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Simon Yugler: Psychedelics and the Soul
239 Plays1 month ago
Simon Yugler is a depth psychotherapist, psychedelic educator, and author of Psychedelics and the Soul: A Mythic Guide to Psychedelic Healing, Depth Psychology, and Cultural Repair (North Atlantic Books, 2024). With a master’s in depth counseling psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, he’s taught in leading psychedelic training programs including CIIS, Naropa University, and Inner Trek.
Drawing from Jungian psychology, mythology, and Internal Family Systems, Simon helps facilitators, therapists, and healers reconnect to the liminal wilds of the soul. His work is shaped by years of anthropological research and learning from Indigenous traditions around the world, including the Shipibo ayahuasca lineage and the Native American Church.
We explore:
· Simon’s connection to Australia
· Indigenous perspectives in psychedelics,
· Psychedelic culture in Oregon
· Depth psychology and psychedelics
· Simons new book psychedelics and the soul
· Training in psychedelic therapy and its challenges
· Therapist burnout
· Cultural healing and psychedelics
Reading list
Simon Yugler: Psychedelics and the Soul https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204639597-psychedelics-and-the-soul
Joseph Campbell : https://www.jcf.org/
Michael Meade: https://www.mosaicvoices.org/
Robert Bly: https://www.robertbly.com/
https://www.amazon.com.au/Women-Who-Run-Wolves-Archetype/dp/0345409876
https://www.bps.org.uk/member-networks/division-clinical-psychology/power-threat-meaning-framework
Keep in touch with me at
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeyondtheTrippodcast
Insta: dresmedark
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-esme-dark-627156a0/
Website: https://www.esmedarkpsychology.com.au/
Find Simon at: https://www.simonyugler.com/about
Find Monash Clinical Psychedelic Lab at www.monash.edu/psychedelics
Disclaimer: This Podcast is for general information only and does noy constitute an endorsement or recommendation for psychedelic assisted psychotherapy
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Beyond the Trip'
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Beyond the Trip, a psychedelic therapy podcast with me, Dr. Esme Dark. During this podcast, I'll be bringing you conversations with thought leaders and other inspiring humans, exploring a wide variety of themes relating to the use of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in the healing of human distress.
00:00:27
Speaker
Whether you're an aspiring therapist, already a therapist, or just simply interested in the emerging field of psychedelic therapy, then this podcast is for you.
Acknowledgment of Land and Guest Introduction
00:00:38
Speaker
Join me for a journey into the psychedelic world.
00:00:43
Speaker
Before we get started, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the unceded land on which this podcast is recorded, the Wadawurrung people. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.
00:00:57
Speaker
And I extend that respect to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today.
00:01:04
Speaker
Hi everybody and welcome to this episode of Beyond the Trip. I'm delighted to be joined by Simon Yugler. who is a depth psychologist, a psychedelic educator, and author of Psychedelics and the Soul, a mythic guide to psychedelic healing, depth psychology, and cultural repair.
00:01:27
Speaker
With a master's in depth counselling psychology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute, he has taught in leading psychedelic training programs all across the US, including Europa University and Inner Trek.
Simon's Background and Influences
00:01:44
Speaker
Drawing from Jungian psychology, mythology, and internal family systems, Simon helps facilitators, therapists, and healers reconnect with the liminal wilds of the soul.
00:01:57
Speaker
His work is shaped by years of anthropological research and learning from indigenous traditions all around the world, including the LaChibo Ayahuasca lineage and the Native American church.
00:02:10
Speaker
In this podcast, we get into all kinds of themes. We explore Simon's connection to Australia. um He has spent some time here, and so we did get into that at the beginning of the episode.
00:02:23
Speaker
We talk about Indigenous perspectives in psychedelics, the psychedelic culture in Oregon, where he lives, and how that's different from the psychedelic therapy work that's happening here.
Challenges in Psychedelic Therapy
00:02:34
Speaker
And then where it's similar to, we talk about depth psychology and psychedelics, something that is a big interest of mine. Of course, we get into plenty of things around his new book.
00:02:45
Speaker
We talk about the challenges of training psychedelic therapists and the importance of that. We talk about therapist burnout, also something very close to my heart, as regular listeners will know.
00:02:57
Speaker
And we also talk about the important piece that is at the end of the title of his book, Cultural Healing, and how psychedelics may be able to help us with this. I loved talking to Simon, and i i can't wait to share this episode with you. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording this.
00:03:17
Speaker
hey welcome, Simon, to Beyond the Trip podcast. Thank you, Esme. Yeah, it's it's great to be here. And, you know, I've been so excited about this conversation, which has been in the works a little bit for a while.
00:03:32
Speaker
I am first came across you and your work through another podcast, actually, that someone sent to me when i was prepping for podcast.
00:03:44
Speaker
workshop that I was running around deepening psychedelic therapy with somatics and metaphor at a conference. And so someone sent me, I think it was the one you did on psychedelics today, hi which was awesome conversation.
Cultural Connection and Experiences in Australia
00:03:57
Speaker
And, and then I realized that you were doing a course and it just so happened that your course that you're running happened to be running at the exact time that I have space to actually attend live.
00:04:07
Speaker
And so that was really amazing. So thank you so much. And it was the the course on mythopoietic integration. And so really, really excited to have you here to talk about some of these ideas on the podcast. Thank you so much.
00:04:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It was great having you in the course and I'm so glad it could could work with with your schedule and all the way in Australia. i know. What are the chances? you know I don't have a huge amount of space in there, so I think it was meant to be on some level. Yeah. I think so too.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and And so you actually have a connection to Australia that goes back a long way. and early in your career, am I right that you did some work with Indigenous Australians and you spent some time here?
00:04:51
Speaker
i think the listeners would love to hear a little bit about that. and Yeah, sure. Well, like I said a moment ago to you um before we started recording, you know, it's a part of my life that I don't really get to talk about a lot. You know, I was um in university studying anthropology, was 20 years old and applied for and received a grant for undergraduate education.
00:05:16
Speaker
independent research and um wanted to go to Australia to essentially study the roots of the didgeridoo, or as it's called up in Arnhem Land, the Yiraki.
00:05:30
Speaker
yeah And um I'd been playing that, you know, for seven or eight years, you know, and um, found my way to a community that I think a lot of Australians would know called Yerkala.
00:05:45
Speaker
Um, and Yerkala is, kind of up in the North Eastern corner of the Northern territory in far North Eastern Arnhem land. And it's, it's known because it's actually the hometown of the band Yotu Yindi, um, the famous Aboriginal rock band.
00:06:03
Speaker
Uh, and I got to know a lot of those guys when I was up there, but, um Yeah, I mean, long story short, you know, I i kind of turned it into ah a little bit of my own, like, personal walkabout, we could say, and started where you're at and in Victoria.
00:06:21
Speaker
and made it all the way um north across the middle of the continent, taking the train and stopping in Alice Springs for a couple weeks and ah connecting with a lot of, I would say, like more like urban Aboriginal youth yeah there in Alice, which is like a really vibrant and also very charged a place we come his place. Yeah, place. Yeah, for sure. But I loved it. I really loved it.
00:06:51
Speaker
And um then made my way to Darwin and was in Darwin for a while, which is where a lot of Yolong'u people from Arnhem Land kind of end up if they want to leave their communities or are rather forced to leave their communities, which is usually more of what happens. um yeah And so had a time in Darwin and eventually took a little plane into Yerkala, into Arnhem Land and Was there for about a month and um went to a lot of ceremonies, gatherings. um
00:07:27
Speaker
I was fortunate enough to connect with a nonprofit called ARDS, A-R-D-S, or the Aboriginal Research and Development Services, um which does a lot of collaborative development development work with um homeland communities and outstate outposts, station I can't remember what they're called, outstations and here yeah also in Yarkala. And, um,
00:07:52
Speaker
and was also fortunate enough to get to a place called Elko Island off of the northern coast
Cultural Narratives in Therapy
00:07:58
Speaker
of Arnhem Land, which is a really special community and and place. and um And then I would say the sort of big grand finale of that trip was going to the Garma Festival, which I don't think happens anymore, but was a festival that was put on by the Yotu Yindi mob, basically.
00:08:19
Speaker
And John Butler came and all these other people came. Some of the cast members I remember from 10 Canoes showed up. And I was looking at one of these guys and I was like, why do I know this person? What about this? And I just couldn't get it out of mind. was like, oh my God, he's the star of 10 Canoes. and Wild.
00:08:42
Speaker
And so, yeah, it was just an amazing time. uh, Yeah, I was lucky enough to get back to Australia back in like 2017. um and was leading a study abroad group for a bunch of young you know American kids. But that was mostly on the East Coast and Queensland and a bit in Alice Springs. So love Australia. It's very deep in my in my heart. Yeah.
00:09:13
Speaker
Oh, that's beautiful. Wow. What an amazing thing to have done and amazing places to have visited that a lot of Australians probably have never, know, have never been to. I went up to Arnhem Land quite a few years ago now. i and that there's something very special about that land.
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah. And also... you know there's ah you know I had an iPad on the podcast. Have you have you met, you know those that crew? So i I think Bianca Seven and Gemstone. Oh, yeah, of course. I totally do. I've met Bianca. Bianca's lovely.
00:09:51
Speaker
yeah Yeah, so they're really i'm looking at ways to kind of bring more Indigenous thinking and representation into the psychedelic space in Australia, which was really awesome and so important.
00:10:04
Speaker
and you And on that note, like that' obviously this was a ah while ago, guessing. Yeah, it was in 2009. two thousand and nine Yeah, so pretty early on.
00:10:15
Speaker
and And now here you are kind of writing your new book about psychedelics and and the mythopoetic lens of psychedelics. And I'm wondering, i mean, this is probably a big question, but how how do you do you feel like that time in your life has informed this time?
00:10:31
Speaker
And if so, how? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I've realized actually recently that kind of an anthropological lens on the world is actually even deeper for me than psychological lens or a mythopoetic lens or a psychedelic lens, whatever.
00:10:55
Speaker
To me, it's all actually like grounded in anthropology, which really just means grounded in looking at culture. and um And I think when we kind of,
00:11:09
Speaker
think about ourselves or I'll just make it personal. When I think about myself as like a modern Western person in our modern Western culture, you know, there's a lot of, I would say, cultural questions and sort of like head scratching predicaments where it's like, what is going on?
00:11:31
Speaker
Like, how did we get here? How did, what, like, how did we become, this especially where I live in the States, it's like, wait, what is going on?
00:11:42
Speaker
ah So, so to me, these are questions of both, you know, psychology and culture. Yeah. And it's why the sort of third question, phrase in the subtitle of my book is cultural repair, you know, a mythic guide to psychedelic healing, depth psychology, and cultural repair.
Psychedelic Models: Oregon vs. Australia
00:12:03
Speaker
And it's because of that anthropological through line that has really, you know, um taken me to many different cultures and places, you know, Arnhem Land being sort of the first one that I went to, you know, but that journey really continued for, for most of my twenties and has really shaped me into who I am and like what provided so many like, um, profound, weird experiences that really kind of called into question,
00:12:43
Speaker
you know, my own cultural norms and cultural narratives and ways of looking at the world and ways of understanding what is quote real and uh yeah experiences that I still can't explain in some of these places yeah yeah yeah and you you talk about kind of the traveling through into different cultures quite a lot in your book actually actually don't you so maybe you can just for the listeners like say a little bit about your your book and why you decided to bring it into the world at this particular time um you're in
00:13:15
Speaker
the U.S. Whereabouts are you exactly too? Because I think people will be interested to hear that. Yeah, I live in Oregon, and yeah in in Portland primarily. And Oregon is unique, not just because we have like a sort of, I would say, deep psychedelic culture. I mean, the West Coast of the U.S.,
00:13:34
Speaker
in general has a pretty deep psychedelic culture, but Oregon especially. It's where a lot of hippies fled to when San Francisco became a little too hectic in the late 60s.
00:13:44
Speaker
yeah So, you know, there's an old hippie culture here, but also Oregon was the first state in the country to um pass a bill for legal psilocybin facilitation, um where there's now a state-regulated training system, state-regulated growing system for cultivating psychedelic mushrooms, testing, um approving facilitators, et cetera.
00:14:15
Speaker
And I've been working in that pretty much since the beginning as a teacher, ah primarily, of facilitators. And... um Yeah, it's not perfect by any means, but it's the first iteration of this in in the States, which is is saying a lot.
00:14:35
Speaker
So... Yeah, and actually um i think this is really important like what you just spoke about because one of the reasons i' so excited to have you on the podcast is that we're both working in this field in different countries with very different frames and legal frames and also kind of the way in which it's been rescheduled here is very different to Oregon.
00:14:57
Speaker
And so I'm excited to kind of see, to talk about that with you and those differences and those tensions that are here in the field because Here in Australia, it's you know we people listening probably know, but we've rescheduled it in a very medical model so that psychiatrists have to prescribe, they're the authorized prescriber, and it's tied into met two different diagnoses. So cell-cybid assisted psychotherapy has been made possible but to be used and for depression, treatment-resistant depression only at the moment, and then MDMA assisted psychotherapy for PTSD.
00:15:34
Speaker
And so there's so much I could say on that and I'm sure we're going to get into it, but there is an inherent tension for me in that tying it into the medical model that i think is going to be really interesting for us to explore in a few different ways.
00:15:49
Speaker
who Yeah. And it's almost kind of the, it's almost sort of the polar opposite of what we're doing here. Yeah. Which is a very, i would say, even though it is in some regards highly regulated, yeah it's still kind of like anyone can...
00:16:06
Speaker
walk into a service center and ask for mushrooms, um you know, with a few criteria of of exclusion, you know, not much though.
00:16:17
Speaker
And anyone also can sort of throw their name into the hat to become a facilitator with a license from the state, yeah you know, ah without a whole lot of qualifications. Yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
And do they have to have done training, like the trainings? you work on a lot different trainings, don't they? Don't you? So do they have to have done that to get a license to use it? Yeah. They need to have gone through state-approved psilocybin facilitator training program.
00:16:47
Speaker
I work for one ah called InterTREC, which has sort of been around from the beginning and i would say is like sort of the leading training at this
Simon's Book: 'Psychedelics and the Soul'
00:16:56
Speaker
point. um There was a lot that popped up in the beginning and then kind of a huge sort of die back.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah. You know, yeah very like much like a natural sort of boom and bust situation. But yeah, we're one of the remaining few. um There are other programs out there, you know, still still doing things. But yeah.
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know how much you want me to get into the weeds with what's going on here, you know, but I could talk your ear off about it. Yeah, yeah. And i have I have some thoughts. I have some thoughts about it for sure. so Yeah, let's let's do that in a moment. i don't I think I would like to, and I have lots of thoughts about here too and what's...
00:17:38
Speaker
and uh transpiring and the pros and the cons and the challenges um but actually do i'd love you to just share a little bit about your book so that people are kind of orientated to that um and tell us a little bit about the book about why you brought it out at this particular time in the field of psychedelics too i'm if that feels like okay Absolutely. Yeah.
00:18:02
Speaker
um My book is called Psychedelics and the Soul, ah Mythic Guide to Psychedelic Healing, Depth Psychology, and Cultural Repair. um Yeah. It's published by North Atlantic Books.
00:18:15
Speaker
You can get it anywhere you like. um it's It's a book about the psychedelic experience and its parallels to...
00:18:28
Speaker
um what we could call a mythopoetic understanding of life, which really just means making meaning out of story. Yeah, in film.
00:18:41
Speaker
So there are 10 chapters in the book, and each chapter is named after a particular archetype that I feel like has something to do with the psychedelic experience or psychedelic work.
00:18:53
Speaker
um And it's a metaphor. So the first chapter is called The Well, for instance. And The Well is, I work with two different Irish myths in that chapter. And you know the chapter is really about the unconscious. It's about the language of the unconscious, which is imagery and symbolism.
00:19:11
Speaker
It's about kind of learning how to work with those as a facilitator. That's the other element to the book is I really wanted it to be relevant for people entering this field with a desire to be psychedelic therapists or facilitators or guides.
00:19:26
Speaker
So there is sort of a practical element to each chapter. um But yeah, you know, I work each chapter begins with a particular myth or folktale. And these are stories, like I said, from Ireland, Greece, um Scandinavia, Native America, um Borneo.
00:19:48
Speaker
you know, ah all over the place. And so I tell the particular story in my own words, which turned out was actually the hardest part of writing this whole thing. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Was really metabolizing these stories, some of which, you know, like the myth of Medusa, which I work with.
00:20:08
Speaker
has so many different versions. And then it's up to you as the storyteller to kind of discern which one feels the most resonant and true.
00:20:20
Speaker
yeah So I tell the story and then kind of unfold different elements or symbols present in the story and tie those together symbols, images, metaphors, characters, two different elements of psychedelic work and experience. So just going with Medusa, for for instance, that story is all about trauma.
00:20:44
Speaker
In the context of this book, right I use it to talk about trauma and how psychedelic substances and medicines can interact with and potentially heal trauma.
00:20:56
Speaker
And also like how the story of Medusa is really one of trauma um and you know There is a healing element that happens in the very end of the story that a lot of people don't know, which is that once Medusa's head is cut off by the hero, Perseus, and you know usually Medusa sort of a villain.
00:21:19
Speaker
you know i i really wanted to kind of tell the story almost from her perspective. um So once her head is cut off, There are two drops of blood that are collected from her, from her.
00:21:34
Speaker
Well, actually, I should say different things. So there are two things, two beings that come out of her headless body. And one is this gigantic being with a golden sword called Creosaur. And I don't know who that is, but yeah there's ah of a giant with a sword.
00:21:54
Speaker
yeah then and then the other being that emerges out of Medusa is Pegasus. And Pegasus, I have this bit in the book about you know what the medicine of Pegasus actually is about.
00:22:09
Speaker
um And then there's one more sub sort of postscript to
Myths and Healing
00:22:14
Speaker
the story, which is that Athena collected two drops of blood from Medusa's head. Yeah. and that blood turned into all of the poison and all of the medicine in the world.
00:22:26
Speaker
ah so So again, it's like poison, medicine. Which one is it? Which one is it? And also like that which has the power to kill also has the power to heal and and vice versa.
00:22:40
Speaker
Yeah. Beautiful. and And I think, you know, I ah really love your book and I've been kind of revisiting it and reading it And there's something about myth and story that just to take it to like a to um for a personal level that I really, don't know kind of how to explain this exactly, but it gets in to your body, into your feeling body in a way that if you just said, okay, like trauma can be both healing and difficult, it wouldn't land in the same way.
00:23:15
Speaker
Right. And, you know, I, and My first interaction with and but my my journey with depth psychology and myth goes back quite a long way, but I remember i was in the middle of like a terrible, terrible breakup.
00:23:33
Speaker
It was awful seven years ago. oh and I was at and ah market, a beautiful market out in the forest here that we have. and um And I found classically, I just came across this book, Women Who Run With The Wolves, kind of heard of it.
00:23:50
Speaker
Not really. I knew some things about it. And when I read that book, i am it was like she was speaking to some part deep inside me that had been sleeping a long time.
00:24:03
Speaker
And then it just opened up the door to go, oh, these stories are ancient and people have been feeling this and feeling these things for the whole of time.
00:24:15
Speaker
And that was something about that that I found really deeply comforting and supportive. don't know I have a question there, but just a comment on like for me, that's what has done. has john Yeah, yeah. I mean, that book is definitely like one of the greats in this tradition, in this mythopoetic tradition, you know, and so many people kind of find their way back to story, kind of just like you shared through people like Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Robert Bly and Michael Mead and kind of this coolness. crew of people that really emerged in like the late eighties and early nineties doing this mythopoetic kind of union inspired work, yeah um, to kind of like make myths relevant once again, you know? And, um, I would say that tradition and those people have really inspired me, you know, and I look at them as like my elders and ancestors and, um,
00:25:17
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, even to be mentioned in the same sentence as someone like Clarissa Pinkola Estes is like a huge honor, you know, and um is what I'm kind of trying to do. ah But yeah in this context and this moment we're in of of psychedelics kind of yeah bursting into our collective psyche.
00:25:37
Speaker
And it's like, like it or not, it's happening. hey out And I wanted, I just felt like, A book needed to be written that connects these two worlds, which are kind of two of my deepest loves, ah which is depth psychology and mythopoetics and story and culture with psychedelic healing and experiences and traditions, you know.
00:26:03
Speaker
Yes. As I was just sitting reflecting then, i was thinking about what I was sharing about the feeling, like that myth speaks to sort of a feeling in my body in a way that if you were to just say a sentence to me, it wouldn't land in the same way.
00:26:19
Speaker
And I was thinking that, you know, psychedelics are a bit like that too in my experience, that people come out of their experiences, their journeys with these different with these learnings, these kind of insights or whatever those are.
00:26:36
Speaker
And if I said that to a client, I've been a therapist for a long time, maybe like 15 years more than, if I just said some of the things that people come out of their journeys with to them, they'd be like, I, yeah, I kind of, I see what you mean, you know, like I get it. But they, they say that actually now what they do is they feel it.
00:26:55
Speaker
in their body and that feels really
Cultural Insights and Psychedelics
00:26:58
Speaker
different. So I guess in a way to me, just or reflecting for myself, it makes a lot of sense to bring those two things together, to bring myth and psychedelics together. But you might have a bigger story as to why you wanted to do that right now at this time, like particularly this moment, you know?
00:27:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I absolutely agree. And, um, I think the reason that both psychedelic experiences and myth kind of resonate on that deeper, sometimes somatic level, or at least let's just say like a very felt visceral level is because at least according to depth psychology, you know, the the language of the psyche images.
00:27:45
Speaker
images you know And it it is because that are like the the oldest language that we know is image.
00:27:56
Speaker
That's why these stories speak to us in such a deep way. yeah And it's also why i would say in a psychedelic experience... we can really emerge. Of course, there's all of the sort of pharmacological aspects going on.
00:28:13
Speaker
um But I don't think that's it by any means. um yeah Because... images often emerge in these experiences, journeys, you know, beings, ah um felt senses that we have a hard time putting words to.
00:28:32
Speaker
um I feel like, and I talk about this in the introduction of the book, but the myth, dreams, and psychedelic experiences, altered states of consciousness, all kind of emerge and speak to um the same place. And I would call that place the soul, you know?
00:28:54
Speaker
And they're all, you know, emanations of the deep soul and they all are doorways back into that same place, which is why you could just tell someone something But if there's an image in a story, it's actually creating a pathway into a deeper part of our being.
00:29:14
Speaker
Just like, you know, as a therapist, you can tell someone something for years yeah and it might not land. And then they have a psychedelic experience and they experience something for themselves and um and then everything's different, you know? Yeah.
00:29:34
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. i you know, that I had an experience of, I won't go into the whole sort of backstory, but of ah actually really feeling, like always kind of knowing that we are a part of nature and that, that of course, because we're humans and we are a part of that system.
00:29:55
Speaker
um But then suddenly really actually having the feeling of that in my body that makes me experience that in a different way and makes me be in the world in a different way because of that.
00:30:06
Speaker
Feeling trauma, yeah.
00:30:11
Speaker
So there's plenty of things to say about that, but I think one of the things that I was thinking, you know, how I came across you is I was writing this walk about semantics and metaphor with my co-therapist. So there was um a really awesome, really small, beautiful and conference here called the Northern Australian Psychedelic Conference, NAPS.
00:30:34
Speaker
um and they invited as to apply and and my co-therapist and I, because here in Australia we work in dyads, so it's myself and another psychologist or therapist, psychotherapist or a psychiatrist,
00:30:49
Speaker
um ah were feeling like we really wanted to try to work out what exactly we were doing because here in Australia I guess that we were sort of doing the research. I was involved in a big research trial and then quite sort of I'm gonna say unexpectedly, they rescheduled psilocybin assisted therapy assisted therapy quite quickly.
00:31:10
Speaker
um hasn't rolled out really fast, but it um certainly happened a little bit unexpectedly, particularly with the psilocybin assisted therapy. And sort of without, I would say, like, I feel like America has a lot of a much longer history in terms of psychotic research, in terms of people being much more aware.
00:31:30
Speaker
And so my colleague and I were thinking, wait we we feel like a bit of an obligation to actually try and nail down what it is we're doing because we're not just doing what the way that that we work is is a bit I guess in the psychotherapy way it's a bit different maybe than just holding space what it is a bit different than just holding that space so what are we actually doing in our preparation in our integration which are all kind of packaged in a in a um process here that you have kind of kind of have to go through. it
00:32:02
Speaker
And so that's why we decided to write semantics and metaphor talk and did the workshop. And I think it's, you know, i heard you say on another podcast that there's a lot of the basics of psychedelic education out there. There's a lot of people learning just how to do just, you know, like being present and all of the important, really important stuff around set setting, but there's a need for something more now.
00:32:26
Speaker
And I really feel like, I just want to say I really your book is that, like, I think it's the next level. So thank you for doing that. And I hope more people do that. Wow. Well, thank you for, for saying that. I mean, for sharing, you know, that's a high praise. So thanks.
00:32:44
Speaker
And so maybe now we can get into where we were naming up earlier that you and I are coming from these two different models, really in in terms of legal frameworks.
00:32:58
Speaker
And in the second page, I think it's this is it the second page of your book that you say and that psychedelics are not about improving mental health. but yeah And I thought that was an amazing mic drop moment, by the way. and and ah I think it's really interesting because here I feel like they've been so tied into that medical model.
00:33:21
Speaker
And I have feelings about that. um But maybe you can start about what you meant when you said that.
Legitimizing Psychedelics
00:33:28
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. It was meant to be a mic drop moment. yeah Yeah. Because, because it is a somewhat controversial opinion, you and, you know,
00:33:39
Speaker
and
00:33:42
Speaker
I think it's controversial for a lot of different reasons, you know, primarily because the psychedelic movement is sort of pushing upstream against so many decades of prohibition and fear and misinformation, yeah right? That there's this overcompensation now to legitimize psychedelics in the eyes of the general public and the scientific community and the medical community by being like,
00:34:06
Speaker
look, these are safe. these are These aren't going to change your chromosomes, which was one of the lies about LSD. These aren't going to burn holes in your brain, which is one of the lies about MDMA.
00:34:18
Speaker
you know i ah These aren't going to make you psychotic, which was sort of the story um you know with a lot of psychedelics. So there's so much stigma, first of all, decades and decades. if We could even say centuries, if not like millennia of stigma against being ah in an altered state of consciousness, against having, let's say, a coherent interaction, having a relationship with a non-human intelligence or organism,
00:34:53
Speaker
I mean, that would get you burned at the stake yes couple hundred years ago. you know So yeah um this isn't this isn't like light stuff.
00:35:05
Speaker
ah yeah So i think the the urge to legitimize psychedelics comes from that place. yeah Secondly, I would say there's another element here, which is the sort of really insidious monster called capitalism.
00:35:22
Speaker
which is needs everything to be about productivity and optimization and more and better. And right after I say psychedelics are not about improving mental health, I say they're not about having a slightly better day at the office either. Yeah.
00:35:37
Speaker
you know, which is another narrative that I think has sort of gotten its way into the psychedelic conversation of like, oh, just microdose and your tech job will be so much better.
00:35:49
Speaker
and just go back to work yeah just and just work harder. It's so much easier to work longer hours for your yeah corporate job if you just microdose.
00:35:59
Speaker
And to me, that's some really dystopian shit that was actually called out years ago, decades ago by Aldous Huxley. you know um That's some Huxleyan brave new world kind of shit right there. yeah And so I'm very skeptical that sort of line of thinking, which is very present in the psychedelic world as well.
00:36:22
Speaker
yeah um And then i think there's also just sort of this third... even more subtle cultural story that, um, we're kind of up against, which is this story of, I guess what we could call rational materialism or anything that, um,
00:36:52
Speaker
let me, yeah, how do I say this? Anything that is like not a human being is not conscious, right? and yeah and And basically everything that is out there in the natural world is for our disposal and for our use as humans.
00:37:09
Speaker
And so we get, it's a very slippery slope, I would say, into viewing psychedelics as sort of, um molecules, dead molecules rather than living beings.
00:37:25
Speaker
yeah And the purpose of these dead molecules is to quote, improve our mental health because we've fucked up our planet and our society so much that this is their role now. And I think that whole equation is deeply flawed.
00:37:40
Speaker
um yeah Yes, they they have immense medicine for our species, especially at this time on this planet. But I don't think i i do do not think we should conflate ah that they are here for our...
00:37:56
Speaker
um just here for our improvement of our mental health, you know, um yeah as these as these sort of inanimate objects that we can just sort of smash apart and extract. And use and extract, yeah.
00:38:10
Speaker
And what, you know, I would say, I've spoken a little bit about this before, so regular listeners will have heard me say things like this, but
00:38:21
Speaker
Mental health diagnoses and the way that we use them in the West are socially constructed. and It's not like a table in front of me. It's a label that we put on a series of symptoms that what are we even talking about here? We actually, when we talk about depression, are we talking about actually that idea of depression, emotions pushed down, depressed emotions.
00:38:43
Speaker
you know depression Or are we talking about the distress, the very human distress that we feel at the state of the world or the individualistic culture that we exist in? you know, and I don't think, I think,
00:38:58
Speaker
you know, it's, it's been a real tension for me personally, because I don't work using medical moral diagnoses really. Um, and I was not trained in, in, in such a way. Like I was, I was, I learned the DSM and then I was taught how to throw it out again, you know?
00:39:14
Speaker
like i' Great. That's good. Whoever taught you that did a good job. Yes. Yes. Lucy Johnston and Mary Boyle. Um, they wrote the power threat meeting framework. They were my, she was my teacher. Lucy was my teacher.
00:39:26
Speaker
Um, which is an alternative to medical model diagnoses, and which is used in the UK, actually. But I totally understand. ah understand how we got to where we are in in Australia in a way. And I can see that I really understand the kind of Um, everything that you said before about needing to try to legitimize it, make it less scary for people that, that we kind of in somehow that ended up in the medical model.
00:39:54
Speaker
Um, I don't think that it's, it's not a coincidence to me that psychedelics work across all these different diagnoses, because what are we actually talking about anyway? We're talking about human distress. Do we need to medicalize it? Do we need to label it in that way? I don't think so.
00:40:09
Speaker
um Maybe we do for research. I don't know. Like I'm really hopeful and i know that the lab and my boss Paul is also interested in kind of more and things that are not necessarily about ah medical mold diagnosis, like looking at how psychologetics might impact polarization or family violence and those kinds of things.
00:40:30
Speaker
who Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I don't mean to come off like I'm some like, um ah like, crystal shaking, uh, woo woo person who's going to like try to heal you with a feather or something.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah. And granted those people are real actually and exist. Um, but yeah I'm not one of those people, but, um, yeah you know, I think like the medical framework has a place, right? Yeah. I just think maybe it's our,
00:41:07
Speaker
To me, there's like an ethical imperative as people working in this field to um be honest about where the medical model has failed millions and millions of people across the world.
00:41:22
Speaker
yeah And um the, I would say, like ethnocentrism of the Western medical model. yeah um Some people would even go as far to say as like the white supremacy of the medical model. you know There's these...
00:41:36
Speaker
inherited sort of systems that feed into what we call the medical model. And um look, if someone needs a diagnosis to receive psychedelic care so that they can have, let's say some insurance company or maybe their job pay for treatment that which they couldn't otherwise afford, you know, great.
00:41:58
Speaker
Wonderful. That's beautiful. um Yeah. And I think we do a massive disservice to everyone and everything involved if we say that that is the end of the story.
00:42:13
Speaker
Absolutely. I i agree. and And I think, you know, I also understand why in research those labels are helpful in terms of the way that our research is currently structured and the way that like i evidence-based practice works and needing some of those labels sometimes to to be able to contribute to the literature. So I'm not,
00:42:34
Speaker
saying that we should totally throw it out. And my clients in Australia come to see me because they can use the mental health care plans that we are attached and they're attached to a diagnosis. But, um, and the people who come on the trials that we work on usually so far, the ones I've worked on have been attached to like a diagnosis of PTSD.
00:42:53
Speaker
or generalized anxiety. i don't think that's always going to be the case, um actually, but at the moment it has been and it helps people. But I feel like, you know, it's interesting, I'm i'm writing some, ah probably by the time this podcast is out, actually it all happened through training at the moment about clinical psychotic therapy for Monash.
00:43:12
Speaker
i'm And I'm doing a lecture on preparation, like psychotic preparation. And i feel like sometimes my in cycle preparation, I'm like, okay, so you're here with this label and my, my, my job becomes, okay, let's actually understand what's really going on here.
00:43:27
Speaker
Let's look at what's underneath this. Let's, let's, that's the label. And so many times, yeah yeah, the label can mean so many different things at different times for people. And so, but what's actually causing the distress?
00:43:39
Speaker
What do you actually, what's, what's really happening here? And so I'm trying to write that into my lecture at the moment. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think if you get deep enough ah beneath whatever the label is or the symptom or the behavior, right, kind of these more measurable words, right,
00:44:00
Speaker
yeah um You get deep down enough and you start entering the territory of the soul. And you know you get past the depression, you get past the emotions even, and you get to the soul of the person in front of you, which even if you get past that, you're connecting actually to the soul of the world and the soul of the collective because you know we are just...
00:44:27
Speaker
animals living on this planet, which we are harming immensely at this time. So it's really not a great mystery why so many of us are having a really hard time, you know, yeah because, and that's that's why my book is called Psychedelics and the Soul.
00:44:45
Speaker
because these medicines go deep to that place. And yeah and i just think we just need to treat them as such. Really, it really yeah is that's yeah that's about it.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah. yeah It's interesting, actually, because right before I recorded this, ah before we met... um today I was just having you look at a very new paper that's just been published by Max Wolff and um some other authors reframing psychedelic regulation as tools not treatments i'm and I think it's pretty interesting they're kind of talking about it in the sense of that actually they are a tool and they don't need to be seen as a kind of specific treatment for a diagnostic label and so um i'm i'm happy to share that in the notes for anyone who wants to have a look at it because i think it's a really important perspective it's like you know um it's it's it's kind of i guess the depth psychology lens feels really strong in the group that work in here in australia like where we're all very interested in those ideas coming from slightly different lenses like you you're
00:45:51
Speaker
depth psychology lenses through Jung, right? Like Carl Jung. you want to say a little bit about that actually, people listening? Sure. Yeah. Depth psychology is usually these days sort of shorthand for Jungian psychology.
00:46:06
Speaker
Really, it just means any form or tradition of psychology that kind of takes the unconscious as a primary element to our experience.
00:46:18
Speaker
Freud was a depth psychologist, actually. Yeah. Yeah, so it's, these days, like I said, it really just kind of means Jungian and archetypal psychology.
00:46:31
Speaker
um Archetypal psychology being kind of what what James Hillman developed, who was sort of, um I wouldn't say a protege, but like an inheritor of the Jungian tradition, you know, um and really kind of, I would say, took Jung's work further and- Yeah.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, there's many more many, many more people who kind of emerged out of that in in the Jungian world as analysts and writers and whatever.
00:47:02
Speaker
And then, you know like i like we were talking about earlier, kind of in the late 80s and poets and other kinds of writers and storytellers and all these other kinds of people started kind of being magnetized back into the Jungian world, so to speak. Joseph Campbell yeah wasn't a psychologist. He was a um a mythologist, 100%, and a class classist classic scholar, right? But his work was deeply inspired by Carl Jung.
00:47:34
Speaker
So Joseph Campbell is also a deep thread in the tradition of depth psychology now as it stands. And so really, it's just about Working with the unconscious and the language of the unconscious, which, like I said earlier, emerges symbolically through imagery in things like dreams, in things like myth. you know We don't know who wrote these stories.
00:48:03
Speaker
right we have They have no author. James Hillman said that myths never were, but always are. you know So there are emanations. ah jung Jung said that myths are emanations of the pre-conscious psyche. like just They just have emerged through human cultures.
Training and Regulatory Issues
00:48:22
Speaker
um And then the other thread is altered states of consciousness, which includes psychedelics. you know So that's why, to me, depth psychology and and psychedelic healing, it's so intimately intertwined.
00:48:37
Speaker
Yes. Yes. And kind of has always, it makes so much sense when you explain it. So it's such a beautiful explanation as well. And, you know I guess they, you know, Stan Groff's work was also kind of its type of depth psychology in a way as well. For sure. Yeah. yeah A lot of those kind of early sort of psychedelic therapists and writers, Terence McKenna as well, were all Jungians basically, or at least they were, they were really well studied in Jung.
00:49:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, so I do think, I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm interested in this space and I'm sorry, I talk to other people who are, but I do think there is, a real interest in kind of developing but people people who've kind of come into the psychedelic space here in Australia and then maybe they're interested in depth psychology or vice versa. People inep in the depth psychology world, like Jungian analysts or other kinds of people who are then moving more into this space now that there's a bit more of a legal framework. so I'll put some of those authors' names in the in the show notes as well so people can kind of have a dive into those because it's such a rich, beautiful world. i'm Yeah, I also really love the book Trauma and the Soul by them as well. That's another amazing book. I found like a really good companion for my work in this space.
00:49:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful book. yeah Yeah, recommended to me actually by one of my very first clients on the psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy trial for generalized anxiety disorder here.
00:50:12
Speaker
so super incredibly grateful to all of my clients for all of the teachings, particularly to that client in this moment to recommending that book and opening that door, because i kind of yeah which was always there and my interest was always there, but then it kind of re-emerged for me.
00:50:29
Speaker
Hmm. So maybe I would be curious to you said before that you have thoughts about the way things are rescheduled in Oregon because I have lots of thoughts and I've shared a few about here and how it's working and I think it's I can share some more of those but But I remember when I first heard about Oregon, I was like, I think it was a bit of kind of, that sounds like a great model in many ways. Like um nothing is perfect.
00:50:57
Speaker
i How's it going? In your opinion, pros and cons. Yeah. and I think in the grand scheme of things, Esme, it is going as well as it could. Yeah.
00:51:11
Speaker
Yeah. um And i will also say um there are some – major gaps and discrepancies that are extremely present, at least to me, you know. yeah. um yeah Without kind of going too deep into the details, what I will say is this.
00:51:36
Speaker
Me as ah as a psychotherapist, right, just to sit and have a conversation with someone requires about three years of graduate school and then three to five years of supervised practice, right? Yeah.
00:51:56
Speaker
So that's like... anywhere from six to eight years of training and supervision to sit and have a conversation with someone for an hour.
00:52:11
Speaker
Yeah. So the Oregon psilocybin service, um, feels that it is somehow appropriate that people can get a certificate in six months or less and do a, I think it's at a 160 hour practicum retreat, which is essentially a weekend to get a license from the state to give people 50 milligrams of psilocybin, which equates to around seven or eight grams of
00:52:48
Speaker
That's a lot of dried psilocybin. So yeah you tell me if that makes any sense.
00:52:55
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. I mean, you know, i think we have a, yeah, I think, I think, isn't it interesting? It also likes be a clinical psychologist. I trained in the UK, came over here, but did all my training in the England. Um, it was seven years, you know, it was seven years. And then I continued to require,
00:53:15
Speaker
it's a requirement that I continue to have supervised supervision, you know, not supervised practice in the traditional sense, but that I keep doing that. Yeah. There's no, so there's no supervision requirements here. There's no, um, continuing education.
00:53:29
Speaker
There's very little ethical sort of, um, There's a, there's a, there's not even a board. There's more of like a sort of state organization.
00:53:42
Speaker
It's not even really a board of practitioners. Um, There's a lot of there's like a loose conglomeration of organizations that are aspiring to be kind of ethical watchdogs and and whatever, but like nothing has really coalesced.
00:53:59
Speaker
So you know it's sort chaos. Yeah. chaos Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. I can imagine. And, and, and it's really interesting because I'm sitting listening to you and and I, I, yeah, I was like, oh, it sounds like they've really like Oregon's really nailed it in many ways. And you, you, you certainly brought it in slower, like it took a bit longer than the way we did it here, which I think was good, but the same issue in a different way i have found
00:54:30
Speaker
So, say It's not the same thing exactly, but because they sort of looked at these things as medicines, so psilocybin, which, or, um, it's, it's actually synthetic psilocybin that they use here. So it's, it's the stuff that you get.
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah. Um, and MDMA needs to be prescribed by a psychiatrist and they did sort of then specify that it needs to be within the the framework psychedelic assisted psychotherapy,
00:54:58
Speaker
i'm For a while it was only clinical psychologists and psychiatrists and now more and more psychotherapists are allowed as well, which is great, but also crazy that they weren't from the beginning in my opinion.
00:55:10
Speaker
um But there was no, the first thing that I was talking about with people when it happened was where's the requirement for training with this? Because a psychiatrist can go through medical school and do like a very small amount of ps psychotherapy training.
00:55:27
Speaker
And if we're actually putting these medicines within a psychotherapy framework, Surely people need to be trained in that, really. like And so that continues to be one of my concerns for the field here. there's still I think because of the way the system operates here mainly, they're two different things. So the drug regulatory is probably the same. in in In America, the drug regulatory system is different to the therapy regulatory system.
00:55:54
Speaker
here. and so they didn't feel like could sort of legislate that. But it feels like a huge missing piece. You know, it's so important, you know, to have had your own, to do your own work, whatever that looks like to, to be supervised to, yeah. I mean, to have a connection to the actual substance that you are giving people maybe. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. It's like,
00:56:23
Speaker
On paper, it kind of makes sense. It's like, oh, well, these things work in the brain. so let's let the brain doctors, they must know what to do with them. yeah it's like yeah yeah I get, i maybe.
00:56:36
Speaker
I mean, it it it looks good on paper, but I don't think it actually translates, you know. Yeah. And, you it depends on the the psychiatrist and the psychologist and the, you know, it depends, right? But you're rolling the dice there, you know. There's an awful lot of people who...
00:56:53
Speaker
ah could become authorized prescribers who've probably never had a psychedelic experience. And, you know, it's complicated here because it's actually really difficult to have those legally here.
00:57:04
Speaker
You know, there's not a training program where you can go and have illegal psychedelic experience. As a psychologist, you know, we were very fortunate that we did a self-experience research trial as part before we began are big tier research trials, but not everybody does that. In fact, lots of people don't are not able to do that for funding reasons and things like that.
00:57:28
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I think that's the most essential piece in even considering doing this work professionally as a facilitator or therapist, you know, and
00:57:43
Speaker
it's It's disheartening to hear, Esme, that it's either financially or legally prohibitive for professionals to get the experience they need in Australia in order to ah be confident enough with with these medicines. you know But you know what? I'll also say, like have you ever seen the alien movies?
00:58:08
Speaker
like Yes. You know what I'm talking about? With the eggs and the and the things. James Cameron, whatever. So bear with me. i'm so like yeah i feel I feel like what is, okay. What is the moral of the story in every single one of the alien movies?
00:58:25
Speaker
It's the same. Oh my God. I don't know. It's been years since I've watched them. You're going to have to tell me. It is. It's the same. It's the same point in every single film, which is that the alien will always get out.
00:58:39
Speaker
yeah they They try to contain this wild, otherworldly thing and like extract its uses for them because they're silly humans. And it always gets out.
00:58:51
Speaker
It always breaks loose and causes chaos. And I feel like psychedelics are kind of the same. you know They always will get out. And so I'm not really encouraging people to go do illegal things, but it's like It's out there anyways.
00:59:09
Speaker
So, and you know, the alien always gets out and we can try to control it and contain it and extract it and torture it. ah But it will usually end up escaping.
00:59:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. ah You're right. and And I think also, you know, there are places now that people can, if they have the resource, travel to. Like you were in Jamaica, for example. to people, there's legal psilocybin retreats there There's also the Netherlands um and other countries, other places too where people can travel.
00:59:40
Speaker
go and have those legal experiences and we're working really hard here to um advocate for therapist training and building medicine work or dosing with with the medicines because i'm I think, I do think that there's a large feeling in the space that it is really important. It's just that it's happened so quickly, you know, it was only six months I think before there was the announcement and then things started to roll out.
01:00:08
Speaker
the The reality is the rollout has been a lot slower than, you know, you because it takes ages and the red tape is crazy, which is actually kind of good. I think, I think the red tape for once has helped us out to slow things down a little bit. There's a not, there was lots of bit like what you're talking about, like everything bubbled up and everyone wanted to do it. And then certain, certain clinics and places kind of fell away and now it's just kind of slowly rolling out.
01:00:32
Speaker
Um, which is good. Yeah, good. So it sounds like a natural cycle. Yeah, I think so.
Therapist Burnout and Self-Care
01:00:41
Speaker
i am out So we're at an hour. Is it okay if I ask you a couple more questions? yeah I'm good for time. but i'm yeah I'm chilling. so Great.
01:00:51
Speaker
Awesome. So... Maybe I would love to something actually on the therapist and therapist training to take us into the concept, the topic of burnout, because you spoke about that in your book.
01:01:03
Speaker
I have had burnout twice, and not actually since doing this work, although I'm really mindful that it was definitely possible. and And I'm really worried about it oh in the community, in in Australia, because the um many reasons actually like a lot of productivity and capitalist stuff that you spoke about but just the intensity of holding space for that long for people i don't know if i have the answers to how to support the workforce but i'm curious about your reflections on burnout for yourself and what you think would be helpful
01:01:40
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, something that I say to a lot of my students is like, don't quit your day job. yeah you know Because as soon as you do that, you are dependent on psychedelics for your livelihood in some way.
01:01:57
Speaker
And then when you get into that situation, you might end up sort of talking with someone and a little voice on your shoulder is like, nope, not a good idea.
01:02:08
Speaker
and you're like, oh, well, I need the money. you know I need the money. And you say yes, and something really bad happens. And yeah and you don't want that. you know So when there is not that pressure to say yes to everyone to do, you know, so many sessions a week or a month, you know, um I think we really need to like take the pressure off with this work.
01:02:37
Speaker
And I think there's even like cultural precedent of, of saying no, of like, no, you're not ready. No, come back, you know, ask me three times, whatever it is, go do this other work first and then come back.
01:02:53
Speaker
you know? Yeah. yeah I think I've seen a lot of people seek out psychedelics kind of as like a last resort, you know, as like, a if this doesn't work, to kill myself kind of thing. Yeah. i've ive People have said that to me before.
01:03:08
Speaker
And they, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a ah rough situation to be in as a therapist or a facilitator. It's like maybe some other things need to happen before this, you know? Yeah.
01:03:22
Speaker
Yeah. So there's all of those pieces, which I would call more like clinical considerations. And then there's the, like like you named sort of the capitalism piece of like, yeah um I think, you know, psychedelics reveal the soul.
01:03:39
Speaker
That is their, literally the origins of of the name in in Greek. yeah Psyche and Delos, soul revealing. And so they will... magnify and reveal like whatever is, is going on. And they will also clarify what's going on. And I feel like they have a role to play in capitalism that we don't really understand yet.
01:04:04
Speaker
And I'm not naive enough to think that they're somehow going to like, fix or end capitalism. and But I also don't think that they are going to entirely conform either because um just by their very nature, they kind of go against the grain of what capitalism asks and demands rather.
01:04:29
Speaker
So ah yeah, I mean, burnout. ah Yeah. Yeah. ah There was a period in Jamaica. We would do, usually our schedule there was we we would do week-long retreats. This was at Myco Meditations and in Treasure Beach.
01:04:46
Speaker
Usually it was a week on and a week off. And that was great. I loved it. That's how I started writing my book is in those off weeks. But there was a period of time kind of towards the end of my tenure there where we...
01:05:02
Speaker
I don't know Someone wanted to schedule ah more retreats back to back. So we would have like one to two days off between retreats ah for like a month plus.
01:05:17
Speaker
And that was very intense um and kind of brought me into a level of burnout that I've never experienced before or since.
01:05:29
Speaker
And it is just and it's just inherent in the work. There's such an an energetic output, even if you're just sitting still and you're silent as the facilitator or therapist for six hours, whatever, yeah it can still be so draining, inexplicably draining.
01:05:47
Speaker
that to not have the time to kind of really reconstitute yourself um and fill your tank, um you know, there's extreme risk of getting very depleted. um Yeah. okay Yeah. yeah Yeah.
01:06:05
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. You know, I agree. And like, i I think that that space in between is so important. that, um you know, that week off, you know, in between week on, week off feels so important. And, you know, I've said this before, I think on on this podcast, but like psychedelics give you a lot and they take a lot in a different way. There's this process that happens of like, you know,
01:06:34
Speaker
I don't know how to put this into words, trying to give words to be ineffable really, but like that kind of awe that I get sometimes, that kind of from sitting as someone and that feeling of awe that's quite contagious, that's like amazing, but it could also be you know, in the same session, like witnessing someone go through and re-experience their trauma in a way that's really healing for them.
01:06:59
Speaker
But that can be very intense for a therapist to see. You know, with MDMA, people often will talk a lot about that and that's amazing. It can be a really important part of that process.
01:07:11
Speaker
And then what do we do after that? You know, because a lot of clinics here are set up But the expectation that people will work once a week, they'll dose once a week and then they'll do kind of, and you know, therapy sessions alongside that. And I did that flow with ah the CIGAD trial. It was like a dose on, say, like a Tuesday and then a bunch of therapy sessions, which could be prep or integration on the next day.
01:07:35
Speaker
for 18 months I think we did that and I loved it. I absolutely learned so much and I loved my colleagues and I think that makes a massive difference. I had an incredible community, a lot of good supervision group supervision and and my diet partner is one of my favorite people in the world so that was helpful.
01:07:54
Speaker
um But by the end we were all yes You know, there's no way that I wanted to jump onto it straight onto another trial, but I, you know, i needed a break and maybe more breaks in between might've helped a little bit too, that was okay.
01:08:11
Speaker
Um, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. I think we really need to think about how we roll this out and how we're setting up clinics and the kind of, um, the way in which people are working in them, because for some people it will be that whole job. I think, I think for some people it is already.
01:08:26
Speaker
um and i I worry about that because it's everything you just said. I don't have the answer. i don't have it all figured out. i have my you know I know what burnout can feel like um and how quickly it can catch you out. you know like I but remember being in my house when I was used to work in refugee mental health. That's a whole other story.
01:08:47
Speaker
me too. it was Really? yeah It's very common in this field. yeah I wonder to why. didn't that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that was so I did 10 years in foundation house it's called which is part of a service for torture survivors and refugee background people well and it was off the back of our response to the Syrian war so there was the big war in Syria we had like ah I was managing a team of people and it was that that kind of it was the obviously like hold it, the trauma and then the cognitive load of trying to deal with too many things at the same time.
01:09:23
Speaker
And I was in my house with my best friend was there and I had an onion and I had a knife and I didn't remember how to chop the onion. but i was like, I don't know what to do now. Like, how do I do i I've actually just shut down.
01:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. and The poet David White has a really amazing story about burnout, about working in, this was before he was like a full-time poet and was working in some organization in seattle for some like high pressure situation. I don't i don't know what kind of organization, but he was just had been running around like crazy for months and months.
01:09:59
Speaker
And he has a story where he walked into the room and he says, it was like a like a board meeting room. And he says, has anyone seen David? And they all kind of stop and look at him.
01:10:12
Speaker
and it's like, dude, you are David. but Oh God. Yeah. And he tells it as this story of like, and that's when I knew i needed to quit, you know? Yeah. Yeah. ah Yeah, exactly. And I wouldn't, it be good if it can not get to that point.
01:10:29
Speaker
Right. yeah Yeah, it is. It is I call it the frog in the pot and it really is like the frog in the pot because we don't know it's happening until we're already cooked. Yeah.
01:10:41
Speaker
I wonder if having the experience a few times has helped me to notice it a bit more. I don't know. I'll tell you in five years so far it's been pretty good, but I think you've got to really, with this work, you need really good supervision and support and people around you to help you.
Collective Grief and Cultural Healing
01:10:56
Speaker
Cause sometimes you don't notice, but your friends or your colleagues do, I think. Yeah. Yeah. well Is there anything that we haven't covered that you really want to share about in this last little part?
01:11:12
Speaker
I'm have a look at you. I'll be offering my course again at some point. So I'd like to talk about that at some point. um But yeah, I mean, any other questions you want to ask, I'm happy to answer.
01:11:28
Speaker
Well, there was something, I guess I'd love to talk a little bit more about ah piece around cultural repair, which we have touched on a few times um throughout because it feels like the world is in a lot of pain right now. There's a lot happening, not in the States, but all over the world. And so tell me a bit about that part of the book and what that means and how you think psychedelics might be supportive, but what also are the challenges with that Yeah, the cultural repair piece is, yeah, like i would say like the broadest element of the perspective that I'm trying to articulate in the book. And it's also the hardest one to talk about because it is so collective and yeah trying to understand
01:12:18
Speaker
you know, the roots of our problems as a culture, as a people, as a planet, you know, yeah and asking this like maybe naive question, which is what role do psychedelics have to play in this process of cultural healing and repair?
01:12:37
Speaker
And someone said to me once, well, you know, in order to repair something, you have to understand how it's broken first. yeah And
01:12:49
Speaker
So a lot of these myths actually to me are also kind of trailheads or, you know, coded language about, you know, how we got where we, where we are in so many ways.
01:13:08
Speaker
Um,
01:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's one of these elements where it's like, I think we're so used to wanting the the blueprint or the bullet point list or the action plan. And it's like, I don't know if that is if I have that for you or anyone, right?
01:13:28
Speaker
I don't have it in the book. um It's more of like the conversation. It's like framing things. psychedelic work in this broader and collective context of cultural repair and healing, collective healing, which, you know, again, isn't something I'm just like making up, but it's something that the medicine, the various medicines themselves often point towards. Yeah.
01:13:56
Speaker
Our collective experiences, collective stories, collective, think maybe they're ancestral, maybe they're ecological, right? It's like so often, not all the time, but often, you know, psychedelic experiences open us to that collective level that if we were walking around all day, like feeling that we would not be able to get out of bed, we wouldn't be able to function because it would be so immense.
01:14:24
Speaker
yeah you know And these medicines can sometimes like create openings to feel really what's going on. So yeah yeah that's sort of the easiest way I can i can talk about it.
01:14:41
Speaker
Yeah. And maybe if we can feel what's going on that's where we can also start to shift or change or something. from that place rather than ah bullet that point list.
01:14:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Joanna Macy, who just passed away a few days ago as of this recording, you know, um in her her work, which is called The Work That Reconnects, talks about like ah honoring the pain, you know, facing the pain of the world as sort of the first step, the first thing.
01:15:16
Speaker
in her whole in that whole process. And that involves grief. And I think also, yo know, were're we're culturally allergic to grief.
01:15:27
Speaker
Yeah. and And psychedelics also have a role to play in that because we might think that we're doing just fine. And then we take a dose of mushrooms or MDMA and then we're like, oh, right. There's all this other stuff. Yeah.
01:15:44
Speaker
that I have not been looking at. Maybe it's mine. Maybe it's not even mine. And it's just, again, this collective thing, you know, but, yeah but, um, I think that's another role that these medicines often play is like, it's like, Hey, just take a look down there for a minute.
01:16:02
Speaker
And we look and we're like, Oh, wow. It's a lot of pain and a lot of sadness and a lot of grief. We are, aren't we? We are so allergic to grief.
01:16:14
Speaker
yeah It's how different might things be if we could all really feel that actually and have so many practices. I did um some IFS training, the Legacies and Burdens training with Kay Gardner like a little while ago now and I won't go into that. There's so much I can say about that particular training but We did a collective grief ritual at the end, i'm which was very beautiful process.
01:16:42
Speaker
um And yeah, there was maybe 30 of us in the room and people were just crying and sobbing and supporting each other, holding each other through that.
01:16:54
Speaker
And it was beautiful. And so lacking, you know, in, in our general, I mean, I'm English, right? So we're the prime.
01:17:04
Speaker
We know everything about just keep calm and carry on, stiff upper a lip, don't cry. it took me years to learn how to cry in front of people. And I still find it a little bit hard, much better than I used to be.
01:17:16
Speaker
But, um, and I celebrate it now. I'm like, I'm crying in front of a person. that's The therapy and the psychedelic work has helped. and Sure. yeah Yeah.
01:17:29
Speaker
So let's say, do you want to share a little bit about your course? I mean, I i really, i think it's great that you're doing it again and for people listening um and maybe also where they can find and it too.
01:17:42
Speaker
Sure, yeah. So um I'm going to be launching my course again, which is called Mythopoetic Integration. And we're going to do seven weeks this time because I don't think six was enough.
01:17:55
Speaker
um So it's a seven-week course online. um I'll be launching it either um in the fall or kind of early, early winter. So like but I guess yeah november October, November, December time.
01:18:11
Speaker
Um, and, uh, yeah, you can learn more about that just on my website, which is simonugler.com. Um, and then, yeah, if, if folks want to stay in touch and sort of keep up to date on what I'm doing. I also have a sub stack where I post an article um once or twice a month and also host a monthly mythopoetic integration circle online for paid sub stack subscribers. And that's just simonyugler.substack.com.
01:18:43
Speaker
Awesome. Thank you. And yeah, I think you know, that the the course that you're running, it was just so useful and powerful to kind of just, I think just dive a little bit deeper into ah the how we might do this work really well to people.
01:19:01
Speaker
sorry I really enjoyed it and I'm excited for you to run it again. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I'm so glad you were there. Okay. and is And I just want to say, as we kind of wrap up towards the end now, thank you so much again,
01:19:17
Speaker
your time i know that you must be really busy um with the book being launched I'm sure it wasn't easy to find a space so I'm really grateful um and yes and anything you'd like to say before we wrap Not really. i just, I can't wait to get back to Australia. So if anyone, if anyone listening out there, you know, wants, ah wants to put something together and help me out, you know, as a, as an excuse to get back to, to Australia, that'd be just so great. So.
01:19:48
Speaker
All right. That would be great. I would love that too. And I would love to get back over to Oregon myself. Actually, I did an amazing road trip there many years ago up to from Bend to Portland. Oh yeah.
01:20:00
Speaker
It was really, really beautiful. Nice. so yeah, we'd love to have you come over here. Maybe there'll be conference or something or something else. I think we've got a lot to learn from each other, you know, in our different ways of working with these medicines.
01:20:15
Speaker
And you can, know I think when you are doing it in a certain way, you can get kind of stuck into that must be the only way. I think it's actually really important to have these kinds of conversations across countries and across different areas.
01:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, very much agree. And cultures too. Exactly. Yes. All right. Thank you, Siren. All right, Esme. Thank you so much.
01:20:40
Speaker
Thanks for listening. If you're interested in following along on the journey with me, check out my Instagram or website details listed in the show notes. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share this podcast to help get this important conversation out to more listeners.