January 10, 2025 • 19 mins
LET'S TALK ABOUT THE USE OF PSYCHEDELICS IN THERAPY I'm talking with Parad Meier, a somatic psychotherapist who uses cannabis and ketamine in her therapy practice now and who will be using psilocybin soon. We're going to find out what all that means and how this all works. If you want to connect with Parad, you can do so at her practice by clicking here.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are entering a whole new world in Colorado. I
actually maybe an ancient world, but we'll get more to.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
That in a moment.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
A whole new world in the sense we have now
decriminalized psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms,
and we are going to allow psilocybin or psychedelic assisted
therapy in Colorado. And I would like to know more
about this for two reasons. Number one, I learned a
lot from the legalization of marijuana, which started out as
(00:29):
a medicinal thing and now has turned into something much
much different. So I want to find out what's happening
right now with psychedelic assistant therapy, why it works or
if you know how it works, and they're therefore we
can begin to understand why this is happening in the
first place. And I brought someone on today. Her name
is Peradmeyer. She is with Beyond the Mind Psychotherapy and
(00:51):
she currently does psychedelica's assistant therapy that uses cannabis and ketamine,
and she is already in the training process to use
psilocybin parade. Has anybody been licensed yet? I know it
just rolled out what ten days ago, so no one's
actually been licensed for that as of yet.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Do you know?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
You know, my guess is not yet.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
I think it's possible people have applied, but I don't
think anyone's been approved yet.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Okay, I want to ask you first about your current
practice because you have two things I want to know about.
One of them is somatic body centered psychotherapy, and if
you could tell me what that is, because I fairly
recently learned about this and I think it sounds very interesting.
What is somatic body centered psychotherapy?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Great question, So somatic therapy, What that means is we
are coming with both a philosophy and you know, a
protocol or a strategy to work on trauma generally to
work on trauma through the body rather than through our
thoughts or through our behaviors. And so what that might
(01:53):
look like is tracking our body and in really particular ways,
capturing let's say a trigger or a symptom, and working
with it such that we can resolve it in the body.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I'm not sure I understood that to be perfectly like,
what do I look like in practice?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Can you give me a.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Trauma specific What that looks like is when a trauma
happens when somebody has a bad experience. What happens is
we get stuck, so our nervous system specifically will kind
of get stuff, let's say, in a freeze response, and
instead of kind of shaking it off and resolving it,
what happens is we create patterns around an understanding that
(02:36):
the world isn't safe in our body. And then we
might create thoughts about that, or we might have behaviors
around that, but essentially our body believes we're no longer safe.
And for people who end up with PTSD or complex
PTSD or kind of prolonged trauma responses, their bodies don't
(02:57):
know that they're safe anymore.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I actually this is gonna this probably sounds like ho
come to a lot of people, Okay, But I am
a huge proponent of recognizing the power that our brain
has over our body.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
That is a significant connection.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I struggled with fibromyalgia for two years before I was diagnosed,
and then once I started treating it like a stress
related illness, I went from being in horrible pain to
having no pain in like four days. So the mind
body connection, don't scoff at it, you guys. And the
reason I asked about somatic therapy is because I recently
talked to several people with persistent chronic PTS who said
(03:34):
somatic therapy is the thing that cured them and gave
them their lives back. And I had really never heard
of it. But let me talk today. I know we
were talking about psychedelic assistant therapy. Tell me about what
you're doing currently with ketamine and cannabis and how that
helps or assists in psychotherapy that we couldn't just get
through regular talk therapy.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Great question.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Yeah, So ketamine I probably will focus on that because
it's more within the realm of kind of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy.
It the way that I see it, in the way
that a lot of people see it, is that it
is a tool that is an adjunct to the therapy
somebody is already doing and it so ketamine is not
(04:18):
a psychedelic, right. Ketamine is actually dissociative anesthetic, but it
has allucinogenic properties. And what we're what we're learning with
ketamine and with psychedelics in general, is that they have
the potential to change our brains. Right, and this is
really a key critical factor. And so we're looking at
two things. When we add something like ketamine to a
(04:41):
therapy process. We're looking at changes in the brain, and
then we're also looking at changes in the way that.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
We perceive ourselves.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Our past, are, symptoms, are issues, whatever we're working on
from a different perspective and having an experience which helps
us see that so versus thinking our way.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Through a problem.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
If you've ingest ketamine or even psilocybin, you may have
an altered experience. But as far as changing your brain,
I was reading a couple studies, because there's not that
much research on this as of right now, but there
were a couple studies that showed that the changes, even
if the super positive changes, if they're not accompanied by
(05:22):
ongoing therapy or e MDR or some other form of therapy,
you tend to revert back to where you were in
the first place.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So it's not a permanent change, is it correct?
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Yeah, So it's this is why we're looking at adding
it to therapy. So there's so many cool things that
happen in the brain with psychedelics. One of the things
that happens is that with different psychedelic sceptances, ketamine included.
What the neuroscientists are saying are many things. Two of
(05:55):
the things I'm thinking of this moment.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Is it one these.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Psychedelics actually helped clean out our brains. They clean out
like the intracellular matrix, right, so the connectivity area in
our brains, so that we can remake more new connections,
so that in and of itself starts to help us
create changes in our lives that maybe thinking or talking
through like wasn't quite enough, right, But if we don't
(06:19):
then integrate those sessions, the things that we learned about
ourselves in let's say, academyine session and activate them in
our life, right, kind of move them forward, whether that's
a behavior or a way of being, or just kind
of an understanding about ourself.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
We're going to revert back. You know, there's some thinking
around you know.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
What I would say is the coolest thing about the
neuroscience that's coming out now is this idea of critical periods,
and a critical period is potential for new learning in
our brains that historically we've thought ends around puberty, but
we're finding with psychedelics is that different substances can reopen
critical pas, meaning that we can relearn or we can
(07:03):
learn new information for the.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
First time as adults.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
And so that's another reason that we want to keep
integration moving forward after a psychedelic experience of therapy is
that we have potential, right whether it's days or weeks,
to implement something new in our brands and then in
our lives.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Why is this different than just regular psychotherapy? Is it
for all the reasons you just said that the actual
changes to the brain. Is this appropriate for people that
either struggle to open up in therapy? I mean, how
I guess. I guess there's a lot of people out
there who say we should never legalize psychedelics in any way,
shape or form. But obviously you believe that they have
(07:47):
a useful usefulness in certain situations. What would those situations
be in your mind? Who would you recommend for this therapy?
Who would you say this is not right for?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Great?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, So the way that I think about, like why
why would.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I choose a client or why would somebody benefit from
this type of therapy? So psychedelics they accelerate the work
that somebody is already doing. That's the way that I
see it in my practice, and for somebody, let's say
that is suffering from trauma. That is my specialty and
what I work with the most. I'll use as an example.
They might be suffering day in and day out, right,
(08:22):
and they're doing the.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Therapy, they're showing up every week.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
We're working with all of these different really well known
strategies to create healing, and it's just slow. And so
psychedelics have the potential to accelerate that process. They also,
as you said, have the potential to help increase safety
in the room. They kind of take down our guard
a little bit and so we can get deeper, faster
(08:45):
FROs and comes to that, of course, right, because sometimes
that's too much for people, right, so we want to
make sure it's safe for them to do at that time.
The other thing is that there is this way in
which we know, right we come into therapy for trauma,
we're working on the trauma, we also have all these
mechanisms to avoid it, right, and so we spend all
this time trying to like, I want to work on this,
(09:06):
but actually that's too scary, and psychedelics can really help.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Us bypass that piece so that we can just get
to the point.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
It strips away the consciousness that prevents you from wanting
to deal with.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Whatever it is. That's right.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
So another kind of brain terminology we usialize this idea
of kind of bottom up processing versus top down. So
if we are thinking, if we're using our prefrontal cortexes
to process, we can also use our prefrontal cortexes to avoid,
versus if we're letting things come up naturally and getting
out of our own way, we can actually get to
(09:41):
the pieces of the work we need to get to
more efficiently.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Got a lot of questions from our text line for
parad Meyers. She is with Beyond the Mind Psychotherapy. She
is already doing psychedelic assistant psychotherapy. She uses cannabis and
ketamine in her practice, and we'll be adding psilocybin when
she's through the process of getting her training.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
And her license here in Colorado.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But several questions, Nandy, are your guest, somatic therapy are
all that experiences trauma?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Hm?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Not necessarily.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I have the beholder, and I mean that not flippantly.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I think some people are deeply affected by some things
that other people manage to sort of move past. I
really that feels like a very individualized question.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
That's right, Yeah, So, I mean the way we think
about trauma is it's not the event, it's the way
it impacts us.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
So it's going to be different for everybody.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
This one.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Somebody asked, what about microdosing, and people are microdosing now
for anxiety, But I mean, is that's not what we're
talking about in terms of what you're doing. That's a
completely different issue, and I'm guessing as a therapist you
may not be a super fan of that for people
just micronoucing their way through life.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Yeah, it's a really good question and it's something that's
really a hot topic in Colorado. So microdosing is the
idea of taking let's say psilocybin and taking it a
certain you know, protocol, a couple days in a row,
a couple of days off, but non perceptual. You're not
seeing anything, you're not feeling anything. It's just in your system, right.
It's almost like taking a supplement or a vitamin.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Versus you know.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Psychedelic dosing are the really big experiences people think of
all the time, and then in therapy we're actually aiming
for something in between. And so often people will call
it like a psycholytic dose, which means you feel the
impact of let's say the psilocybin. You know, you're high
on it. But you can also engage with a therapist
(11:40):
in therapy and do the therapy to process.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You're not going to see like you're in a dead
show looking at your hand for eight hours.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I mean, that's not what you're after here.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
This word you know, it might be, but not in
my office.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
As I figure, Hi, I've been doing therapy for over
ten years for one specific issue.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
It has never helped. I am open to trying this.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That sounds like the kind of part than that it
might benefit That's right, you.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Know when you ask this question before.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
The really cool thing that's happening right now is that
therapy is no longer just for people who are quote
unquote sick or mentally ill.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
And so there's this huge range.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Right, So for most people that I get in my
practice have that story. They've been doing talk therapy for
ten years, it hasn't worked. They come in, we try
something different, and it can be really profound. Other end
of that spectrum is like, you don't really have to
have a huge problem in your life to benefit from
this kind of therapy. Right.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
You might come in.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Here and say I just want to like, I don't know,
feel more authentic or engage with my partner in a
deeper way, right, or engage.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
With nature in a different way. Right. So this is
really kind of pushing the edge of what therapy can mean.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
You know, technically speaking, when we look at the research,
we're often looking at things like treatment resistant depression or PTSD.
Those are the biggies and the research, you know, OCD
is starting to show up.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
But what what is Are there mental health disorders that
are that this is not appropriate for sure?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yeah? I mean, you know, research might show us differently
later on as we progress, but currently, you know, if
you have let's say, schizophrenia, probably that's not going to
be a good fit. Certain types of bipolar might not
be a great fit. But we're the most part you know,
medications and medical history aside. It's it's got a lot
(13:30):
of potential with a lot of different conditions. And that's
one of the exciting things I.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Was going to ask you about medications next. If you
have someone who's already on an antidepressant or some other
form of medication, is there a concern about that contraindicating. Yes.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
So one of the things we're looking at kind of
statewide is having medical providers, you know, starting part of
that intake process to make sure that this is safe.
But the biggies are going to be any kind of
medication that has to do with serotonin could potentially be problematic.
Now that's different with ketamine, but for kind of the
classic psilocybin, psychedelics antidepressants don't generally go hand in hand.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
When you are are what is the research that we
do have?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
And I know there's not I mean newer research I
don't know about, but what does the research say so far?
What do you see that gives you hope that this
is the right way to go?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
You know, So neuroscience is great, obviously, I'm a proponent
of that. There's a there's a ton of good stuff
out there. Johns Hopkins is a great place to start.
They've done a lot on psilocybin. There's some great research
out in California about neuroscience. You know, things are pointing
to psychedelics, psilocybin.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Even you know, ketamine et cetera.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Are like they're opening new pathways to healing, new pathways
to like how can we do this differently? And for
the most part we are seeing success, sometimes great success.
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
The critique I would have is that research.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Is not really life right, and things look different in
the therapy room. So you know, if you're if you're
hearing like do three sessions and you're going to.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Heal your PTSD, I would argue that's not exactly how
it works outside the lab. But it is very, very
very promising.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Somebody just said this, and I'll give you a chance
to clarify this. You mean I don't have to have
a mental disorder to come trip in your office?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Sign me up. Do you have a process to.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Decide who becomes a patient and who does not?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Great question.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
It depends where you go, right, So in my office,
I do not accept insurance. I don't have to justify
any kind of diagnosis for care.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
So yeah, they could come on in. It could be okay.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
You know, personally, I tend to prioritize people that are
suffering because you know, they need it a little bit sooner.
But the truth is is I have a big range
of both who come in for ketamine currently one.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Last question or one last statement, And this is kind
of one of the things that I don't think I
need you to address. But one of the concerns a
lot of people, including me, have Mandy, I know a
couple of people who are microdosing for nights on the town,
so get ready for the abuse. By the way, they
get the doses from a friend with a prescription.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I hate to see the abuse.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And I want to talk to you about that aspect,
because in your office you can weed out someone who
would be a bad candidate. I mean, but we just
saw a teenager in Boulder climb a crane when he
was tripping on mushrooms and accidentally kill himself. So what
are your thoughts on that, knowing you use it therapeutically,
that you're going to be using it therapeutically, do you
(16:35):
have thoughts on how to either manage that or tamp
down people's fears of that becoming a bigger problem.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, I mean, if we're looking at addiction in general
and we just simmer it down to potential for addiction,
generally speaking, at least the classic psychedelics don't have a
whole lot of potential for addiction. Kena mean's a different story,
Keny Mean, he's kind of in the middle, right, You know,
it has potential for addiction. Most people that are using
ketamine recreationally and then develop a problem with it are
(17:08):
using it, let's say, you know, often snorting it.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
That's very different than what we would do in therapy.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Right, in therapy you have like a prescribed lozenge or
something like that. You know, we see the outliers here,
and often the outliers are people who are not considering
who they are, how they're doing, how stable or unstable
(17:35):
they are, what other substances they're taking, right, and maybe
like don't carefully take their psychedelics and hurt themselves, right,
But those are the outlier stories.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Paradmi are fascinating conversation and we chatted about this off
the air before you came on. But when will you
be what do you think roughly you'll be up and
running through the program, through the training with the state
and all of that stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Sure, so there's a handful of trainings for providers, and
in Colorado, what we're going to have is facilitators versus
clinical facilitators. So I'm in a clinical facilitating program in
Colorado that ends in May, and then I think it's
maybe fifty hours of supervision and a number of hours
of experience prior to getting licensed.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
But I do know, yeah, probably in the next year, I.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Have a lot of people on the text line that
are asking very specific questions about specific conditions. So what
I'm going to do, because we're out of time, I'm
going to I put a link to doctor Myer's website
so people can email you, they can contact you if
you have specific conditions. Please just reach out to her,
because I'm sure that every situation she's going to have
(18:45):
follow up questions that are going to need to be answered.
But very very interesting parad Thank you so much for
coming on and talking about this, and perhaps we'll have
you on again in seven or eight months to kind
of check in to see how the next stage is
going and if you're still happy with the developments here
in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
But I very much appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Awesome, Thank you so much for Mandy
We are entering a whole new world in Colorado. I
actually maybe an ancient world, but we'll get more to.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
That in a moment.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
A whole new world in the sense we have now
decriminalized psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms,
and we are going to allow psilocybin or psychedelic assisted
therapy in Colorado. And I would like to know more
about this for two reasons. Number one, I learned a
lot from the legalization of marijuana, which started out as
(00:29):
a medicinal thing and now has turned into something much
much different. So I want to find out what's happening
right now with psychedelic assistant therapy, why it works or
if you know how it works, and they're therefore we
can begin to understand why this is happening in the
first place. And I brought someone on today. Her name
is Peradmeyer. She is with Beyond the Mind Psychotherapy and
(00:51):
she currently does psychedelica's assistant therapy that uses cannabis and ketamine,
and she is already in the training process to use
psilocybin parade. Has anybody been licensed yet? I know it
just rolled out what ten days ago, so no one's
actually been licensed for that as of yet.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Do you know?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
You know, my guess is not yet.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
I think it's possible people have applied, but I don't
think anyone's been approved yet.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Okay, I want to ask you first about your current
practice because you have two things I want to know about.
One of them is somatic body centered psychotherapy, and if
you could tell me what that is, because I fairly
recently learned about this and I think it sounds very interesting.
What is somatic body centered psychotherapy?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Great question, So somatic therapy, What that means is we
are coming with both a philosophy and you know, a
protocol or a strategy to work on trauma generally to
work on trauma through the body rather than through our
thoughts or through our behaviors. And so what that might
(01:53):
look like is tracking our body and in really particular ways,
capturing let's say a trigger or a symptom, and working
with it such that we can resolve it in the body.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I'm not sure I understood that to be perfectly like,
what do I look like in practice?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Can you give me a.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Trauma specific What that looks like is when a trauma
happens when somebody has a bad experience. What happens is
we get stuck, so our nervous system specifically will kind
of get stuff, let's say, in a freeze response, and
instead of kind of shaking it off and resolving it,
what happens is we create patterns around an understanding that
(02:36):
the world isn't safe in our body. And then we
might create thoughts about that, or we might have behaviors
around that, but essentially our body believes we're no longer safe.
And for people who end up with PTSD or complex
PTSD or kind of prolonged trauma responses, their bodies don't
(02:57):
know that they're safe anymore.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I actually this is gonna this probably sounds like ho
come to a lot of people, Okay, But I am
a huge proponent of recognizing the power that our brain
has over our body.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
That is a significant connection.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I struggled with fibromyalgia for two years before I was diagnosed,
and then once I started treating it like a stress
related illness, I went from being in horrible pain to
having no pain in like four days. So the mind
body connection, don't scoff at it, you guys. And the
reason I asked about somatic therapy is because I recently
talked to several people with persistent chronic PTS who said
(03:34):
somatic therapy is the thing that cured them and gave
them their lives back. And I had really never heard
of it. But let me talk today. I know we
were talking about psychedelic assistant therapy. Tell me about what
you're doing currently with ketamine and cannabis and how that
helps or assists in psychotherapy that we couldn't just get
through regular talk therapy.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Great question.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Yeah, So ketamine I probably will focus on that because
it's more within the realm of kind of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy.
It the way that I see it, in the way
that a lot of people see it, is that it
is a tool that is an adjunct to the therapy
somebody is already doing and it so ketamine is not
(04:18):
a psychedelic, right. Ketamine is actually dissociative anesthetic, but it
has allucinogenic properties. And what we're what we're learning with
ketamine and with psychedelics in general, is that they have
the potential to change our brains. Right, and this is
really a key critical factor. And so we're looking at
two things. When we add something like ketamine to a
(04:41):
therapy process. We're looking at changes in the brain, and
then we're also looking at changes in the way that.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
We perceive ourselves.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Our past, are, symptoms, are issues, whatever we're working on
from a different perspective and having an experience which helps
us see that so versus thinking our way.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Through a problem.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
If you've ingest ketamine or even psilocybin, you may have
an altered experience. But as far as changing your brain,
I was reading a couple studies, because there's not that
much research on this as of right now, but there
were a couple studies that showed that the changes, even
if the super positive changes, if they're not accompanied by
(05:22):
ongoing therapy or e MDR or some other form of therapy,
you tend to revert back to where you were in
the first place.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So it's not a permanent change, is it correct?
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Yeah, So it's this is why we're looking at adding
it to therapy. So there's so many cool things that
happen in the brain with psychedelics. One of the things
that happens is that with different psychedelic sceptances, ketamine included.
What the neuroscientists are saying are many things. Two of
(05:55):
the things I'm thinking of this moment.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Is it one these.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Psychedelics actually helped clean out our brains. They clean out
like the intracellular matrix, right, so the connectivity area in
our brains, so that we can remake more new connections,
so that in and of itself starts to help us
create changes in our lives that maybe thinking or talking
through like wasn't quite enough, right, But if we don't
(06:19):
then integrate those sessions, the things that we learned about
ourselves in let's say, academyine session and activate them in
our life, right, kind of move them forward, whether that's
a behavior or a way of being, or just kind
of an understanding about ourself.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
We're going to revert back. You know, there's some thinking
around you know.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
What I would say is the coolest thing about the
neuroscience that's coming out now is this idea of critical periods,
and a critical period is potential for new learning in
our brains that historically we've thought ends around puberty, but
we're finding with psychedelics is that different substances can reopen
critical pas, meaning that we can relearn or we can
(07:03):
learn new information for the.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
First time as adults.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
And so that's another reason that we want to keep
integration moving forward after a psychedelic experience of therapy is
that we have potential, right whether it's days or weeks,
to implement something new in our brands and then in
our lives.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Why is this different than just regular psychotherapy? Is it
for all the reasons you just said that the actual
changes to the brain. Is this appropriate for people that
either struggle to open up in therapy? I mean, how
I guess. I guess there's a lot of people out
there who say we should never legalize psychedelics in any way,
shape or form. But obviously you believe that they have
(07:47):
a useful usefulness in certain situations. What would those situations
be in your mind? Who would you recommend for this therapy?
Who would you say this is not right for?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Great?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, So the way that I think about, like why
why would.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I choose a client or why would somebody benefit from
this type of therapy? So psychedelics they accelerate the work
that somebody is already doing. That's the way that I
see it in my practice, and for somebody, let's say
that is suffering from trauma. That is my specialty and
what I work with the most. I'll use as an example.
They might be suffering day in and day out, right,
(08:22):
and they're doing the.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Therapy, they're showing up every week.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
We're working with all of these different really well known
strategies to create healing, and it's just slow. And so
psychedelics have the potential to accelerate that process. They also,
as you said, have the potential to help increase safety
in the room. They kind of take down our guard
a little bit and so we can get deeper, faster
(08:45):
FROs and comes to that, of course, right, because sometimes
that's too much for people, right, so we want to
make sure it's safe for them to do at that time.
The other thing is that there is this way in
which we know, right we come into therapy for trauma,
we're working on the trauma, we also have all these
mechanisms to avoid it, right, and so we spend all
this time trying to like, I want to work on this,
(09:06):
but actually that's too scary, and psychedelics can really help.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Us bypass that piece so that we can just get
to the point.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
It strips away the consciousness that prevents you from wanting
to deal with.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Whatever it is. That's right.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
So another kind of brain terminology we usialize this idea
of kind of bottom up processing versus top down. So
if we are thinking, if we're using our prefrontal cortexes
to process, we can also use our prefrontal cortexes to avoid,
versus if we're letting things come up naturally and getting
out of our own way, we can actually get to
(09:41):
the pieces of the work we need to get to
more efficiently.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Got a lot of questions from our text line for
parad Meyers. She is with Beyond the Mind Psychotherapy. She
is already doing psychedelic assistant psychotherapy. She uses cannabis and
ketamine in her practice, and we'll be adding psilocybin when
she's through the process of getting her training.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
And her license here in Colorado.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But several questions, Nandy, are your guest, somatic therapy are
all that experiences trauma?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Hm?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Not necessarily.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I have the beholder, and I mean that not flippantly.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I think some people are deeply affected by some things
that other people manage to sort of move past. I
really that feels like a very individualized question.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
That's right, Yeah, So, I mean the way we think
about trauma is it's not the event, it's the way
it impacts us.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
So it's going to be different for everybody.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
This one.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Somebody asked, what about microdosing, and people are microdosing now
for anxiety, But I mean, is that's not what we're
talking about in terms of what you're doing. That's a
completely different issue, and I'm guessing as a therapist you
may not be a super fan of that for people
just micronoucing their way through life.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Yeah, it's a really good question and it's something that's
really a hot topic in Colorado. So microdosing is the
idea of taking let's say psilocybin and taking it a
certain you know, protocol, a couple days in a row,
a couple of days off, but non perceptual. You're not
seeing anything, you're not feeling anything. It's just in your system, right.
It's almost like taking a supplement or a vitamin.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Versus you know.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Psychedelic dosing are the really big experiences people think of
all the time, and then in therapy we're actually aiming
for something in between. And so often people will call
it like a psycholytic dose, which means you feel the
impact of let's say the psilocybin. You know, you're high
on it. But you can also engage with a therapist
(11:40):
in therapy and do the therapy to process.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You're not going to see like you're in a dead
show looking at your hand for eight hours.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I mean, that's not what you're after here.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
This word you know, it might be, but not in
my office.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
As I figure, Hi, I've been doing therapy for over
ten years for one specific issue.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
It has never helped. I am open to trying this.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That sounds like the kind of part than that it
might benefit That's right, you.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Know when you ask this question before.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
The really cool thing that's happening right now is that
therapy is no longer just for people who are quote
unquote sick or mentally ill.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
And so there's this huge range.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Right, So for most people that I get in my
practice have that story. They've been doing talk therapy for
ten years, it hasn't worked. They come in, we try
something different, and it can be really profound. Other end
of that spectrum is like, you don't really have to
have a huge problem in your life to benefit from
this kind of therapy. Right.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
You might come in.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Here and say I just want to like, I don't know,
feel more authentic or engage with my partner in a
deeper way, right, or engage.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
With nature in a different way. Right. So this is
really kind of pushing the edge of what therapy can mean.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
You know, technically speaking, when we look at the research,
we're often looking at things like treatment resistant depression or PTSD.
Those are the biggies and the research, you know, OCD
is starting to show up.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
But what what is Are there mental health disorders that
are that this is not appropriate for sure?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yeah? I mean, you know, research might show us differently
later on as we progress, but currently, you know, if
you have let's say, schizophrenia, probably that's not going to
be a good fit. Certain types of bipolar might not
be a great fit. But we're the most part you know,
medications and medical history aside. It's it's got a lot
(13:30):
of potential with a lot of different conditions. And that's
one of the exciting things I.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Was going to ask you about medications next. If you
have someone who's already on an antidepressant or some other
form of medication, is there a concern about that contraindicating. Yes.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
So one of the things we're looking at kind of
statewide is having medical providers, you know, starting part of
that intake process to make sure that this is safe.
But the biggies are going to be any kind of
medication that has to do with serotonin could potentially be problematic.
Now that's different with ketamine, but for kind of the
classic psilocybin, psychedelics antidepressants don't generally go hand in hand.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
When you are are what is the research that we
do have?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
And I know there's not I mean newer research I
don't know about, but what does the research say so far?
What do you see that gives you hope that this
is the right way to go?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
You know, So neuroscience is great, obviously, I'm a proponent
of that. There's a there's a ton of good stuff
out there. Johns Hopkins is a great place to start.
They've done a lot on psilocybin. There's some great research
out in California about neuroscience. You know, things are pointing
to psychedelics, psilocybin.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Even you know, ketamine et cetera.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Are like they're opening new pathways to healing, new pathways
to like how can we do this differently? And for
the most part we are seeing success, sometimes great success.
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
The critique I would have is that research.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Is not really life right, and things look different in
the therapy room. So you know, if you're if you're
hearing like do three sessions and you're going to.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Heal your PTSD, I would argue that's not exactly how
it works outside the lab. But it is very, very
very promising.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Somebody just said this, and I'll give you a chance
to clarify this. You mean I don't have to have
a mental disorder to come trip in your office?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Sign me up. Do you have a process to.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Decide who becomes a patient and who does not?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Great question.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
It depends where you go, right, So in my office,
I do not accept insurance. I don't have to justify
any kind of diagnosis for care.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
So yeah, they could come on in. It could be okay.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
You know, personally, I tend to prioritize people that are
suffering because you know, they need it a little bit sooner.
But the truth is is I have a big range
of both who come in for ketamine currently one.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Last question or one last statement, And this is kind
of one of the things that I don't think I
need you to address. But one of the concerns a
lot of people, including me, have Mandy, I know a
couple of people who are microdosing for nights on the town,
so get ready for the abuse. By the way, they
get the doses from a friend with a prescription.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I hate to see the abuse.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And I want to talk to you about that aspect,
because in your office you can weed out someone who
would be a bad candidate. I mean, but we just
saw a teenager in Boulder climb a crane when he
was tripping on mushrooms and accidentally kill himself. So what
are your thoughts on that, knowing you use it therapeutically,
that you're going to be using it therapeutically, do you
(16:35):
have thoughts on how to either manage that or tamp
down people's fears of that becoming a bigger problem.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, I mean, if we're looking at addiction in general
and we just simmer it down to potential for addiction,
generally speaking, at least the classic psychedelics don't have a
whole lot of potential for addiction. Kena mean's a different story,
Keny Mean, he's kind of in the middle, right, You know,
it has potential for addiction. Most people that are using
ketamine recreationally and then develop a problem with it are
(17:08):
using it, let's say, you know, often snorting it.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
That's very different than what we would do in therapy.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Right, in therapy you have like a prescribed lozenge or
something like that. You know, we see the outliers here,
and often the outliers are people who are not considering
who they are, how they're doing, how stable or unstable
(17:35):
they are, what other substances they're taking, right, and maybe
like don't carefully take their psychedelics and hurt themselves, right,
But those are the outlier stories.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Paradmi are fascinating conversation and we chatted about this off
the air before you came on. But when will you
be what do you think roughly you'll be up and
running through the program, through the training with the state
and all of that stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Sure, so there's a handful of trainings for providers, and
in Colorado, what we're going to have is facilitators versus
clinical facilitators. So I'm in a clinical facilitating program in
Colorado that ends in May, and then I think it's
maybe fifty hours of supervision and a number of hours
of experience prior to getting licensed.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
But I do know, yeah, probably in the next year, I.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Have a lot of people on the text line that
are asking very specific questions about specific conditions. So what
I'm going to do, because we're out of time, I'm
going to I put a link to doctor Myer's website
so people can email you, they can contact you if
you have specific conditions. Please just reach out to her,
because I'm sure that every situation she's going to have
(18:45):
follow up questions that are going to need to be answered.
But very very interesting parad Thank you so much for
coming on and talking about this, and perhaps we'll have
you on again in seven or eight months to kind
of check in to see how the next stage is
going and if you're still happy with the developments here
in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
But I very much appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Awesome, Thank you so much for Mandy
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.