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Psilocybin Therapy From Functioning to Flourishing with Myles Katz · The Trauma Therapist

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  Speaker 1: Trauma Theverist podcast Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
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  Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts searching for the Trauma Theverist podcast
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  Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Nevers Podcast,
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  Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
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  Speaker 1: who experienced trauma. My name is Got macpherson, and my
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  Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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  Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us.
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  Speaker 2: All right, right, already, all.
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  Speaker 1: Right Miles here, So five four, three, two and one,
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  Speaker 1: our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to
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  Speaker 1: have my guest today, Miles Katz.
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  Speaker 2: Miles, welcome, Thanks Ca, thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome. So Miles leads the development of Confluence Retreats, which
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  Speaker 1: seeks to integrate nature based multiday multiday psilocybin retreat experiences
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  Speaker 1: into organ's innovative legal framework and in the process collaborating
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  Speaker 1: with indigenous communities to restore each and healing practices to
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  Speaker 1: the Cascade Siscu National Monument. Previously, Miles co founded the
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  Speaker 1: Synthesis Institute, where he served as director of business Development,
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  Speaker 1: spearheading the development of one of the world's initial legal
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  Speaker 1: psychedelic service models. This groundbreaking initiative supported over one thousand
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  Speaker 1: individuals in their mental health journeys until its closure in
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Miles, Welcome to the podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, it's great to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome. So before we get going, share with the listeners
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  Speaker 1: where you're from originally and where you are currently, and
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  Speaker 1: then we'll dive in.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I was born in Manhattan, which is a
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  Speaker 2: very noisy, busy place, and had a long journey, including
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  Speaker 2: living in Africa for six years and Amsterdam to start
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  Speaker 2: my previous psycholicatry business that ultimately landed me here in
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  Speaker 2: southern Oregon where we run our legal psilocybin retreats through Confluence.
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  Speaker 1: Nice. So it's interesting because I was born in Manhattan
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  Speaker 1: and I'm also in in Oregon right now.
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  Speaker 2: Cool.
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  Speaker 1: So how did all this start for you?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'd say the psychedelic component of it, which is
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  Speaker 2: the more probably the more interesting and relevant components to
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  Speaker 2: talk about, started actually while I was living in Kenya,
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  Speaker 2: in rural Kenya for about six years. I was in
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  Speaker 2: my late twenties at the time, and without having this
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  Speaker 2: language I was I can see now in hindsight that
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  Speaker 2: I was very much a very high functioning, depressed alcoholic,
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  Speaker 2: and I was in this lull in life and I
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  Speaker 2: had on the surface side everything that I wanted. I
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  Speaker 2: was living in rural Africa running social enterprise. So this
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  Speaker 2: is a concept I was really into in my early twenties,
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  Speaker 2: essentially running for profit businesses that had a social or
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  Speaker 2: environmental mission to help people who lived at the base
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  Speaker 2: of the economic period.
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  Speaker 1: This is this is crazy interesting. How did you even
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  Speaker 1: get to this point where you're interested in starting social stuff?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was raised in a family business, very entrepreneurial environment,
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  Speaker 2: and I always I never really thought about following a
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  Speaker 2: corporate career path. I was always really interested in business,
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  Speaker 2: but really it was instilled with this entrepreneurial perspective on
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  Speaker 2: the world, and so I had a towards the later
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  Speaker 2: stage of my undergraduate at Northeastern University in Boston, I
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  Speaker 2: was exposed to this concept of social entrepreneurship, which is
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  Speaker 2: using the principles and the tools of business, but having
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  Speaker 2: an to have an outcome that's not necessarily financially motivated,
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  Speaker 2: but increasing incomes for you know, the people at the
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  Speaker 2: base of the economic period or environmental missions, and I
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  Speaker 2: was just really inspiring professor who turned me onto this
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  Speaker 2: idea and kind of tilted my whole career path into
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  Speaker 2: this broad concept of using business skills to help create
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  Speaker 2: positive change in the world.
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  Speaker 1: So where was the genesis of the alcoholism?
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, good question. So my mother passed away when
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  Speaker 2: I was a teenager and I was you know, i'd
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  Speaker 2: say that like up until the time I was fifteen
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  Speaker 2: when that happened, I would describe my life as a
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  Speaker 2: very privileged, quote normal upper middle class upbringing. And she
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  Speaker 2: was sick for a number of years, started with breast cancer,
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  Speaker 2: turned into leukemia, and we were very much a family
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  Speaker 2: that acknowledged it, but we didn't have like deep emotional
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  Speaker 2: processing tools or techniques. And so when she did pass
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  Speaker 2: I had already started to experiment with alcohol and my
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  Speaker 2: you know, mid to late teenage years, and when she passed,
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  Speaker 2: I just kind of dove into that rabbit hole, and
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  Speaker 2: you know, it was all for fun and liked to
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  Speaker 2: connect with friends. But through a lot of work, in hindsight,
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  Speaker 2: I can see I was really just self numbing quite
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  Speaker 2: a lot. And so I was grateful for that tool
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  Speaker 2: and that I'm really grateful that I was safe. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I look back at some of the things that were happening,
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  Speaker 2: and I must have had a guardian angel looking out
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  Speaker 2: for me because it was not a very safe use
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  Speaker 2: of alcohol. But yeah, I'd say like it really started
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  Speaker 2: with that and carried out throughout my twenties as my
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  Speaker 2: relationship with my dad and brother really shifted significantly as
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  Speaker 2: we all went our separate ways to process the death
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  Speaker 2: of my mom and ultimately, you know, disconnect from one
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  Speaker 2: another instead of you know, lean in and support each other.
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  Speaker 1: So noa Northeastern University. And was that the kind of
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  Speaker 1: entree into the Synthesis Institute in a sense.
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  Speaker 2: No, So my experience at Northeastern University led me to
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  Speaker 2: want to live in Africa and work in startups that
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  Speaker 2: helped you know, people like essentially the global or you know,
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  Speaker 2: bas of the economic period, people who lived on two
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  Speaker 2: to three dollars a day on average in developing countries
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  Speaker 2: like Kenya. And so I lived in Kenya for six
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  Speaker 2: years and I worked on a pretty interesting business that
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  Speaker 2: ultimately puttered its way along through the years, still exists
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  Speaker 2: today but never grew the way we had hoped. But
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  Speaker 2: we essentially worked with the rural farmers in Africa, collected
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  Speaker 2: a local indigenous tree nut that they had on their
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  Speaker 2: properties and procesedges into organic oils and agricultural inputs. And
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  Speaker 2: I was there for about six years working on this
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  Speaker 2: other business model. And it was around this time that
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  Speaker 2: I started to slip into a more depression based state.
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  Speaker 1: For one second, during this time, did you engage in
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  Speaker 1: any kind of therapy m m okay. No. No.
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  Speaker 2: I was still drinking, as a lot of us do
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  Speaker 2: in Western culture in their mid to late twenties, you know,
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  Speaker 2: binging a couple times a week, but no conscious awareness
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  Speaker 2: of therapy or anything, not even in the place to
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  Speaker 2: admit that I could benefit from it.
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  Speaker 1: Did you kind of consciously, oh intentionally, quote unquote process
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  Speaker 1: your mother's death?
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  Speaker 2: No, I had. I always had a very spiritual connection
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  Speaker 2: with that experience and with her even after she passed.
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  Speaker 2: But I didn't do any conscious processing of grief or
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  Speaker 2: anything of that nature. Yeah, it was really in my
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  Speaker 2: late twenties as I I slipped into a depression. I
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  Speaker 2: knew I didn't want to come back home to the US,
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  Speaker 2: but I knew I didn't It wasn't really going so
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  Speaker 2: well in East Africa, despite the fact that I had
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  Speaker 2: this dream career, you know dream from where I was
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  Speaker 2: at as an undergraduate, and I started to very slowly
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  Speaker 2: experiment with psychedelics in very unintentional ways and started out
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  Speaker 2: with like an experience once every year or two. And
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  Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, I was at a burning Man type
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  Speaker 2: festival in South Africa and I had my first experience
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  Speaker 2: with LSD and this would this was really the one that,
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  Speaker 2: as they say in the psychedelic world, lifted.
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  Speaker 1: The veil and.
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  Speaker 2: Made me aware of all the things that I hadn't
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  Speaker 2: been aware of through the self numbing and I had
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  Speaker 2: lost my appetite to drink alcohol pretty much immediately overnight,
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  Speaker 2: which was not an intention at all, and I for
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  Speaker 2: about six months or so, I just had this tingling
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  Speaker 2: sensation in like the frontal lobe of my brain, which
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  Speaker 2: like at first scared me because I didn't know a
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  Speaker 2: lot about psychedecs at the time, and I really was
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  Speaker 2: curious if I did some long term damage. And then
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  Speaker 2: as I dug more and more into the literature that
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  Speaker 2: was available at that time, which I'm very grateful for,
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't as much as available now, but there's still
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  Speaker 2: enough that I could find it on the internet. I
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  Speaker 2: was really intrigued to learn how how physiologically safe these
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  Speaker 2: substances are some of the safest that we know about
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  Speaker 2: from a psychoactive standpoint, how other people have these healing experiences,
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  Speaker 2: And it just started this infinite curiosity that I still
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  Speaker 2: have today about how these tools psychedelics can be used
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  Speaker 2: to help us improve our well being, you know, whether
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  Speaker 2: that's treating mental illness or what I refer to as
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  Speaker 2: moving up the mental health spectrum from functioning to flourishing,
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  Speaker 2: which I think of as more my person journey. Because
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  Speaker 2: I was not well, I can look back and I
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  Speaker 2: could say I probably should have been diagnosed and treated.
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  Speaker 2: I never was because I was so high functioning in
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  Speaker 2: an everyday sense, And so that's really like an interest
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  Speaker 2: of mind still to this day, is like, I know,
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  Speaker 2: there's a whole world of psychedelics for mental health treatment,
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  Speaker 2: and there's no uh, there's no reason that shouldn't be acknowledged.
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  Speaker 2: But I think something that we're yet to talk about
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  Speaker 2: more intentionally as a culture is moving from like just
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  Speaker 2: not being unwell to like, what is it like to
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  Speaker 2: be flourishing and living with purpose and having meaningful connections
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  Speaker 2: with ourselves and nature and others and maybe even you know,
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  Speaker 2: spiritual connection for some and.
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  Speaker 1: So that distinction, Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, So let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about Confluence and how that started.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I had a very unique experience of being
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  Speaker 2: able to work legally with psychedelics twenty eighteen. So the
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  Speaker 2: precursor to Confluence was an organization called Synthesis that ran
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  Speaker 2: legal retreats out of Amsterdam, where psilocybin is legal. It's
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  Speaker 2: not regulated like it is an organ but it's legally available.
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  Speaker 2: And so that company raised venture capital and built a
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  Speaker 2: very professional therapeutic, multi modality approach to psilocybin group retreats,
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  Speaker 2: and at the time it was quite ahead of the game.
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  Speaker 2: Twenty eighteen was like right before this most recent surge
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  Speaker 2: in research and breakthrough therapy designation and media about psychedelics,
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  Speaker 2: and so out of all the entrepreneurial projects I've worked on,
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  Speaker 2: it was really right place, right time. It's a big
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  Speaker 2: factor of being a successful, you know, startup. And so
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  Speaker 2: that company lasted for about five years. We had to
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  Speaker 2: do a lot of twisting and contorting to the pandemic
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  Speaker 2: and in a lot of ways, like it's amazing we
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  Speaker 2: did survive the pandemic at all, given that we were
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  Speaker 2: an in person group retreat business that relied on travel,
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  Speaker 2: but we did. And I actually relocated from Amsterdam to
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  Speaker 2: Oregon in the middle of twenty twenty because we had
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  Speaker 2: foresight on what was coming in Oregon, which is the
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  Speaker 2: first legal, regulated access model for psilocybin anywhere in the
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  Speaker 2: world still to this day. And what the significance of
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  Speaker 2: that from a safety, from a helping more and more
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  Speaker 2: people come into this work. And so I relocated middle
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  Speaker 2: of twenty twenty before the new law and organ actually
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  Speaker 2: passed and it was successful. And I have a funny,
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  Speaker 2: ironic story that I was in Oregon for over two
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  Speaker 2: years before my company failed and the reason for failure,
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  Speaker 2: you know, kind of a longer story about the again
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  Speaker 2: like the contorting and twisting we had to do to
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  Speaker 2: survive the pandemic, the influence of outside capital in you know,
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  Speaker 2: these businesses. But long story short, as I was on
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  Speaker 2: the sidelines, I had started a family and Oregon and
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  Speaker 2: my business had failed, and it was about three months
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  Speaker 2: later the first legal centers started opening. So my whole identity,
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  Speaker 2: my whole like reason for being there was this type
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  Speaker 2: of work I wasn't involved in, and I really took
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  Speaker 2: a lot of time to process that failure. And I
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  Speaker 2: wasn't even sure i'd want to work with psychedelics again.
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  Speaker 2: It felt very complex. I couldn't intertwine like my passion
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  Speaker 2: for the experiences with the failure of that company. And
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  Speaker 2: slowly I started getting involved in one of the local
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  Speaker 2: license centers in our town in Ashland, Oregon, and just
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  Speaker 2: for fun, just passion like, and I helping Brian and Michelle.
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  Speaker 2: I still work with them today. They run this place
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  Speaker 2: called Omnia Group. And just learning how much I did
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  Speaker 2: have to contribute, you know, the fact that I had
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  Speaker 2: five years of legal experience before anyone in orgon which
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  Speaker 2: you know at this point in time, the most anyone
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  Speaker 2: has an organ is one year of experience. So and
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  Speaker 2: as I slowly got involved in that, I was a
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  Speaker 2: little bit heartbroken that most of the experiences happening in
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  Speaker 2: Oregon are people fly in, getting a hotel room, ubering
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  Speaker 2: to their session, we bring back to their hotel room,
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  Speaker 2: and then flying out the next day. And as someone
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  Speaker 2: who's spent five years helping to set up very professional
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  Speaker 2: multimodality well held multi day experiences for people. I have
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  Speaker 2: a sense of how much of the magic of the
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  Speaker 2: psychedelic experience dissipates as soon as you scroll through your
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  Speaker 2: phone that evening, or you know, get on the TV
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  Speaker 2: in your hotel room, and so just reconnecting with that
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  Speaker 2: and wanting to create a program in a structure where
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  Speaker 2: people can still have that of what I would call
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  Speaker 2: the psychedelic experience container, where you know, they can really
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  Speaker 2: be immersed with just their intention and the experience for
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  Speaker 2: three or five days and being a supportive group of
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  Speaker 2: other individuals and you know, basically weaving together like that
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  Speaker 2: synthesis style of retreat that we had developed over the
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  Speaker 2: course of five years with ten million dollars in backing
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  Speaker 2: and probably iterated on fifty times with like what was
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  Speaker 2: available in organ which is the first legal regulated framework.
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  Speaker 2: So from that I started Confluence Retreats as a small nonprofit.
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  Speaker 2: And the note on the small nonprofit is it is
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  Speaker 2: you know, a part of my integrating the lessons and
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  Speaker 2: the failure of venture capital and not you know, just
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  Speaker 2: wanting to keep a healthy boundary with the nature of
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  Speaker 2: our capitalistic system and how that can really influence a
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  Speaker 2: lot and how people operate day to day and especially
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  Speaker 2: when we get into really deep healing work like psychedelics
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  Speaker 2: has the power to do. And so yeah, confluence five
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  Speaker 2: day programs with two psychedelic experiences, just like Synthesis did.
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  Speaker 2: And then I also work with people one on one
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  Speaker 2: to set up mini retreats where we still you know,
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  Speaker 2: stay in cabins in the woods and take care of
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  Speaker 2: all the meals and do all the prep and integration activities.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, just for people who either know they're
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  Speaker 2: not suited for a group experience or sometimes the timing
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  Speaker 2: and dates don't work as well. So, you know, very
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  Speaker 2: small scale compared to what we were doing with synthesis,
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  Speaker 2: but still really impactful. And I think just showing in
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  Speaker 2: the state of Oregon, and as this legal framework evolves
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  Speaker 2: that it doesn't all have to be a quick in
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  Speaker 2: and out clinic experience. You know, something I share with
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  Speaker 2: clients and maybe for listeners it might be helpful. As JOHNS.
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  Speaker 2: Hopkins research has shown that a very large percentage of people,
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  Speaker 2: somewhere in the range of eighty to ninety percent of
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  Speaker 2: people will quantify their psilocybin experiences one of the top
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  Speaker 2: three or five most meaningful experiences of their life, and
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  Speaker 2: so I ask people to consider having one of the
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  Speaker 2: most meaningful experiences of their life and sitting alone in
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  Speaker 2: a hotel room afterwards, you know, in a new city.
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  Speaker 2: And so I'm glad to hear that people still have
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  Speaker 2: good experiences that way. I rarely still work with people
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  Speaker 2: that way, But I also know the more you can
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  Speaker 2: put into setting up a structure to be supported and
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  Speaker 2: you know, not have to try to figure out uber
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  Speaker 2: eats on your phone after the session, like you know,
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  Speaker 2: you can hold on to like the magic of the
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  Speaker 2: experience even more and ultimately get more out of it.
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  Speaker 1: There's an understanding, uh, kind of a I think a
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  Speaker 1: generalized understanding that psychedelics are probably help most often can
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  Speaker 1: help with mental health issues, but talk about why that is,
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  Speaker 1: Why necessarily would that help?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, there's a there's a great book by Michael
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  Speaker 2: Polland called How to Change Her Mind. And there's a
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  Speaker 2: couple of things that he points to in this book
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  Speaker 2: that I think are really helpful to use as a
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  Speaker 2: reference for this answer. But you know, at a grossly
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  Speaker 2: oversimplified level, we can look at depression as stress about
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  Speaker 2: the past and anxiety about stress about the future. And
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  Speaker 2: PTSD is stress about a particular event. And so why
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  Speaker 2: I can psychedological help with all these different conditions is
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  Speaker 2: they're helping us get beneath the surface of these conditions,
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  Speaker 2: like what is it about my past that has led
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  Speaker 2: me to feel depressed or anxious or have this you know,
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  Speaker 2: triggering connection to this traumatic event, And it really helps
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  Speaker 2: us get to the why. We don't have a lot
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  Speaker 2: of techniques in the modern healthcare system that looks at why.
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  Speaker 2: It's mostly about suppressing symptoms, you know, things like antidepressants
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  Speaker 2: and other techniques, and so with psychedelics, we're really getting
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  Speaker 2: a really powerful opportunity to look at why and what's
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  Speaker 2: behind the surface and what are the root causes of
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  Speaker 2: some of these things so that we can reorient. And
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  Speaker 2: something that is understood but not incredibly well understood is
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  Speaker 2: the neuroplasticity that psychedelics give us after the experience. So
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  Speaker 2: you might hear this term if you're researching psychedelics, but
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  Speaker 2: they're shown to help our brains be more flexible and
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  Speaker 2: make new connections easier, and in practice, what that is
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  Speaker 2: pointing towards is it's easier to change your behaviors or
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  Speaker 2: get new insights. And so this author, Michael Polland calls
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  Speaker 2: psychedelics a PhD in the obvious, which I really like
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: because he'll he comments on how like the person in
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  Speaker 2: the clinical trial for or smoking cessation will have the
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  Speaker 2: experience on psychedelics in the journey of their lungs turning
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  Speaker 2: black and collapsing, and for whatever reason to that person's
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  Speaker 2: subjective experience, they'll really connect with like the harm they're
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  Speaker 2: doing to themselves by smoking cigarettes. They don't need to
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  Speaker 2: take psychedelsts to know that it's bad for them, but
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  Speaker 2: there's something about the experience that really makes the obvious
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  Speaker 2: really like. I think of it as like going from
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  Speaker 2: a cognitive knowing to like a felt sense of knowing,
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  Speaker 2: And once you know it in your bones, it's a
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  Speaker 2: lot harder to ignore it and you not do something
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  Speaker 2: about it.
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  Speaker 1: Really really cool. I love that it's the obvious. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I loved your answer. I appreciate that. So the listeners here,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: we've got people in the mental health field, across the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: mental health spectrum, various types of therapists and coaches and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: people who identify as survivors as well. So what do
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: you say to them in terms of how this something
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: like this might be beneficial for them. Yeah, they're from
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: a therapist's perspective, maybe recommending to a client, let's say,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and even from a client's perspective.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well the yeah, I love that question, thank you.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: And I think the main thing I'm hoping to help
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: get out into the world right now is that there's
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: such a huge surge of interest in psychedelics and you know,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: people are going to Costa Rica and Jamaica for these retreats.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: People are just microdosing on their own at home. I'm
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: getting Facebook ads all the time for psilocybin microdoses, which
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: is not fully legal at all, but somehow they're doing it.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: And so what I think is helpful for people to
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: know about is that there is a legal, regulated framework
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: in Oregon that people can tap into. You know, when
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: we started our previous business in twenty eighteen, the idea
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: that we would get a therapist recommendation for a client
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: to come is was a laughable matter. And now a
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: lot of the people I'm talking to for programs are
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: being told by their therapists as should come check this out.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a really good use of the
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: model and organ like it's far from the most comprehensive
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: therapeutic support system for these experiences. But it can be
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: very easily. It's flexible enough to be really easily paired
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: with an ongoing relationship with a therapist or with you know,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: an addiction recovery program. And I tell clients all the time,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: like if I could wave a magic wand I would
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: have every single client, regardless of their intention, like having
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: a long term relationship with a therapist. You know, I
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: have that for myself. Like, and there's this nature where like,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: no matter what engagement we have with a client around
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: the psychoic experience, even if it's for multiple weeks before
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: and after, the kind of insights and the AHAs and
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: the mental flexibility will continue to unfold usually for months
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: after the experience. And it's just a different support structure,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: a different incentive structure for an ongoing weekly for example,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: therapists to have with a client versus like the one
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: I have with clients. It's like, I'm here to maximize
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: your outcomes for this one experience and I'm not trying
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: to be your therapist. I'm not trying to replace that.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And so I don't think there's a lot of people
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: that really understand that it is available and legal and
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: there are safe places to go to for these experiences.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that's kind of like my main answer to
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: that question.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So as we kind of wind down here, I
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: know you talked a little bit about the process of
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: coming to Confluence retreats, but more specifically, who's it for.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's for a wide range of people. I mean,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I think it's generally for people who are already curious
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: in exploring psychedelics, and that can be I did it
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: thirty to forty years ago as a teenager, and I'm
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: ready to you know, kind of go inward and deeper.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: It's for people who've never had an experience before. Increasingly
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: I'm talking to people who are experimenting on their own
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: and microdosing on their own and are ready to go
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: to a safe professional setting to like have a full
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: dose experience. I'd say that ideally people have at least
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: some therapeutic context, They have a preliminary sense of like
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: where their trauma may be coming from in childhood or
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: and ideally they have an ongoing therapist relationship and they're
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: ready to take that next step. You know, they're they're ready,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: but they're mindful. They want to do an way that's
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: safe and feels good and isn't like on the beaches
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: of Jamaica, you know, where they're not, you know, as
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: professionally held and definitely not regulated. And I'll just say
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: that there are great places to go that are not
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: organ but I do think the regulation provides a lot
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: of safe de instructure for people psychologically to go into
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: these experiences. And so yeah, you know, there's a small
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: number of people who are better supported one on one
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: instead of in a group setting, although I really personally
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: believe in a lot in the value of communal support
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: structures and healing as a group as opposed to individuals.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: And then there's a very small amount of people who
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: are not quite ready or might need additional support or
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: additional medical clearance before they come. But yeah, so it's
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: pretty wide ranging, and a good facilitator will be able
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: to tailor the experience and help support you in figuring
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: out if this experience or this connection is right for you.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: You know, there's about three hundred people that have their
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: facilitator license in organ So I always tell people like,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: first and foremost, you really need to feel safe and
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: trusting with the person you're doing this work with, and
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: that can take shapes in lots of different ways. It
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: could be male femal, it could be life experience similarity,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: it could be you know, someone's knowledge about the topic
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: like you know, and ultimately like, yeah, you got to
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: be really consenting and comfortable with the path you're going.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, So let's say we've got someone who's interested. Listeners
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: are interested, they want to reach out to you. Let's
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: say they are interested in the communal support aspect. They
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: reach out to you. What they what can they expect
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: in terms of steps?
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So everyone, before I work with anyone, I do
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: complimentary forty five minute I call them exploration calls with people.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: So part of that process is filling out a very
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: brief two to three minute health safety questionnaire and then
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: also booking a forty five minute call. And during that call,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about your intentions, why you're interested in psilocybin.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I'll get a sense of you, you'll get a sense
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: of me and us at confluence, and then you can
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: answer all the questions you have about the programs. And
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: that's required for everyone before they come into We have
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: small group programs, So you know, one quote bad apple
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: could really spoil the group experience. So it's a way
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: that we assess to make sure everyone in the group
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: is going to be a good supportive fit. And yeah,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: and then we start our formal preparation process about twenty
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: days before the retreat, and that's administrative intake, but also
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: internal preparation. What are the things you can do at
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: home before you come to us in person to get
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: ready for the experience and start to peel back the
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: layers of the onions, how to speak to give psilocybin
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a better chance of you know, helping you discover things
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: beneath the surface. And then you know, we take care
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: of everything on retreat. So it's just about getting yourself
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: to Southern Oregon and we work with you for a
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: period of a few weeks after the retreat remotely to
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: make sure you're getting all the support that you need
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: to integrate your experience. And then yeah, continuing your you're
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: healing journey and taking what you get out of the
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: experience and really turning it into meaningful, lasting change in
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: your life.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: How many people in the small groups.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Generally it's up to eight clients in the small groups,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: and we would have three facilitators.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: In a group of eight. Yeah, okay, awesome, all right, So,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: milescats of Confluence Retreats. What's the best way for people
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: to reach out and learn more?
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: The website is Confluence Retreats dot org. And you'll see
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: a button to book a call on that website pretty easily.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: And then you can always reach out to support at
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Confluence Retreats dot org and we'll get that email responded
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: to you right away.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Awesome, all right. We'll have that link up here at
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the show notes page at the Trauma Divers Podcast dot com. Miles,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: you you have this way about you that is awesome.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: It just instill not just I mean, obviously you're knowledgeable,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: but you just you just seem so passionate in a
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: very kind of quiet and confident way. I love it.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I love to hang you out very much.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love to Yeah, I appreciated it.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: All right, man, take care alright you all right by
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: By