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The Benefits of Ketamine with Sharon Niv, PhD · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: Five four, three, two and one are folks. Welcome back
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Speaker 1: to the podcast. Super excited today toff as my guest,
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Speaker 1: Sharon need Sharon Welcome.
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Speaker 2: Thank you guys, so good to be with you.
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Speaker 1: Awesome. Sharon is the co founder of Joyous PBC and
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Speaker 1: AI power platform focused on making mental health treatment affordable
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Speaker 1: and accessible. A cognitive psychologist, she has led the development
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Speaker 1: of patient programs and created Joyous for Therapists, a collaboration
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Speaker 1: tool designed to support clinicians. Her work centers on the
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Speaker 1: psycholtic ketemine approach for trauma treatment, a low risk method
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Speaker 1: with negligible psychiatric or medical emergency rates because low dose
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Speaker 1: ketamine produces partial association client state oriented while gaining enough
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Speaker 1: psychological distance to work directly with trauma. Targets are shown
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Speaker 1: obviously just a little bit about you, but share with
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Speaker 1: the listeners before we could going here, where you're from
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Speaker 1: originally and where you are currently yeah, absolutely.
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Speaker 2: I actually grew up in Israel, a place with a
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Speaker 2: lot of trauma, and surrounding neighbors a lot of trauma
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Speaker 2: as well. Since certainly and you know, a lot of
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Speaker 2: Holocaust trauma within the country, the echoes of what it
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Speaker 2: means to live in this world have always been really
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Speaker 2: deeply felt. I moved to California as a young child,
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Speaker 2: seven and a half years old, and spent most of
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Speaker 2: my life in California, a little bit of New York,
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Speaker 2: a little bit in television, but I studied in graduate school.
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Speaker 2: I studied both clinical and cognitive psychology. I didn't go
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Speaker 2: on to do a clinical licensure, so I am a
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Speaker 2: cognitive psychologist, not a licensed clinician at this time. But
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Speaker 2: the question of how to scale well being healing technologies
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Speaker 2: has been on my mind for a long time, and
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Speaker 2: when we came upon this very low dose ketamine protocol
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Speaker 2: some people call it microdosing, it's a term up for
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Speaker 2: debate because it's not sub perceptual. There is a psycholytic
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Speaker 2: state that is quite tangible. You can think of it
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Speaker 2: as ketamine tipsy, and it's that state that we think
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Speaker 2: is extremely conducive to the work with trauma, and so
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Speaker 2: when this protocol came up for us, I was very
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Speaker 2: excited to begin this project.
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Speaker 1: So you mentioned born in Israel and everything that was
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Speaker 1: going on there, everything that continues to go on there.
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Speaker 1: But how did this inter start for you?
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Speaker 2: I've been curious about human suffering and you know, empathetic
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Speaker 2: since early childhood. And I've always been a curious person
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Speaker 2: in terms of what is available that's not commonly understood.
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Speaker 2: So I remember in graduate school I became very excited
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Speaker 2: about the idea of neurofeedback, about the idea of deliberately
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Speaker 2: taking recordings of neural activity and being able to feed
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Speaker 2: it back to the individual in real time to try
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Speaker 2: to get some organic alterations to some of the neural patterns.
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Speaker 2: Still something that I'm interested in, but not where my
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Speaker 2: main focuses these days.
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Speaker 1: So things that are commonly available but not easily understood,
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Speaker 1: say more about that.
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Speaker 2: Oh sorry, I was saying, things that are not as commonly.
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Speaker 1: Available, not as commonly available.
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Speaker 2: What can we don't know yet is going to really
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Speaker 2: move the needle for us on just overall feeling better?
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Speaker 2: Over time, I became more and more interested in questions
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Speaker 2: of like complex PTSD too. The accumulated little tea trauma
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Speaker 2: that so many of us carry around with as a
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Speaker 2: pervasive sense of lack of safety. That maybe we can't point,
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Speaker 2: of course, to specific incidents and say that's what happened.
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Speaker 2: It's more about what didn't happen than what happened. But
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Speaker 2: for so many of us, that contributes to this chronic
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Speaker 2: feeling of not being safe in the world.
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Speaker 1: When you so you're growing up, did you were you
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Speaker 1: like I want to be, I want to go study psychology?
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Speaker 1: Was there a specific interest at that time in quote
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Speaker 1: unquote trauma.
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Speaker 2: Or what I wouldn't say? So now I was more
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Speaker 2: I was. I didn't really understand what trauma was until
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Speaker 2: much later in life. I remember being seven years old
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Speaker 2: or eight years old and reading a book that my
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Speaker 2: mother had, how to talk to children, So how to
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Speaker 2: talk to kids so kids will listen and listen, so
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Speaker 2: kids will talk. Have you heard of that?
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Speaker 1: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: I have, just being fascinated by Wow, we have these
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Speaker 2: psychotechnologies to help us better communicate, to better understand each other.
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Speaker 2: How fascinating. How can we democratize this? How can we
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Speaker 2: make more people aware of how to talk to kids
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Speaker 2: so kids will listen and that curiosity has just always
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Speaker 2: been there, and the question of scaling to how do
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Speaker 2: we simplify and how do we scale so that more
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Speaker 2: and more people who need the help can really get it.
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Speaker 1: When did trauma become a concept for you, a kind
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Speaker 1: of recognizable thing that you were interested in pursuing studying?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what came first for me was the
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Speaker 2: interest actually in deeper states of consciousness. I became a
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Speaker 2: meditator toward the end of my graduate school career and
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Speaker 2: kind of my late twenties, and I had some very
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Speaker 2: direct experiences with you know, there's a debate about whether
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Speaker 2: it's states of consciousness or really traits of consciousness. Right,
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Speaker 2: there's the book called Altered Traits by the professor from Wisconsin.
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Speaker 2: My memory is not my strongest suit, but it's a
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Speaker 2: wonderful book about how the minds and brains of experienced
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Speaker 2: meditators is what they call it. It turns out that's
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Speaker 2: a key word for enlightened in beings. It's almost still
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Speaker 2: taboo to say enlightenment is real, even though it is.
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Speaker 2: There are a whole spectrum of traits that people can
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Speaker 2: really fall into with deep practice. So that was the
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Speaker 2: first thing that came to me, and with the relief
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Speaker 2: that those states and maybe traits afforded, it became much
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Speaker 2: more obvious how much of a layer of anxiety I'd
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Speaker 2: had in my personal life before, how much it was
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Speaker 2: ever present, and how it could really be tied to
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Speaker 2: both intergenerational trauma. I have three Holocaust survivor ground pays,
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Speaker 2: yarns and early life experiences, and just the day to
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Speaker 2: day trauma of being a human. I think being a
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Speaker 2: human is traumatic. Yeah, great bodies, these minds. They are
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Speaker 2: fragile in some ways. They're resilient in other ways, but
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Speaker 2: they get hurt and they adjust accordingly, and they keep
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Speaker 2: some of that pain locked up and unable to free itself,
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Speaker 2: which is where ketamine can really come in.
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Speaker 1: All right, and we're going to get there. But I'm
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Speaker 1: trying to understand your the mechanisms of how and when
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Speaker 1: you were like, Okay, I want to start studying this.
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Speaker 1: I want to start creating these companies. How walk us
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Speaker 1: through that you started having these experiences as a meditator,
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Speaker 1: understanding your history, what is that? How does that evolve.
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Speaker 2: The take it from another another perspective, The desire to
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Speaker 2: scale is kind of a mysterious one. I think there
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Speaker 2: are people who love to work locally and have these
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Speaker 2: very profofand O impacts on a one to one scale,
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Speaker 2: and there are people who are more drawn toward the
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Speaker 2: large scale, the global the How do we take these
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Speaker 2: nuggets and democratize them and scale it as best as possible?
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Speaker 2: And for whatever reason, I do think my personal strengths
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Speaker 2: are more about systems thinking than they are. I don't
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Speaker 2: know that I'm as skilled as a therapist. Let's say,
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Speaker 2: you know, I don't know that I have as much
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Speaker 2: of a natural knack for creating a healing relationship professionally, right,
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Speaker 2: so some other people will be drawn more toward the
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Speaker 2: therapeutic realm towards be working one on one creating healing relationship.
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Speaker 2: I think if you know, had I like spend ten
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Speaker 2: thousand hours developing those scales, I'm sure I could have
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Speaker 2: been proficient. But it wasn't where my natural inclination was.
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Speaker 2: My natural inclination was to think about, Okay, what are
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Speaker 2: the tools that we think are profound, and how can
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Speaker 2: we simplify them? What can we derive? What can we
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Speaker 2: make comfortable? What can we make scalable?
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Speaker 1: Because but are you thinking that when you're in school,
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Speaker 1: going through your program or what was.
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Speaker 2: To some extent, yeah, okay, there was a feeling I
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Speaker 2: had of wanting to do something big, wanting to get
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Speaker 2: into the psychology technology space, of saying the one on
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Speaker 2: one is super important and I don't think it's ever
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Speaker 2: going to be replaced, Not with AI, not with psychedelics,
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Speaker 2: but the one on one is crucial and something I'm
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Speaker 2: thinking about these days too. But there are so many
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Speaker 2: frameworks and so many structures that we can put in
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Speaker 2: place to help people be predisposed to make the most
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Speaker 2: of those one on one relationships. And maybe that's where
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Speaker 2: my attention is going to go.
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Speaker 1: When you realize that, when you started thinking about that,
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Speaker 1: what did you start doing were You're like, okay, I
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Speaker 1: need to create a company. When did ketamine start to
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Speaker 1: come in, psychedelics start to come in? For you?
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Speaker 2: Three companies before Joyous, and one and a half of
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Speaker 2: them are still alive. It's it's interesting work, and it's hardwork,
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Speaker 2: and it's privileged work, you know. I had. I had
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Speaker 2: enough of a cushion for my family to be allowed
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Speaker 2: me to do that. I also had some day jobs
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Speaker 2: in between the first one was an attempted neurofeedback company.
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Speaker 2: We were called Palo Alto Neuroscience at the time. We
10:18
Speaker 2: wanted to take really precise eg neurofeedback. Part of the
10:22
Speaker 2: idea was to do an MRI for localization as well
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Speaker 2: and work with downregulating certain brain regions that are known
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Speaker 2: to be downregulated in advanced meditators AKA and lightened individuals.
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Speaker 2: That was and it was. It never really got off
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Speaker 2: the ground. We never got funding, we never but still
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Speaker 2: friends with my two co founders from then and lovely people.
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Speaker 2: The next one was called Karuna and they're still up
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Speaker 2: in the air. The idea originally was to take mirror
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Speaker 2: box therapy, which if you're familiar, is a way to
10:55
Speaker 2: work with phantom limpain. So you have your you know,
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Speaker 2: your your amputated limb or missing limb, and you place
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Speaker 2: it inside a mirror where you can take your healthy
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Speaker 2: hand look in that mirror and then let's say it's
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Speaker 2: been a sense of clenching that you can't unclench, that's
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Speaker 2: the pain. You can unclench your healthy hand, look in
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Speaker 2: that mirror and it tricks the brain into relieving some
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Speaker 2: of that pain. And so you can imagine you can
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Speaker 2: take that principle into VR embody onto an avatar and
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Speaker 2: do all sorts of things with it. So that was
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Speaker 2: the original idea. The company itself is still alive, but
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Speaker 2: they've actually moved much more toward doing like ifs with
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Speaker 2: pain in VR, with coaching. It's they're doing great things.
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Speaker 2: I haven't been with them for a number of years.
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Speaker 2: The third one was an idea of bringing together individuals
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Speaker 2: also in VR to do psycho spiritual, diadic or group activities.
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Speaker 2: They actually ended up pivoting after I left and doing
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Speaker 2: near death experiences in VR LED. But they're partner of
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Speaker 2: the University in England and they had their working with
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Speaker 2: Eva drey On, a lama who facilitates these experience soused
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Speaker 2: to be like almost a psychedelic trip for those who
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Speaker 2: don't want to work with say psilocybin before death. I
12:14
Speaker 2: hear good things. I have not to experience it myself,
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Speaker 2: but so those were the ideas I tried, like what
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Speaker 2: can we do to democratize, bring scale And when the
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Speaker 2: chairman of our company, who's someone I've known since childhood.
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Speaker 2: I was seven myself when i met him. It's a
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Speaker 2: friend of my father's always been like a supporter of
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Speaker 2: my work and we had lunch a couple of years ago.
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Speaker 2: He said, my next company is going to be in
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Speaker 2: the psychedelic space, and I said, we'll consider me, and
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Speaker 2: he did, and so I was sort of offered to
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Speaker 2: be the junior co founder because everyone else in the
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Speaker 2: room has really done this before. I started a couple
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Speaker 2: of projects, but none of them had this sort of
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Speaker 2: major ex It's that my current co founders do, and
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Speaker 2: so they really know what it is like to build
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Speaker 2: a successful company. And this Joyous is this is not
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Speaker 2: the interesting part of the conversation. I'll be quite brief
13:10
Speaker 2: about it, but it's quite an endeavor. The technology required
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Speaker 2: to do health records and appointments and shipping and pharmacy
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Speaker 2: prescription like all of that is so complex. Communication with
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Speaker 2: the patients on a daily basis for a long time,
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Speaker 2: looking at all that data, making recommendations on dosage, on
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Speaker 2: time of data take them. It's an intensely complex company
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Speaker 2: and back end. And so I've gotten to learn so
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Speaker 2: much from these really like smart, experienced people in this
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Speaker 2: company and it's been wonderful.
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Speaker 1: And we're talking about Joyous and what do they do so.
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Speaker 2: Joyas prescribes a protocol of at least in the beginning
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Speaker 2: daily low dose, very low dose psycholtic, not psychedelic ketamine.
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Speaker 2: It is prescribed in trophy form, which is kind of
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Speaker 2: a waxy lossenge that you let just melt between your
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Speaker 2: gum and cheek. It's called buckle. It's not soblingual, not
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Speaker 2: under the tongue. We start people out provided that they're
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Speaker 2: a good match. We do all sorts of checks on
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Speaker 2: contra indications, medically contraundications, psychologically contraunicated medications, which there are
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Speaker 2: not many, but there are a few, and so we're
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Speaker 2: very careful to make sure that the right people get
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Speaker 2: in through the door. They have an appointment with their
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Speaker 2: telehealth provider, they can ask their questions. The provider makes
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Speaker 2: sure final check this is a good fit for this individual.
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Speaker 2: If everyone agrees and the patient's still interested, only then
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Speaker 2: do we ask for payment. So we do want to
14:43
Speaker 2: invite everyone to come in meet with a provider, ask
14:46
Speaker 2: their questions without being asked to pay it. After that,
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Speaker 2: they receive the medication to their home and they begin
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Speaker 2: receiving instructions from us to take a minuscule amount at
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Speaker 2: the beginning.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let me just send reject apologies. Who's a good
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Speaker 1: fit for this.
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Speaker 2: Great question People with anxiety or depression or a history
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Speaker 2: of trauma. And I've certainly not met anyone with PTSD
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Speaker 2: who didn't also have depression and anxiety problems. That seems
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Speaker 2: pretty hand in hand. And who one does not have
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Speaker 2: a history of psychosis or mania. Will work with bipolar two,
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Speaker 2: but we think that bipolar one may be benefited by ketamine.
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Speaker 2: But it's ideal to have more of a one on
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Speaker 2: one relationship with a psychiatrist at that point. Probably telehealth
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Speaker 2: is not appropriate if you have active substance issues or
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Speaker 2: severe substance addiction in the past, probably not a good idea.
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Speaker 2: Even though the doses views are not addiction level doses
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Speaker 2: of ketamine, if you know that you have an addictive tendency,
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Speaker 2: it may still not be a good idea to go
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Speaker 2: down this road. And people who are interested in going
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Speaker 2: a little bit deeper, because ketamine doesn't just stop the symptomology,
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Speaker 2: it really seems to move some of the basic patterning
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Speaker 2: that underlies the distress. If you're giving it your intentionality,
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Speaker 2: you can see some really deep insights come through and
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Speaker 2: some really deep releases of held nervous system activity occur.
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Speaker 2: So this is not about numbing. This is not You
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Speaker 2: might feel much better within a few days or weeks,
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Speaker 2: but it's not just about feeling better. It's about people
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Speaker 2: who are ready to really let some of these patterns
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Speaker 2: start to release and to be really intentional with it.
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Speaker 1: Define psycholytic for our listeners.
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Speaker 2: Psychoetic, so ketamine has. It's a fascinating medication because it's
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Speaker 2: an associative anesthetic that has different effects almost at every
16:51
Speaker 2: tier of dosing that you might consider high enough tier.
16:56
Speaker 2: It is an anesthetic. It is used surgically even in children,
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Speaker 2: because it's a safe one. It doesn't repress respiratory function,
17:03
Speaker 2: so you can be completely out just you're surgically ready.
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Speaker 2: Next in line would be like the K hole, which
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Speaker 2: is maybe beyond the psychedelic experience, and you might get
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Speaker 2: that with an IV clinic, where there is definitely an
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Speaker 2: ego death and there is an experience of deeply visual,
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Speaker 2: deeply exotic walk through your own consciousness, and that can
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Speaker 2: be a beautiful experience. Maybe many people talk about the
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Speaker 2: K hole as being one of the most healing experiences
17:37
Speaker 2: of their lives. I think there really is something in
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Speaker 2: the human mind. When we have an ego death and
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Speaker 2: we come back with safety, there's a reset that happens.
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Speaker 2: The Buddhists talk about this, and psychedelic psychoonauts talk about this,
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Speaker 2: but that's not what we're doing here. Take it a
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Speaker 2: tier below to the next dough thing, and it's more psychedelic,
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Speaker 2: like you're still you're on a journey. This is probably
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Speaker 2: what you consider ketomenoisis to psychotherapy in office, where people
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Speaker 2: are lying down with their imass but there's still maybe
18:04
Speaker 2: occasionally able to say a word or two. With khole,
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Speaker 2: you're just out. Take it down even further, and that's
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Speaker 2: where we get to psycholytic, which you can think of
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Speaker 2: as ketamine tipsy. So the experience there is partial association.
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Speaker 2: You feel bigger than your body. People who have an
18:23
Speaker 2: experience with the kind of Buddhist meditations that might be
18:26
Speaker 2: called open spacious awareness may be already so mat familiar
18:29
Speaker 2: with us. It's a permeable state where people feel as
18:32
Speaker 2: though they're both inside and outside their body. If they
18:35
Speaker 2: really pay attention to it, they feel bigger than just
18:38
Speaker 2: their nervous system. Usually we feel quite quite melded with it,
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Speaker 2: you know, quite identified with it, and that spaciousness is
18:46
Speaker 2: exactly where you have the opportunity to build a new
18:49
Speaker 2: relationship with some of the overwhelm that's just been too
18:53
Speaker 2: much to handle. And everyone with an experience of their
18:57
Speaker 2: own trauma knows what that's like, knows the panic, knows
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Speaker 2: the inability of really making deep contact with it with
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Speaker 2: a sense of safety. Ketamine provides that blanket of safety
19:08
Speaker 2: where my belief is this hasn't been studied, but my
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Speaker 2: belief is ketamine must loosen the micro musculature of our
19:17
Speaker 2: nervous system and allows movement where there's been a rigid
19:22
Speaker 2: held resistance stuckness. And I think that's comes kind of
19:27
Speaker 2: hand in hand with the relaxation of the nervous system,
19:30
Speaker 2: and I think that probably accounts for that feeling of
19:34
Speaker 2: spaciousness that allows movement that's been stuck.
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Speaker 1: So a client of yours when they're doing this going
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Speaker 1: through this experience, are they online with you guys?
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Speaker 2: So we want it to be the most affordable ketamine
19:56
Speaker 2: provider that we know of, So we don't require people
20:01
Speaker 2: to be in therapy while they're with us, and about
20:03
Speaker 2: fifty percent of our patients are not in therapy, So
20:06
Speaker 2: for them, I create digital therapeutics, and we're trying to
20:09
Speaker 2: hook them up with therapists if they can afford it.
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Speaker 2: But we understand that, you know, there's an affordability crisis
20:14
Speaker 2: for sure in America right now. The other fifty percent
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Speaker 2: of people do have therapists. They're not required to be online.
20:21
Speaker 2: These doses are so small that and we start them
20:24
Speaker 2: off so low. We raise very very slowly. The first
20:28
Speaker 2: dose anyone is given is about fifteen milligrams. That might
20:32
Speaker 2: be considered a true microdose. It might be like really
20:35
Speaker 2: sub perceptual. You may feel very very little, and then slowly,
20:39
Speaker 2: slowly we raise them until they're comfortable with the medication
20:42
Speaker 2: and they know how to be with it. When they're
20:45
Speaker 2: at home, you don't drive for the hour or two after.
20:48
Speaker 2: We recommend not to drive for two hours. But otherwise,
20:52
Speaker 2: you know yourself, it's not overwhelming. This isn't a psychedelic experience.
20:56
Speaker 2: It's tipsy. You know, you drink a glass and a
20:58
Speaker 2: half of wine, you're a little you're not out of
21:01
Speaker 2: control with same with a psychotic state.
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Speaker 1: So when they're doing this though, you're not on a
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Speaker 1: video call with them simultaneously. Okay, are they after this
21:11
Speaker 1: experience are they checking in with you? Are they doing
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Speaker 1: kind of a debris or what.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we send them daily questionnaires that ask them to
21:20
Speaker 2: check in on the experience, maybe journal a couple of lines,
21:23
Speaker 2: you know, anything that you want to share with us.
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Speaker 2: We're working on making that even more deliberate, more intent.
21:28
Speaker 2: Like with powered AI, we can kind of learn the
21:30
Speaker 2: individual what they're talking about over time and send them
21:33
Speaker 2: maybe journaling prompts that are really personalized and relevant to them.
21:37
Speaker 2: So that's coming. It's not quite there yet. So they
21:39
Speaker 2: are being asked to check in, and on the basis
21:41
Speaker 2: of their check ins, we adjust their protocol and they
21:46
Speaker 2: can speak to our care team members or nursing team
21:48
Speaker 2: if you know, if there's a medical issue, or care
21:50
Speaker 2: team if it's a more psychological issue. However, the Joyus
21:54
Speaker 2: for Therapists program is kind of where we're hoping to
21:58
Speaker 2: bring in therapists as well and to harness the opportunity
22:03
Speaker 2: of this state with a skilled clinician who can hold
22:06
Speaker 2: that space. I mean, we started out saying, like twenty
22:09
Speaker 2: minutes ago, the one on one connection, it can't be
22:12
Speaker 2: replaced yet, There's still there's still a need to be
22:16
Speaker 2: held in relationship to be witnessed with care, with positive regard,
22:22
Speaker 2: and to allow your vulnerability to be felt by another human.
22:25
Speaker 2: Just yesterday, I was with a friend who was saying
22:28
Speaker 2: she tried to have her grief. She's a very intuitive friend.
22:31
Speaker 2: She tried to have her grief witnessed by chat rebt
22:34
Speaker 2: and the experience she felt was like having tentacles, digital
22:40
Speaker 2: tentacles coming with a wood. There's still something we get
22:44
Speaker 2: out of the human and you know, there are ways
22:48
Speaker 2: to scale that beyond the therapist. But regardless, the therapist
22:52
Speaker 2: is a wonderful tool if you can afford it.
22:55
Speaker 1: This idea of scaling, this idea of democratizing two words
23:03
Speaker 1: you use, this idea of making these treatments where technologies
23:10
Speaker 1: available to everyone, why is that so important to you?
23:16
Speaker 1: And it's even it's not important, it's it's more of
23:19
Speaker 1: a passion for you driving why.
23:24
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it hurts to see how much
23:27
Speaker 2: pain there is in the world. And yes, it's the
23:32
Speaker 2: it's the internal bodisofta vow just to do what we can.
23:38
Speaker 2: And scaling is not the only approach with any value,
23:42
Speaker 2: of course, like a gifted one on one therapist who
23:45
Speaker 2: can help a hundred patients in her lifetime is making
23:51
Speaker 2: as much difference. Of course, scaling is not the only parameter.
23:55
Speaker 1: And I'm not discounting that at all. Now, that wasn't
23:58
Speaker 1: my intention. I'm not discounting that and denigrating that at all.
24:01
Speaker 1: But I you're someone who's very passionate about bringing this
24:07
Speaker 1: to the masses, and I'm curious about where that comes from.
24:13
Speaker 2: Hmmm. If we're gonna analyze my psychology, there's probably the
24:16
Speaker 2: fear and the love, right Usually it's a bidirectional thing.
24:19
Speaker 2: I think maybe I fear that I don't have as
24:22
Speaker 2: much of the capacity for the one on one healing,
24:25
Speaker 2: and so I turn my attention toward where my strengths are,
24:28
Speaker 2: you know. And then there's the love too. There's just
24:31
Speaker 2: the looking around at the world and seeing how many
24:35
Speaker 2: people are not being given a fair chance right now,
24:39
Speaker 2: and just thinking about what is available to me to do,
24:44
Speaker 2: what is available to the company, to all these wonderful
24:47
Speaker 2: people working here.
24:49
Speaker 1: There's that. It reminds me of I love. Quoting Leo Biscalia,
24:55
Speaker 1: he was a teacher professor at was you see in California,
25:04
Speaker 1: and he started the love class and he talks about
25:09
Speaker 1: this one experience he had when he was traveling in
25:12
Speaker 1: India and he was just so overwhelmed by the devastation,
25:17
Speaker 1: the laws, the sickness, and he said he just was
25:24
Speaker 1: stopped in his tracks because he asked himself what is
25:30
Speaker 1: there to do? And he said a teacher of his
25:34
Speaker 1: and mentor said, that's not the question. The question is
25:38
Speaker 1: because if you asked that question, you are going to
25:41
Speaker 1: be overwhelmed. What is there to do? The question is
25:45
Speaker 1: what can I do? And he said to that there's
25:49
Speaker 1: an answer. And I love that for you. You're asking
25:54
Speaker 1: this what can I do? And I think to ask
25:58
Speaker 1: oneself that like you did it and say maybe this
26:02
Speaker 1: isn't my strength, but this is my strength. That's beautiful,
26:06
Speaker 1: that's inspiring. Thank you.
26:08
Speaker 2: I appreciate that guy. It's very nice to say thank you.
26:14
Speaker 1: So where do you go from here?
26:17
Speaker 2: A lot of interesting places. One is we are just
26:19
Speaker 2: launching a certificate program for therapists twelve continuing Educator eleven
26:24
Speaker 2: point five Can you educated from units for training how
26:27
Speaker 2: to work with MICRODS Academy. I'm very excited thinking about
26:32
Speaker 2: and that is going to be free for a couple
26:34
Speaker 2: of months, so therapists come now.
26:37
Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, that's incredible.
26:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are.
26:40
Speaker 1: Now how is this being delivered? Is this online? In person? Okay?
26:45
Speaker 2: Pale Alto University is our partner institution and they are
26:49
Speaker 2: fully APA accredited. We're kind of going through final pre
26:52
Speaker 2: prints now pre prints not the right word, pre videos
26:55
Speaker 2: and to join the joyous for therapists. Pro is always
27:00
Speaker 2: going to be free. The training itself may cost something
27:05
Speaker 2: marginal at some point in the future. We're trying to
27:07
Speaker 2: like encourage people to do it now, so we're giving
27:09
Speaker 2: it away for free, and so that's exciting. The second
27:14
Speaker 2: exciting thing that I'm excited about is how technology, how
27:20
Speaker 2: AI bots can be trained in very precise ways to
27:25
Speaker 2: bring forth some of our best and least understood methodologies
27:32
Speaker 2: and make democratize them, scale them. And there are things
27:35
Speaker 2: that AI is good at, psycho education, guidance of exercises
27:41
Speaker 2: and meditations, visualizations, helping with metacognition. There are things that
27:47
Speaker 2: AI can do, and then there are things like the
27:50
Speaker 2: relational piece that it can't. Coaching great therapy, not yet
27:56
Speaker 2: or and maybe never. I don't know, like agnostic here,
27:59
Speaker 2: but like for example, I'm very excited about building an
28:02
Speaker 2: attachment repair coach blot thing that will take let's say
28:08
Speaker 2: the idealized parent the protocol and be able to start
28:13
Speaker 2: to understand what the person's attachment landscape is, give them
28:17
Speaker 2: the correct psycho education about what is secure attachment, what
28:21
Speaker 2: type of insecure attachment you have and how might that look,
28:24
Speaker 2: and do some metacognition exercises, understand the thoughts and feelings
28:29
Speaker 2: relationship better, and then also guide them through visualizations with
28:33
Speaker 2: the idealized parent figure protocol, which can really help over
28:37
Speaker 2: time repair deep attachment. Lending right now to do attachment
28:43
Speaker 2: repair therapy is extremely expensive, and people who can afford
28:48
Speaker 2: it absolutely should It's a worthwhile investment. But what about
28:52
Speaker 2: our fifty percent of patients who are month to month
28:55
Speaker 2: working two jobs. You know this one hundred and twenty
28:58
Speaker 2: dollars a month is already a lot for them. For them,
29:00
Speaker 2: I'd like to build a loot and maybe get seventy
29:02
Speaker 2: eighty percent there, you know, So seventy eighty percent should
29:07
Speaker 2: not be the enemy of one hundred.
29:11
Speaker 1: Damn, Sharon, you are doing it. You're like on the
29:13
Speaker 1: cutting edge of this stuff, and it's coming. I mean
29:15
Speaker 1: it's here, Yeah, it's here, exciting, exciting, all right? How
29:19
Speaker 1: do people learn more about you and what you're doing
29:22
Speaker 1: and everything. What's the best way.
29:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, come to Joyous dot Team. That's our company website.
29:27
Speaker 2: If you're a therapist, come to Joyous dot Team slash
29:31
Speaker 2: therapy real easy. If you want to learn more about me,
29:35
Speaker 2: I am hoping to start blogging a little bit more
29:39
Speaker 2: at SHARONIV dot substaff dot com and maybe this will
29:43
Speaker 2: give me the incentive.
29:44
Speaker 1: To do more of that. Okay, we'll have all those
29:47
Speaker 1: linked up here at the show notes page at the
29:49
Speaker 1: Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. Awesome, Sharan, You're inspiring. Love it.
29:54
Speaker 1: Enjoyed meeting you. Thank you so much.
29:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much. What a fun conversation and
29:58
Speaker 2: thank you for doing what you do.
29:59
Speaker 1: Appreciate that. All right, we'll be in touch. Take care,