Latest / Through the Sh#t with Jen McDowell / Suzanne Blaising | What is Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy? And Why Preparation Matters.
Transcript
- speaker-0: You know, when you think about trauma, you know, we have all of these ways in our brain in which we're protected, and especially childhood trauma, which you don't even have the resources in order to deal with trauma. So you might suppress it, you might deny it, you may project it, you know, all of these things that we all have to to protect and to to survive ⁓ end up working against us. And so these psilocybin can really soften those defenses so that you can get in touch with and and to be able to really live your life wholly with all of your emotions and with all of your memories. speaker-1: Welcome, I'm Jen McDowell, and you're listening to Through the Shit, a podcast for anyone going through the shit and the people who love them. And every episode we'll hear a new story of loss, hope, and resilience, and how going through the shit led to something greater. So if you're in the shit now and feeling lost or alone, disconnected from your badass self, or in need of an ember of hope to keep putting one foot in front of the other, you're in the right place. So settle in, prepare to be moved and inspired, and welcome. to the shit. Welcome everybody. You're listening to Through the Shit. I'm your host, Jen McDowell. Joining me today is Dr. Suzanne Blazing. Suzanne, welcome. I'm really excited to have you here. speaker-0: I'm so happy to be here. speaker-1: Yeah, thank you. ⁓ for the listeners who are listening, I got connected th to Suzanne through a mutual connection. ⁓ Michelle DeCola, who was actually on one of the other podcast episodes, I reached out to her and said, I'm looking for someone to talk with me about work with psychedelics and mental health. ⁓ because I'm in the process of sort of trying to think of how we can look at this idea of through the shit through different lenses. And so there's a lot of really promising work. Happening in the psychedelic field. And ⁓ I'm so glad that Michelle connected us, and I'm really looking forward to hearing what you have to say today. Yeah, cool. Okay. So let's tell everybody a little bit about your background. Your bio is very extensive, and I'm really glad to have such an expert, an esteemed expert here with us today. Dr. Suzanne Blazing is a psychotherapist, psychedelic medicine therapist, and educator with over 25 years of experience, supporting people through periods of pain. speaker-0: Thank you. speaker-1: Transition and profound change. Her work is grounded grounded in warmth, compassion, and a deep respect for each person's inner wisdom and capacity for healing. Dr. Blazing works with individuals and couples who feel stuck, overwhelmed, or disconnected, often after years of trying to figure things out without lasting relief. I know that very well. ⁓ she supports people navigating trauma, grief and loss, anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, attachment wounds, and major life transitions. She's known for creating a therapeutic space that feels safe and honest, one where people can slow down, feel understood, and explore what matters most without pressure or judgment. Her work in psychedelic medicine spans clinical care, research, training, and education. She has facilitated more than 450 hours of psilocybin administration sessions and over 1,000 ketamine administration sessions. That is a ton of sessions. She holds the professional certificate in psilocybin facilitation and has participated in clinical research involving MDMA, Five MEO, DMT, and LSD for complex mental health concerns including trauma, mood disorders, and anxiety. Her work is informed by both rigorous scientific standards and deep relational clinical practice. As psychedelic lead at the wholeness center, she provides clinical consultation and supports participants through preparation, dosing, and integration. With an emphasis on safety, meaning, and lasting change. And I think as we're gonna get into, that's where a lot of work comes in, is all of that preparation work that goes into it. Yeah. Dr. Blazing is certified in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing or EMDR, divorce mediation, conflict resolution, relationship and premarital education and step family dynamics. She's licensed in Colorado, Illinois, and California. Doctor Blazing, what a resume. Welcome. speaker-0: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you today. Yeah. About the wonderful work that is happening. speaker-1: Yeah, it's it's important work ⁓ and it's exciting work and I think there's a lot of education that's still needed around it because it's probably, at least from my perspective, still kind of misunderstood. So I'm yeah, hopeful we can educate people and debunk some of the myths that go along with the work around psychedelics today. speaker-0: Yeah, we'll work on that. speaker-1: Okay. All right. Challenge accepted. So tell me a little bit about how you got started. You know, mm mm as I know with most of my guests, there's something personal about their journey that kind of lands them where they've landed. So tell me a little bit about how you got into this work. speaker-0: So what made me want to get into this work is that I had been become very frustrated with the state of our mental health system. ⁓ and being part of that sort of broken system for twenty-two years, ⁓ and getting frustrated and f more frustrated with how long it took for people to get better and just the pain that it caused. ⁓ and so that really was sort of the impetus for me. ⁓ I had a patient around eight, nine years ago come to me to and wanted to try psychedelics. And at that time, I was very much against it. I had never tried psychedelics myself. I was sort of raised in that era of like, here's your brain, here's your brain on drugs, and very much like ⁓ very afraid for her. ⁓ Well, out of respect for her, I said that I would do the research on it. And I did the research and I was really blown away with what I found in terms of like the ability for people to get better, really get better with some diagnoses that we have that are really difficult to work with. ⁓ so ⁓ I recommended that she do try ketamine and she went to a ketamine clinic and While her first session wasn't ideal, it really taught me the importance of prep. It taught me the importance of holding space. ⁓ and so after the first one, which brought up feelings that were really difficult for her, but it was in a container that wasn't able to hold her, ⁓ I went with her during her next ketamine. And and that and then the following ones in what then happened was over eight sessions, sh she had made so much progress that after 10 weeks we discontinued treatment. And so that was really the introduction of this way of ⁓ treatment. And I then really immersed myself in the field. I did all sorts of trainings. I did lots of research. And I ended up moving to Fort Collins, Colorado to work with the wholeness center, ⁓ which is a integrative med medical center, ⁓ and really w I believe the forefront of all treatments. ⁓ and so ⁓ I went, I moved there and have not looked back. speaker-1: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So what the I I think the first thing that I would just comment on is this idea of one one thing becomes the spark. It wasn't an area that you had expertise in, but even though you had this patient come to you interested in it, you reserved judgment, you got curious, and then you became part of that patient's experience. Cause at the time you weren't doing that. ⁓ but you were able to su supervise, be the supportive presence that the patient needed during that experience. And through having in that front row seat, you saw the potential for patients. And that's kind of what led you down this path. And now eight years later, you are here on a podcast talking with me and all of our listeners about it. Very cool. Yeah. ⁓ so ketamine has been FD FDA approved for a while. ⁓ and you can get it. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Off-label for the listeners who are listening. ⁓ Off label means ⁓ use of a medication that's FDA approved for one context and using it in another context that hasn't yet been FDA approved. So ketamine has been around for a while and used in medical settings. ⁓ tell me a little bit about the psilocybin. How did you get involved in that? Because it is very, it's very much in its early stages of being legalized. I think Colorado. New Mexico, it will be legal starting in twenty twenty seven, and I think Oregon is maybe the third state that's legal. So how did you get into psilocybin as well? Because it's feels a little bit more taboo. speaker-0: Yeah, my route to psilocybin really came through working on the clinical trials for MDMA for PTSD and seeing really how how profound the differences working with with people who had really complex PTSD using MDMA. And really at that time the thought was that it was gonna get FDA approval. So really the my ⁓ my sort of goal was to work with MDMA. The Colorado passed the Natural Medicine Act, which has sort of opened up the gates for psilocybin. And I became trained using psilocybin and educated on you know how to use it. I became to really respect how profound the effect it has on treatments such as treatment resistant depression, anxiety, ⁓ substance use disorder, O C D. And so that's how I, you know, developed my practice with suicide. speaker-1: Okay. So you kinda went where the opp where the opportunities presented themselves. speaker-0: Right. And working with ketamine, and ketamine's really great in terms of anxiet working with anxiety, depression. It's very short acting. So if somebody comes in and they're really suicidal or really struggling, ketamine is a really effective, quick treatment. The issue with ketamine can be that it doesn't have the durability. So people who use ketamine, they have to come back. many times to get a booster session and to into in order to maintain the benefits that they have. With psilocybin, there's the durability factor. So with psilocybin, people can go really deep and have profound experiences and they have the durability of like the research is showing over 12 months. And so working with both ketamine and psilocybin. is a really great tool in order to help people to have that quick anxiety depressant relief and then the depth of the psilocybin and the durability with the psilocybin. speaker-1: Yeah. I I think that's an important distinction to make, right? Because there are lots of options out there. ⁓ ketamine, psilocybin, ayahuasca, ibogaine, bufo, I think coyote, there there are a lot out there. And I know your background is in ketamine and psilocybin, so that's what we'll focus on today. But ⁓ from my understanding, these psychedelic medications all kind of work in both similar and different ways. So before we kind of talk much about each of the different types of medications and what they're best used for. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, tell me how tell me how they work. I mean, I know there's this idea of neuroplasticity involved and rewiring neuroplasti neuropathways. So let's just talk generally about the category of psychedelics to the extent that we can. How do they work? speaker-0: Yeah. So ketamine is not a traditional psychedelic. It's actually a disassociative anesthetic. But on it the doses that we use, it can produce some psychedelic like effects. ⁓ so with ketamine, you're gonna have that neuroplasticity. It affects the default mode network, which is a network where the it's like your sense of yourself is there. And for people who are depressed. They typically have a sense of their self that is negative. And so it really can ⁓ calm that. So with ketamine, you have it, you know, like I said, it's a disassociative anesthetic, but it does have the antidepressant, anti-anxiety effect with it. And psilocybin is is a classic psychedelic. So it's not a disassociative, it's a classic psychedelic. And it mimics the serotonin receptor. And the serotonin receptor, you can think about it in that it the serotonin affects like your affect regulation, how you see yourself, your perception. And so when with the psilocybin, what it can do is it can really open up the neuroplasts. pathways of your brain and allow different brain centers to begin talking and communicating. And so when you're talking about somebody who's really depressed or really anxious, they typically have a really stuck or structured way of thinking about themselves or thinking about what's happening. And it's really hard to get that to soften. And psychedelics can really help in softening that. speaker-1: So tell me a little bit. So you've you've listed out some of the disorders. Tell me a little bit about the patients who come to you. and how does this this idea of introducing ketamine or psilocybin come up? speaker-0: Okay. Well, ⁓ now the patients come to me for this service. Okay, that's pretty much what I do. ⁓ but it ⁓ it runs the gamut. Like I just finished work with a physician who ⁓ really wanted to get in touch with his feelings. He was very analytical. He could tell you the story of his childhood trauma. He's told it. hundred times, but couldn't feel it. And during the session, he sobbed the entire time and said that it was the first time that he actually felt that little kid and was able to really feel the what he went through. And that that really allowed him, you know, this the psilocybin softened his defenses. It softened his protection. And that's a lot of what psilocybin can do. It can soften whatever defenses that we have to protect ourselves. You know, when you think about trauma, you know, we have all of these ways in our brain in which we're protected. And especially childhood trauma, which you don't even have the resources in order to deal with trauma. So you might suppress it, you might deny it, you may project it. All of these things that we all have to to protect and to to survive ⁓ end up working against us. And so these psilocybin can really soften those defenses so that you can get in touch with and and to be able to really ⁓ live your life wholly with all of your emotions and with all of your memories. I work with, you know, somebody who comes in and wants to feel things. I work with people who really some people just want to have a spiritual experience. There are people that want to deal with particular trauma or they wanna deal with depression. I just worked with somebody who she came in, she was telling me that she hadn't known the last time that she felt excited about anything or couldn't even really see her future. And then, you know, two months later, she's plant planting her spring garden. Like she, you know, really trying to, you know, in these little ways. Yeah. Is able to have hope, is able to see something. You know, and so psilocybin can also, you know, bring you closer to yourself. You know, these parts, memories or these things that we don't or can't see it can bring that up in a way that ⁓ it can be compassionate, you know. For example, I worked with a veteran, a retired veteran, and ⁓ he had severe substance use issues. ⁓ but what he talked about was the shame that he had carried for 40 years over what he had done during combat. And he was during the during the medicine session, he was able to see himself as that 20-year-old and the 20-year-old that was surviving and that was making the best decisions that that 20-year-old could make given the environment that he was in. And he after the session was really able to learn that he had been. torturing himself for those forty years and was able to then love himself and love and and not carry that shame anymore. Really have a deep understanding and respect and care, compassion for himself. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing some of those examples. ⁓ you know, because it seems like the people come to you, one, because they know you do this work, but two, ⁓ it sounds like mm, and I'm maybe reading between the lines here a little bit, is that they've been working on this for a while. Yeah. And they are feeling stuck. I think that was something that was even part of your bio, is that there's been some effort to try and resolve this for a while and they are stuck. ⁓ in terms of their ability to really heal from something that happened in their past. You've mentioned trauma a couple of times. And the effect of the this the psilocybin in particular, maybe even the ketamine to some extent, ⁓ lowers those defenses that we establish in response to traumatic events so that they can really face it, really heal it, and see it with new perspective that allows them to be more compassionate with themselves going forward. speaker-0: Yeah. And I think that you know, it's really important to understand that psychedelics are not like the magic bullet. It is a you know, I always say that it's not the psychedelics, your medicine session is not the finish line, it's the beginning. Yeah. And, you know, it's you have to have a relationship with yourself. You have to this is just a tool that we use. ⁓ And I think I was working with somebody who came in and she wanted just to in a one weekend like have everything, you know, all clear. And, you know, when we did an extensive prep and we really talked about expectation. And what came up for her was that she's lived her life trying to get the next best thing. J and it was it was a bypassing of actually getting in touch with herself. It was always like trying to get better, feel better, but never really sitting with herself. speaker-1: Yeah. Interesting. I'm curious, you know, if you see other coping mechanisms that people are trying to break free from. I mean, you've talked about this, this striving, this achieving. you've talked about substance use. What are the other coping mechanisms that you see people coming in with that can be aided with the help of or addressed with the aid of psychedelic medicine? speaker-0: Well, I you know, when we're thinking about coping mechanisms, they're really our way of surviving, right of coping. And so, you know, they're it's a tool. It's o only when it's overused that it becomes dysfunctional. When it's used as a way of not feeling you know, I'm you know I believe in psychedelics, I believe more in the in talk therapy as a way of you have to get at what the root is. If you're not getting to what the root is, then it's still gonna it infect you. Right. So it's that ability to get to it. So when you're talking about somebody who has childhood trauma or PTSD or treatment resistant depression, they're usually pretty well defended. And so traditional talk therapy, it's it can be very painful and it's almost as a therapist, you're playing a bit of whack-a-mole. Like, all right, so is it your what happened to child? Is it you're really cause you need to get at what the root is? Psychedelics allow us to get where what the root is in a way that bypasses a lot of sort of what I would call like the whack a mole method. speaker-1: Interesting. speaker-0: And you know, very often people don't even know why they're feeling the way that they are or what's impacting. So it's a great tool, if used correctly, to in order to really help people get to what the core is so that that can be processed and moved on. And that's why it's so important the prep, the integration sessions. It's like that making meaning is so critical of it. speaker-1: Yeah. So so let's talk about that a little bit. So I imagine you have people coming in saying, Suzanne, cure me. So, you know, who's a good candidate for this? Because I think it's, you know, before you we can can even do the prep, you have to figure out who's a good candidate for this. speaker-0: You know, you really want to, especially psilocybin, rule out any types of psychosis. Anybody who has schizophrenia or has had like a manic episode with a psychotic episode. That's somebody that you really want to ⁓ look at very carefully. Okay. ⁓ so aside from that, I think it's important that somebody be able to have a a holding like space, have people around them, have support structure, be able to be in a mindset mentally that they can handle some disruption. speaker-1: So there are some clinical criteria that you're looking for to rule people in and out. But the other thing that you're looking for is do they have the support system outside of your relationship with them to help them navigate any sort of bumps that come up along the way? speaker-0: Mm-hmm. And do they have the emotional strength? And so, you know, there may be people that come in that I'll want to work with, you know, prior to introducing psilocybin on skill building, on sort of resourcing themselves. To make sure that when the medicine is introduced that they're have enough of a supportive structure internally that they can withstand and that they can really benefit from the medicines and from the treatment. speaker-1: So it's not necessarily you walk in the door and, you know, someone's getting high. What's the what's the what's the right way to re refer to it, even? speaker-0: So, you know, we would call it a journey. speaker-1: A journey. Okay. Yeah. So you don't walk in the door and have a journey on day one. No. speaker-0: So we do a careful prep, which is usually three sessions of preparation, where we're going through the medicine, we're talking about all the different safety plans, we're talking about, you know, what's gonna happen, we're talking about dosage, we're doing, you know, preparing them for the actual journey. So we do three sessions of that before we minimum before we do a medicine session. And then we'll do an integration twenty-four to forty-eight hours after. And then three additional plus. There are some people that need much more than three. And the research shows that ⁓ there can be relief after one session, but it could take up to three psilocybin sessions. So it's for some people it's not just that one. It can take up to three, especially with Sort of complex PTSD or treatment resistant depression, some of those diagnoses just take a little bit more. speaker-1: Okay. Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about the prep. So you do at least three sessions with them. ⁓ you're talking with them about what the experience will be like, you're talking about dosage options, it sounds like. And then you said earlier you talk about managing expectations. So what do you tell people to try and manage their expectations? speaker-0: Yeah. So I like to think about it is like keep your expectations very low and your intention very high. So we work with intention. So, you know, really working with people's inner healer and people's you know, where do you want to see yourself? What do you, you know? So that is really the guiding force. And, you know, we we talk a lot about that. And then we also talk about The ability to just be open and to let go and to trust yourself and to see whatever is gonna show up needs to show up. ⁓ I was working with this executive and he was disappointed. He thought like he didn't have a any hallucinations. He just had like a very sort of calm experience. ⁓ it but what showed up for him. was memories of him and his father, like fishing or sitting on a porch, doing like mundane things. And when we were working with it during integration, what he came to realize was that it was in these small moments that that connection, that love that he had for his father, but that had been buried over decades of resentment towards him. And so once he could really feel that connection with his dad and these little memories, he was able to reconnect with his father. He was able to reconnect more with himself. And so it's not so much about having this huge experience as to really just being open and just to really trusting yourself and your inner healer and learning about what you need to you need to learn. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I I imagine that's probably hard or one of the hardest parts of the expectation is ⁓ expectation setting is people come in and and I and I hate to use the word desperate because it has a negative connotation, but you know, they they get to this point of like, I don't know what else to do and I'm so over this and I want it to be fixed and I want it to be gone. And so you know, talking with them about it's not gonna look any one particular way. ⁓ and you have to trust in yourself and trust the medicine to deliver and to work in the way that you need it to work. speaker-0: part. Yeah. And also that the integration is the most important part. Worked with somebody who he was had the most amazing journey. Amazing. Like incredible to him. And, you know, during our integration, you know, he was just so high. He was like, I mean, he wasn't so high, but he was like, he felt like this change. And I said, okay, so what about Monday morning? What about Monday morning? And he laughed and he's like, he got it. Like you need to put in like what are the changes now? That have to be like insight is great. It is great. But what changes are you gonna make in order to sustain your what you have right now? And so for him, you know, he ⁓ left work early. He had dinner with his family, it's like these different changes that over time he is just such a happy person now. Yeah. And so it it's not that that it was that journey. It was that Monday morning, you need to live your life differently. That's what is important. You have to live your life differently. You have to take the insight that was gleaned and do things differently so that you can make use of it. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that goes back to what you were saying about these medications being a tool in in the beginning. It's not the end of the journey. ⁓ and we've touched on this idea of integration a couple of times, and I and I think of it ⁓ kind of as ⁓ analogous to going to a gym, right? You don't go to a gym once, you don't take this medication once, have the insight, don't go to the gym once to get strong. It's the repetitive behavior change and pattern building that you are. are doing that is really what makes the difference. speaker-0: Yeah. And it and I think that that's what really psilocybin is great for, right? Because it sort of it it allows that neuroplasticity. So you can have different ways of looking at something, different ways of feeling about something. And so it can allow that. And so then you put in the structure to change and it's much easier. Mm-hmm. You know, we've all had that. Like, okay, tomorrow I'm not gonna X Y Z. And tomorrow comes and you're XYZing. Right. ⁓ psilocybin allows that openness where it makes things easier to change. Like I've had so many people say, I've always known this, but I feel it like in my bones now. It it takes a different ⁓ level of gravity of stance and makes things change easier. speaker-1: Okay, everyone, that's it for this episode of Through the Shit. We've talked a lot in today's episode about what psychedelic therapy is, who it might help, and why preparation and integration around the medicine may actually be just as important as the medicine itself. But there's a pretty obvious question we haven't answered yet. What's it actually feel like to take the medicine? As Suzanne explained to me, these experiences aren't always beautiful or blissful or what you might expect a psychedelic experience to be. Sometimes they're deeply emotional, sometimes they're uncomfortable. And sometimes the experience you desperately want to stop turns out being the experience that teaches you something you couldn't learn any other way. In the next episode, Suzanne gets very personal about her own experiences with psilocybin and what she learned about grief, alcohol. And learning to make space for the things we're trying so hard to avoid. We'll also talk about what happens when a psychedelic experience gets really difficult, why the phrase a bad trip might not be the right way to think about it, and why having the right person to guide you through it matters so much. So if you're curious about what actually happens when the medicine kicks in, tune in to part two of my conversation with Suzanne on Through the Shit. I think you're gonna want to hear this one. That's it for this episode of Through the Shit. Thanks for listening. If you liked this podcast, like, share, and subscribe, and maybe send it to someone who needs a boost because they're going through the shit. While you're at it, tell them how important they are to you. If you have a story of shit to share or you're in the shit now, I'd love to hear from you. Email me at through the shitpodcast at gmail.com or go to our website at throughthe shit.com. I'll see you on the flip side.