Transcript
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.
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.
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, and I extend that respect to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today.
Speaker: Hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of Beyond the Trip. This episode, we are speaking with Associate Professor Vanessa Beasley.
Speaker: She is a distinguished behavioral scientist and a team head of the Psychedelic Medicine and Supportive Care Group at the QIMR Medical Research Institute.
Speaker: She leads the psilocybin-assisted supportive therapy trial, in which looks at the treatment of prolonged grief disorder. And she is the chief investigator on a number of other trials.
Speaker: She has a career spanning two decades in psychopharmacology and is committed to person-centered care, addressing supportive care needs for patients and their caregivers. She's led numerous counseling and exercise trials and has published over 70 scientific articles and she's provided recommendations to the government through multiple Cancer cancer Australia contracts.
Speaker: Vanessa is also a founding member of the Queensland Collaborative Centre for Cancer Survivorship, which focuses on health innovations. Now, before we go any further, i want to say a couple of things.
Speaker: Firstly, this episode was initially recorded to go out in with my mini-series, which looked at psychedelic-assisted therapy for grief and at the end of life. But for a few reasons, it's just getting released now. I'm really happy to be releasing it.
Speaker: I'll be including some links to her papers in the show notes. But I also really wanted to make it clear that this episode discusses suicide. And if that's something that feels that it's not the right time for you to listen to right now, please, you can listen to one of the many other episodes.
Speaker: If you feel you need support regarding this or any of the other issues discussed in this episode, please contact a local mental health professional. Those within Australia can also contact Lifeline.
Speaker: on 13 11 14. one one one four Okay, so let's get into it. and We have a number of topics that we discussed. We discussed grief and psychedelic assisted therapy. We talk a lot about the parting trial, the psilocybin assisted therapy for complex grief disorder trial.
Speaker: We talk about indigenous perspectives and how she included that within her research protocols. We talk about something I'm really passionate about, which is looking at creative arts practice is as a therapeutic tool alongside this work.
Speaker: And we also talk about the Northern Australian Psychedelic Science Conference, which she helped to organize and which I attended. and it was a really fantastic time. So yeah, without further ado, let's get into it. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed speaking with Vanessa.
Speaker: Hi, Vanessa. Welcome to the podcast. So wonderful to have you here. Thanks, Esme. I'm really excited to talk to you today. I know. It's been a long time in the making, isn't it? You know, I was just thinking that we we met almost a year ago for the first time um at the Northern Australian Psychedelic Science Conference that you put on up in Brisbane, which we're going to talk a bit about today as well. We've been talking about it since then, so it's wonderful to finally, year later, actually sit down to do this with you.
Speaker: welcome. Thank you. Yeah, and so we'll talk more about the NAPS conference later on because I think that was a really, really amazing thing that you put together. It it was such a fun event for us all. um But tell us a bit about you. like how like How did you get into psychedelic research? You're a researcher by background in a more general sense, I think. Is that right? Yes. I'm a behavioural scientist um yeah and am the team head of the Psychedelic Medicine and Supportive Care Group at Curemar Burkhoffer.
Speaker: yeah which is a world-leading medical research institute up in Brisbane. And with that, I have the luxury of doing um doing research 100% of my work hours.
Speaker: um So I work on a lot of different projects and my background is in psycho-oncology, which is looking after both patients and their families and thinking about ways that we can support their psychosocial wellbeing.
Speaker: and And I guess my introduction into psychedelics came particularly, well, I was following the literature that the the early modern literature, a lot of it was in the cancer setting at end of life.
Speaker: And so i was following along with that literature and and really interested in in the capacity to you know, think about it in the cancer setting. yeah And in 2019, up here in Queensland, we had a change to the Poisons Act, which allowed for exemption with the Schedule 9 substances to be used in clinical trials.
Speaker: And I got to the point where I was like, oh my gosh, it's finally happened here in Australia and here in Queensland. And at the time i was working on a trial, leading a trial that looked at supporting are carers of people with pancreatic cancer.
Speaker: So if you're not familiar with pancreatic cancer, it is one of the worst in terms of survival of about five months on average. And we were supporting these carers um over a six-month time period.
Speaker: And so what we were finding is that a lot of people the patients of these carers were passing away and we were delivering a lot of bereavement care. and And it was really then that it struck me how devastating um that loss is and and how hard that grief can hit people who've been caring for someone with cancer. Yeah.
Speaker: So we know in the cancer field that carers are at a risk of 30% of them go on to experience prolonged grief disorder, whereas in the general population, only about 10% of people experience this clinical condition.
Speaker: yeah And so i started to think, well, what what can we do better for this group of people who've been affected by cancer and who've lost someone?
Speaker: And Is anything being done out there it in in terms of, you know, what's the gold standard at the moment and and in the psychedelic field? yeah the gold The gold standard is really talk therapy, grief-focused, and while 50% of people do have a good um outcome from that therapy, there's still 50% of people who went ah who weren't having a symptom reduction in those grief particular reactions.
Speaker: Yeah. And nobody was doing anything in the grief setting with psilocybin in particular. And I really thought that was an opportunity. and and And I put a seed grant into my my institute and um thankfully it was successful and they were on board with me doing this research. So that was really my entry point into the psychedelic field.
Speaker: Yeah, it'ss um so this episode is going to go out as part of a series of episodes, as you know, around, you know, psychedelic, assisted psychotherapy and in end-of-life care. But actually, your work has been in in the grief space, which is so important. And and it's kind of surprising to me that there's not actually much research that's happened in this particular space.
Speaker: Is that tool? Well, there is. um So there's a researcher over in Spain, Deborah, ah who's doing ayahuasca assisted psychotherapy.
Speaker: yeah And her work's really in the, ah a little bit earlier in the trajectory post death. So it's it's kind of intervening um within that earlier phase where grief is still normalizing and we're seeing, you know, if people kind of move through that process.
Speaker: um Whereas, as you as you know, and maybe some of your listeners know, there is a a diagnosis where grief becomes really chronic. So it goes on for at least 12 months um and it's really debilitating. So it's affecting people and their in their either their work life or their relationships or even functioning around the home.
Speaker: And that's when it becomes a little bit problematic because it's associated with things like elevated risks of so suicide and, you know, other other conditions that would be putting people in poor health.
Speaker: And that's so where we want to in in my team, that's where we thought it might be best to intervene. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, it makes a lot of sense that it would happen for carers having, they've put so much of their like time and love and energy. And I actually didn't know that the antirotic cancer was such a, you know, it's a five months is the kind of usual,
Speaker: prognosis I have an unfortunately a friend of mine passed away from from that and I do remember it being really fast and he was he was young you know yeah yeah yeah it's it's tough hey yeah yeah it's really tough I think it's tough in a number of ways one is that the the symptoms are are really awful there's a lot of pain and um dietary considerations and things. But because of that compressed time where you're already in shock, you've just found out you've got a diagnosis, you know to then move into, oh what does that mean? And make all these treating decisions. And then, oh my gosh, death is around the corner. We have to think about end of life planning. we haven't you know
Speaker: it it just happens so, so quickly and it leaves people in real shock um And they may not, if they don't have the right support, they may not have you know thought about the the death that they wanted and the life that they wanted to live while that person was still alive.
Speaker: um So it kind of compounds all of that grief. Yeah. Yeah. And so important then to be looking at ways to support people. And it's, it's fantastic that you were able to get this trial off the ground at a time, you know, when yeah it wasn't always, hasn't been still easy. There's much more happening now, you know, but I think when you were first conceiving of this trial, there wasn't,
Speaker: as much happening in australia really Yeah, it definitely was one of the, well, it was the first trial in in Queensland to to use a psychedelic, but it was also the world first trial of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in this particular indication.
Speaker: Yeah. um So, you know, it was quite groundbreaking from that point of view. Yes. And how is it going? Where are things up to now, Vanessa? Because I haven't seen you for a year, so lots has probably happened. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to hear how it's going. and it's it's um So we finished all of our data collection.
Speaker: So we we actually collected, we delivered the intervention and then we collected data for 12 months, which is quite good for these psychedelic trials. A lot of them have, you know, more earlier time points.
Speaker: So we all wanted to see what happened over a 12-month period. um And we're now in the point which is the exciting end for me. I mean, no other the therapists love the delivery phase, but yes the exciting end for me is um really getting into that data and understanding just what has happened.
Speaker: and and what we're finding. um In terms of our data, we we have a mixed method design, so we're interested not just in those quantitative measures of how the grief symptoms or grief reactions were you know changed over time, if they were,
Speaker: um But also, what are some of those other things that happen in people's lives that are captured in these qualitative interviews that are really, really important and impactful? and Because what what we do see is it's not just...
Speaker: one thing that the these psychedelic therapies can you know change, it's this cascade of other things in life that are transformed. Absolutely. i I'm such a, um I'm more of a, so i like most therapists, I guess I'm more of a qualitative research and person. That's what I did my ah research was using qualitative methods that And I think it's really so important because you know so many of the quantitative measures that we have really focus in on particular things or a particular diagnosis or symptoms, but quantitative just allows us to understand more about what is still relatively new field really. And and yeah and and this is the first of its kind in in this you know in this indication.
Speaker: yeah And I guess because of that, um the design is the design was an open label, so that means that everybody received the intervention.
Speaker: yeah um And that we we just roll it out in a small group because really what we're trying to determine is, well, firstly, if it's safe. We didn't really have too many concerns around that. but That's generally what you do first time around. But also, is it feasible in this indication um to deliver? Is it acceptable by the participants who've received it?
Speaker: And then to look at some of those early signals of whether we think we might be seeing potential for therapeutic benefits. um So that was really the idea of it.
Speaker: um and And I can share a few of the results if you... Please, I'd love that. Well, and before you do that, maybe i think would be great for people to understand the kind of participant's journey because, know, I think people think a lot about the psilocybin part, but I know that there's probably a lot more to it. So maybe, yes yeah, that would be useful, I think. Yeah, yeah. So participants come in. We have really rigorous screening as do all of these psychedelic trials um to make sure, A, that they're going to be a safe person to take through, but also that they meet diagnostic criteria for what we're trying to treat. yeah um
Speaker: And then we have quite a ah compact ah intervention. So like all interventions, we have preparation, dosing and integration. yeah um But what we decided to do was um compact that. so we have three preparations, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Speaker: Then dosing on Thursday. Then on Friday, we have our first integration session. And so that's a week. And it allows for people to fly in from all over Australia or or drive from somewhere. They can book, you know, a place to stay and really concentrate on what they're doing in this therapy for a week, really just take themselves out of Yeah.
Speaker: ah And then they are able to go home and do the rest of the integration by video conferencing. So we had another three integration sessions over the next month via Zoom for the participants.
Speaker: And yeah, so that schedule really um worked well for us in in this particular indication. And we didn't have a second dosing session initially.
Speaker: um There was, you know, concern that it wouldn't be, um you know, that we wouldn't get deep enough without that second dosing session. But certainly our um findings have not indicated that we we actually needed that for for the majority of people.
Speaker: There might be some that would have benefited. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm not sure which order these episodes are going to be released, but I was catching up with Mark Ross and a couple of days ago, recording with her, and she was saying that they didn't find that there was any more benefit with their trial between one and two doses. And that's really interesting in this in the bereavement space. It does feel different to the kind of more chronic mental health kind of presentations maybe that we were seeing in the the
Speaker: generalized anxiety disorder trial that I worked on was psilocybin-assisted therapy. But for some people, they did get really good benefit from a long arc of therapy and then one dose because if they were in the placebo, that's what they had. So they had that kind of, you know, really like 10 weeks of therapy with two therapists and then a dose with us as well. And that was that felt really...
Speaker: good I think for some people so you know i think it's it's almost like what you were doing i actually didn't know that Vanessa that it's almost like a retreat style model really yeah yeah can imagine would work quite well for people and were you recruiting quite widely from yeah but yeah yeah so we our our eligibility criteria in terms of geographical location was just anyone in Australia who could yeah come to us. They did have to fund their own travel to us.
Speaker: yeah um But if they wanted to be involved in the trial, all of the other costs were were covered. Yeah. That's great. It was like quite accessible. Yeah.
Speaker: And um i I just wanted to go back because you mentioned Marg Ross. So Marg and Marg Ross and Justin Dwyer were our trainers for this trial, which means that we actually borrowed or, you know, they beautifully were gracious enough to give us um this structure which was very similar to the intervention that they ran. So there are a lot of similarities in some of the, you know, the content that we used and some of the modalities that we used throughout the intervention to what Garg and Justin have used in their trial.
Speaker: Oh, great. it's It's really, yeah, it's lovely when we can have these relationships, right, and and share and yeah support one another in this field, in academia. and and and so there was always two therapists throughout, was it sort of dyad model? Oh, yes. Yes. So we had um we had either a psychologist and nurse, and our nurses were quite experienced nurses who'd been working in mental health care and or um palliative care for, well, some the 20 years.
Speaker: ah and The other option for our dyad was the psychologist and Indigenous healer. yeah um We had ah early on in the in the trial, it was just the psychologist nurse dyad.
Speaker: yeah um And then I was speaking with one of our therapists who said that they had a couple of people that they were treating in private practice who were considering, um they talked to them about the trial, they were considering coming in for screening um but then made the decision that they felt that it would be unsafe for them.
Speaker: They were both our First Nations people yeah and so at that point in time i was really quite taken aback and realised that the intervention was being exclusive to um to some groups and that we needed to think about um being a little bit more inclusive and how we could make it feel safer for our Indigenous people here in Australia. um And so, yeah, I kind of went on a bit of ah a journey there and yeah and yeah um did as much as we could. We were already partway down the track, you know, the the protocol had already been written and, you know, the the documents had been developed. But we did...
Speaker: We did do a lot of consultation with the what we call cultural capability officers that work in the hospitals around um the institute that I work in is adjoined to hospitals.
Speaker: We also talked with the traditional owners and of the land who ended up doing a beautiful work blessing ceremony and smoking ceremony to open our clinic space. And that was part of the safety, you know, that container of safety for for everyone involved, really.
Speaker: me And we worked very closely with IPAT, the Indigenous Psychedelic Assisted um Therapy Organisation, to really hear about their model of culturally appropriate care in this space and take on board their learnings. And so that's where the idea to bring in an Indigenous therapist came from. Absolutely.
Speaker: That's great. Yes, I've i've interviewed IPAT for this podcast. So any listeners who haven't heard that episode, definitely go back and have a listen to that. um Because what that is, they're doing some really important work and fantastic that, you know, you could ah learn from them and from other people in the even if it was part way through, I mean, I guess hindsight, maybe you hear some people, if you're doing another trial, you could potentially involve people a bit earlier. But that what you would do, do you think? she but Would you recommend that? If anyone's listening to this thinking they want to get something off the ground, when's a good time to to do that?
Speaker: Yeah, so we actually, i wrote, I'm senior author of a paper that was written by some of the IPAC colleagues. who And that paper really outlines what we would recommend people consider if they're working in psychedelics and and trying to incorporate Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous um you know inclusivity into their programs.
Speaker: And so I guess the main takeaways with for having um First Nations people involved in your steering groups in your reference groups so that there's that voice there. Really start to think about reciprocity right from the start.
Speaker: How can you you know support people as well? um Have your traditional owners of the land that you're conducting the work um you know at least talk to them about what's going on on their land.
Speaker: invite them in to be part of that. And, you know, in our case, we offered or we asked if they would bless our clinic space, which, you know, just filled our hearts.
Speaker: and So beautiful. yeah Yeah. And then, um you know, right from the start, thinking about with that reference group, um thinking about all the materials, the the front-facing materials and the interactions you're having um to think about if they're going to be received well by Indigenous people or do they need slightly different participant information and consent forms?
Speaker: um And then having Indigenous healers in your team too was the the other big recommendation. Yeah, that's great. And I will link that paper in the show notes. And also another paper that you've recently published about the trial that we were, that that you, the grief trial, we were talking about the parting trial. That's the right acronym, isn't it? Yes, that's correct. That we were just talking about so that people can have a link because both those papers are really worth reading. And I think there's a lot of interest, you know, in listening to this podcast around how to, how to um work more in in culturally safe spaces with,
Speaker: Indigenous practitioners as well. So i feel like one of the reasons I wanted to have you on actually is because I feel like your trial was a really good example. Yes, you came to it later, but actually a really good example of one way to to do this.
Speaker: Thank you Yeah. yeah We're always learning. Oh, completely. ah My previous, right, when I was, before I was doing this work, I was working at Foundation House, which is and a refugee organisation based in Melbourne, like a trauma counselling service. And we had a lot of those groups.
Speaker: advisory group models where we had community, different types of community kind of advising us and have developed services and it's so important and because and and also doesn't it happens quite a lot in the refugee space just because of the necessity and the clear obvious necessity I think but it can get missed so much in mainstream mental health um provision and in trials and things like that and so that model works really well like the kind of advisory group and and feeding it into the process.
Speaker: And I think we're not going to get away with it for much longer. i mean, all of the grant applications, the big grant applications, they've now got a three-page section on community involvement and they don't want to see tokenism and they really want to see how you've embedded it in every single aspect of the the project along the way. So, yeah, I think we'll get a lot more of that these days. I think so too. And in the mental health service reforms here in Victoria, that's certainly a really big focus as well. um And so it's great, super important.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. So what would you like to share about the results? I'm excited. I didn't know this was going to be allowed because so often people come on and they're like, I can't tell you yet. it's not published. But what can you tell us, Vanessa?
Speaker: Oh, i've i I've not been holding my results back too closely because, ah well, firstly, we do have the main outcomes paper submitted.
Speaker: um So i am hoping that it will come out very soon. We've got a second outcome paper, which is more the qualitative side of things, um well underway. So, i mean, hopeful hopefully that'll all be available to read quite soon. And and then there's a pipeline of, I think, five other papers. We've got so much rich data out of this study. Amazing.
Speaker: The main, I mean, ah the headlines are that firstly, everybody who went um and into the trial, so that the full 10 participants, ah thought that they would recommend it to other people. They said that it was very unlike anything any other treatment that they'd been through for their grief, um describing it as life-changing, you know, just really, really strong unanimous endorsement of it as a well-designed professional intervention.
Speaker: correct So that's on the, I guess, the acceptability end and the feasibility. And in terms of the the signals for whether it did have a benefit, um we had nine of the 10 people had a symptom reduction where they no longer met criteria for prolonged grief immediately after receiving the intervention.
Speaker: So these are really, really, yeah, really, really exciting results. mean, you don't see, see this it is only a pilot. There's obviously wide confidence intervals, but these are really, really big effects.
Speaker: And we followed them, as I said, for 12 months and and those effects were sustained for that full 12 months, um which was lovely to see. um In terms of the qualitative findings,
Speaker: We saw a lot of shifts and they kind of um came into three different areas. So the first one was really a shift um in fluidity with the way people deal with grief. um Not sure if you're familiar with the...
Speaker: the model of of treatment of grief, but we have what we call loss-orientated coping and restoration-orientated coping. And what we want to see is that people are oscillating between those different types of coping.
Speaker: And so... Initially, people were really grounded in this memories and of pain and traumatic kind of ah attachments to the person that they'd lost.
Speaker: yeah And that was really dominating their grief and that they were wanting to hold on to that. Because that was a way of holding on to that person that they love. And that really shifted into a processing of that, which moved into remembering all those joyful moments and remembering... with love what that person meant to them and all those wonderful things they did together. And so it was this complete restoration of joy we saw with so many participants, which was just just just gorgeous to watch unfold.
Speaker: Hmm. That was our first thing. Yes, that's beautiful. what Were you obviously in the background, not in the therapy room, but did you get to watch videos of the therapy or see any of this?
Speaker: I had to, and we probably get to this later, I had to do a little bit of watching because I was developing artworks for these people. Yes. um So i have done a little bit of watching. We are, but are not not as extensive. ah We would meet weekly with our therapist so I would hear about what was going on. Yeah. yeah um But we are going to move into some what we call conversational analysis where we we look at the conversations and how they unfold because we recorded all sessions. Yeah. um So we look at how those conversations unfold and and where they led to um with with that kind of movement. So that will come down the line. Yeah.
Speaker: We haven't done that yet. and well yeah The second theme about movement from people was more about movement from I guess, isolation to connection.
Speaker: and What we find with people who have prolonged grief disorder is that their social networks become really atrophied and they um they feel sometimes there's a lot of avoidant behaviour towards reminders of the deceased and, you know, they'd lost some of that connection with the deceased.
Speaker: and And we saw that they moved towards that. And some of that was really facilitated by the dosing session where um we had several people have really strong embodied vivid encounters with the person that they'd lost.
Speaker: And so that was really akin to exposure therapy for these people. so bigally so that kind of... That really um it meant different things for different people, but it moved that process along.
Speaker: And um so that was the connection to the deceased, but we also saw that their connection in in others in their life started to open up more can and further their connection to nature.
Speaker: and There was a few of them who had lost touch or felt numb while they were in nature. and really started to embody the beauty that nature kind of offered them again. They spoke really strongly about that. So there was these three aspects of connection that kind of really um evolved over the the therapy.
Speaker: for these people that's so beautiful because nature can be such a i you know supportive holding space when you're going through huge emotions i don't know about like for for me if i'm in a big experience of grief all i want to do is go and look at the ocean Yeah, yeah. I just want to sit in the trees. Yeah, there you go. And it's just, you know, and then to – and I see so often in in my private practice when I'm working with people with grief that did that numbing, that general numbing actually. and I do think, which is just anecdotal from working with psilocybin but in in the in therapy with people, but it does feel like it –
Speaker: does something to open up those channels of feeling in the body and connection to other people. and Yeah. yeah Well, I guess the the one thing that we um had hypothesized is um with with grief, there's a disruption of your identity And often often there's this sense that the way that you relate to the world revolves around this deceased person, but when they're gone, that identity is disrupted.
Speaker: And so we we hypothesise that there'd be this down regulation of the default mode network and that that would allow for new ways to um think about self-identity and I guess then the flexibility aspects of, you know, that neuroplasticity aspect of thinking about new ways to to live with loss and um and and build a life and a new identity that um is something that you can look forward to and have meaning in again.
Speaker: and So that's where we were really aiming, which I guess brings us to the the other theme we found with people but that there was this um shift from um from, us ah guess, stagnant to action.
Speaker: and And that was action society. doing new things and going out and meeting new people in their life, but also some really strong behaviour changes like, ah we you know, we had some problem gaming that, um you know, then was um was not was not happening anymore after the therapy, ah you know, some reduced alcohol use, some even like, you know, just calmer, more connected parenting. These things that are really, really important and significant in in people's lives were starting to unfold in front of our eyes, which was, you know, another one of those findings that you don't get in the the validated symptom measures that really are meaningful.
Speaker: Yes. And that's why you need the qualitative conversations to capture some of this, right? Yes. Yes. And for the non-researchers listening, I should have already done this earlier, but qualitative research is kind of much more about interviewing, isn't it? And then pulling out themes from interviews, whereas yes quantitative research is much more about kind of standardized tools and numbers and Yes. Did I butcher that, Vanessa? or yes Not at all. Not at all. Yeah. And those are important, right? Those are really important, I think. And so...
Speaker: Those were the qualitative themes that you found? And are those coming out in a paper soon? Vanessa, by the time this goes out, do you think there's a chance it might be? no. I'll give a big shout out to Tom Kennedy. He's my PhD student who I'm sure you met.
Speaker: Yes. um So he's been really um the one that has collected a lot of this data and he's been well and truly driving the data analysis here. I do have a couple of other students walking with me as well. but these This will be his paper and he's currently on paternity leave so I'm not going to be bothering him. When he comes when he comes back, he can get into finalising that paper and, and you know, come out later in the year.
Speaker: That's beautiful. I had such a nice time talking with some of your the students and working with you, Vanessa, including Tom, at the NAPS conference. It's really, really nice to, really inspiring to meet these young people who, you know, is just getting involved in this research. it's Yeah. Really great.
Speaker: Yeah. We had such a good team and a good bunch of, you know, students, therapists, and also the all of the CIs were just amazing to our people.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's awesome. And you – – do you so What do you think um in terms of one of the things that remember being struck by when I came up to the NAPS conference was what you were talking about before you had created these artworks of people's experience and there was kind of an art therapy aspect of the trial in general, wasn't there? Like I'd love to hear more about some of the modalities that were used or the different ways in which you created those artworks i in in the therapy and in the integration process.
Speaker: Yeah, so the artwork um was actually an idea by a therapist who sadly took her own life before the trial started.
Speaker: it was in my team. um And through when that happened, we didn't want to let go of this idea. And so we together. together as a team we're all grieving and I'm sorry to hear about that yeah and what we did was we started to think through all of the aspects and wonderful sort of symbolic things that meant something about her and I took them all together and then I went off and taught myself how to use um midgen which was an AI art generator and
Speaker: And came up with all these artworks of this beautiful person and, you know, put them back to our team. And we're all in tears. And so we we kept the one, we kept a couple of of predominant ones, but we selected one for our therapy room. Yeah.
Speaker: We put that app as an artwork in the room so her spirit lives on with us. she yeah She definitely had a lot to do in the early phases of the trial and the conception of the delivery and how the therapy was run. So it was really nice to have that experience and to have that thought and input for the team to commemorate her.
Speaker: And so that meant that I was now the master of this AI art therapy. And I have to say I i love photography. It is one of my, ah you know, I'm always brought up by a photographer dad, you know, always taking photos of everything.
Speaker: So I was very, very clear about oh what I wanted an image to look like and on composition and things like that. And so what my role became was to listen to, on the first integration session, it's really a dump of all of the things that happened for them during the dosing. yes yeah And so I would listen to these sessions to speak talking about some of these really salient things that were happening, some really strong images that were coming to them and and what you know what, you know, their first impressions of what they meant and we got them to try and hone in on what what they would like if they were to have an artwork.
Speaker: And I would go away and use that brief to create, say, three to six artworks We also gave them styles of art. So there was 48 different styles that they could choose from.
Speaker: And then we'd come back in the next inspiration session and present, the therapist would present them with these options. So that point they could choose one while um um that was...
Speaker: suitable for them or they could say ah like this one but the bear should be blue and i like this one but there should be a green spiraling light there and or you know they make this i remember the best yeah they'd make these suggestions and i'd go away again and come back and so they could do that over the full course of integration come and go or or choose um And then at the end of it, they took this artwork or we sent the artworks to them in the mail so that they could hang them on their walls.
Speaker: ah Amazing. And you put them up in at the conference and it was yeah such a moving way to really feel a little bit like I knew... a little bit more or had more of a sense of what they they their experiences were like because, you know, you hear a lot and it's so true that it's really hard to put this stuff into words, right, and to explain it verbally. Yeah. And I think – For me, the idea was really that it was symbolism. i I know that I wasn't capturing through an AI, through them telling me, you know, four four removes down the line, I wasn't capturing exactly what they were seeing in those sessions, but it was about the symbolism and the meaning
Speaker: that came to to them from these artworks. And i I know that you gave um a workshop on this and I was in the other concurrent session having to talk and I missed it. So yeah, I would love to hear your thoughts on the use of metaphors and symbolism and psychedelics. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, yeah, we did. and my colleague Campbell Townsend and I kind of, and when we heard that you were putting on the conference, we were working together and we thought, maybe we'll just see if we can run ah a workshop up there. And it was such a fun way to come up and and and be there. And we looked at
Speaker: you know we We kind of drew on my background, which is as a somatic psychotherapist as well as a clinical psychologist and his was very, very interested in metaphor and brought them together. And I think, I feel like for me, psychotherapists just so clearly speaking to people in metaphors and it's such a beautiful, you know, like these things that people were saying or like, I saw my tears and they felt like diamonds. more You know, and then, and and in you know, you're never going to, one of the important parts of metaphor, I think, is it allows people, like your images, to have something that they are looking at or connecting to that can remind them and take them back into the experience and take them, but then without needing to go into all of the details of what is the whole journey, which is hard to remember and and can be also easy to lose, I think.
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. i am And so I feel like that's what metaphor is really good for. It kind of allows people to capture things with also the felt sense in the body. And that's what our workshop was all about. We had people kind of doing all kinds of fun activities where we got them connected into their body and moving in different ways but also kind of coming up with different metaphoric metaphors and noticing how they feel that in the body because that's what Campbell and I realized we were doing a lot in our sessions in your sessions were kind of bringing it together so from the somatic psychotherapy side I was kind of like oh how does this feel in your body and then he was bringing the metaphorical language and so kind of tying those two things together wow
Speaker: And we're really hoping to do an online workshop about the kind of process that we developed because it was such a ah a hit up there. There was a lot of people in that workshop. So we we've been meaning to, but both of us have just been really ah busy with other projects. So we haven't done it yet, but we have it in the pipeline. And in fact, it's pretty much written. So we will be doing something um around the process.
Speaker: yeah What a great pairing of you two as a dyad to bring those two aspects together. i think they're so useful in psychedelics. The other thing that we used was um essential oils.
Speaker: And so we would ask the participants in preparation which of the oils they liked and burn them in the dosing session and then send them home with these oils and get them to burn them when we were doing our ps psychotherapy after the dosing session. So that really moving past the olfactory, you know, the nose coming straight past the cognitive mind and bringing them back into that experience is another little trick that we sort of utilize throughout therapy. Yeah.
Speaker: Amazing. And so, you know, if you think about the way that the brain works in terms of smell and memory, you know, what a, it really helps, you smell can take you right back to something. And sometimes for people that's not, you know, that could be distressing with PTSD or something like that. But here you're really utilizing that sensory motor cortex, right? That's in the brain, the part of the brain that is so tuned into all of these sensory experiences. And I feel like that's why, know,
Speaker: it's so important to bring all of the senses into psychedelic as you see, psychotherapy and therapy in general. I mean, I'm pretty passionate about using art and movement and um things like that in my general practice as a therapist as well. normal no Yeah, I guess we were using it kind of to tether them to that dosing session so that we could go back there and feel and remember what was happening.
Speaker: And like the music as well, right? That can take people right back into those times as well. Yeah, yeah. And the other thing that um we used, thanks to, again, Mark and Justin's um influence, was the the clay therapy. And we used that in um in the cooperation sessions, really, because we we found that that's where people were most anxious.
Speaker: ah They were, you know, they're they're leading up to, they're leading up to dose day. They've pinned all their hopes that they're about to go into an altered state. It's, you know, everything is really, really tension and, you know.
Speaker: that anticipation is kind of building but if we could take them out of their head and into their body that was where the clay was so um you know supposed to be really useful um so i'd be interested to see um you know go back and watch some of the sessions to see how well that worked but i think yeah yeah i think I think that was the idea. Yeah. i am So I have mentioned this on the podcast before, but i don't think you and I have ever spoken about this, but Vanessa, that I was, my first job as a psychologist was as a bereavement counsellor actually. work ah
Speaker: But working at that point, I was working with kids um who had lost a parent often to an illness like cancer. um So running groups of children and and doing a whole range of things like we used to do, therapeutic activities, um And we'd sort of take them away for sort of three, two to three days at a time and their parents would be on ah ah going through a similar process with the other therapists. one and And one of the things we always used to do is make something out of clay at the end to remember the whole experience. Right, yeah. So useful for kids to help get them into their body, to help them talk as well, you know, like you kind of, we did have sort of more, um,
Speaker: ah like sessions or group sessions where there was more verbal sharing as well. But this was you know just the kids just being together in a small group of five or six making these clay items. And and you find actually that people would, they just find it and safer and more easy to talk about their experiences.
Speaker: yeah I think were I'm a bit like that. Like I work from home as a therapist. I've always got like, and you know, filled toys or, you know, like my little crystals right here and I just like having something in my hand. It helps me stay focused and sink around it. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah.
Speaker: And did you find that the um the toy or that the clay itself became a symbol of something for them? Did they put meaning to it? Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, some people made like, you know, this is an image that looks like my mum, right? Yes. yeah yeah but But very often, know, it would it wasn't, it was more just something to do with like a spiral or a heart or, you know, then we would get them and set and then give them back. um The end.
Speaker: Wow. Yeah. Lovely. Okay. So we've done the same sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was just great. It was, it was a real, yes, my last placement and my first job out of, out of my doctorate in the UK. And then I came over here and worked at the equivalent charity over here actually for a little while before i went into private practice myself. Wow.
Speaker: one more I loved it. I love working with kids. I read a mainly love the adults now actually. And um I was just saying to my partner that I really miss i miss working with kids. I'd like to do some more of that. long Yeah. What about grief?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I do work a lot with grief in private practice, a lot. and And it's just, I mean, people, I guess, know about my previous work, but also it's just such a human experience. I i mean, I've been practicing as a psychologist for 20 years.
Speaker: You know, it's underneath, like so often when i meet people, there is something... like that if they're coming with say depression or panic attacks or a particular theme I've noticed there's often some kind of big grief under there might be not necessarily about a person who's died or it could be about a situation in their life or more but yeah i work with grief a lot and um yeah and it's yeah and you know and I've had my own initiations in that way like all of us you know being human in this world yeah it's the other side of it yeah
Speaker: I think we um we need a lot more ah services out there, I think, and and it goes goes under the radar because it's normalised and, this you know, our society is the concept of, you know, that's over and done with and move on more. It's easier said than done.
Speaker: Yeah, yes. Or I could probably do a whole podcast on the Western sort of... well push it down, keep calm, carry on yeah dialogue and the how how i air problematic that is for people and and for us, you know. I mean, our Indigenous colleagues, I think, are so much better placed with that in terms of just feeling and emotion. I mean, don't want to speak for them, but I feel like that's something I've really noticed about those cultures across different parts of the world, actually. Whereas we're like, oh, you know, everything is fine. I'm just going to be a walking head and keep going
Speaker: i all We found um the Indigenous um Australian cultures, ah we were told, have a year where they don't speak of the dead's name and that's really what the mourning period. So that does last for a whole year.
Speaker: And then they have this tombstone opening well where it's quite ceremonial. And after that, you can speak of the name. And so even just thinking about that, that's a lot, lot longer than our expectations of, you know, everybody else in our society to hold on to that.
Speaker: grief for that period of time yes yes and it's like I really liked the themes that you spoke about actually because they were not about like you know there's nothing in there about people wanting to let go of the grief or just not experience it but just being with it in a way that's more ah helpful and conducive to having a good life now yeah yeah and talk about learning to live with the loss rather than yes getting river or letting go well those are not words we use yeah exactly it's so important isn't it i used to um i was in a session recently and i was someone who is very very recently experienced a very recent loss and um
Speaker: you know i drew I don't know if you've seen it, we used to do it at Winston's Wish, the charity I work for, where we would draw a little circle and you'd write in there, this is the grief, and then a circle very close, so like they're almost the same size, but then that's the rest of life when it's first happened.
Speaker: and then And then as like as you continue with life, like you know the grief kind of stays the same size, but life gets bigger. oh yes yes I've seen those yes I love that figure yeah it's not going away you're growing you're growing around it and sometimes on an anniversary or something like that you go back into it right like that's really common and you know can take people by surprise actually when it is and then I often hear clients say oh I feel like I've you know like I'm ah right back where I started and I haven't got better and I'm not feeling better and as she was like no you you are you're just right now today it's the person's birthday and of course you're going to feel it in this way yeah the animal soul thought yes exactly yeah
Speaker: Well, I feel like we could keep going, but I want to make sure I ask you a bit about how that the NAPS conference, Vanessa, because you were really responsible for organizing that. And I have to say, it was such an awesome experience. to It's probably my, I think it was my first and so far only psychedelic conference, which I need to very, need to go to some more. Yeah. I haven't made it to MAPS yet. i'm The one in the big one and all. of Yes. um So, but it was just, it was, I really found it so like heartwarming and heart opening and that kind of like, it's not, ah it wasn't a big conference, you know, it was like really felt like a bit of a family meeting of wo currentur community. um whoa
Speaker: How was it to organize and what led you to decide to to do it? Because it it changed a lot, right? From something that was going to be small and it got fair bit bigger Yeah, well, we, I mean, the original idea was that, so I was running my trial. We had the heart trial starting down in northern New South Wales. I heard about a couple of other people in Queensland. So I was like, well, you know, this was becoming a little bit of a critical mass up here now. And um it's probably high time that we got together. And um my thought was that we developed this community of practice with, you know, some people who lived in a more local,
Speaker: northern part of Australian region and it it really it really grew and then we came yeah on mass everybody got on board there was you know people like yeah the Monash crew was a huge contingent of but of who attended there were people from Sydney and everywhere else um so we had to cap it because I'd only planned that we would have it in this particular area so we had to have but at 110
Speaker: But I think actually that was really beautiful because it still remained very intimate and we've had such a beautiful calibre of speakers, like the people that came or really some of the thought leaders in in Australia um or who had been delivering the therapy, who had learnt things things that the rest of us could learn from um and I think I said in my opening speech I felt like I was organizing a wedding because there's just all this love coming together and there was these multiple sides of the family and everybody was helping out and I had my my good friend do all of these nature-based artworks and um
Speaker: and grounding practices and, you know, we had music and we had the Indigenous culture, we you know. So it was kind of this coming together of all the different um aspects of psychedelic therapy.
Speaker: wrong and Such beautiful artwork, by the way. and Yeah, your friend did such an incredible job and there were so many little touches, you know, in this space. I was really impressed, yeah. Yeah, she did.
Speaker: So, yeah, there was a lot of love that went into the conference and I think everybody could feel that, but everyone was really enjoying, you know, the networking and um and hearing from others. And, um yeah, it was it was a fabulous event and I think my hope is that It really sets Australia up for a group of leaders who really have rigorous research, are really ethical role in the way they deliver it, are collaborative, but they're also very human. They're they're very person-centered. They can connect with others and they can really think about
Speaker: um what this means for the people that they're delivering it for and not just thinking about it as a drug because I don't want to get lost in the pharmaceutical, strip it back, do it as as lean and mean as we can to try and get people through it. I think the group that we had was really policy and centred on human biopsy.
Speaker: Yeah, I feel like that's a big focus of ours too down in the clinical psychedelic lab at Monash. And, you know, I've spoken to, I've got a lot of colleagues in London or overseas and I think there is that real push, isn't there, in some types of trial and some types of work in some areas to strip it right back. And I feel like we really are doing something quite different actually. Yeah.
Speaker: which is really great. And I felt that at the conference, you know, is that you could really hear that. And, of course, you know, the conference happened at a time where some of the speakers were doing that work already in their private practice too, which was really interesting too. There's not many other places where that would be happening, with MDMA at least. yeah Yeah, that's right. Yeah. yeah and And across multiple different psychedelics too. I mean, there was the ketamine stuff obviously has been done for long for a long time um but yeah people were starting to talk about their experiences with psilocybin and MDMA delivery as well in Australia yes well well I hope there's another one I'll certainly be there I yeah I really enjoyed it i had such a good time presenting the workshop and you know
Speaker: doing the speaking on the panel as well um yeah can't believe that was a year ago it's really gone it's really flowing past and we're we're coming to the end of our time unless it went really quickly as and happens um happens on for me where do people find you um how do people find you and if they want to get in touch about any of the things we've talked about today Yeah, I'm very happy if anyone's interested in, um you know, being involved in medical research to reach out to me. Most of my details are on the QIMR Berghoffer website. So if you just Google Vanessa Beasley, QIMR Berghoffer will pop up and you'll get all my details of what I do.
Speaker: um i'm also on linkedin and i publish uh well i i post a ah fair few things on linkedin about what we're doing you know if there's any opportunities i'll post them there so please um do connect with me there that would be wonderful awesome i'll i'll pop all of your contract details in the show notes and any links to the the papers that we've mentioned today as well so people can find you easily that way too Thanks, Esme. All right. Well, thank you so much and for taking time out of your day. It's been really wonderful having you on the podcast.
Speaker: Yeah, lovely to talk to you. And let's not make it so long between catch-ups next time. i know. i know. Definitely. Let's definitely keep that community going. And it does feel like a really beautiful one within Australia, actually. So let's keep that going.
Speaker: It does. All right. Thank you.
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.
