Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Guest Host Series Christina P. Kantzavelos interviews Karen Sprinkel

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Guest Host Series Christina P. Kantzavelos interviews Karen Sprinkel · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Trauma Therapy Podcast. This
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: is Christina Consavalo's guest host.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: For Guy McPherson. Thank you all for being here. I
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: am so excited to be interviewing Karen Sprinkle today, who
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: I'm just a huge fan of. I'm going to let
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  Speaker 3: her tell us all about her amazing work.
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  Speaker 2: And frankly, I don't even know which direction to go
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  Speaker 2: in because she has just so much wisdom and knowledge
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  Speaker 2: to share with us.
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  Speaker 3: In the trauma world, in the psychedelic medicine world, Let's
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  Speaker 3: get into it, Karen.
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  Speaker 2: Tell us a bit about your history and what led
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: you here.
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  Speaker 4: Wow, Christina, it's an honor. It's a big honor to
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: be interviewed by you. So, oh boy. Well, my history
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: began when I was a little girl. I always knew
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: I was going to be a therapist. By the time
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  Speaker 4: I was six, I just kind of knew I was
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: going to be a therapist. So that's the history. It's
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: how far back it goes. And then very early in
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: my bachelor's degree, I took an existential philosophy course. And
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  Speaker 4: in that I was introduced to Buddhism. And so when
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: I started my master's degree, I was already interested in
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  Speaker 4: Eastern traditions. But that was when I was first introduced
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  Speaker 4: to severe trauma. I was hired and volunteered at the
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: first ever peer agency in North America. for violent crime survivors.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: And it was the first agency that was created for
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: the loved ones of a family member that had been
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  Speaker 4: murdered by a serial killer. And that was back in
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: the era where serial killers were really prevalent up and
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: down the West Coast of the United States. I mean,
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: they were everywhere, but in the West Coast, there was
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  Speaker 4: a lot. There was Ted Bundy. There was the I-5 killer.
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  Speaker 4: There was the Green River killer. So I was doing
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  Speaker 4: that work at the same time I was working with offenders.
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  Speaker 4: I was working with juvenile offenders and then I was
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: working with crime survivors. And so from that point on,
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  Speaker 4: I saw the cycle of trauma. I saw the impact
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  Speaker 4: of trauma and I saw the cycle of trauma and
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  Speaker 4: it changed my life. I mean, profoundly. Before that, I
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  Speaker 4: actually was always interested in kind of the criminal mind
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  Speaker 4: and I even thought I'd be a forensic psychologist, but
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  Speaker 4: I was so profoundly moved working with the survivors, you know,
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  Speaker 4: because of the depth, the depth of the work, the
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  Speaker 4: depth of despair, the depth of like trying to make
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  Speaker 4: meaning out of why bad things happen to good people.
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  Speaker 4: And so from there, I really found myself moved to
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  Speaker 4: have a deep philosophical and spiritual frame to it all
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  Speaker 4: as well. So I finished my master's degree working, as
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: I said, with both trauma survivors and offenders, but it
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: wasn't enough for me. I basically petitioned my master's degree
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  Speaker 4: program and said, look, I really want to go study Buddhism.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: And I want to understand Tibetan refugees who have had
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  Speaker 4: family members murdered and And could I put a proposal
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  Speaker 4: in and could I make that my final paper? It's
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  Speaker 4: kind of like a final thesis. And they agreed. They
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  Speaker 4: gave me permission to finish my master's degree studying through
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  Speaker 4: the Naropa Institute, which was a Buddhist psychology program. Even
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  Speaker 4: though I was in Seattle, they gave me permission to
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  Speaker 4: go through a semester abroad through Naropa, which was to
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  Speaker 4: study Buddhism. So I went through the Naropa Institute, but
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  Speaker 4: I did an independent study both through Naropa and my
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  Speaker 4: master's program on the impact of trauma on Tibetan refugees
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  Speaker 4: with a comparative analysis to Western violent crime victims. So
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  Speaker 4: that set the frame of my entire life. Right. So
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  Speaker 4: from there, I went to Asia and fell deeply, deeply
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  Speaker 4: in love with the culture of Nepal and I then
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  Speaker 4: traveled through other Buddhist Asian countries and was then forever
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  Speaker 4: moved and impacted. And that took me into a seven-year
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  Speaker 4: journey of living in Thailand, where I was a therapist
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  Speaker 4: on the island of Phuket. And I wasn't directly working
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  Speaker 4: with first-level victims, but certainly I was still holding that framed.
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  Speaker 4: But more I was getting really deep into the realm
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  Speaker 4: of Eastern traditions, the Eastern belief and suffering. Suffering is
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  Speaker 4: part of life. And so when I returned back to
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  Speaker 4: the States, I went right back to the agency I
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  Speaker 4: worked at in Washington State and brought the new knowledge
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: I had to the program there and started like an
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  Speaker 4: assault survivor support group, really expanded the services in Washington
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  Speaker 4: State and So we could get a victim advocate trained
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  Speaker 4: in each county in Washington State. And then a lot
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  Speaker 4: of things happened personally. And I ended up moving my
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  Speaker 4: life to California. And I've been here now for 20 years.
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  Speaker 4: And in that period of time, I've done whatever I
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  Speaker 4: can to get myself specialty trained in every modality possible
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  Speaker 4: so I can treat survivors of trauma. So yeah, so
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  Speaker 4: I'm very happy to say I'm certified in them all.
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  Speaker 4: So whether that's EMDR, brain spotting, somatic experiencing, IFS, level three,
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  Speaker 4: ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. And I'm very happy that I
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  Speaker 4: have level one as well and all the other major
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  Speaker 4: modalities as well. But the ones I listed are the
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  Speaker 4: ones I'm actually certified in. So I finally at at
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  Speaker 4: this point in my life, I'm almost 55. I do
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  Speaker 4: believe I am a specialist and almost an expert in
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  Speaker 4: the treatment of trauma.
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  Speaker 2: If you're not, I don't know who it is. We're
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  Speaker 2: being honest here.
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  Speaker 3: It's, it's incredible how many certifications you've had and how much,
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  Speaker 3: how much experience you've had. And I know we've talked
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  Speaker 3: about this before a bit between, between us, but But
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  Speaker 3: aren't you also developing a modality yourself?
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  Speaker 4: Yes. So like Christina already mentioned, we discussed about five
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: years ago, I was one of those first survivors of COVID.
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  Speaker 4: Like I got the first like variant, I guess we
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  Speaker 4: could say. So I was in February of 2020. I
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  Speaker 4: was in Brazil and I got the first variant of COVID.
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  Speaker 4: And I was definitely ill. And it was during the
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  Speaker 4: time it was still an endemic. It wasn't a pandemic yet.
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  Speaker 4: So I was contacted by the Department of Public Health.
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  Speaker 4: And they asked me all these questions and told me
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  Speaker 4: not to leave my home. And it was at the
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  Speaker 4: time where everyone thought it was just like a cough.
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  Speaker 4: And I didn't have the cough. So they did not
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  Speaker 4: want to test me at Kaiser yet. That was back
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  Speaker 4: when we had very little testing abilities. And finally, because
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  Speaker 4: I was a clinician, they got me in for a test.
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  Speaker 4: And My provider called me all frantic and she was like,
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  Speaker 4: oh my God, you have COVID. I said, yes, I know.
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  Speaker 4: I already could have told you I have COVID. But
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: it was getting worse and it wasn't getting better. It
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  Speaker 4: was actually getting worse. And it just, all the symptoms
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  Speaker 4: I had for a few weeks just developed into my
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  Speaker 4: head and I had severe brain inflammation. And there were
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  Speaker 4: a few nights that I really thought I was going
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  Speaker 4: to die. Like my brain was so inflamed and Kaiser
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  Speaker 4: wouldn't take me. It was back when it was the
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  Speaker 4: very beginning. Everything was shut down. They did not believe
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  Speaker 4: how severe my symptoms were because I didn't have a cough.
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  Speaker 4: And that was prior to even New York City having
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  Speaker 4: the big outbreak where we first started to hear about neuroinflammation.
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  Speaker 4: And I had to send the neurologist at Kaiser here
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  Speaker 4: in California this article about neuroinflammation out of New York City.
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  Speaker 4: And I was really... proud and happy of this neurologist saying,
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  Speaker 4: I have to be honest with you that I don't know. Like,
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  Speaker 4: I don't know how to treat you. By the time
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  Speaker 4: they got me in for an MRI, I was actually fine.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: But that was after a 10-week course of steroids, which
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: helped break the deep inflammation and profound headaches I was
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  Speaker 4: having in my head. And then I slowly got better
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: with my headaches and But the chronic fatigue symptoms, my
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: rapid heart rate, my irregular heart rate, my brain fog
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  Speaker 4: was not getting better. So I had to take it
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  Speaker 4: upon myself to find treatment that would help me and
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  Speaker 4: my immune system get better. And I still, five years later,
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: get a monthly IV to help my immune system because
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  Speaker 4: I still am a long hauler. Now it's more just
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  Speaker 4: a little bit of brain fog, a little bit of
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: irregular heart rate. All of that being said, I thought
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  Speaker 4: it was important to share this because not only, Christina,
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  Speaker 4: your expertise, but this is what brought me to share
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  Speaker 4: my wisdom with the world. Because when I thought I
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  Speaker 4: was going to die, I was like, you know, I
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  Speaker 4: have all this clinical knowledge and information. I have to
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  Speaker 4: get this out in a book because time and time again,
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  Speaker 4: I was going to these trauma trainings by these trauma
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  Speaker 4: experts who are claiming their expertise, but only talking about
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  Speaker 4: one way. or one trauma modality, right? Or this approach
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  Speaker 4: will heal all. And I remember having such strong reactions
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  Speaker 4: to that because simultaneously I was seeing that that wasn't
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  Speaker 4: true in my clinical practice. And I simultaneously had been
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: doing observational research in my clinical practice over the years,
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: running an incest survivor support group. And all of these
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: incest survivors were having they had had the same victimization,
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  Speaker 4: same level of victimization, same socioeconomic status, same age of onset,
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  Speaker 4: and their diagnoses were relatively the same, complex PTSD or
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: dissociative identity disorder. And all of them responded dramatically different
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  Speaker 4: to each modality than each other. And so from that,
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  Speaker 4: I started to put together just like surveys and questionnaires
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  Speaker 4: with my own client base. And I started to see
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  Speaker 4: that there was these themes, these patterns, which I would
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  Speaker 4: like to call the trauma patterning system. And so I
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  Speaker 4: put this together in my book and there's a questionnaire
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  Speaker 4: and the questionnaire basically helps the trauma survivor understand if
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  Speaker 4: they are more dominant as a trauma mind, a trauma body,
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  Speaker 4: or a trauma spirit. And that's what's in my book
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  Speaker 4: because as we know, There can be a client that
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  Speaker 4: has created all of these incredible negative cognitions about being traumatized,
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  Speaker 4: but they don't necessarily feel it in their body. They
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  Speaker 4: don't think they feel it in their body.
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  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And then you can have the trauma survivor who is
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  Speaker 4: just their spirituality and the religious frame is just destroyed. Right.
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  Speaker 4: And that's what they bring us. So we have to
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  Speaker 4: address the spiritual first, right? And then of course, we
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  Speaker 4: have the trauma survivors that have the chronically dysregulated nervous
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  Speaker 4: system or the chronic appease fawn response or the chronic
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  Speaker 4: appease fight response. And so we have to treat them somatically.
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  Speaker 4: And so that's what's in my book. And I really
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  Speaker 4: believe that we all need to be educated about the
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  Speaker 4: different trauma presentations and not one approach heals all. There's
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  Speaker 4: many pathways to healing and there's many different stages to healing.
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  Speaker 4: And the viewers, I think it's really important they know
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  Speaker 4: that if one approach didn't work for you, that doesn't
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: mean all approaches will not work for you. And if
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  Speaker 4: you've reached the limit of EMDR and you feel like
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: you're not getting more out of EMDR, that doesn't mean
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: you're at the end of the road of healing. That
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: means you can now try somatic experiencing. Or you can
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: try ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Or you can try brain spotting. There's
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  Speaker 4: many different approaches to help you heal at different times
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  Speaker 4: in your life. And so that is my passion, is
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  Speaker 4: making sure we, the clinicians, are truly trauma-informed. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And it's so, I mean, there's a few different things.
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  Speaker 2: One is there is no one-size-fits-all. it's all approach, right?
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  Speaker 3: And I think it's important for therapists, both therapists and
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  Speaker 3: clients to hear this because sometimes I know I've gone
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: to a training and that's being spewed like, oh, this,
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  Speaker 3: this is great for everyone. And in fact, it's for example,
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  Speaker 3: EMDR is not for everyone. I'm going to be the
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  Speaker 3: first to, to say that brain spotting, not for everyone.
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  Speaker 3: Somatic experiencing was not even for me. That was one
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  Speaker 3: I tried for so long and it was not for me.
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  Speaker 3: And that's, that's okay because I was so disembodied. I
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: was not connected to my body. So tell asking me
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  Speaker 3: where something was or is felt near, it felt so foreign.
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  Speaker 2: I felt like a different, a different language.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 2: So that's how I see them. I see them as like, which,
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  Speaker 2: which language works for each client. And sometimes I don't
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: know about you.
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  Speaker 3: I have to combine the different modalities for where a
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: person is and what they're responding well to.
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  Speaker 2: And I, I'm not above that.
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  Speaker 3: It's whoever's in front of me and what they're presenting as.
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  Speaker 2: I meet them with the tools.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that's really good news for both because
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: as a client, like you were saying, oh, this doesn't
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: work for me.
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  Speaker 2: That means nothing. Nothing is going to work for me.
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  Speaker 2: That's not true. There are so many beautiful, amazing modalities
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  Speaker 2: out there. And if your therapist doesn't Is it training them?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: That's okay. It might be time to find someone else
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  Speaker 2: who is. And same with us as therapists. It's amazing
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  Speaker 2: to know.
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  Speaker 3: That we can pick from all kinds of different modalities.
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  Speaker 2: That's the fun part. But also, I was going to
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: say for.
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  Speaker 3: You and yourself, after getting certified and learning so much
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: about all of this, knowing when it's time to now
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: also use your own wisdom and to.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Share and, and help others.
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  Speaker 5: Um, and with the psychedelic, the psychedelic work that, that
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  Speaker 5: piece is so important when it comes to being trauma informed,
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  Speaker 5: because we see so many, so.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Many therapists as well as coaches out there doing integration work,
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  Speaker 3: but they don't really have the trauma, the trauma training
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  Speaker 3: and background.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Would you like to speak on that a little bit?
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  Speaker 4: Oh, Christina, as you and I both know, this is
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: my deep passion, my current deep passion, right? Oh, I
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: have so much to say about it. So much to say.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: And again, I want the viewers to hear from my
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: perspective that I am not a psychonaut. I mean, I'm
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: becoming a psychonaut, but I definitely historically have not been
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: a psychonaut, meaning this person that is always doing psychedelics
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: and thinks it's the coolest thing in the world. I
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: actually approached the psychedelic movement with a lot of caution,
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: both being a Buddhist and I was trying not to,
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: you know, ingest intoxicants, but also being a trauma specialist
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: in the Bay Area over the past 10 to 20 years.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: My goodness, I've had so many referrals from people that
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: had a bad trip, right? They had either... an adverse
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: medical feeling or experience or symptom, or they had traumas
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: resurface that they didn't even know about and it came
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: up in the psychedelic journey itself, or the psychedelic medicine,
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: the molecule itself, caused a hallucination of a devil that
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: was chasing them. And then that became a trauma. So
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: I was getting all these referrals for folks that had
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: some persisting and lasting negative consequences from doing a psychedelic journey.
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: So I was like, Oh my God, what is going
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: on in the psychedelic underground? Because that obviously was how
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: it was happening because it's not been legal. So there
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: was a lot of underground movements. And I also want
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: to say for the record, I am not against the
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: underground movement. I think the indigenous ways and the underground movement,
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: we can learn so much from, the indigenous ways of
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: holding a psychedelic journey in a collective and in a
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: group with a very experienced shaman, deep respect for. The
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: underground movement that has been doing these medicine journeys for
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: folks for years and have years of experience, deep respect for.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: All that being said, as a licensed clinician and now
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: a certified psychedelic guide, We are fooling ourselves if we
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: believe the molecule itself will heal trauma and the molecule
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: itself will not cause trauma. We are absolutely ignorant if
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: we believe that. Because the reality is these molecules are
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: so deep. This is why people compare them to doing
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: six months or a year of therapy in one day.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Because when you ingest a molecule, and it doesn't matter
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: if we're talking about natural molecules, Or more like the
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: chemical lab created molecules. It's the same. They help our
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: brains open up to unconscious things that we may have
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: never been aware of, or maybe we were aware of
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: and they were buried. And new terrains of understanding reality, consciousness,
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: non-ordinary states of consciousness. And that can be at the
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: very least disorientating to folks. if not terrifying for folks. Now,
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: if we're fortunate and lucky, which I'm thankfully thus far
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: have been for myself, that can also lead to profound, blissful, sacred,
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: ever-changing life journeys, right? But the reality is that is
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: not true 100% of the time. So I started to
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: get really impassioned to understand what was going on. So
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: I went to the MAPS training, which is the agency
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: that was created to actually do research with MDMAs. Because
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: I was studying all the research and learning that, okay,
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: here are these studies that are saying that this molecule
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: can actually treat PTSD. And if I'm a trauma specialist,
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: I have to be open-minded to go find out more
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: about this. So I went on the MAPS training and
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: I was extremely humbled that I was the only one
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: there that had never, not only never tried MDMA, but
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: I had never tried a molecule except for ayahuasca. I
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: had done ayahuasca in Peru and I had the shamanic
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: experience and I had the whole collective experience and it
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: was beautiful, even though not much happened to me with ayahuasca.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: It was still beautiful. So when I was in this training, again,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: it was one of those pivotal life moments of everything
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: just opening up. And I was like, oh my gosh, Karen,
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: there is this entire domain that can help humanity heal,
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: that can help individuals with trauma history heal. And even
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: in that training, when they were talking about, okay, MDMA
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: helps treat PTSD, I was like, wait a minute. None
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: of these trainers actually are certified in a trauma modality.
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: And they're saying they treat PTSD. And so I was like, okay,
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: that's great. I'm glad it's treating PTSD. But what about
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: for the 10%, which... 10% of the 40 million people
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: that are doing psychedelics, that's a big number of people,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: that are having an adverse, challenging, or traumatic experience during
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: the medicine. So anyway, so from there, I started to
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: do my own psychedelic journeys. I started ketamine. I became
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: a ketamine provider. I've been doing ketamine with my clients
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: now for about three and a half years or so.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: And then I got into the CIS program to become
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: a psychedelic guide. I started doing my own psychedelic retreats
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: as a participant so I could really feel what it's
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: like to be an individual receiver and in a collective receiving.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: And so I can speak to both. And now I've
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: also offered psychedelic retreats, mainly ketamine retreats and individual ketamine
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: sessions to my clients. And I would still stand by
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: 10 to 20% of folks who even if it eventually
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: becomes a really good experience and a life-shifting experience or
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: something they had to face, 10 to 20% of folks
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: have a terrifying, adverse, or challenging experience. And that needs
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: to be held, in my opinion, with someone that's not
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: just a sitter, someone that is not just a therapist.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: but someone that actually has certification and or at least
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: level one training in a trauma modality. And having the
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: belief that the inner healer or the inner healing intelligence
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: will heal all is frankly not true when it comes
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: to trauma. And we know that very well. Trauma gets
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: stuck in our body. It gets stuck in our mind.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: We can have soul loss. We can have parts that
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: are stuck in time and space. And if we only
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: trusted the inner healing intelligence without a professional who is
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: trained to help intervene in these moments, we could cause
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: a lasting and persistent trauma response from the psychedelic journey.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: So that's my two cents.
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: Worth way more than two cents but I was and
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: I was gonna say too with the with the you
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: know specifically MDMA and MAPS it's it's MDMA assisted assisted
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: therapy like the reason there has been benefit to folks
• 24:15
  Speaker 6: with post-traumatic stress disorder is.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Because of the therapy attached to preparation and integration it's
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: it's it's so so important and then that that other
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: element of trauma and.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: What comes up and being able to work with a
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: provider who understands it and can help you process. And
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: I say irrigate it and be, and be with it. Yeah. For,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: you know, two, two questions. One, let's go the provider
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: route really quickly.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: If, if someone's starting out and they would like to be,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: trauma and psychedelic informed and really understand about all of this,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: where would you, where would you guide.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Them to head to first? Because there may be, there
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: may be newer therapists or therapies and therapists who, who
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: are now desiring to be on this path.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: You know, that's such a hard question that I get
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: asked a lot. You know, you probably get asked the
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: same question. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: It's so hard, right?
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: Just as a start, right? Because we, We have to
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: do something to be responsible for our clients, and yet
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: we also have to do something that's in alignment with
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: who we are. And so because of that, I can't
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: definitively tell an individual provider, oh, go do EMDR, go
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: do brain spotting, go do SE, go do sensory motor,
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: go do IFS, because you have to find inside yourself
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: which of those approaches kind of resonates with you the most.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: But what I can definitively say is a master's degree
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: is not enough. having the PhD or this ID is
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: not enough. I'm sorry. Like it's just, it's factually true.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: We graduate with trauma informed exercises and techniques when we
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: graduate from those programs.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: And I, and my, my wish is that politically and
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: systemically we could change that and we could do some
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: great work in changing that. So we don't have to
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: spend years and years and years. I mean, I've spent,
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: 16 years getting all those certifications. 16 years. That is
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: more than two PhDs, right? And I mean, each certification
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: with the experiences that you have to do, right? Because
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: you have to do your own personal work and do consultation,
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: which is, by the way, what makes them stand out
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: versus an intellectual certification program. Each of those is about
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: three years long, right? Okay. And that's if you're doing
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: all of your consultations back to back and you're doing
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: your personal work back to back. Three years, three years.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: So I can't tell an imaginal provider, oh, definitively go
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: do this one. I did write a paper on it,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: but what I can say is do one of them.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: At least do one of them. Start somewhere.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Start somewhere. But do not believe that you can sit
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: a psychedelic session... and hold space psychedelically if you do
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: not have any trauma-informed experiential training. So at least level
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: one of SE, level one of EMDR, and or level
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: one of brain spotting, and or level one of IFS.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: That's what I would recommend. But you have to choose
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: which of those four of sensory motors, or level one
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: of sensory motor, which of those five you feel like, okay,
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: I really resonate with this philosophy. in this technique. So
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: I'm going to go sign up for level one, but
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: it has, you have to have it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I completely agree.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: And I say this, we cannot talk our way out
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: of trauma. We must, we must feel it to heal it.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: And it's interesting even here in Europe, how CBT is
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: what everyone is trained in and what they use.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: You don't see so many trauma informed therapists of just
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: across the board, across the world.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: So starting, it's trauma, trauma work first, and.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Then the psychedelic work.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: I would say as a foundation, first and foremost, because
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: sometimes I see the opposite happening. And yeah, we're going
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: in a different direction. So there's that. And then for
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: a client.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Who is interested? Like I, the client who might realize
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I have trauma.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: I want to, I want to move through this. I
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: want to, I want to heal this. I don't know
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: if I should go the ketamine route, EMDR, IFS, SE.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: What would you, what would you suggest?
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: So this is why I wrote my book. I mean that, that,
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: that client that is asking that not to like promote myself,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: but truly that is exactly why I wrote my book.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: It's like, So I would say download my book. It's
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: free on Kindle. If you have Kindle, it's available in audio.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: And or take the questionnaire that's on my website, because
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: I believe it's important to know up front. Like a
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: really good assessment. Am I more dominant here mentally, somatically,
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: or spiritually? And then go forth and finding the clinician
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: that matches that. Like if you are really spiritually struggling...
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: And you are like, I don't believe in God anymore.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: I don't believe my faith did not help my sister
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: when she was murdered. What's the point of faith? Blah, blah, blah.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: Then find a provider that has a really strong spiritual foundation.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: But be open-minded, right? If someone has a truly strong
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: spiritual foundation, they are open-minded to all spiritual foundations. So
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: my suggestion, for example, in this case would be define
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: a clinician that has a very strong spiritual foundation and
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: has at least level one training in brain spotting or
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: IFS with, if you are planning to do a psychedelic,
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: with ketamine or a psychedelic medicine. But they must have
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: with it some level of a training that helps the
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: spiritual retrieval, so to speak, which would be IFS or
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: brain spotting. Now, if someone were asking this question and
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: they're just like super tightly wound up and they're so
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: tight and they've never been able to relax since they
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: were traumatized, or if they're so dissociative and they never
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: fill their body, what's really hard is they need somatic work.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: And if they are highly dissociative, they don't believe they
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: need somatic work because they don't feel their body. So again,
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: that's why that assessment is really important because the assessment
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: addresses that. And I want you to know that if
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: you're working with at least a level one, truly trained
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: somatic practitioner, they know how to ask you questions that
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: are not just, what are you feeling in your body
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: right now? What's that sensation in your body right now?
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: Because for someone that's highly dissociative, they're going to say,
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean?
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: I don't know. You tell me, right? And if you're
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: with a trained, like a truly trained somatic practitioner, they
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: know how to work with that, right? And then the
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: same is true of mental. So it's really hard to
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: answer that question unless we know how the trauma has
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: a hold over you. So again, I would guide them
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: back to the assessment. Yeah.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: How can they find this assessment?
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: So it's my website, which is my name. So www.karensprinkle.com
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: forward slash assessment. But you can also just go to
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: my website and it's very clear. It says begin assessment
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: right there. It's also in the book. It's in the
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: beginning of the book. So they can do it either way.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: So but on the website, it's free.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Amazing. Thanks for creating that. And the book you said
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: it's free on Kindle.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Otherwise you can purchase it also on your website, Amazon.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: Purchase it on my website, Barnes and Noble, Amazon. The
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: audio is available on Spotify. Yeah. So Spotify, I can't remember.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: I think it's a few dollars, but on Amazon, I
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: think it's like $ 29.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: 99.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: And it sounds like.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: It's great for both clients and clinicians.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: It's exactly what it was written for. Yeah. Yeah. the
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: clinician that wants to be more trauma informed and the
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: client that doesn't want to waste their time anymore. Like
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: the perfect client is a client that's already done a
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: couple of years of therapy and they're like, you know what? Okay, sure.
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: My therapist is lovely, but I don't feel necessarily any better.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: So I need to figure out how I can augment
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: my therapist. I'm not saying to fire that therapist. I'm saying,
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: have a conversation with that therapist and And say, I
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: want to augment and actually find a trauma modality that
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: I can use at the same time I continue to
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: see you. And maybe have that conversation about decreasing the
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: session so you can add on another trauma modality approach.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: A really, in my opinion, a really solid seasoned therapist
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: would absolutely agree with you doing that. There are some
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: personalities or newer clinicians or practitioners psychodynamic or psychoanalytic therapist
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: that would be against you seeing another therapist, which I
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: don't see how that's fair if you're a trauma survivor.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: So just know you always have the option to try
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: a different approach and to try a different therapist or
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: to augment with a different approach or different therapist.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: You always have that option. You always have that freedom.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: And if anyone makes you feel like anything else, then
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: they might not be the right fit for you.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: Right. We're here.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I always told people we're, we're here for you. You're
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: paying us.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Like this is, this is for you, not for us.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: So it's about how we can support your healing journey.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, okay. Thank you so much for your time
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: and your wisdom and yeah.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Is there anything you'd like to leave with the audience today?
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. I want any trauma survivor to know, hands down,
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: healing is possible. And there's a step beyond healing, which
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: is thriving is possible. You may never feel okay or
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: happy about what happened to you in the past, but
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: that doesn't mean you can't heal and thrive. Healing and
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: thriving is always possible.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that. And again, thank you for being here.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: And thank you to everyone who has tuned in. We
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: appreciate you. Lots of love to everyone.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: Lots of love. Bye, y'all.