Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Kyle Buller: Psychedelics, Somatics and the Shadow
156 Plays2 days ago
Beyond the Trip is delighted to be collaborating with Kyle Buller from Psychedelics Today for this episode, where we discuss many topics, including
Psychedelic policy in Australia vs the US
Challenges and cost of Psychedelic-assisted Psychotherapy in both countries
Psychedelics in end-of-life care
Integrating somatic therapy into psychedelic sessions
Adapting therapeutic frameworks for use in Psychedelic-Assisted therapy
In 2016, Kyle Buller and Joe Moore co-founded Psychedelics Today, one of the world’s leading psychedelic media and education companies. Kyle's interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began at the age of 16 when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. After this near-death experience, Kyle’s life changed dramatically. Kyle subsequently earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology from Burlington College, where he focused on studying the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, Reiki, local medicinal plants and plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and psychedelic psychotherapy.
Kyle earned his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology from Prescott College. Kyle’s clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early episode of psychosis and providing counseling to undergraduate/graduate students in a university setting. Kyle also has experience offering psychotherapy services specializing in psychedelic integration, spiritual emergence, and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.
Find Kyle here :- https://www.psychedelicstoday.com/
Keep in touch with me at
Beyond the Trip Podcast available anywhere you listen to Podcasts:-
https://open.spotify.com/show/5g1sms2EXq72NW64nVQhzC?si=ff3548af32e84bf6
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeyondtheTrippodcast
Insta: dresmedark
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-esme-dark-627156a0/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Beyond the Trip' Podcast
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. Join me for a journey into the psychedelic world.
Acknowledgment of Traditional Custodians
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.
Collaboration with Psycho Diaries Today
00:01:04
Speaker
Hi everybody and welcome to this episode where I'll be doing things a little bit differently. I'm delighted to say that for this episode I'm collaborating with Psycho Diaries Today podcast and we are releasing this episode on both of our channels.
00:01:20
Speaker
It's the edited podcast version of a live stream that we did together and a few months ago.
Guest Introduction: Kyle Buller
00:01:26
Speaker
So i i'm joined by Kyle Buller, who is one of the co-founders of Psychedelics Today. and And I'm sure that many people listening to this will know Psychedelics Today from listening to their podcast and the work that they do in this space as well.
00:01:43
Speaker
But I will give Kyle a short introduction in a moment for those who perhaps want to know more about him.
Australia vs US: Psychedelic Therapy Rollout
00:01:49
Speaker
i' We decided to do this collaboration because we've been having a number of conversations about the differences between Australia and the US and in the way in which psychedelic therapy has been rolled out.
00:02:03
Speaker
And also that we when we realized that Kyle and I had a lot of similarities in our interests and our focus in this space, particularly around influencing the space of bringing in depth and the psychotherapy approach alongside somatic therapy into the psychedelic assisted therapy space. So we thought it would be fun to do a joint episode and we had a great conversation.
00:02:26
Speaker
i havet we covered a whole bunch of different topics, which I'll explain more about in a moment. But first, a little bit about Kyle Buller for anyone who would like to know a little more about him.
Kyle Buller's Psychedelic Journey
00:02:39
Speaker
In 2016, Buller and Joe Moore co-founded Psychedelics Today. which is one of the leading psychedelic media and education companies. And they also, of course, have a very well-known podcast.
00:02:53
Speaker
Kyle's interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began at 16 when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. After this near-death experience, Kyle's life changed dramatically and he subsequently studied and earned his BA in Transpersonal Psychology from Burlington College. where he focused on studying the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, Reiki, local medicinal plants and plant medicine, as well as holotropic breathwork and psychedelic psychotherapy.
00:03:28
Speaker
He earned his MS in clinical mental health counselling with an emphasis in somatic psychology from Prescott College. Kyle's clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers, as well as with individuals experiencing an early episode of psychosis and providing counselling to undergraduate and graduate students in a university setting.
00:03:49
Speaker
Kyle also has experience in offering psychotherapy services specialising in psychedelic integration, spiritual emergence and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.
00:04:01
Speaker
We cover a lot of topics and in this episode. We talk a bit about what it's like to be podcasting in the psychedelic space right now.
Psychedelic Policies and Integration Challenges
00:04:09
Speaker
ah We talk about psychedelic policy within Australia and the challenges and costs of the psychedelic assisted psychotherapy process here.
00:04:18
Speaker
i We talk about the US psychedelic policies and the way things are being rolled out there and the differences between our two respective countries. We touch in on a topic a little that is something I've been focused on in the last few episodes, which is the use of psychedelic therapy in end-of-life care.
00:04:37
Speaker
We talk about ways of integrating somatic therapy into psychedelic sessions and the importance of adapting therapeutic framework for the psychedelic work itself. And we also touched in on something that I didn't know about Kyle and was somewhat surprised to learn, I guess, that he's also, as as well as me, afraid of public speaking and that both of us actually ah tried to channel and work on that fear through doing the podcast.
00:05:05
Speaker
And so it's a conversation that touches in on a lot of different topics that are both personal and professional.
Podcasting in Psychedelic Therapy Space
00:05:12
Speaker
And so I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It's been an absolute honor and a pleasure to collaborate with Psychedelics today on this episode.
00:05:21
Speaker
All right. Hello. Welcome, everybody. i'm excited to be here with Dr. Esme Dark. um We but a few conversations around collaborating on this podcast. You have your own podcast, Beyond the Trip. And we thought it would be fun to just collaborate on this live stream, this live podcast, and i think start talking about policy around Australia, also the US. um i think I always find it fascinating that feels like Australia beat us to the the legal framework. um So Dr. Dark, can you just introduce yourself to everybody?
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Kyle. So I'm Dr. Esme Duk. I'm a clinical psychologist and a somatic psychotherapist, and I've worked as a psychedelic therapist on research trials here at the Clinical Psychedelic Lab at Monash University and on some clinical projects. And so, yeah I'm kind of really excited to be here today. I've been, followed psychedelics today for a long time. It was such a I really wanted to start a Beyond the Trip podcast to kind of highlight, I guess, what's going on here in Australia with as we roll out the regulations. When I was listening to one of your podcasts, Kyle, where you talked about one of the reasons for psychedelics today i am being about one of the reasons for starting it was to kind of highlight some of the depths psychedelics.
00:06:45
Speaker
lens, that psychology lens. And one of my reasons for starting Beyond the Trip was to highlight the importance of psychotherapy. And so I thought, I'm going to contact Kyle and see see whether he would like to collaborate. And here we are.
00:06:59
Speaker
I love it. I love it. Yeah, Joe and i really kind of wanted to highlight a lot of the breath work, transpersonal and depth oriented work, because that's kind of been at the the basis of our work. So I always love chatting and collaborating with other somatic depth oriented practitioners. I think it's important. And sometimes not always talked about, especially probably from the clinical perspective there that you're doing in in the research.
00:07:23
Speaker
um So maybe we could start off there. Like what has been going on in Australia in regards to psychedelics?
Psychedelic Therapy Rollout in Australia
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a really interesting time to be working in psychedelics in Australia. i was um I started working at the clinical psychedelic lab, gosh, it must be sort of four years ago now um I was working on a trial looking at psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for generalized anxiety disorder.
00:07:50
Speaker
It was one of the biggest ones and and one of the sort of starting ones. There was one trial before this with Dr. Marg Ross and her team looking at psilocybin-assisted therapy for end-of-life care. But we were kind of, it was felt like the the space was just really getting going in terms of the research.
00:08:06
Speaker
um And then partway through, we found out that and they were rescheduling these medicines. um And there's a lot of myths around what's actually happening in Australia, so it's really good to to kind of talk about it a little bit here.
00:08:21
Speaker
and So what's happened is it's not decrimmed. So a lot of people think that start with. So just to say that's definitely not what's happened. and They've basically taken psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, and they've rescheduled these medicines for use under the Authorised Prescriber Scheme.
00:08:42
Speaker
So what that means is that um if you're a psychiatrist, you can apply to a human research ethics board for an authorized prescriber license to prescribe these medicines alongside psychotherapy. So one of the great things and about the model here is that they've really...
00:09:01
Speaker
gone for this authorized prescriber model, but alongside the psychotherapy. So it's very, the ah protocols that are being rolled out are very similar to those in say the MAPS trials or in our trial where there's like a dyad We're doing the prep, dosing, integration.
00:09:18
Speaker
um So these medicines are able to be used, but only under the authorized prescriber, like from a psychiatrist perspective. And a psychologist can be involved in the therapy and a psychotherapist can be involved in the therapy. And the rules are different between each human research ethics board. So I can't get into the too much of the... and with weeds about that because it depends on on who's.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah. And as psychiatris is the psychiatrist prescribing and then being there or are they prescribing, administer and then leaving?
Role of Psychiatrists and Psychologists
00:09:51
Speaker
So that's a good question, Kyle. Like it it depends. So they have to be, they're clinically responsible. So very often they're a part of the, so it's done in in a dyad model, like in the MAPS and protocols. And so there's always two therapists usually in in the in in the way that I've done it, both on the trials and and in the clinical spaces that I'm aware of.
00:10:12
Speaker
And one of those might be the psychiatrist. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it might be two psychologists or two, a psychologist and a psychotherapist. um Those rules are different in different areas, in different states as well. In Australia, we don't have quite the same like the difference between states as they do in the US, and but there are some differences as well. So I'm in Victoria, which is in in Melbourne. I live in Melbourne. So...
00:10:38
Speaker
Awesome. And I think I remember this passed around February 2022 or 2021. forget because I remember I was at a conference called Canadelic and i remember hearing the news while I was there. um What has the rollout
Accessibility and Cost Challenges in Australia
00:10:53
Speaker
been like? So it seems like it probably took a while to get going. and I'm not too sure if you can talk about like, what what has has that rollout been? Has there been any kind of like constrictions, roadblocks as it started to roll out?
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah, so it's been a slower rollout. So initially ah when it was announced, I think it was around that time, we were kind of in the middle of the the trial and we had a meeting about it. And it it initially it sounded like they were going to be doing it quite quickly.
00:11:21
Speaker
But in fact, what's happened because of the regulations around it, and so so people, it's it's actually treatment-resistant depression and treatment-resistant PTSD. um So people have to fit lots of different criteria and they have to be assessed by the psychiatrist to see if they can fit those criteria to to be, and to be what, to have these medicines.
00:11:42
Speaker
say So, yeah, I think it it has been slower than anticipated, which I think is a good thing, you know, because in many ways, Australia kind of, yeah, we beat the sticks in some ways, right? And, and but actually we, we it's it's something that requires potentially a real shift in,
00:12:03
Speaker
A real shift in how we see healing, a real shift in focus of how we treat people. And so I think it's good that it's been a slower rollout because there's, you know, psychedelic, as as you well know, psychedelic therapy is about healing and working with whatever's underneath the symptoms, not symptom management.
00:12:23
Speaker
And it's a whole different process to what is usually the diagnostic medical model where people are kind of you reducing symptoms and attached to particular diagnostic labels.
00:12:35
Speaker
And actually, I feel like these medicines and this work really invites us to go a lot deeper than that. And I feel like there's a real education piece in our community around that. And so I'm glad it was slower for that reason.
00:12:47
Speaker
And it's also one of the reasons I started the podcast. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, I think like we've all been really eager for psychedelics to like get legalized in whatever framework or decriminalized. But, you know, as things start to roll out, you start seeing a lot of these like road bumps along the way. And I think taking our time with that can also be really important, right? Because these are really profound experiences for folks and thinking about like what guardrails are are in place. What is the accessibility like um for people?
00:13:19
Speaker
You know, because the medical model is expensive. I think that's why a lot of us here the United States have also been like, you know, let's look at some other models. And that's what we've seen roll out um here in the States. So what has it been like for accessibility for folks that are trying to get treatment? Like how expensive is it? Does insurance cover it? Is it all out of pocket?
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah, um it's one of the key things that we're all concerned about and working on is the cost. It is expensive at the moment. So currently, and this is, I mean, actually changing all the time. So just to to say at the moment, i'm there it's probably, it's not covered by costs.
00:14:00
Speaker
Too many insurance companies or some parts of the sessions may be covered by Medicare. So in Australia, we have something called Medicare, which is um the like for me as a psychologist, for example, um people can get a Medicare rebate part of this. Also, people come to see me. and they they can get those reduced fees. So some of that system is is possible to use i'm with some of the therapy, but it's still really expensive. You know, it can be $25,000, $30,000 for a course of treatment. where really It's really, you know, because... i'
00:14:33
Speaker
But we're really working really hard to and bring insurance companies on board and the veteran affairs organizations as well. So there's a lot happening in that space and it's changing all the time.
00:14:45
Speaker
and We are really talking a lot about improving access because, you know, that's prohibitive for so many people. And we're really concerned about that in the space. and It's, you know, the model that that we're working with is, is you know, is there the same model that's used in clinical trials? It's the one where the research evidence comes from. And so it's really important, I think, to stay true to that best practice. But also, how do we do this in a way that means that other people can afford it? You know, i'm I think what that will mean and is
00:15:16
Speaker
the government coming on board more and also some of the insurance companies. And there's there's a lot happening in that space. I'm not an expert on all of that. If you had my colleague, Monica Schweichel from the psychedelic consultancy here, she would be able to speak to a lot of this um in detail. But um there's a lot of people working hard behind the scenes to improve access.
00:15:35
Speaker
im Yeah. That's good to hear. Do you feel that like I've heard like maybe drug policy and Australia is a little bit more conservative, but like would do you see them moving towards like a decrim model or like a service center model that's outside the the medical
US Psychedelic Policies and Federal Challenges
00:15:52
Speaker
model there? Or do you feel like that might be like way down the line?
00:15:57
Speaker
I don't You know, Australia surprises me. I'm originally from the UK. i' I've been here maybe 12 years, I think. um i i There's lots of people that would love to see that happen, or at least to see the restrictions shifted into a way that means it's more affordable. Right.
00:16:15
Speaker
It's so hard to say. you know Generally, Australia is um more, I think, a conservative in their drug policy. So it feels like that might not not be on the cards. it's not like you know Tell me about America. like What's happening in the US? I know it's different state to state. when You probably have different reflections, but how is it all going over there?
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it really started with um Denver decriminalizing psilocybin just in the city limits there back in 2019. um And then Oregon followed after that and legalized um psilocybin within a healing service center model. So that was outside of like the scope of, um you know, this more medical model and people without a diagnosis could then go receive services. And then we've seen um these smaller city ordinances pass through the decriminalized nature movement. So we have number of towns and cities throughout the U.S. s that have passed these local resolutions to decriminalize it. So it takes away, you know, possible criminal charges for possession, gifting, et cetera. Theoretically, right? Like it could, you know, state could always come in. Feds could always come in since they these are just like local resolutions. It just means like, you know it should be the lowest priority for police enforcement. um
00:17:36
Speaker
And then we had Prop 122 pass here in Colorado, which legalized psilocybin within, or legalized natural medicine. Well, hold on. There's two bills there.
00:17:47
Speaker
Decriminalized natural medicines. So it allowed folks to grow, gift, consume natural medicines, um mushrooms, cacti, mescaline containing cacti that isn't peyote, DMT, et cetera. Ibogaine isn't on that decrim list in a way. um There's some kind of restrictions around it. um And then they have the legal framework there as well, where people can go to a service center and that they're mainly focusing on psilocybin and then in the healing centers um and it sounds like they're going to be expanding in into ibogaine treatment as well there was just a conference that happened over in aspen a few weeks ago joe just did a podcast wrote an article about some of the recap that happened there but it is a a discussion ah around you know can they get ibogaine uh treatments um up and running after they really get like the psilocybin structure in place. um
00:18:46
Speaker
And then we're seeing other states too, like New Mexico just passed um a legalization bill. That's more kind of like in a medical model. um New Jersey just is trying to advance a bill around... set there' is a little bit It sounds like there's a little bit of confusion um on the internet ah around what bill actually got was advanced. um It's not completely passed. It still has to you know go through a few more steps, but New Jersey is trying to create like a pilot program um to see, um you know, how this could get rolled out. And I think they would incorporate that.
00:19:20
Speaker
They're allocating like $6 million. dollars And I think it's just towards like getting it started in hospitals first. um And so we're seeing policy across the board from decrim to the medical models that are rolling out here. um and we'll see on the federal level, you know, that is something that just still lags behind. is federal rescheduling and stuff like that. um I did see an article recently that the DEA has been trying to like up production around um psychedelics for clinical trials because they would typically like restrict how much could get produced in a year for for that. So it sounds like, you know, more clinical trials, more research um is on the way, but you never know. It's always ah up and down.
00:20:05
Speaker
We could see like an example with Oregon for when they passed their decriminalized ah bill. I was confused. Measure 109, measure 110. I think it's, yeah, I always forget.
00:20:19
Speaker
um But they passed a decriminalization bill with the legalization bill and they've rolled back on that. So in that bill, it actually decriminalized like a lot of different substances, not just psychedelics. And since mushrooms and psychedelics were also wrapped up in that when they reversed it, it actually recriminalized um psychedelics outside of, say, the service center model. um So, yeah, there's been a lot of stuff happening and it just seems to be kind of like, you know, compounding, which is exciting.
00:20:49
Speaker
um but you know I never thought it would be happening this quick when I first started getting more involved in psychedelics. So it's cool to see policy does change over time.
00:21:00
Speaker
Yes. Wow. I mean, i i find i still find it fascinating how different the federal and state legislations are in
End-of-Life Care and Psychedelic Advocacy
00:21:08
Speaker
in the U.S. and how must be quite complex. you know um My colleagues and and friends, Bruce and Marcela from MAPS, They've been sort of trying to get their center off the ground. um and it just, you know, it feels like there's just a lot of complexity for all of us, but also really exciting. I agree. I never thought that we would be where we are in Australia. i just had it was a surprise to a lot of us. i I think so, because I remember the policy was trying to move forward with Mind Medicine Australia, and then it seemed to get blocked. And then I remember just all of a sudden it was like the news broke. You're like, what should what just happened there? Like, yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah, and I think one of the things that, um you know in terms of the work here, that I would really like to see and advocate for is is looking at, and because at the moment, the ah access it to people with treatment-resistant depression, with psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy,
00:22:06
Speaker
and people with PTSD who've tried some other treatments for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. But I would really like to see end-of-life care really looked at. There's a lot of people advocating for that. i've got a podcast series coming up next year about that because there's actually a lot of research for that population too. that And you know i think almost all of us will unfortunately know someone in our lives who is touched by cancer and probably who's passed away from cancer if you look at the rates. So i really would like to see that use expandage in those populations.
00:22:42
Speaker
Same. And just being able to have access to it. um I always remember something, one of our past guests, Dr. McLean from be Hopkins working on these, you know, it was like, we don't know when we're going to die, right? And And there's this idea that like, if we have these transitory tools that help us to confront death and life, like, shouldn't we just naturally have access to some of this stuff so we can confront that? And I always come back to a quote that I learned during, um,
00:23:16
Speaker
Of course, I took on death and dying. It's, you know, how we live our life is how we prepare for death and how we prepare for death is how we live our life. And so like, if we're able to like confront that, does that shift the way that we approach stuff? Right. And if somebody is um confronted and is diagnosed with terminal illness, like.
00:23:35
Speaker
should they have a human right to be able to like, you know, ease some of that suffering and anxiety. And you kind of see a bit of the hiccups up in Canada where they have a special access program. And sometimes I hear that people have a hard time actually getting access and approval for that, even though they do have terminal illness. And um so, yeah, I agree. I wish that that would also expand as well.
00:23:59
Speaker
a Yeah, I feel like it's something that I work with so much in my private practice. You know, I've got private practice, I do psychotherapy individually with people and, um,
00:24:11
Speaker
One of the things that is such a common thing is fear death. So they're kind of the existential fear of death, not the kind of, even if someone is not sick, but they may be there when you get underneath the anxiety or whatever is presenting, it's that. And so often it's about a lot of things, but one of the things it can be about is a life not lived in the way that they want to be living it.
00:24:33
Speaker
you know Do you know the book Staring at the Sun by Irving Yilom? I don't think so, no. He's a beautiful book about and death anxiety and his own death anxiety. And um yeah, it's really great. And it talks a lot about these different ways in which you can support people with that. And kind of and he's very like self-disclosing in that book. He's an amazing, ah he must be getting quite quite a lot older now, but existential psychotherapist. He's a whole bunch of books that I love. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:06
Speaker
Nice. And how did he approach that topic of like, did he have his own experiences with death or like psychedelics or? Death, fear of death. Yeah, I think he and he lived with this kind of death anxiety that his whole life that he realized was affecting how he was in the world. um And so he started to reflect on what would be important for him. And he talked about, like, you know, I guess he's very self-disclosing about writing books, just kind of putting some of himself in the world so that he can continue to ripple out.
00:25:36
Speaker
And I guess we all ripple out in through the people that we love, and the way that we are in the world and the people that we care for. and we leave a little piece of ourselves with them, don't we? Totally. yeah yeah and like i mean Something like that just reminds me of like you know when you are on your deathbed, like are you going to regret not doing things? right and so it is It goes back to that that thing. It's like how we prepare for death is how we live live our lives. If we're not thinking about that, are we really consciously showing up for the life that we really want to live?
00:26:11
Speaker
Yes, yes. This is a great topic. I could keep keep going on this. You know, I feel i i feel like ah the reason that I ended up making this huge life change to move to Australia is partly to do with my first job as a psychologist, which is in bereavement counselling.
Influence of Bereavement Counseling on Career
00:26:28
Speaker
and And I think there's something about being that close to people who have recently had someone in their lives die that makes you really think about those big questions, you know? Yeah. It's hard not to, you know? think it puts it right in your face and you go, hmm. think hard part is like actually integrating it, right? It's like we can have a lot of those insights and then, you know, we're back to the 3D, back in the grind. And I think that's the tension point for a lot of folks.
00:26:57
Speaker
i how How did you get involved in in the psychedelic work? Great question. So i um i was working as a psychologist in um refugee mental health, actually, for quite a lot of years. am in um torture and trauma counselling. And so um I could say lot about that, but one of the I guess the pathway to here was that i was I think you have to live slightly under a rock to not know about, and to be working that much with PTSD and not hear about MAPS and what they were doing.
00:27:31
Speaker
And so I learned about what MAPS was doing and MDMA assisted p psychotherapy and having really good impacts with PTSD. And so that was kind of my my doorway into this work. And then during COVID-19, I decided we had a really long lockdown here and I got in touch with an old friend who who I saw was doing that work. So she was on what ended up not having the trial ended up being delayed, but she was starting to work on the MDMA assisted psychotherapy trial at Monash Uni with the first responders.
00:28:07
Speaker
And I said, oh, I'm really interested in that work. And she said, why don't you come and work with us? I think you've got the right background being a somatic psychotherapist who's also really interested in depth psychology. Would you like to come on over?
00:28:18
Speaker
And so that's where that's where I began. And it's been an amazing adventure working at the clinical psychedelic lab with a great team of really like-minded psychologists. therapists and Dr. Paul Lignitzky who heads up the lab is is a really ah great great person to work alongside and it's been lots of cool projects happening there.
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Amazing. What's your journey been like with like training and providing psychedelic therapy? like you know As a traditional therapist, a somatic therapist, what did you have to learn? What you have to unlearn to start really working with medicines?
00:28:55
Speaker
Yeah, I was just thinking about this yesterday in preparing a bit for this call and I've been, I've actually been teaching um on the Psychedelic Education Program at Monash as well. So this has been like a real live question for me. um What do i want to sort of teach other people? What did I need to learn? And I feel like, um,
00:29:16
Speaker
when I was been working with, say, with the I worked for about two years on the psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy trial. we So we were working with people with generalized anxiety disorder in a dyad therapy model.
00:29:28
Speaker
i And so I think one of the things that... I found really important is if i if I think about dose days in particular and somatic approaches, you know, learning how to really track someone's body, really, really support them to have things that kind of move through, but also learning how to to get out of the way as well and just let happen what is happening in the space and that kind of balance of like actually...
00:29:58
Speaker
and When someone is in a dose day, most of the time, myself and my co-therapist are really just kind of holding the space, being alongside, really supporting them. But sometimes we're not. Sometimes what we're doing with doing stuff.
00:30:09
Speaker
um And I was thinking the other day i you know, i have was supporting somebody to move a somatic process through their body, but I was kind of doing it even the other recently, you know, from a place of something that I thought should happen. Mm-hmm. You know, and and actually when I reflected with my co-therapist, I think it was a bit confusing and a bit too much for them. Like I was going to do a push, and which can be really helpful. It is really helpful. I knew this person really well. I've worked with them for many, many sessions. um
00:30:40
Speaker
But in that moment on the dose day, it was me thinking, trying to be a good somatic therapist. And actually what what I find so much better is um just really it amplifying what's going on already and not bringing something in, which sounds like you're not doing a lot, but you're actually doing a lot when you are learning how to amplify and track someone's body.
00:31:04
Speaker
And how do you get out of your own way? in those situations. That's a great question. I think, im you know, meditation practice and grounding and coming into my own body has been really helpful in general. as I've been practicing meditation for a long time and yoga and those practices,
00:31:26
Speaker
like really helped me to get in my own body. um And so then I'm just kind of in my body watching the other person move through whatever they are moving through. And I think how you get out of your own ways, also it's a great having a co-therapist. If I'm thinking I might go check in, I might do a thing now, what are you feeling?
00:31:47
Speaker
um and And I think... It's really important to have really good supervision. So if you really know yourself and you know what's yours, then you're also more likely to get out of your own way.
00:31:57
Speaker
yeah Sounds so straight, you know, it's it's a complex thing there, right? What about you? yeah yeah Yeah, I love that you bring up like the the team aspect. I mean, that's definitely been a lot of my work too, like hosting groups, whether it's breathwork groups or we're doing, um you know, international retreats, um just having other people to check in with. And, you know, for me, it is a lot of like, you know, just...
00:32:23
Speaker
body awareness and thinking like, okay, what's coming up? Is this me? Is this actually, you know, for the client, for the participant? um If I feel like it's a little bit for me, i have to like really dig in and and like think about that. um And so I always try to use that, that weight acronym, like why am I talking? Why am I treating, et cetera? um and yeah, like a good example of this is we had somebody at a retreat or workshop one time, they were just very vocal.
00:32:52
Speaker
um And there is a part of me that was like, I need to tell this person to stop because it's these like disturbing everybody else. um And so I'm like, you know, bringing it in I checked in with the other facilitator.
00:33:08
Speaker
And, you know, i was like, what should we do here? And I think they even said, well, why are you feeling like anxious? Or why do you feel like you need to stop this? I'm like, at the root of it, I feel like I'm being a bad facilitator, you know, because I'm worried about everybody else. Like, is everybody else like being disrupted by this? um And, you know, we made the decision not to to intervene and and let that person's process like ride. But it is really hard because I think also as like therapists and helpers and whatnot, we want to feel like we're productive. And I think feeling productive is like either talking or trying to do something.
00:33:45
Speaker
And like just pulling back and like, as you mentioned, like actually it's really helpful. You're actually doing a lot by not intervening or or doing anything at at those times, but it's hard. I think that's like the hardest thing to try to like unlearn as like a helper. It's like really allowing people to trust their own process and that, you know, that they'll, um and to create that space for them to so do that exploration, have agency over it bit more, but it's tough. Yeah.
00:34:15
Speaker
Totally. And, you know, I'm trained in sensory motor psychotherapy with them the Pat Ogden School. yeah And, you know, of the things I was reflecting on in my training, you know, that one of the a ten of the basic kind of principles is that sometimes when the nervous system is dysregulated, it's because there's a stuck defensive response within the body that needs to come through. um And when we did our training, that was kind of we were taught you know, the sort of main ones that people might think of, like a push or a kick or a, and you're not doing those fast when you move a stop defense response through the body to help with the nervous system reset. It's very slow and mindful and pressurized.
00:34:55
Speaker
But what I was thinking about when I think about my psychedelic work in dosing is that it's really taught me that people's bodies And the movements that need to happen are so much more idiosyncratic than that. You know? And actually, like, if I think about that case I mentioned where i was trying to help that that person, and and that movement was useful for them previously and and after, um but it wasn't the right moment then, you know? Right. They needed to do something else, and it might be there's just a shaking or a pushing in a different way. could be anything, really, you know? and I think...
00:35:33
Speaker
That's been a big learning for me to kind of just really, i never know what's going to happen if song on a dose day. I might think I do. I might have worked with wordtress someone a lot of times, but you never know.
00:35:46
Speaker
You have to be prepared prepared for uncertainty and the unknown in this work, right? Yep. Absolutely. Where do you think the overlap is between like um psychedelic work and somatic work? You know i know somatics has been very popular recently. and There's a lot more talk about like nervous system regulation and learning how to like work with the body. um Do you find that it is a powerful adjunct to psychedelic therapy? um Or as you're saying too, like, you know, maybe i need to pull back and actually not do this thing right now, right?
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, I find it really, really helpful for what I was just talking about in terms of learning how to track. I feel like it taught me how to track a body and the posture. And even from the first ah preparation session, if I think about my work on the ah generalized anxiety disorder trial, where people that were working with their nervous systems were really...
00:36:44
Speaker
really, really heightened, you know. i' And I think even from the first session, I'm i'm i was checking out like, okay, how are they holding their body? How do they relate to their body? Like, where are they? I noticed that they they're sitting really tense in a particular part of the body. I might get curious about that i'm because I guess one of the ways that I understand anxiety sometimes, it's different for everyone, but it's like a kind of disconnection with the body, even we though the body is talking, emotionality in the body can um you know, you can have a lot of anxiety and then underneath that is grief or anger. Right.
00:37:22
Speaker
you know, and and so i find it helpful in that way to help people to kind of navigate that space to get to know their body before going into a dosing because on dose days, people will get taken there. I feel like, I guess, I guess if I think about how I've seen these medicines work, it it is, you know, we spend so much time in our head in the modern world. and somatics has got really popular in the last 10 years but we still, you know, all of us, i most of us spend too much time in our heads and so but so much of the way that we experience the world um is non-verbal and so of course these medicines will take us into that place in our body so so often. so I think it's helpful for people to have and an orientation almost into some of the things that might happen.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah, and I always think, and I kind of say, it's almost like we're very somatically illiterate as a culture. um And I just think about like what comes up in psychedelics. like People might feel different sensations, emotions, and not know what to do with it. And and I think at least like helping people to have practices or develop a language on like, oh, like this anxiety I'm feeling isn't necessarily bad, right? Like maybe there's actually content to work there with. And how do I work with that instead of just continuing to try to suppress it? But it takes a while, I think, for people to like learn that um and be curious about it.
Therapists' Personal Experiences with Psychedelics
00:38:55
Speaker
Totally, 100. I completely agree. I love that. Somatically illiterate. I think where we we are, you know, like yet also so much of the time when people are suffering, it's because their body is feeling so much intensity. You know, the people I worked with in the anxiety disorder trial, that was definitely true for.
00:39:13
Speaker
um And I think it's also helpful, you know, if I think about i was lucky enough to be a part of us before we did the psychedelic trial with psilocybin at Monash, we did and another kind of trial where we had our own self-experience. So yeah, the therapists and sat for each other in dyads. And so we did like a mini version. This sort of psilocybin trial was about three months of therapy and dosing. But we did a mini version where I had like one preparation session with two therapists, one of which was my diet partner for the trial, and then a dose day and then an integration session, i which was really the best training that I could have ever had. And I wish was available more freely and to to to psychologists and psychiatrists and people working in the space in Australia now, because I feel like
00:40:05
Speaker
That's one of the things that I feel most concerned about is that there's not really a legal pathway for people to do that. i was just going to ask, yeah, for folks that are starting to get involved, are they able to have their own experience or No.
00:40:18
Speaker
not legally at the moment, unless it's part of a trial, which people are doing and trying, you know, and and also I think it's really important to research these things, like just to research the effectiveness of that, like how useful it was. And there was a big, it was, you know, there was a lot of really good evidence that we got out of that trial. um And so people are doing that, but there's not, and that's the complication, you know, that it's it's really, they've taken psilocybin and MDMA down from,
00:40:46
Speaker
being at the same level of restriction as arsenic, which is kind of wild, down the level, but only once, you know. So that makes it difficult. That's interesting interesting they would build a pathway for like clinical research, but not like actual practice as it's become like legal for or other folks.
00:41:05
Speaker
yeah I think that i think it it If anything, happen I think that will, I think it will start to happen, hopefully. I mean, I don't know, but there's a lot of people kind of advocating for that too.
00:41:16
Speaker
yeah and And we were able to do it through a trial, which is great. And I had um a lot of things happen on my dose day, but one of the things was a really intense stomach pain.
00:41:27
Speaker
Mm-hmm. that came up kind of partway through and you know I was supported with that and given been you know a pillow to hold and and then it continued to unfold in the evening. I went home, I was picked up by a wonderful support person and um I went home and I continued to work with it.
00:41:47
Speaker
you know outside of the session and i' kind of and sat in in the in a bath and just kind of did some breathing. And I have those practices. you know i know how to do that. um It didn't surprise me. um And so if I think about how I want to prepare people for this kind of for this work, it is about that, that that the the somatic processing can also continue after the session. It's helpful to have. I'm curious about how you you work with breathwork, actually, and how you support people with that um but because i think i i think it could be really helpful as well yeah i think um well i guess before i get into the breath work like that stomach thing did you see that as something psychosomatic or byproduct of like the psilocybin that you're taking like you know because we talk about like nausea does come up and there might be some stomach stuff but like do you see it as more physiological or that was more kind of psychosomatic and there's like emotions there that you had to continue to work with
00:42:43
Speaker
Definitely emotional. I hold so much in my belly and I've had, you know, experiences with IBS my whole life and like stuff like that. So there is, it felt very emotional. And in the session, I came out and said to my lovely therapist, you know, I've got this really bad stomach pain and it's really I don't want to go there. And and they were like, is that something that you need to go towards? Maybe you need some support. Would you like a pillow? We can come and hold your hand. You know, they were and they encouraged me to go back. and I did change my body position, which I also think can be really helpful. You know, if I think about like being able to I sat up and not lying down anymore. um
00:43:24
Speaker
I also so really always like to have a yoga mat on the floor for for people and me as the the facilitator. um But I kind of went and went and so I sat down, closed my eyes and I went in and I had some really big insights come through during that, in that process. And so that continued to come through later and outside of that. So kind of almost like,
00:43:48
Speaker
and sort of really a lot of downloads of information and and processing of emotion. So yeah, it definitely felt psychosomatic to me. Yeah, I always feel like i need to like move that energy when it's coming up. like I feel like when I'm just like stuck and like rigid, it just gets like more intense. um So to be able to like move and and breathe into it, I think is can be really important.
00:44:11
Speaker
But um yeah, I think for me, like you using breath beforehand can be really impactful because I think... Sometimes when we're in those really deep experiences, people sometimes forget to breathe in a way, you know, and when something really difficult coming up, which is just like, you know, practice before going in, like, what does it feel like to like sit with those emotions? And so,
00:44:36
Speaker
Sometimes before um doing ketamine therapy with clients, I would actually just do some short breath work sessions. So we could like just see what it's like to like induce a non-ordinary state without a substance first, learn how to like navigate big emotions when they come up in that state.
00:44:54
Speaker
And then just to help do a little bit of that preparation. And then on, I think during the session, um you know, just returning to the breath when things get really gnarly um and people feel like,
00:45:06
Speaker
what's going on. um And I know for me, like my in my personal experiences, like if I didn't have all that like breathwork stuff, I, you know, it would have been really challenging. um I just think about like my experiences before breathwork and then like after doing more breathwork and how that those breathwork practices help to deepen the intensity in ah in a different way for some sort of like resolution instead of trying to like push it away and be like, I don't want to fuel this, right? This is too much. It's like, it allows me to like be with the experience, even though it can be really intense. um And then on the other side, being able to like use it as like an integration tool. um Yeah.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yeah. Allowing people to like do some circular breathing to get back into that state. Maybe it helps with like a little bit of resolution. um and But I think like after psychedelics, you kind of I think timing's interesting. i remember we did um a session, a breathwork thing like at a retreat, and the folks that had the session the day before felt like it was too activating.
00:46:11
Speaker
But the people that dosed two days prior said it actually felt like it helped to resolve a lot of things that like were left unresolved. So it helped to bring some of that back to the surface for for more processing.
00:46:26
Speaker
That's really interesting. Yeah, I can imagine that like you know that that would be really helpful. you know, i am in in the in that integration space, that I remember I did a holotropic breathwork workshop with some colleagues and, you know, I guess that is when we were training for the, I think this was later, I think it was for the MDMA-assisted psychotherapy trial, not the psilocybin one.
00:46:53
Speaker
um But za I'm writing um a clinical intervention at the moment for a new trial that's in development, which is i looking at psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and partnering with men's behaviour change i for for men who perpetrate violence. And so it's a pretty complex area. and we're still developing it at the moment, but really thinking about this question of how to support the therapists into to learning how to do this work. And I was thinking about breathwork is ah and a legal option yeah um and holotropic breathwork you can go so deep I remember i listened to you talk about this and you were saying that you were a little bit skeptical the very first time that you did any breathwork I was so skeptical and i was blown away by the experience and I was so surprised i thought oh
00:47:42
Speaker
how is this going to do anything? And then the next thing you know, i was in a very deep process i being supported. We kind of set it up so it was a similar sort of support structure to what would happen in a psychedelic session, which was really helpful and in learning how to do this work. Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:01
Speaker
I remember I was chatting with Rick Doblin about this and seeing like, you know, because a lot of folks do use breath work as a training modality as like a, you know, legal way. And he said, you know, I think it's really great for like psilocybin therapy because you're very hands off. But with like MDMA therapy, since it's a little bit more like, you know, a little bit more talking, i might not actually like... be maybe the best thing. But I think it does help to teach you to like be with yourself. And I think that's the most important thing when it comes to that training. It's like, how do we just be with ourself when there's big catharsis going on without always needing to like intervene right away? And I think that comes back to like getting out of our own way. It's like, oh I'm feeling triggered right now because somebody's having like this this big thing unfold. And
00:48:46
Speaker
How do I stick with my breath? How do I stick with my body? And just like not need to to to do that and intervene. but Yes, right. i I'm smiling because i um i was teaching about this ah recently. and um you know, i think it just takes a lot of practice and it's great if you have two of you because sometimes, you know, as a therapist, we're going to be, something's going to come up for us and someone's having a big relief being, being, you know, loud or distressed or, or, or in, you know, panicking, right. Which is kind of one of the harder things. I think if someone starts to panic and, yeah you know, gets really distressed that way and,
00:49:32
Speaker
it's so contagious, that nervous system activation. And so learning how to just really ground and knowing when you need to take a moment and your co-therapist can have a go. For those of us that are fortunate and enough to work that way, I know it's not always the case, but um it's really important.
00:49:50
Speaker
<unk> interesting, yeah, how like somebody else's experience can really impact us. And you're saying panic. And when you mentioned that, they remember an experience where somebody was like dealing with a lot of panic and anxiety and they needed to go outside. And I could feel that, like even though I felt like I was like grounded.
00:50:06
Speaker
like As soon as we like left that container, i could feel all the panic and anxiety like way more where I'm like, ooh, maybe we should go back inside where it feels safer. Yeah. yeah, those mirror neurons, right? And like we're co-regulating with each other in a way. yeah Absolutely. Yeah. Even just thinking about the case that I'm, obviously ah there's been a few people but in a generalized anxiety disorder, understandably people might meet something and maybe this is throwing us into that shadow work conversation. They might meet a part of themselves that's really scary and they're really afraid and they kind of want to They, you know, whip the eyes, shows the headphones off, and they want to run away. And I so understand that, you know. And I remember really i think that's when you can get pulled – I can get pulled into trying to do too much as well sometimes. be Like get talk too much kind of and actually –
00:50:59
Speaker
you know, what a person needs when they're like that is really less words, calm, yeah space. and But it happens quickly, right? Like I can even feel bit of a memory of that in my body as I'm talking, you know. Yeah. Oh, no, what do I do? You mentioned like rip the headphones off and like the eye shades off.
00:51:24
Speaker
um I think that's something I've had to like also unlearn in a bit. Like when I was doing a lot more ketamine therapy with folks, I noticed those with like pretty significant trauma had a really hard time actually like...
00:51:38
Speaker
wanting to put headphones and eye shades on. And that kind of challenged me in a way because it's like, you know, this is the framework which we come from. and I had to be like, actually, but would it look like if we took more of this like trauma informed relational approach and say, yeah, maybe we don't need to do that right away.
00:51:54
Speaker
we Maybe we can get there and we can take like small steps to that so you can feel safe instead of saying, like you need to do it this way. um and that was like a big challenge challenge for me to like unlearn, like, oh, okay, even though like I've been taught this framework, this is like how we do everything,
00:52:11
Speaker
Maybe it's okay for somebody not to wear hedge funds and eye shades right off the bat um with with some of this stuff.
Relational and Trauma-Informed Therapy Approach
00:52:17
Speaker
like how do we I always say, it's like, how do we get in the water and swim together so we feel safe enough um to to go into the deep end together?
00:52:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's beautiful metaphor. And I think... um how do we yeah how do we do this together? Because we we often say, or I often say, like we're with you. Wherever you're going, we're here.
00:52:40
Speaker
We've got this, we've got you, we'll look after your physical body as well and make sure that everything is safe on the couch. And and and yeah, I think...
00:52:52
Speaker
I think it is really important to go with what feels okay for the person in the space, you know. and And I've certainly had people who just want to close their eyes, people who want to sit up, people who want to get up and move, you know. And I think there's a bit of an implicit message in the protocol sometimes that we should all lie down on the couch and not move. And I'm a super kinetic person. I'm standing up right now. it I kind of yeah say yeah and I I have to have like um a yoga mat for myself but also I feel like it encourages yeah other people to get down onto the mat too and move their body um which is really important I think yeah you were bringing up the shadow and um yes how do you define shadow work what is shadow work to you
00:53:37
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. i think, um you know, it's it's i was just reflecting on this and then I really liked, so I know you did a course not so long ago with the integration circle and it was that actually the shadow kind of have this idea that it's something really hard, right? Like it' something really dark and like inherently negative, but it's so often in my experience as a therapist, it's actually something that that the person might shut off is any any part of themselves that they kind of put into their unconscious because they deem it somehow unacceptable. And that might be wanting to be an artist, as you said, on on on that course, and when your family really wants you to be in a corporate job. And I think, you know...
00:54:20
Speaker
It really got me thinking about the people I've worked with and so, so often at the core of whatever kind of therapy we're doing, whether it's psychedelic work or other kind of work, is that there's a part of themselves that they really want to bring into the world but they feel they can't.
00:54:38
Speaker
yeah And the tension of that builds and builds and gets called depression or anxiety or, you know, and, and and so ah very often we kind of want to take someone down to meet those parts within themselves and,
00:54:53
Speaker
to bring that and out into the open, you know. It's not to say that the shadow can also obviously be parts of us holding pain. You know, I'm an IFS therapist as well as i the other types of therapy and I kind of, that the idea of that we exile these child parts of ourselves that are holding pain is also something that feels important to me.
00:55:13
Speaker
Yeah, and like what are those like golden parts that want to come out? I remember somebody saying, like shouldn't therapy or psychedelic experiences like always be hard? like Am I not doing the work if I'm not like going into like the pain and grief? um And you know I tried to challenge that, like kind of thinking about this golden shadow aspect, knowing that like maybe your nervous system actually needs to rest.
00:55:39
Speaker
And what does that, and you could automatically like just see, I don't want to do that. Right. It's like, actually, maybe that's where the work is. Like, how do we actually find rest in the nervous system instead of always chewing up the the darkness? um And that can be really hard. Right. Because I think when we think about the quote unquote work, we think about those darker aspects. I need to get to the bottom of this wound.
00:56:04
Speaker
But. As you're saying too, like what about those exiled parts that really want to shine, that really want to like be expressed, that want to be the artist, that wants to like you know start a podcast or create a sub stack or like you know put their voice out there. um But that other part saying, don't do that, you're not worthy of it. um you know and So then you have this interplay between that shadow, that more darker part, but then this other part that really just wants to come out and say, hey, this is who I am. And I think that's integration. i think that's really where kind of like the work is. It's like, how do we bridge that gap there? um
00:56:41
Speaker
Because yeah, it just might get exiled again. if we use my like parts work language. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, i remember... a dosing session on the psilocybin trial and one of the participants just started singing.
00:56:59
Speaker
Beautiful, beautiful voice. And my co-therapist and I were so deeply moved, you know, that she was just, that they were doing that, that they were singing and we were like, wow.
00:57:11
Speaker
Yeah. And, and, and it was like that creative expression was just coming through, you know, and, I mean, i I actually am someone who's pretty terrified of public speaking as as historically, right? and like and And so for me, doing a podcast was a huge push. Like it was, it you know, there's the professional reasons, but also a personal journey of like, I have stuff I want to say about this field at this moment and I'm i'm going to do it.
00:57:42
Speaker
What made you kind of get over that or like, how have you been working with that edge to step into that a little bit more? and I guess like, you know, I think it's feeling the tension and being kind to those those parts. You know, i feel really well supported by my wonderful colleagues who, you know, even today, a you know, live stream is a scary thing, right? Like for me anyway. and And my colleagues just really supporting me and my friends, but also but like noticing those parts and going, cool on okay, okay.
00:58:16
Speaker
It's all right. It's okay. We've got this. We can we can do it, you know. um and and I have a beautiful therapist who I've worked with for many years. and i think it's really important as a therapist to have your own therapy. I go in and out of that. And the reason that I use IFS and a lot in my practice is because I've benefited so much from it myself. And so I really find that working with those parts within me helpful in noticing themomaticically yeah and And, you know,
00:58:47
Speaker
Grounding, I'm always, I've got no shoes on. i find like standing and having my feet on the ground, squishing my toes is really helpful for this kind of stuff. yeah own Yeah.
00:58:58
Speaker
And do you ever, like I'm noticing like you're holding hand there. Like are you do you notice like a knot or anything that ever comes up? um Yeah. Yeah. it's It's here. It's like a little knot here.
00:59:12
Speaker
i Used to be here actually, but I don't get that as much now. um But it's often here. And so I just kind of hold that place and breathe into it a little bit.
00:59:25
Speaker
sometimes reminders from my community to take care of those parts of myself before I do things like this, but I do that myself too. Well, thank you for showing up and you know doing the work and letting that like golden shadow shine. and It's tough. um I think I've probably talked about it here and there, but I have like the same type of like you know wound and in the way around like that throat chakra. This has been a really tough tough journey over the years. of like you know I remember sometimes we would um put episodes out when we first started and i'm like,
00:59:57
Speaker
I don't want to put that out to the world. And Joe's like, we got to put it out. And I'm like, uh, can we edit it a little bit more? Can we like delete it? Can we like redo it? And all of a sudden the episode goes out and you're like cringing a bit and you're like, uh, but then like, you know, somebody might like reach out and go, that was awesome episode.
01:00:16
Speaker
And I always come back to it's like, you know, we're we're our own worst critic. um And yes like, how do we like get out of our own way at that time? But still, it doesn't make it easy. um Really doesn't make it easy. It's definitely one of these challenges that...
01:00:33
Speaker
I didn't know that about you, Kyle. that that yeah i that's i'm'm I'm really glad that you put but got out of your own way and put this all out there. 300 and something episodes in now, right? i Like 800. 800. Between me and Joe.
01:00:50
Speaker
Amazing. Wow. yeah so And so do you still ever get like that or you kind of, it's not much of it. You do. yeah Yeah. Yeah. And public speaking. I hate public speaking, ironically. It's funny, I can do this stuff um or like teach.
01:01:06
Speaker
um But like sometimes I remember I did ah a conference like in person, the entire ride down, I was like having a panic attack. Yeah. And I could notice it was like all in the throat. I'm like, you know, i constantly clear my throat. I always feel like there's something in there. um But yeah, it's like this, it's all kind of like shadow wound um that has showed up for me transpersonally in psychedelic and breathwork experiences. um i know.
01:01:35
Speaker
Astrology is a little kind of controversial still at times in certain circles, but it's also represented in there as well, like where my Chiron placement is and and stuff like that. And then I could look at like you know my biographical history and like the amount of times where it felt like my voice was suppressed. i'm also like I don't have a formal diagnosis, but like definitely dyslexic at times. Um, so like I'll screw words up.
01:02:00
Speaker
Like, uh, when I grew up in, um, like reading out loud was like the most terrifying thing and I would have so much anxiety in school. And like, I would always screw words up and like, you know, my classmates would always laugh at me and stuff like that. And I still, you know, I find myself like screwing words up or like, you know, I've mixed things up or can't say a word. And, but, um, I think I've learned to just find humor in it. It's like, you know, my imperfections and, We're all human and we all have our imperfections and and that's okay. so Totally, yeah, 100%. I think it's one of the most common fears, public speaking. i was talking to a friend who's doing a course about it recently about about the same thing. you know i I remember i i got I did a talk once at the Australian Childhood Chorra Conference when I was in my refugee work days.
01:02:49
Speaker
And I was meant to be in um like ah a small kind of workshop space, which I was kind of doing something in a small room. And because of some scheduling, they bumped me to the main room with the podium and everything with like 20 minutes notice, and which is kind of good because I didn't really have time to run away, which is exactly what I wanted to do. yeah And it's terrifying, you know, like it was I really had to I almost into it, you know, but I i pushed through that anxiety a little bit and it was OK, you know, and people are so.
01:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, people, i think one of the, ah had a really beautiful piece of feedback about the podcast recently that someone said that there was an episode I did with Bruce and Marcella that they had shared with and with a client who had found it really helpful for helping them to prepare. And so for me, I was like, yeah, that's that's great.
01:03:42
Speaker
That's kind of one of the reasons I wanted to put it out there. You stuff's priceless, like that type of feedback to like hear, be like, oh, wow, like, you know, it's actually like having an impact in a way. and I think that's like what keeps me showing up at times. But um for all of you listening, you know, hopefully it's motivation to, you know, step into some work that maybe you're scared of or hesitant. it's like fix But it's that shadow work, right? Like just being able to address some of that and the integration is like showing up to do it, which...
01:04:14
Speaker
but it's also terrifying. know, like, the freeze up. Totally. Do you have a formal, like, back... I was going to say, do you have, like, a formal background in any sort of, like, Jungian psychology? or i am ah I've done... ah i'm not a Jungian therapist, but I've done some training in process work, and i feel like I am someone who...
01:04:39
Speaker
I think it's kind of always been underlying kind of principles of how I work. So when I worked in um the refugee mental health space, so I always did a lot of sand tray work. oh So I don't know if people will be familiar with that. So you kind of, I was working with young people and kids actually and families then.
01:04:57
Speaker
So that's where you kind of have a sand tray of a particular type and figurines and then You just, you create a space that feels safe and that the the peasant will create worlds and just free freely with the, with the, a hello with the different things that they put in the tray. And I was astounded by how amazingly people were able to communicate with me that about things that they wouldn't have been able to, even though we were working within temperatures a lot.
01:05:23
Speaker
So, yeah, so I think it's, I think the idea that, The core idea that the psyche, given the right conditions, will move towards healing and individuation is something that has underlined so much of what I do. But I'm not trained. I would not like to call myself a young Ian Allenster or anything like that. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. And do you see like, um well, I guess ah something else popped in my head. Sorry, kind of going off. ah Process work. Is that like Mendel's process work? or Yeah.
01:05:53
Speaker
Yeah. so yeah. I think... That's been something, you know, some colleagues of mine are are really deep in that space i at the Clinical Psychedelic Lab at Monash. um ah And I definitely have been really influenced by that, but also have done a lot of reading in my own work with that model as well.
01:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, I love Mendel's work. It's pretty interesting. um yeah and Do you see like kind of like this like archetypal process, Jungian, shadow work, like really important for psychedelics or like the integration process?
01:06:29
Speaker
ah Yeah, I think it just seems to naturally take people into those places of depth within the psyche, right? You know, that's kind of how one way, i mean, there's many ways to understand how psychedelics work, of course, but it feels to me that that's that people often go into those places. And so I think it is helpful. Yeah, I'm always really careful not to. um impose any particular frame on somebody but I think having that knowledge around archetypes and the collective unconscious and different energies and and archetypes that might emerge is really helpful as a therapist to kind of help guide i'm to help guide the the person but also to help guide myself in understanding it yeah yeah what what about you Kyle I've found it to be
01:07:17
Speaker
Yeah, really important for like trying to understand all the weirdness that comes up in psychedelics. like When there's a lot of like symbology, symbols, kind of archetypes to arise, it's like, what's my relationship to that? And as you're saying, it's like not to necessarily like put a framework on it for somebody.
01:07:37
Speaker
But I guess my take is like, how do we get more curious about that stuff that's arising? And like, here's like kind of a map that we can use as a way to like understand like, yeah, how have other people kind of explored um this stuff in the past? Like I'm really interested in dream work and you know, there's just so much interesting stuff that comes through dreams. And I feel like dreams are inherently psychedelic in a way. um and you know, it's like, how can we use that to also you know, do integration work, continue the ongoing process there. um and you know, the, the mind and the psyche are so vast and so depth, um, you know, there's so much depth there and it's like, what does it all mean? You know? And I think that's like where the analytical mind comes in. It's like, oh, no what does all mean? I could just sit here and like think about it all day. um But I think it helps to just provide a little bit of context um to like maybe how do we make sense of you know these things that are arising in the psyche? I always think about something a teacher told me. It's like, you know being lost at sea without a map is terrifying.
01:08:40
Speaker
And I think it is important for us to have some sort of map of the psyche, um whatever that is for so people. you know Maybe it's like more religious, maybe it's more depth-oriented psychology approaches, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. But I think developing some sort of map can be a grounding rod for folks. Otherwise, you're just untethered.
01:09:02
Speaker
A hundred percent. I really, and and I completely agree. And I think it's so, it you know, it's taken me back to why very many years ago I did a, m my doctorate research was actually about how people understand their experience of what was termed in the literature, like paranoia and paranoid delusions.
01:09:21
Speaker
And in that research, there it was really interesting to notice how people made sense of things in different ways and how important it was to be curious and to ask. And and I bring that curiosity to the psychedelic space. But sometimes people really are like, is that a literal thing or not? And I think that's where some of the, ah you know, to be able to speak from a Jungian frame can be really helpful to help people go, okay, like,
01:09:48
Speaker
but Let's not necessarily take everything literally that's important in psychedelics. yeah As Terence McKenna used to say, psychedelics seem to foster funny ideas. here and you you know Sometimes we have really great insights, really great ideas that come through, but sometimes we also need to like learn discernment and go, you know maybe that's not you know something I should be paying attention to all the time. and i think that I think that's a really important skill that we should all learn like how do we discern information that comes through to us when do we believe it as like ultimate truth or when do we believe it as like something okay this is like interesting maybe I could like shelf it and come back to it later at at another point yeah you know i I think I've spoken about this before on the podcast but
01:10:45
Speaker
but I had to in the journey at Monash, I had this thing come up that said, you should learn to sing. i was like, that's weird. I can't sing. i didn't I don't know about that. That doesn't sound like something that I want to do. and um But I sat with it and I thought, oh you know, maybe I'll call a singing teacher. And and then, um you know, over the months, it was like, no, this is, you should do the podcast.
01:11:08
Speaker
yeah It became this kind of different thing. That was the integration piece for me. It's like, what did that mean for you? right meant It meant this. And that feels right to me now.
01:11:19
Speaker
i'm Yeah. yeah Using your voice, right? So it's like singing could be symbolic of using your voice in lots of different ways. Totally. Yeah. And that was the integration of sitting with not acting straight away and seeing what really felt right for me. Yeah, that's beautiful.
01:11:39
Speaker
spring Awesome. Well, I see that we're over an hour. This time yeah just flew by here. um yes Anything that you want to close with for today? Yeah, um maybe where people can find me. So you can find me at my, if people want to find out anything or just get in touch, you can find me on my website, and which is just EsmeDarkPsychology. I'll put all this in the show notes for you. I'm also over on Instagram, just Dr Esme Dark.
01:12:08
Speaker
And then you can find the clinical psychedelic lab at Monash. If you just Google that, and you can find that as well. So you can find out about the research that we're up to. We've got so many cool projects starting next year. I've only spoken about really one of them. Um,
01:12:22
Speaker
And next year I'll be running a workshop for anyone in Australia, so an in-person workshop around somatic approaches to psychedelic therapies and then hopefully some online workshops as well and if I have the time. so busy, right, trying to do all the things, but I'm really keen to do that, yeah.
01:12:40
Speaker
And I know this is also going to go out to your audience um and it's going out to our audience as well, but your podcast too, Beyond the Trip. Yes. So people can find you there. Yeah, they can find me at Beyond the Trip podcast. And we've actually just very recently started to be on YouTube. So I've been going for about a year, and about 12 episodes. in i think i've got lots of exciting stuff coming up yeah next year um you know that special that i spoke about about um the potential use of psychedelics at end of life i've got some interviews dr bill richards who's already been on the podcast i've already recorded some um and then dr marg ross who did the first critical psychedelic trial in australia with people with end of life um if you've got the end of life so yeah lots coming up
01:13:26
Speaker
Yeah. saying Well, thank you for all the work that you're doing and showing up. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Kyle. It's been really great. It went really quickly, didn't it? Maybe we'll have to, we'll have to do another one sometime. Part two. Yeah, exactly. yeah Awesome. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in as well and we'll catch everybody later. So thank you again.
01:13:48
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.