad because those people deserve the same
(26:33):
help as everyone else. But right now, that is tends
to be a big contraindication. There was some talk about
bipolar bipolar one because sometimes ketamine can trigger a manic episode,
but it seems like some of that has loosened up
a little bit. But I would say those would be
the two major things. And I would also say the
(26:56):
way that I'm doing ketamine so kindamine assisted psychotherapy with
subling well in my office, I would say, if someone's
like acutely suicidal, this is not going to be the
treatment we're going to go to first. We definitely want
to get someone stabilized first. While catamine and specifically kind
of meane infusions show about an eighty percent reduction in
suicidal ideations, I think doing it in the therapeutics like
(27:22):
container that I'm doing it in that would be too hard,
right because we want them to get the symptom reduction
first and then be able to do the therapy. So
I guess what I'm saying is, people who come to
kedemenis is a psychotherapy, we want them to have some
sort of baseline coping in place, because a lot of
things can come up in the session, and so we
(27:44):
don't want someone who's not resourced at all or has
any sort of support outside.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
That makes sense. So as we kind of wind down here, Jessica,
what do you think. One last question here, I mean,
what do you think you bring to this particular passion?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Hmm, say more about that? What I don't know?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Well, I mean it's obvious obvious. Look, it's clear you
have a passion for this work, for getting in there
and working with people who I've experienced some severe you know,
abuse people LGBTQ community. But what is it let me
(28:31):
rephrase the question, what does it take as a therapist
to work in this field of.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
KAP Yeah, I think it takes, Like I say, it's
not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I'll put it that way.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I got into this I had been already a therapist
for you know, over ten years before I started doing
this work. And I think that that's important. I think
you have to be able to hold a lot of
discomfort as a therapist and hold a lot of pain.
(29:06):
And I don't think a lot of times when we
first get out of graduate school, like I wasn't prepared
for that either, right, And so I think having so
much experience working with trauma and having that ability to
like sit in really hard, hard spaces with people and
hold them in that way had really prepared me to
(29:26):
do this work in ketamine, right, because a lot of
what comes up in ketamine can be super painful, but
also it can be super beautiful. And I want to
also let people know that it's not all like terrible
and hard. And you know, some of my clients it's
like a different experience for them to feel joy, right,
and like they're not used to that and what that
(29:48):
blissful feeling as well.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
So to me, I think in order to do this.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Work, you have to be a skilled therapist. You have
to be able to sort of roll and like be
able to to move on your feet, because the reality
with ketamine is sometimes you don't know what you're walking into.
I've had clients, like I said, hanging out there enjoying
themselves and it's all beautiful and then some I mean wailing, screaming,
(30:14):
crying with so much pain, right and because a lot
of times this is the first time they're able to
feel some of that because they've been so detached from themselves.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
All right, Tessica, how do people learn more about you
and journey so forth?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, can visit.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
You can just google me my name, you know, and
you should be able to find me pretty easily.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Routed.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Journey Wellness is my Kedemine practice. My other practice is
Middle Path Psychotherapy, which is more of my talk therapy practice.
But yeah, reach out to me there LinkedIn. I'm also
on social media, doctor Jessica Bunzo and yeah, and if
they want to learn about Journey Journey clinical a, get
(30:58):
another easy Google search and we'd love we'd love to
have you.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Awesome. We'll have that all that linked up here at
the STENTS page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com
or Jessica awesome, so inspiring. Love to have you back
at a later date and we'll be in touch.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Thank you, so all right, take care him
Welcome to the Trauma Theripists podcast. My name is gaming
Person and I interview incredible people who share the story
of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
and our sponsors. So five four three two one our folks,
(00:24):
welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
my guest today, Doctor Jessica Punzo.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Jessica, welcome, Hi, Thanks for having me awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Doctor Punzo is a licensed clinical psychologist and president of
the APA's Division on Trauma Psychology. She specializes in trauma
and PTSD and owns two practices, Middle Path Psychotherapy focused
on complex trauma and Rooted Journey Wellness where she provides
Kenmine assistant psychotherapy. Certified in psychedelic assisted therapy through the
(00:56):
Intricatives Psychiatry Institute, Doctor Punzo is passionate about educating both
clinicians and the public on the promise of psychedelic therapies,
and we're doing this interview in conjunction with one of
our sponsors, Journey Clinical, so I'm really excited to learn
more about that. But first off, I just got to say,
(01:17):
after reading a bio busy enough, damn.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yes. Yes. I have a hard time saying no to things.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I get super excited about things. I love what I do,
so when opportunities present them to me, I almost always
say yes, and then I have a very full schedule.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Awesome. So let's start if we can learn a little
bit about you, what got you into this field, and
then we'll segue into KAP kind of an assisted psychotherapy
and journey. So how did this start for you? How
did all this is passion begin?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Let me ask a clarifying question question about it? How
did I get into psychology in general? Or how did
I get in the eketymene world?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
First psychology trauma?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
And then we'll do Yes, that's a long journey.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So yeah, you know, I actually.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Started undergrad as a pre law major and really thought
I wanted to do be a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And so a little bit of a backstory.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Both of my parents are immigrants and so I'm first generation,
and I think there was a sort of unspoken uh rule,
might you say of that you know you're going to
do something. Yeah, so it was like doctor lawyer, that
was kind of I mean, they never said that to me,
(02:44):
and they never pressured me in any way, but it
was sort of just an unspoken expectation.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
They they left everything to come here, you know, and
made a life for themselves, so you know, and I'm
an only child, so I feel ahead of additional pressure
to make them proud. And so, like I said, I
was like, all right, I'll be a lawyer. So I
went pre law and quickly learned that that was not
for me. It was very boring and no offense to
(03:12):
the lawyers out there, but wasn't for me. Simultaneously, I
was taking an abnormal psychology class and it's just part
of like general education requirements, and I was like, wow,
this is like really interesting, really fascinating. And then I
learned you could be a doctor of psychology, and sort
of the rest was history. Finished, I changed my major
(03:33):
to psychology and a minor in biology and finished undergrad
and then went straight to graduate school at Adler and
got my side. And then initially when I was when
I first went to Adler, I thought I was going
to do neuroscience because I had the science.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
As my minor. I was really interested in biology and
the brain.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It was another field where I'm like I love this
and it's super interesting but not for me, right, I
really wanted to do therapy. I realized, like I love
talking to people, I loved helping people in that way,
and neuroscience was a little less personal for me, and
so I started taking more classes. And then I found
(04:14):
out that we had a trauma concentration in our school
and my mentor was the head of that program. And
so again sort of rest is history. I was on
my first internship and saw a very complex trauma case
and like fell in love with the work and fell
in love with the clients, and that was it. So
(04:34):
I went through the concentration, graduated, and here we are.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
That's I mean, just trauma's intense. Yeah, what you know,
you said you encountered a complex case. How what was
that like for you?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:55):
You know, I think and I still remember this client
like it was ya yesterday, right, And this was probably
twenty years ago at this point, And I think what
struck me is the depth of the work that was there, right,
that there was something that so terribly happened to this person,
and that they had had and this person in particular
(05:17):
had years worth like they were coming to me in
their sixties and had not and still had been dealing
with trauma symptoms since a child, and I just found
it so sad that they didn't have any help up
until that point, because they didn't have someone who knew
a lot about trauma.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And just the relationship.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
It's hard to kind of explain in words when you
work with trauma survivors, it's sort of an unspoken thing.
There's just a depth in the relationship and a specialness
about being able to be a safe place for people
that have historically been harmed by other people. So I
think that was sort of what drew me in, and
(05:56):
just being able to see them get to a place
where they could get better was so rewarding.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Did you feel scared at all? Was there hesitancy at all?
Was there a feeling like holy crap, but still you
wanted to walk into that.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yes, yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I mean I remember this client was probably highly, highly dissociative,
and at that point in time, I hadn't been experienced
like now, looking back, you know, I've heard so many things,
but at that point, the level of trauma that I
heard it was a lot. It was a lot for
a young therapist, and but you know, a lot of
(06:43):
people ask me, how do you do this? How do
you hold all that? And my answer is I don't
really know.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I just I just love the answer. It's it's I know,
it's so weird.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I just I feel called to that work, and I don't,
you know, like some people work with sex offenders and
I'm like, how do you do that? And They're like,
I don't know, I just do it. I think there's
a specialty for everyone. And this was what called me,
and so yes it was and it has been over
the years, like it has affected me personally, you know,
(07:14):
listening like you can't not Yeah, I mean, you're a
robot if it doesn't, right.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Okay, So you find your one, one of your multiple callings,
one of your passions. What happens after that? Do you
start you graduate and you start opening up your clinic
or what.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
So I did a two year fellowship at the VA
in San Diego, so when I had did my internship
out there in California as well, and so I was
mostly working with military sexual trauma in the VA, so
veterans who had been sexually abused while on active duty,
another population.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Very near to my heart.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
And you know, I in that space, you know, I
was living in California, but I'm from Chicago, and so
I knew I wanted to come back home and be
with my family. So I transitioned here. And at the time,
I don't think the VA here had any openings, so
just that wasn't an option, and so I started looking
(08:20):
at other jobs, and another one of my areas of
expertise is queer LGBTQ folks, And there was an opening
at the Center on Halstead, which is a large, major
health community health organization in the city, and the position
was for an anti violence director and so basically I
was able to do all of this free trauma therapy
(08:44):
for victims of violence who also identified as a queer
in some capacity. So I went and I got that position,
took that position, did that for a few years, and
then got pregnant and then decided, Okay, I don't know
if I can do full time anymore. I want to
spend time with my child, and then opened my practice
when he was like three months old, and I've been
(09:08):
there ever since.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
It's just interesting and fascinating to hear the specialties. I mean,
you've really kind of dived into these particular specialties, which
is very interesting to me, and all of which are
so demanding, not that being a general practitioner isn't. But
(09:29):
so let's talk about your interest in psychedelics. How did
that come about?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
So no surprise here my clients, I say, my clients
teach me so much, and over the years have taught
me so many things. I'm indebted to them. But I
actually had a client who was doing ketamine infusions. This
was probably prior to the pandemic, so maybe around twenty
eighteen twenty nineteen, and she was getting these infusions and
(09:57):
I was academy, and I was like, isn't that.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Like a horse tranquiliz Like, what what is happening?
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Like?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
At this point, I had heard nothing about psychedelicasist that therapy,
nothing about katamine. It was all very new to me
at that time. And she would come in and report
her experiences and I'm like, what, Wow, that sounds really interesting.
And so I said, you know, as as as I
as I I say, as a good therapist would do
(10:22):
uh sort of understand real life understanding of what that meant.
So I asked the provider that was working with her
if he would give me an infusion of kadamine.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
WHOA yeah, whoa in.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Terms of for an educational purpose, to understand what my
clients were experiencing in those moments. And he agreed, and
he felt that it was important that therapists working with
clients undergoing catamine infusions did understand that process to really
help them. So went in had an infusion and was like, whoa,
(10:55):
this is uh now I get it.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And then I kind of did a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
You cannot just gloss over that. What the hell? What
did you experience? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I mean I had a beautiful experience, you know, and
at that point I was extremely psychedelic naive, had never
you know, had never had a traditional psychedelic drug at
that point in time, and so I was so scared.
I was so nervous. But it also then gave me
that understanding of what clients feel going into that experience,
(11:31):
you know, and and knowing.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Let me just interrupt you here for s because you're
saying a lot of interesting things here. So you said
you were so scared, Yeah, and you were so nervous,
but you did it.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Wow, I have so much respect for you and admiration
for you. Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, So you do this?
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Was it in an office? Was it in Costa Rica? Somewhere.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, no, no, this was it was more metal base.
So typically ketamine infusion clinics will be more of a
medical model of ketamine tend to be a little more
sterile because right they're doing an IV and so at
that time, yeah, it was just a little little chair,
comfy chair he had. He hooked me up to the IV,
he gave me some music, put the headphones on, and
(12:20):
sort of off.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I went, what did you experience?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And this is this is why I did it, because
it's almost hard to describe, right, and this is where
it becomes challenging. You know, A lot of it was
feeling sort of very warm and like enveloped in like
a marshmallow. I had that sort of feeling almost like
probably like being back in the womb of some sort
of h space. And then there was just a lot
(12:48):
of nature, a lot of abstract like figures, shapes. I
had a lot of themes of like as tech Mayan
visions that came. It was a lot of randomness, but
all in all was like very cool.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
And how long did it last?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
That was probably about forty five minutes, like the the
extent of the journey, but usually you know, you get
about thirty minutes till it like comes on and then
you have this peak experience and then you're sort of
coming out. So from start to finish maybe two to
three hours.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And do you go in with an intention?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So at that time again no, at that time I know,
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
It was just to learn and to see, so it
was kind of more educational. But if I, you know,
after that having other experiences, would try to be more.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Intentional about that. But I didn't know what I was
walking into.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So you have that experience, what happens next? How do
things unfold?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, So after that I was like, oh, wow, this
is this is interesting. And I was seeing my clients
have a lot of like positive benefits from a depression
sort of antidepressional sort of effect from the ketamine. I
was like, Wow, this is this is cool. And then
I started doing a little research and found that you
could pair this with psychotherapy, and I said, oh, how
(14:16):
cool is that? And then I dug a little deeper
and was like, oh, yeah, they also do this with
psilocybin and other compounds like MDMA. And then I, again
digging a little deeper, saw that at that time MAPS
was in the process of clinical trials for MDMA for PTSD.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
And I was like, oh my god, like I do
PTSD work, You're something really cool.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Like I have to do this, And so I researched
a couple of programs that were offering certifications and ended
up choosing IPI And yeah, I finished that program last
year and it was wonderful. And now I'm doing CAP
in my office with my clients. It's so cool with
Journey Clinical.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So yeah, Now, for those who maybe who are listening
who aren't very familiar, how does ketamine differ from the
other psychedelic therapies out there.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, so there's a lot of different compounds, but ketamine
right now is a legal drug that is available medicine.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Is legal all in all states.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It is not a classic psychedelic like we would look
at psilocybin LSD. Those are your true psychedelic drugs, right versus,
Ketamine is technically classified as a dissociative anesthetic drug. So
it's routinely used in surgeries and in the er. A
lot of times they'll give people ketamine, even children, to maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Stitch up a wound. If a small child has a.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Wound, it kind of helps them to dissociate a little
bit so that they can work on the area that's affected.
And high high doses of ketamine, that's where we see
it being an anesthetic and people going to sleep. Sub
anesthetic doses is where we use it in the psychotherapy component.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Now, does that mean that the patient is not going
to experience the degree of psychedelic images that one might
experience on with psilocybin.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
It's different, right, because I think it depends on the person,
and some of my clients their journeys will be very
similar to what I've heard and experienced in psychedelics myself,
and then others will be just more of a dreamlike state,
more like my personal experience in psychedelics where it's more abstract.
(16:37):
But every client is so different. That's what I love
about ketamine. You kind of never know what you're going
to get when you get when you get into it.
So and the dose it's dose dependent too, right, So
higher doses we're going to see more dissociative qualities, potentially
more visuals, but some clients just don't report visuals.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
But they will feel like a more.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Somatic dissociation from the body, kind of what I mentioned
earlier with that hugging sort of feeling or yeah, all.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Right, let me just remind me what I'm speaking with,
doctor Jessica Punzo. We're talking about ketamine therapy, and now
let's get into your relationship with with Journey Clinical. How
did that come about?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
So after I was done with my training and IPI,
I was thinking, all right, now I've been trained in psilocybin,
MDMA and ketamine. I live in Illinois. The only thing
that's legal is ketamine. So that was the option I
knew I had to go. And actually in our IPI program,
they did mention Journey as a potential way to start
(17:41):
doing this work. And so, you know, after I was done,
I was trying to figure out, all right, how am.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I going to do this? How does this work? Right?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Because it's very similar to opening up like a therapy practice.
Now I'm opening a ketemine practice. I wasn't trained on
that per se, you know, so I was trying to
figure out all the logistics of that, how I was
going to charge, was I going to take insurance?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
What would that look like? All of this stuff?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And so technically you need a prescriber to prescribe the kedemine, right,
whether you're going to do.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
That, ivy.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
That can be a nurse practitioner too, anyone who can prescribe.
I mean, so typically it's either an MD or a
nurse practitioner, Okay. And so you know, I could have
partnered with, you know, someone in the community, even the
person that I who did the first infusion for me,
but it felt very isolating. It felt like I would
(18:34):
just I was there, like the only therapist doing this,
and I had no one to kind of talk to.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So I stumbled upon.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Journey because you know that MD's and they just administer
the medicine that they're not trained in keteminicisted psychotherapy, right,
So they have a very medical model way of doing that.
And I think people should know there is a difference
between ketamine infusions medical model versus kedeminicists and psychotherapy and
what we do in Journey clinical.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Because they're different, very different.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
And so stumbled upon Journey, And you know, I think
I ended up getting like a free free month from
a referral from another Some of the other people in
my cohort had signed up and were enjoying it, and
I signed up and taught. It's a whole community of
therapists doing this, right.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
So also in person online this is all virtual, all virtual.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, So Journey's platform is like a sort of online
platform that the whole point of it is they're connecting
therapists with prescribers. So the prescribers will do the medical
intake and prescribe the ketamine, but they will only do
that if.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
The client has a therapist.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
So this is also different than sort of our mail
home sort of ketamine subscriptions that are bordering on probably problematic,
where you just get ketamine shipped to your door and
you don't have to be doing any therapy.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Journey's motto is very strict.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
They will only prescribe in a therapeutic container, which is
something that I really appreciated.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So, for example, give us how an idea is how
this would work?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, so how it worked for me.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
The first client I ran through was one of my
long term clients, right, so someone I had been seeing
for at this point probably three or four years, right,
trauma survivor childhood sexual abuse. We had done a ton
of great work, but we're kind of getting to a
plateau which happens in therapy, right, and sometimes sure, you know,
(20:33):
you just you do a lot of work and you
kind of get stuck. And it wasn't that the client
again hadn't made progress or wasn't feeling good, but we were.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Kind of like, there's something else, we need to get
something else.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
So the client knew that I was doing this training
and was interested, and so I make the referral and
say the client said, I do want to do this,
I want to try this, and I make a referral.
She sees the Journey Clinical prescriber. They do a medical
intake to ensure, say for ketamine, make sure you know
everything's good from a medical perspective, and then they prescribe
(21:05):
her her prescription. Now, Journey Clinical use rapid dissolving tablets
of ketamine, so ketamine can be done intravenously, intramuscularly, intrnasally,
or sublingually.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So we at.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Journey use sublingual tablets. This way, the client can do
the journeying in the therapist's office, so we don't need a
medical person in the room for monitoring. The clients come,
they take their blood pressure before we make sure that's
in range. It has to be within a certain range
to proceed. Then the client will take the pills themselves
or the tablets. They let them dissolve in their mouth,
(21:42):
They swish it around, and then they spit it out,
and then they lay back on the couch and have
their experience, all while I'm sitting there sort of supporting them.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
How long are you setting aside for that experience?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's about a three hour session, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
And obviously well not obviously, but with a client with
the understanding that all everyone's different, is there more of
a intention set in this kind of setting?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Mm hm yes, So I should back up before we
even do. That's that's called the dosing session, that three
hour block. Before that, we have what are called two
preparation sessions. So in those preparation sessions, we're talking about
what is what can they expect when they take ketamine?
What is kind of meine, how does it affect the body?
So a little psycho education about ketamine. And then we
(22:36):
spend the second session all about expectation management and intention setting,
So we're very We spend a whole session just talking
about what are their intentions, what do they want to
get out of it, but also realizing what they want
to get out of it might not exactly be what
they get and how do we manage that?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well, that was I was thinking, does it even matter
if you set an intention?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I think it does matter, I do, I think.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
But what clients will realize was, and this has been
my experience personally, often what they want to come in
and work on is.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Not what comes up in the ketemine session.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
So I still think it's important to say, like, why
are we doing this right? And be grounded in that,
but be okay and be flexible with whatever presents itself
in the medicine session. And really the medicine session is
just one part of the work. The real work is
in the integration session. So the integration sessions happen within
(23:34):
usually twenty four to forty eight hours after.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
That dosing session.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
The reason that we do it in close proximity is
because ketamine is a neuroplastic agent, right, so it really
helps the brain be open to new sort of experiences
or thoughts, right, And so when we have a therapy
session after that, the client's brain is sort of open
in a.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Way that it hasn't been before.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
And that is the sort of gold soss of ketamine.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Not the dosing session.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Like, because clients can have no experience sometimes in those sessions, right,
and that can be disappointing for them, and then we
process that. But it's everything that follows that. It is
really has been really amazing to watch.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Wow, So who would you recommend? Who's this four?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
It's a great question, you know.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I think when ketamine first came out, or when you
see IV ketamine specifically, most often it's targeted and spravado
is the nasal form, the FDA nasal spray form of ketamine.
It's actually different model. It's esketamine versus racemic ketamine. Probably
could talk your ear off about all this cool scientific steff,
but that is specifically for treatment resistant depression. Typically, that's
(24:56):
what ketamine has been associated people who've tried multiple medication
for their depression without any avail, without symptom reduction. I
think it's like only two, but most of my clients
have probably tried five upward of five different medications. Oh yeah,
and you know when we look at complex PTSD, we're
(25:16):
looking at a ton of symptoms, right, and there is
no there is no medication for PTSD.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So that's how it's been marketed.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
But what I say, I really think kindamine can be
for lots of different things. I think it is good
for depression. I've seen it great for anxiety for PTSD,
but I also think it can be for people who
are just feeling stock and or want to do some.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
More self growth. Like I don't think people have to be.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
So struggling to access this type of treatment. Right, Maybe
you're doing well, but you're just feeling like you don't
know where to go with your life, or you've plateaued
in your therapy, right and you want to try something different.
So I think it could cut across a lots of like,
who could this be for? I think it can be
for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And what about who who is maybe is contraindicated for?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, so right now, contraindications typically are any sort of
active psychosis, right, or thought disorder. But it's interesting they're
still doing research, right, And it is hard because I
feel like a lot of people who have psychosists or
thought disorders are ruled out from every sort of treatment thereas.
And it's really sad because those people deserve the same
(26:33):
help as everyone else. But right now, that is tends
to be a big contraindication. There was some talk about
bipolar bipolar one because sometimes ketamine can trigger a manic episode,
but it seems like some of that has loosened up
a little bit. But I would say those would be
the two major things. And I would also say the
(26:56):
way that I'm doing ketamine so kindamine assisted psychotherapy with
subling well in my office, I would say, if someone's
like acutely suicidal, this is not going to be the
treatment we're going to go to first. We definitely want
to get someone stabilized first. While catamine and specifically kind
of meane infusions show about an eighty percent reduction in
suicidal ideations, I think doing it in the therapeutics like
(27:22):
container that I'm doing it in that would be too hard,
right because we want them to get the symptom reduction
first and then be able to do the therapy. So
I guess what I'm saying is, people who come to
kedemenis is a psychotherapy, we want them to have some
sort of baseline coping in place, because a lot of
things can come up in the session, and so we
(27:44):
don't want someone who's not resourced at all or has
any sort of support outside.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
That makes sense. So as we kind of wind down here, Jessica,
what do you think. One last question here, I mean,
what do you think you bring to this particular passion?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Hmm, say more about that? What I don't know?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Well, I mean it's obvious obvious. Look, it's clear you
have a passion for this work, for getting in there
and working with people who I've experienced some severe you know,
abuse people LGBTQ community. But what is it let me
(28:31):
rephrase the question, what does it take as a therapist
to work in this field of.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
KAP Yeah, I think it takes, Like I say, it's
not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I'll put it that way.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I got into this I had been already a therapist
for you know, over ten years before I started doing
this work. And I think that that's important. I think
you have to be able to hold a lot of
discomfort as a therapist and hold a lot of pain.
(29:06):
And I don't think a lot of times when we
first get out of graduate school, like I wasn't prepared
for that either, right, And so I think having so
much experience working with trauma and having that ability to
like sit in really hard, hard spaces with people and
hold them in that way had really prepared me to
(29:26):
do this work in ketamine, right, because a lot of
what comes up in ketamine can be super painful, but
also it can be super beautiful. And I want to
also let people know that it's not all like terrible
and hard. And you know, some of my clients it's
like a different experience for them to feel joy, right,
and like they're not used to that and what that
(29:48):
blissful feeling as well.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
So to me, I think in order to do this.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Work, you have to be a skilled therapist. You have
to be able to sort of roll and like be
able to to move on your feet, because the reality
with ketamine is sometimes you don't know what you're walking into.
I've had clients, like I said, hanging out there enjoying
themselves and it's all beautiful and then some I mean wailing, screaming,
(30:14):
crying with so much pain, right and because a lot
of times this is the first time they're able to
feel some of that because they've been so detached from themselves.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
All right, Tessica, how do people learn more about you
and journey so forth?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, can visit.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
You can just google me my name, you know, and
you should be able to find me pretty easily.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Routed.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Journey Wellness is my Kedemine practice. My other practice is
Middle Path Psychotherapy, which is more of my talk therapy practice.
But yeah, reach out to me there LinkedIn. I'm also
on social media, doctor Jessica Bunzo and yeah, and if
they want to learn about Journey Journey clinical a, get
(30:58):
another easy Google search and we'd love we'd love to
have you.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Awesome. We'll have that all that linked up here at
the STENTS page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com
or Jessica awesome, so inspiring. Love to have you back
at a later date and we'll be in touch.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Thank you, so all right, take care him
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.