Latest / The Wholeness Network / 233. An Uncontrolled Experiment: Mark Michaels on Secrecy Psychedelics and Rewriting Your Story

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233. An Uncontrolled Experiment: Mark Michaels on Secrecy Psychedelics and Rewriting Your Story · The Wholeness Network

0:01
Speaker 1: This is the Wholeness Network, a space for people who
0:03
are done performing wellness and ready to actually feel it.
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I'm Michelle Wingel, and every episode, we're going deep into healing, identity,
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the spiritual stuff nobody talks about, and what it really
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means to come home to yourself. So let's go. My
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guest today is Mark A. Michaels, and I had an
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intro recorded, but as I've sat for... a little while
0:31
digesting the interview that we had, I think I want
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to talk about something a little different. So just for reference,
0:39
Mark is a writer, a poet, and he's really published
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something about to be released into a journal, a case
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study about his own healing that is written by him
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as the client, recognizing the importance of that voice in
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therapeutic experiences. And it really documents 10 weeks of intensive
1:02
work that he did using EMDR and psychedelic assisted therapy
1:08
and creative writing and reflection. And it kind of asks
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the question, who gets to be the expert on your experience?
1:18
And his paper, Binaries, Multitudes, and Beyond, a client-centered case
1:24
study in psychedelic assisted therapy, artificial intelligence, and narrative agency,
1:29
is in the show notes for you to link and
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read the paper. And he calls himself and describes himself
1:37
as an uncontrolled experiment, which is the first questions I
1:41
ask him to clarify for us in this interview. But
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what I want to point out, what I want to
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think about as you're listening to his story and how
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it relates to the last few episodes that we've had,
1:57
especially with the episode with Alea at the beginning of
2:02
the month, and with something that resulted because of that.
2:07
So I've known Alea for many years, and so being
2:12
able to help her tell her story has been a privilege.
2:17
But she was so grateful that she gifted me a session,
2:24
and I had a very profound experience. I've I've had
2:30
sessions from her before, um, but this was because of
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the opportunity. Um, we were able to record it because
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we're doing it through zoom. And as I watched it
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and as I shared it with a couple of people,
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I asked her what she thought about releasing that into
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the library. And she agreed that that was, um, okay
2:51
to do. So I, I've released that to the library because, uh,
2:59
In that session, we really uncover some deep wounded that
3:03
happened right at the time of conception or right at
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the time of when I was teeny, weeks of cells old.
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And it was interesting talking to Mark in this story
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that the beginning of his story starts there too. And
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what he suggests he had to unpack is, was the
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narrative that we put forward in the therapeutic model is
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a lot of childhood trauma. And probably most of the time,
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that's a correct thing to do. But I don't know
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if within the scholastic model, this idea of pre-birth wounding.
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And I don't know if he would even tell his
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story that way. I don't know if he has that
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understanding quite yet. Or if that's necessary for him. But
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I thought it was interesting that that's where he begins.
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And the experiences that he mentions, he doesn't go into
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a lot of detail, but the emotions that he expresses
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or that he describes make a lot of sense to
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me as the expression happening during his conception and in
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the womb. And I don't know if we have a
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place for that quite yet. That's a little too woo-woo maybe,
4:34
which is why it's perfect for this conversation here. Now,
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I don't know if that's the center of his story,
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and that's okay. But within this little series of episodes
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that we've had and with that new addition to the library,
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it's really fascinating to me that some of the answers
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to our dis-ease or discomfort might be rooted in something
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that happened before we were even born. And that that's
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a valid place to look for some healing work to happen.
5:13
And I am a testament to myself. So you can
5:15
go to thewholenessnetwork.com, join the library, and you can see
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my session, my full session with Alea, uncovering some trauma
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that happened to me. I was the youngest of seven children.
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I kind of described this in the video in the
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episode coming up, the interview with Mark. So I don't
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want to go over that too much. But there was
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some healing work to do. There were beliefs I took on.
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Even as young as weeks worth of cells, I could
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feel it in my body. And you can watch me
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process it a little bit. And some of it came
5:56
from my doctor. The doctor, my mom's doctor, I should say.
6:00
And it's really fascinating. I'll just let that be there.
6:04
I could go on and on and on about it.
6:07
It was fascinating. Enjoy this episode with Mark. Also, I
6:12
want to invite you to our monthly healing circle. We're
6:15
starting it August 18th of this year, and it will
6:20
hopefully be monthly. It's a come, it's a pay as
6:24
you want, pay what you want. Come when you want.
6:27
don't come when you want. It's kind of going to
6:30
be modeled more around an AA meeting where it's available
6:34
and you come and we support each other and everyone's
6:40
on a different level. Everyone's doing their own work, but
6:42
we're doing it together with a common theme of needing support.
6:47
And I think it's something we can all do. I'm
6:49
going to be there as much of as a receiver
6:54
as I am a giver. I hope that's the case
6:57
for all of you that are willing to join. So
7:01
if you want to be part of that, email info
7:04
at thewholenessnetwork.com. I'll get you the link and you're welcome
7:10
to join us. And then we have a group that
7:13
we can communicate within and learn and grow together throughout
7:18
the month as we work on it one step at
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a time. I've got this program called 11 Steps to
7:24
Wholeness and it It's really about understanding ourselves. It's really
7:27
about supporting ourselves. It's really about understanding what humans need.
7:32
And I talk about this in the episode too, that
7:36
we are living in a time where I'm not sure
7:40
we're giving humans the basics that we need. And he
7:46
talks about his mom and how they didn't understand women
7:49
And the basics of how women worked, I think we're
7:52
doing that again with the basics of how we work emotionally.
7:56
And we meet it with a lot of clinical ideas
8:04
and we need a little more relational. And that's what
8:07
my circle is to be. It's to be a relational
8:10
spot for us to grow and be together. So I
8:14
invite you to that. Like always, please like and review
8:18
and subscribe. ring the bell, whatever you got to do.
8:21
It's free and it helps us so much. I appreciate it.
8:24
And I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Mark and
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I hope to see you next time. So you've called
8:32
yourself an uncontrolled experiment. And I just wanted you to
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elaborate on where does that come from?
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Speaker 2: Tell me more about that. I mean, I do that
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kind of half jokingly, but there's a really serious component
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to it, which is I was I was conceived by
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artificial insemination by donor in 1958. And I learned about
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this in mid adulthood. I was over 30 at the time.
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And there really had all through my life, something seemed
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not to add up. And I spent a long time
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trying to figure out exactly what. And the reason I
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use the term uncontrolled experiment is that The way that
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this whole process became popular, and this is still the
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case to a significant degree, is that in the 19...
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They didn't really have enough knowledge of the reproductive cycle.
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And ironically, I mean, in the 20s when people were
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proposing this, the medical establishment's idea was that the time
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to perform the insemination was during the period So that
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shows like what the level of, you know, I mean,
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I think that women and midwives knew different for a
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long time, but the medical establishment had a very distorted
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idea They didn't understand enough about the hormonal cycles and
10:00
when fertility was optimal to reliably do artificial insemination until
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a few years after World War II. And then so
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in the 1950s, as sort of social norms dictated, families
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of three children generally there really became an increased demand
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for this. And the advice from the medical establishment was,
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keep it a secret. We're going to do everything possible
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to make it impossible to identify who the donor might be.
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And if you keep it a secret, everyone will forget
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about it. And we're going to treat a live birth
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as success. And in my case, in addition to that,
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they actually mixed the donor's sperm with my non-biological father's
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sperm to further confuse the issue with the pretext that, oh,
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this will boost the fertility of the husband's semen, which
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in my father's case, he'd had mumps seven years before
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I was conceived or something. And the quality of his
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sperm was going to be low no matter what anybody
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did to it. And so it's really, I mean, it's
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absurd and crazy in retrospect. But the consequence of this
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is that there are many people out there who don't
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know that this was done at all still. I mean,
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of my age and probably even a generation or at
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least five or six years younger than me. I think
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with genealogical DNA testing, which is how I ultimately found
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my biological father, is the thing. But in the mainstream
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fertility industry in the U.S., donor anonymity and donor is
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a misnomer, too, because they're actually being paid. Right, right.
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And so, I mean, there's a whole lot of euphemism
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and deception embedded in this practice. And the consequences that
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and why I say an uncontrolled experiment is because there's
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been no way to do any kind of meaningful studies
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on the impact of this. Right. And when I was
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involved a little bit more in searching for my biological
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father and I was involved in chat groups with other
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donor offspring and was reading literature on the subject, there's
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a significant number of people in my demographic who wish
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they had never been born because the discovery was so
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traumatizing and destabilizing for them. I don't fall into that
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category and as I've gotten older I've gotten a deeper
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appreciation and understanding of why it was so difficult for
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my mother especially ironically not my father to acknowledge this
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and the level of shame that she felt about it
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was extraordinary to the point where when I finally confronted
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my parents about this in the 1990s and and asked
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if it was true. I'd done enough to be pretty
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sure that it was by this time. My mother's reaction was,
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you must never tell a soul, not even your children's doctor.
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And when I wanted to search, she freaked out and
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it nearly created a rupture, a permanent rupture in the
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relationship that I resolved by saying, I don't want to
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talk about this ever again, and I won't search. And
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I did continue to search in secret. in two stages.
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In the 90s, I was just kind of, I knew
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that it had been done at Yale. I had a
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sense of who the donors might be. And I looked
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for people who might resemble me, kind of focused on Jewish,
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because the tendency was to try to match the ethnicity
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of the parents. Ironically, in my case, the doctor made
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an error and my biological father had grown up in
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a Jewish neighborhood, was from a Swiss-German family and spoke
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Yiddish fluently. And so the doctor, I think, assumed that
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he was Jewish, even though he was not.
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Speaker 1: Oh, gosh.
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Speaker 2: Which made finding him a lot easier. But that's a
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long story there.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Because Jewish DNA is very, everyone's related.
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Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 2: And so I could separate who wasn't, you know, a
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lot more easily. Interesting.
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Speaker 1: Interesting. Well, it's funny that we're having this conversation. So
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what I hear when you're telling me that there was
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a lot of the confusion, there was a lot of
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the secrecy, there was all of that. And I felt
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like you felt that in your body. That became part
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of your experience. It wasn't just left in that doctor's office.
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It became part of you. And I'm just getting ready
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to release.
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I'd probably be out by the time this airs, but
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I just did a healing session myself on my own
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birth story and really recognizing how much that impacts me.
15:23
Even though I understood my story, I had always heard
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my story, but to put the real emotion with that story,
15:31
to go into a healing session and feel that along
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with the story has been really eye-opening for myself. you know, very,
15:39
very eyeopening. And it, it does have an impact those
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earliest forms of, um, you know, my, I, I, I
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was feeling some things and I, you know, the practitioner
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asked me, you know, she, she wanted me to go
15:53
into this place of what did I feel? What did I,
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what do you think my mom was feeling when she
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found out she was pregnant with me? And that was
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really easy. I know my mom was, um, I was
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the youngest of seven. She had just had a miscarriage
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the year before, a late-stage miscarriage, and thought that she
16:15
was done having kids, decided to go back to school.
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I mean, there must have been so many mixed emotions,
16:22
and not all of them good. And I can put
16:24
myself in that. And to realize that those feelings she
16:27
had whether, you know, I'm going to, I have no
16:34
judgment about, on her, although if someone did, I could,
16:38
I could understand that, you know, I didn't, I just
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didn't have that much judgment on her, but there was
16:43
no doubt that, that, that first knowing of me wasn't
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met with joy and security. It just wasn't, you know,
16:54
and how that has affected me. That's really, so it's
16:56
really interesting that we're having this conversation because different story,
17:00
but similar reactions inside myself that sends me on a journey,
17:06
creates a piece of who I am now as a
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grown woman. It's still, still part of me. Those first
17:12
few moments of my life were still part of me. So, so,
17:19
so tell me about this, this 10 week, this 10
17:22
week period of time. You have like a 10 week.
17:28
Speaker 2: Well, I had, I've had, I've been in therapy a
17:32
lot in my life. Yeah. And I had a long
17:37
hiatus from about 1999 until 2018. Okay. And went back
17:50
to therapy because a lot of trauma was surfacing and
17:56
a lot of problems in the marriage that ended. Right.
18:01
shortly before I began this course of treatment. And a
18:05
lot of the therapy was psychedelic or psychedelic adjacent. And
18:12
I'm pretty devoted to working with psychedelics, although I have
18:15
very mixed feelings about the movement and the popularization and
18:19
a lot of what's happening. I think there's some very
18:23
problematic stuff going on. But I'm very dedicated to my
18:28
own work with psychedelics. And so the marriage, my ex-wife
18:32
left in April of 2025. And I was in therapy
18:37
with someone who was sort of a psychoanalyst in orientation
18:41
or very much a psychoanalyst in orientation. She was supportive
18:45
of my psychedelic work, but didn't want to be in
18:48
any way directly involved with it.
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Speaker 1: You probably couldn't. Could she at that time? Was she
18:56
able to at that time?
18:59
Speaker 2: You know, that's a gray area and everybody's got to
19:01
make their own judgments about it. She wouldn't sit for me.
19:05
I was also I was working with ketamine under prescription,
19:10
which is legal. And I would I would send her
19:14
my trip reports from the ketamine and I would keep
19:19
her abreast of the other work that I was doing,
19:21
which which has been with an underground.
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Speaker 1: Person right um trained but.
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Speaker 2: Trained but underground and as far as i'm aware it's
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that's still most of the way that it's done and
19:33
except in a couple of states yeah um but she
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was very psychoanalytic in orientation and i was seeing her
19:46
twice three times two to three times a week And
19:51
my ex left, I was in really bad shape. I
19:55
was in pretty bad shape before she left, but I, things,
19:58
things basically got worse during the next several months. And
20:06
except for a few areas where maybe there was a
20:08
little improvement. But by the end of August, I was
20:13
aware that I was pretty much feeling like life isn't
20:17
worth living, not actively contemplating suicide, but aware that I
20:22
was constantly on the brink of it. And I'd take
20:28
my daily walk and there's a high bridge that I
20:32
often walk over. And every time I would be sort
20:35
of am I going to want to jump?
20:38
Speaker 1: Right.
20:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. And feeling that level of sort of distress and
20:45
fear for myself. Right. And so I started looking at
20:51
other therapeutic approaches and found someone who did EMDR intensives
21:01
and I don't remember exactly at what point I learned
21:05
that she worked with ketamine in conjunction with EMDR, whether
21:10
that was actually after I decided that I wanted to
21:12
try this approach. I think that it was. But in
21:16
any case, my therapist was not at all supportive of
21:21
this idea. I wanted to continue working with her and
21:25
see whether this other approach would be beneficial, but I
21:28
wasn't ready at that point to leave.
21:31
Speaker 1: Right.
21:32
Speaker 2: But I put it all together and my sitter, who's
21:36
also trained as a therapist, was in on it. And
21:39
I really wanted a more collaborative kind of approach that
21:43
all of these people would be working together. Right. And
21:46
she basically refused and said, I'm done with, you know,
21:51
we're done. Which was... I think was a very messed
21:57
up way of her handling it.
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Speaker 1: Right.
21:59
Speaker 2: And really re-traumatizing.
22:01
Speaker 1: Right, right, right. Yeah, that's abandonment.
22:04
Speaker 2: She wouldn't give me the grace of like a two-week
22:07
trial to see whether I wanted to leave or not.
22:09
She's just like, we're done.
22:11
Speaker 1: Right.
22:13
Speaker 2: You know, it's really kind of a blessing in disguise. Okay.
22:17
Speaker 1: In that moment, not.
22:19
Speaker 2: Really not okay. Yeah, yeah. In my view.
22:21
Speaker 1: Right, right.
22:23
Speaker 2: The point of view of how a therapist should treat
22:26
a client.
22:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
22:29
Speaker 2: But anyway, I started working with Elizabeth, my primary therapist
22:34
at that point, and learned that she worked with ketamine
22:39
and EMDR. And so the first three sessions, I had
22:46
two full day sessions with her. And then a half
22:49
day session with her followed by an MDMA psilocybin session
22:54
with a sitter I'd been seeing for a year and
22:57
a half at that point. And we continued to work
23:02
very intensively during this two month period. I'm still working
23:07
with both of them, but in a less intensive way.
23:11
And I'm still doing, I'm still kind of stacking the
23:14
psychedelic session. So I'll do an EMDR ketamine session, an
23:19
MDMA session, and then a solo ketamine session as well.
23:24
And I'm doing that kind of every couple of months now.
23:27
So the frequency is dialed back, but the basic approach
23:32
has remained the same. But I set treatment goals for
23:35
myself at the beginning of that 10-week course, and basically
23:42
all of them had been exceeded by... except maybe arguably
23:48
one by the end of the 10-week period. And it
23:52
was so profound and powerful. And I also was working
23:57
with transcripts and artificial intelligence during this time to sort
24:01
of go deeper into the therapeutic work. So I was
24:05
creating a very kind of intensive therapy container for myself
24:10
during this time. And the benefits were remarkable, unlike anything
24:16
that I've encountered before, to the point where I decided
24:20
I wanted to create this paper with AI assistance to
24:24
describe what the benefits that I had encountered and experienced,
24:31
and also to sort of raise questions about how therapy
24:37
is generally conducted. because I've had so much therapy that's
24:41
been really harmful or, or at best neutral.
24:47
Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
24:48
Speaker 2: Or, or has done more harm than good on balance.
24:52
Speaker 1: So you were able to create kind of, you were
24:55
the one that said, this is what I kind of
24:56
want to do. And then your therapist supported you in that,
24:59
or did, was it a collaboration on how, how you
25:02
were going to do what, when?
25:03
Speaker 2: Um, It was both. I mean, I knew from having
25:10
had a lot of experience with psychedelics that I know
25:15
my dosages very well. I've taken ketamine probably 400 times
25:21
by now over an eight or nine year period. And
25:29
so I know the medicine very well. I'm very experienced
25:34
with being in that state. And I knew enough about
25:40
psychedelic science and medicine to know that there's a whole
25:44
neuroplasticity element that you can leverage and that the stacking
25:49
of sessions can be a way of making the most
25:51
of it. So I came in with a lot of
25:54
knowledge about psychedelics and each of my providers had their
25:59
own knowledge and training. I was unfamiliar with EMDR and ketamine.
26:04
as an approach before this round of treatment. And I
26:10
think it's just incredible. And I now, sometimes at home,
26:14
when I'm doing my solo sessions, I'll use EMDR tappers.
26:19
Not always, but I think, you know, the great thing
26:23
about EMDR and ketamine is it works, it's legal, and
26:28
ketamine doesn't stay in your system all that long. So
26:33
you don't need to go through the kind of ordeal
26:36
that other.
26:37
Speaker 1: Medicines can impose.
26:40
Speaker 2: Right.
26:40
Speaker 1: It doesn't take you out very much. So two questions
26:43
I have. So with EMDR, some practitioners, the EMDR, you
26:52
really go and replay a particular trauma, right? And then
26:57
in other places, it's just using, whether it's tapping on
27:01
each side or it's just using a rhythmic. So how
27:05
did your EMDR mixed with ketamine work?
27:13
Speaker 2: We usually begin with a little bit of a check-in.
27:18
Speaker 1: Okay.
27:20
Speaker 2: I'll then take the ketamine and... Sometimes we may be
27:27
working with a specific trauma, but often we're working with
27:30
kind of a, you know, bigger traumatic picture and whatever
27:34
emotions are coming up.
27:35
Speaker 1: Just the feelings.
27:36
Speaker 2: The feelings.
27:37
Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
27:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Because my traumas are not largely big T traumas. Right.
27:45
It's more prolonged. And really, in some respects, like, I
27:51
feel like PTSD as a label isn't isn't apt because
27:56
what I was dealing with was a prolonged crisis.
27:59
Speaker 1: Right, the complex PTSD.
28:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, complex and ongoing. Yeah, complex PTSD.
28:05
Speaker 1: Because there are elements.
28:06
Speaker 2: In the divorce that are still unresolved. So it's not
28:10
even post, it's some of its present. Right.
28:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, complex PTSD is that. There isn't a pinpoint in time.
28:20
And that makes a lot of sense. My husband... suffers
28:25
with that as well, and did a series of ketamine treatment.
28:32
And it was very helpful. And then I'm certified in
28:37
some IFS. And Dr. Richard Swartz, there was one particular
28:42
lesson where he talked about using the different psychedelics, you know,
28:46
along with it. And it was really interesting. I And
28:53
so my husband is only familiar with the ketamine. And
28:56
Richard described ketamine as taking you up and out. Like
29:00
there was a, it's kind of taking you up and out.
29:04
MDMA was more of an opening of your heart, you know,
29:07
of the love. And I wondered how you would describe
29:11
the difference between the different medicines.
29:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think there's definitely some truth in that. I mean,
29:25
I've heard it that there's heart, there's spirit, and there's
29:31
sort of perspective. Ketamine is more of a perspective medicine.
29:37
I think those are a little bit simplistic.
29:40
Speaker 1: And sure I'm sure.
29:48
Speaker 2: I find that well ketamine can vary can vary a
29:52
lot so when I'm doing it with EMDR um The
30:02
last time I did it, which was just a couple
30:04
of weeks ago, the effects were much stronger at the
30:08
same dosage than they have been typically.
30:11
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
30:13
Speaker 2: I'm doing it with oral lozenges. So the condition of
30:20
your mouth can affect how much you respond. Right. Compared
30:27
to injection, it's a very... there can be a great
30:31
deal of variation where intramuscular injection, it's pretty much predictable
30:37
by weight and stuff.
30:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, my husband was injected.
30:44
Speaker 2: There's that element with oral, but also I can take
30:49
the same amount if I put on headset and eye
30:51
shades and music, I'll go into another space. But if
30:56
I go and do AMDR, I can be lucid and
30:58
present and just, you know, it functions as a psychedelic dose.
31:04
So ketamine is interesting because it varies so much. I
31:10
think in some respects, ketamine is closer to ayahuasca than
31:14
a lot of other psychedelics because when you go into
31:18
the altered space with ketamine and you have eye shades
31:22
on and music, you can really go into another dimension,
31:27
another world, in a way that ayahuasca can take you there.
31:32
Whereas other medicines, whether it's MDMA or psilocybin or even LSD,
31:38
you don't have that immersion in another world.
31:45
Speaker 1: Maybe you're more present. Would you say you're even more
31:47
present in this world? Or how would you describe that?
31:51
Speaker 2: Where I go with MDMA is very inward. It's very
31:55
calm and relaxed. I mean, people call it ecstasy, but
31:58
for me, it's really a kind of... I can go
32:02
very self... Right. Until I want to talk and engage,
32:06
but it doesn't have the big heart-opening element that people
32:11
talk about for me. For me, it's very grounded, usually.
32:15
Speaker 1: Right.
32:18
Speaker 2: I've tended recently not to like the other psychedelics very
32:23
much because they tend to be a little more jagged
32:25
I don't think they give you a kind of presence
32:32
they sort of because you are really altered and the
32:37
difference is that you have perceptual distortions but you aren't
32:42
taken into quite the immersion that ayahuasca or from what
32:47
I understand DMT will take you to And so for me,
32:52
that makes ketamine and ayahuasca a little bit similar. Of course,
32:57
ketamine doesn't last. It lasts an hour and change. So
33:00
that's different. But the kind of all-encompassing nature of the
33:04
experience is similar. Okay.
33:11
Speaker 1: And then so what I remember you saying, there was like...
33:15
So did you do them at the same time or
33:17
like the next day?
33:18
Speaker 2: So....
33:21
Speaker 1: So the ketamine and EMDR was one day. I guess
33:24
during this 10-week period might be different now, but are
33:27
there a mix of them at the same time?
33:29
Speaker 2: I'm actually planning, and I have done on my own.
33:32
I've taken MDMA and then ketamine. And I'm planning to
33:38
do that in a future session. Because MDMA doesn't have
33:44
the psychedelic quality, and I think that It can be
33:48
very interesting to go into that extremely altered state when
33:51
you have MDMA as the kind of substrate for it.
33:55
Speaker 1: Right, the base.
33:58
Speaker 2: The MDMA sessions have usually, over the time that I've
34:05
been working with the sitter, usually a combination of MDMA
34:10
and psilocybin. But in recent months, it's been just the MDMA. Okay.
34:22
Speaker 1: Well, that's interesting. Can you describe for us when you
34:25
say you had, you know, profound, it was healing profoundly.
34:31
How would you describe that? What was, what was it
34:34
that felt different than all the other years of, of therapy?
34:39
What were you able to start to understand or do
34:42
or feel that you couldn't before?
34:49
Speaker 2: I wouldn't describe it quite that way, I guess. I
34:53
think that, I mean, because I have a lot of
34:57
experience with psychedelics and I first took LSD as a
35:00
13 year old in 1973 and, you know, and had
35:04
a lot of years of doing psychedelics outside of therapy.
35:08
And I've, you know, with shamans in journey groups, a
35:11
whole lot of different kind of formats.
35:13
Speaker 1: Right, right.
35:14
Speaker 2: So I don't feel like psychedelics for me were ever
35:17
going to be like a big aha. They're a tool that,
35:23
what I got in that 10 week period was a
35:27
level of, I don't even want to call it symptom relief,
35:31
but improvement in overall state that was astonishingly rapid. A
35:39
feeling of coming back into myself in ways that I
35:43
was just not getting with all of these other And
35:47
I did have what I consider to have been a
35:49
successful psychoanalysis in the 90s. But that was six or
35:56
seven years of work. With this, it's not nearly as frequent.
36:03
And the benefits have been just enormous. And, you know,
36:11
and continue to be. I mean, I've got still got
36:14
work to do that. the end of the marriage and
36:17
the loss of community and COVID. I mean, there was
36:23
like a ton of trauma for me in adult life.
36:29
And dealing with that is not easy. And so the
36:37
work is ongoing, but the benefits were remarkable. And I
36:41
think that One of the deepest benefits that came, and
36:47
it's probably not in the materials that you've seen because
36:51
it was sort of after those materials were prepared, but
36:56
I did with Elizabeth, my primary therapist, an adult attachment interview.
37:05
And to my surprise, I didn't know about this. I
37:08
was very familiar with attachment theory, but I didn't know
37:10
about the adult attachment interview. And to my great surprise,
37:16
my fundamental attachment style came out as secure and pretty
37:21
strongly so. I had assumed for years that I was
37:29
anxiously attached, that I did have a lot of childhood trauma,
37:33
no question, but that it was more destabilizing than it
37:39
actually was. And so I, at some levels like IFS
37:44
doesn't work for me because I don't have parts in
37:47
that way. I don't, I have very little dissociation in
37:50
my overall makeup. You know, not that I don't have
37:54
parts and recognize facets of myself, et cetera, but, but
37:58
that kind of parts work just never sort of made
38:01
sense to me. And I think a lot of it
38:04
is because I, you know, my fundamental development was not
38:09
impacted in the way that, it is for a lot
38:12
of people with severe childhood trauma. And, you know, so
38:18
I mean, even at the earliest stages, I had good
38:22
enough parenting in spite of a lot of trauma. So
38:27
that has led to like a major revision of the
38:31
whole narrative about myself. Recognizing that the parenting really was
38:39
adequate overall and seeing the incredible gifts that I got
38:47
really from my mother and non-bio dad, even though there
38:53
were a lot of difficulties. And even though I was
38:59
kind of the black sheep, I was the one who was,
39:02
I have a younger half brother and he was a
39:05
much better fit for the family. And I was the
39:09
one who was kind of dangerous within the family and
39:11
the outlier and the outsider in a lot of ways. And,
39:16
you know, the ways in which I was not preferred
39:19
were pretty clear. Even so, it was good enough.
39:24
Speaker 1: Right.
39:27
Speaker 2: Right, right, right.
39:29
Speaker 1: Well, and... in my own story that I was telling you,
39:31
you know, when my, you know, so in her reaction,
39:37
initial reaction, I'm sure, you know, like I say, I'm
39:40
sure that was difficult. But what was the even deeper
39:43
moment in that healing session for me was understanding the
39:48
impact of that her doctor had, her doctor had recommended abortion, um,
39:53
told her that I was going to be, uh, uh,
39:55
have Down syndrome and, and, you know, I knew that story, but, um,
40:02
to really feel, you know, and the facilitator really helps
40:06
me feel what that felt like, you know, as that
40:10
poison almost that the doctor gave me and that mom,
40:14
you know, there was a, that was an impactful moment
40:16
and that wasn't my parents, you know, it wasn't, And
40:19
I'm sure that might be a little bit of your
40:20
story too. I mean, there was more people that were
40:25
part of that story than your parents that may have
40:29
caused damage. I mean, obviously. And it's hard to really
40:34
put words to it because it's obscure. And so we
40:38
have to trust those feelings in our body more than anything. Yeah.
40:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
40:43
Speaker 1: For how that works.
40:45
Speaker 2: I mean, in my case, there was also a violent crime.
40:49
I won't go into the details, but my mother was
40:51
the victim when she was seven months pregnant with me.
40:56
And I think there was an impact there on her
41:00
ability to bond with me. But where I am now
41:06
with it all is like, okay, all of that happened,
41:10
but actually I'm really fortunate And I don't need to
41:15
be caught up in that narrative in the same way.
41:23
I'm rewriting a narrative that I was partly responsible for
41:30
and that therapy was also very largely responsible for. And
41:37
what I'm doing is seeing how good it actually was.
41:45
And I don't know that that's going to be applicable
41:49
for a lot of other people. But in my case,
41:55
there was so much good that my parents did. And
42:02
the lens that I've looked at it through is one
42:04
of trauma. And I think that I mean, I think
42:09
that there's a big problem culturally with the way that
42:14
trauma has been sort of privileged and elevated. And I'm
42:21
not saying like, you know, we should go back to
42:23
keep a stiff upper lip or, you know, deny that
42:27
it all happened. But I think there are kind of
42:32
narrative channels that we get directed into in the ways
42:36
that we think about our own stories. And I think
42:41
that it's really important to take control of your own story,
42:48
whatever that story is. Yeah.
42:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. It's a fine line there between
43:00
living the trauma story and doing the hard work. of
43:07
both taking responsibility and, and making, putting the responsibility where
43:12
it needs to go. You know, I, I think, yeah,
43:15
that's fascinating. So, and so I'd love to hear your, your, your,
43:20
your ideas of, you know, you say that there's something
43:24
broken in both traditional therapy and the psychedelic world. You know,
43:28
you mentioned that. So for someone that's never read a
43:34
paper or, doesn't understand what how would you what what
43:38
would you say to that how how how is that
43:40
um well.
43:41
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of bad science in the
43:47
in the psychedelic world and a lot of kind of
43:49
um hype attached to it right now that um that
44:00
doesn't take into account the work that really needs to
44:06
go into making the most of psychedelics. And it comes
44:10
in in a lot of the mystical experience questionnaire, the
44:15
idea that you have a mystical experience that's going to
44:18
cure your depression, all that.
44:22
Speaker 1: Right, right.
44:25
Speaker 2: And I think there's kind of an intersection between kind
44:29
of the Burning Man Sensibility in the psychedelic world that
44:34
I see is problematic in many, many ways. Right.
44:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think that the stereotype is that you're
44:45
going to go have a psychedelic moment and your life's
44:48
going to be changed in a moment. And so somebody
44:53
that's already a little bit at the end of their
44:56
rope goes and that doesn't happen. It's one more tick
45:00
in the box of, Something's wrong with me. I didn't
45:03
do it right or whatever. Feeling unsupported, it can be
45:07
very damaging to think that that's going to be the case.
45:12
So with my husband, we tried to get that message out.
45:15
It was sometimes a year later before we thought, oh, wow,
45:18
that hasn't showed up for a while. You know what
45:20
I mean? It's like, oh, wait, that hasn't happened in
45:24
a while. He didn't walk out of those sessions telling
45:28
me about it. a visitation from beyond that told him
45:32
his life purpose.
45:34
Speaker 2: Well, that's one of the reasons that I think that
45:35
ketamine and EMDR is kind of the safest and most
45:39
effective way to work with psychedelics at this time. And
45:43
there isn't all of that kind of hype around it.
45:47
It's being used as a tool for directly working in
45:51
a therapeutic way. And I think that creates a lot
45:55
more safety and a lot more potential for, for benefits
45:59
for people, um, in the hands of a good therapist.
46:03
I mean, I think that's the, the other, you know,
46:05
the bigger problem is really with therapy in general. And,
46:09
and there are a lot of facets to that. Um, it's, uh, there,
46:14
there's not enough attention to the power dynamics in therapy.
46:18
I would say generally, um, therapists in general. Yeah. learn
46:24
one or two modalities and they don't have a broad knowledge.
46:28
And so they aren't really in a position of having
46:33
enough knowledge to do good psychoeducation with a client. And
46:38
I think psychoeducation is super important. I think a lot
46:44
of therapists are not transparent enough with clients. One of
46:49
the things that I advocate and feel quite strongly about
46:54
at this point is that clients should have the right
46:57
to record sessions. Um, that doesn't mean that they have to,
47:03
but I believe that it should be a right because
47:07
there's basically no accountability for therapists. And I, I think
47:13
that's a, and, and And I've had experiences where therapists
47:17
have done harm and they will refuse to acknowledge it.
47:20
They'll refuse to offer any kind of apology. And they'll
47:25
actually often put the blame on the client. And I've
47:31
had enough good experiences in therapy to know that it
47:34
ain't me. It's the therapeutic relationship or it's the therapist's
47:39
agenda or any number of things could be going on.
47:42
But it's not that I'm intrinsically not able to... maintain
47:46
a relationship with a therapist. So there are all kinds
47:51
of factors in this mix, and the insurance industry is
47:54
a huge part of it as well. So I think
47:58
the intensive model is another area where therapy could really
48:03
change for the better. More of these intensive and short-term approaches,
48:08
which may cost a lot more upfront, but can be
48:13
more beneficial And more cost effective over the longer term.
48:20
So I think there's just kind of not enough creativity
48:24
in the way that the broader culture is thinking about
48:27
these things. Yeah.
48:32
Speaker 1: I have, I mean, I see a therapist regularly. And I've,
48:37
between me and my husband, maybe my kids, you know,
48:39
I mean, I try and count at least eight plus
48:43
therapists over time. the years. And I would say, and
48:48
like I say, I am a believer in therapy as well.
48:51
And of those eight, I think there was, I mean,
48:57
there was really just one that had this deeper understanding.
49:04
They weren't just following a clinical, you know, they weren't
49:07
just following a clinical pattern that they learned, you know,
49:11
it was more like the relational part of it was
49:14
was really important to one of those, maybe two of
49:17
those eight, you know, um, so it's, it's something I, I, I,
49:22
I talk with my own therapist about that. It's, I
49:27
think we're in, you know, patterns are repeating. And I
49:29
think it's funny in your pattern, when you say we
49:32
didn't even understand women's cycles within the 1950, late, late
49:36
fifties and sixties. I don't think we understand women's biologically
49:41
our emotions or sensations in our bodies, how they're connected
49:46
to those emotions. And so I think we have a
49:48
little bit of framework. I mean, the doctor was there.
49:51
They had this ability to do, you know, insemination, but
49:55
that real understanding of what's going on wasn't quite there.
50:00
And I feel like we're right kind of there, again,
50:03
in this world, in this pocket, where like we're, this
50:07
is a little bit more than just a sequence that
50:11
you can follow that, that there's, um, interpersonal relationship that's
50:16
important too. And you can feel that with a therapist,
50:20
if there's that connection or not. And of course it
50:22
needs to build maybe, maybe it's not there the first second,
50:26
but that's key is having a good relationship. Um, and,
50:32
and good rapport with, with, with the therapist. And I
50:36
don't know if there's, I don't know if it's the majority.
50:39
Speaker 2: No, I think that's one area. I'm skeptical of a
50:42
lot of the, you know, research on therapy and, uh,
50:47
you know, uh, but it does seem that the therapeutic
50:52
alliance is the most important factor more than, more than
50:58
the model that the therapist is using. And, and so
51:02
I think we need to pay attention, close attention to that. Um,
51:07
And I think, I mean, I mentioned in passing in
51:12
the paper, but I think it's really important. You know,
51:15
there's this Freudian concept of transference and also of counter-transference.
51:24
And I don't know, I don't really, I'm coming to
51:27
view the idea of transference, the client's transference onto the
51:31
therapist as not being a very interesting or valuable thing.
51:35
frame of looking at things. But I think that it
51:40
really is of central importance for therapists to recognize countertransference
51:50
and be very mindful of what they're projecting onto the client.
51:56
Because I've encountered such terrible countertransference. Yeah. Yeah.
52:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, the transference, to some degree, kind of needs to
52:09
happen in some circumstances. Not to the extreme, but that is,
52:13
on a certain level, appropriate, even in some cases, to
52:19
have this therapist take the place of a trusted person
52:25
or a parent. There's a little more leniency there where...
52:30
The reverse is not.
52:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. But I think that where I go with it
52:35
is if a client is having feelings related to the therapist,
52:42
whatever kind of feelings they are, to talk about it
52:48
as transference is intrinsically pathologizing. And what.
52:58
Speaker 1: needs to be dealt with.
53:00
Speaker 2: In the moment are the feelings and why are these
53:04
feelings arising. And to try to analyze that in a
53:11
transferential way is putting the cart before the horse. Usually. Yeah.
53:19
Speaker 1: It needs some tender and care. It doesn't just need
53:23
a label. It needs some tender and care if that's
53:26
showing up.
53:27
Speaker 2: This is reality. This is what's happening right here and
53:30
right now. Maybe then we can go back and unpack
53:33
how this might be transferential in some way. And it's
53:39
perplexing to me a little bit that even in relational psychoanalysis,
53:45
the transference is still kind of treated in a more
53:48
Freudian way often. And wait a minute, we're dealing with
53:52
the relationship in the here and now. Let's focus on that. Um,
53:59
so I, I, but having, you know, having said all that, again,
54:03
I want to reiterate therapists damn well need to be
54:06
aware of countertransference to monitor it, to regulate it and
54:09
not to let it right. Ooze into the treatment. Cause
54:12
that's where things really get messed up.
54:18
Speaker 1: Right.
54:19
Speaker 2: Right.
54:19
Speaker 1: I think a good therapist is maybe not constantly, but,
54:23
but in having their own therapist a lot of the
54:27
time themselves is helpful. You know, I mean, that's, that's
54:32
something that I feel grateful for, you know, to have
54:36
somebody that knows when they've got to do their own
54:38
work too. They don't just rely on their degree to say.
54:42
Speaker 2: They've got to be going to someone who's good. True.
54:48
Speaker 1: True.
54:48
Speaker 2: You know, I've encountered really, really serious problems with that.
54:55
This is many, many years ago, but I was in
55:00
a more conventional kind of psychoanalytic treatment where I was
55:03
on the couch. And I repeatedly heard my therapist snore.
55:14
He repeatedly denied that he was snoring. He showed up late.
55:21
And repeatedly. And then one day missed a session. I
55:25
was living on the far west side of Manhattan. This
55:27
was in Carnegie Hill. So I'd have to get up
55:30
at like six in the morning to get there on
55:32
the subway. And he missed the appointment and didn't.
55:35
Speaker 1: Call me for like the rest of the day.
55:40
Speaker 2: And I was like, I'm done. You know, I should
55:43
have been done a long time ago with the crap
55:46
that you were pulling. And he's like, well, I want
55:50
to take this to my supervisor and we should have
55:52
a mediation. So he's actually in supervision and in therapy.
55:59
But he's still not owning his shit.
56:01
Speaker 1: Right.
56:04
Speaker 2: Right.
56:06
Speaker 1: That's really painful. And that's the thing. That's really damaging. Yeah.
56:13
And so, yeah, for someone to go into the therapeutic world.
56:19
Yeah, it needs some improvement. I am right there with you.
56:24
I understand. Tell me about using AI. How did you
56:30
incorporate that?
56:31
Speaker 2: That's been very interesting, and it's an ongoing exploration. I'm
56:35
not using it quite as much in the therapeutic context,
56:43
but I am using it in other ways, and it's
56:46
it's changing as we speak. I mean, it's really, but
56:51
where I started with it in the therapy was I
56:54
was using it. I had been using it for quite
56:57
a while to record ketamine sessions and then getting AI
57:03
transcriptions of the sessions and, and using it in that way.
57:08
So that's kind of where it started then. Um, When
57:13
my ex left, I did a little bit of playing
57:16
around with a songwriting AI and kind of created some songs.
57:23
It was really fascinating to play with it in that way.
57:28
Then when I switched into this new therapeutic modality, almost simultaneously,
57:35
the platform that I was using started doing analyses of
57:41
the transcripts and even it could even do like a
57:45
series of transcripts. Uh, and so I started using it
57:52
in that way with. I, this is definitely a don't
57:59
try this at home kind of thing. Uh, because a
58:02
lot of, a lot of what it did was really
58:05
not good and, and dangerously so at times. And it,
58:11
it only worked for me because I'm pretty well versed in,
58:14
in therapeutic literature. And, you know, I, I could, and
58:18
I was working with therapists. So if it started pathologizing
58:24
or trying to diagnose, I had external validators and, and
58:30
people that check in.
58:31
Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
58:32
Speaker 2: Um, I think there's, there's a real danger still in,
58:35
in kind of unsupervised use of AI. Um, in a
58:40
therapeutic context. And actually the main platform that I've used has,
58:47
if anything, gotten worse in the way that it now
58:51
offers all kinds of analyses of transcripts for legal purposes,
58:56
for journalistic purposes, and they haven't even improved the transcription
59:03
to the point where it's reliable. So I feel like
59:06
there's definitely a lot of dangerous stuff out there.
59:15
Speaker 1: Like it could say, it sounds like you have this
59:17
in your childhood, or it sounded like your parent did this,
59:19
that kind of thing.
59:20
Speaker 2: A concrete example was I was in a very excited
59:24
state about some things. And I was... questioning what you
59:29
know is in in talking with my therapist like i
59:31
don't feel like there's any mania involved here but i'm
59:35
definitely you know in a in an excited state and
59:38
i wanted to monitor you know just be careful yeah
59:41
i'm not tipping over into something the ai like picked
59:46
that up and and started to imply it and and
59:53
without having those external checks it could be problematic or
59:57
another concrete example. And I hope that this has improved.
1:00:02
I don't know. But one of the things that AI
1:00:06
does is it creates, it's very good at creating coherence,
1:00:10
even if coherence isn't really there yet. And it's sort
1:00:13
of designed to do that. And so in this ongoing
1:00:20
treatment course, we began, I presented because the distress that
1:00:26
I was in was so severe, I presented as having
1:00:30
a lot more kind of early trauma and dissociative symptoms.
1:00:36
And so my intake and in the initial session with Elizabeth,
1:00:42
she introduced me to structural dissociation theory. And we talked
1:00:48
about it and I kind of said, Yeah, I can
1:00:55
take some of those ideas and apply them to my childhood.
1:00:58
But it was like a reinterpretation, my own reinterpretation of
1:01:06
structural dissociation theory. It wasn't really structural dissociation. It took
1:01:13
me months to get AI off of structural dissociation theory.
1:01:22
And And I had to keep saying, no, we began there.
1:01:27
We discarded it after the first session because it wasn't
1:01:30
applicable to me. And it kept reverting to that.
1:01:34
Speaker 1: Right.
1:01:35
Speaker 2: And again, if I didn't have the knowledge and the
1:01:37
support and, you know, the people to bounce things off of,
1:01:44
that could have taken me into a very dangerous sort
1:01:47
of self-pathologizing realm.
1:01:50
Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
1:01:51
Speaker 2: And thinking that that might my symptoms are much worse
1:01:55
than they are and that, and that potentially different treatments were,
1:02:00
you know, would be indicated.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: Right, right, right, right. You need, you do need some
1:02:07
sense of yourself or else it can get lost pretty quickly.
1:02:13
Speaker 2: Like a lot of what I'm working with AI on
1:02:16
now has been art and art history and and an
1:02:20
artist that I'm very interested in and planning to do
1:02:23
a lot of writing about. And I've used it in
1:02:26
a way as an interactive journal around this subject matter.
1:02:29
And I've learned a lot in the process. But I've
1:02:33
also had to keep telling it, don't do that, don't
1:02:36
do that, don't do that. I'm speculating here. Don't impose
1:02:40
an interpretation. Don't summarize. Don't put words in my mouth
1:02:44
or thoughts in my head. Because it's really prone to
1:02:49
doing that. And it doesn't consistently apply what it's learned
1:02:55
still across chats. But I've still had to go, don't
1:02:59
talk to me like I'm a college student. I have
1:03:01
two master's degrees and a law degree. I know what
1:03:04
I'm doing. Don't do that. Don't do that. And, you know,
1:03:10
it just, there are a lot of dangers with it. Right.
1:03:17
Speaker 1: That's interesting. So for someone listening and maybe they've been
1:03:22
in therapy for years and they feel like they're doing
1:03:25
everything right, but they feel stuck. What would you say?
1:03:28
What would you say to those people?
1:03:29
Speaker 2: Consider finding a different therapist. Really explore whether the alliance
1:03:37
is functioning or still functioning. It may have been functioning,
1:03:42
but if you're stuck, that's a sign that there's something not.
1:03:47
working right. And I think that then the first place
1:03:52
you go is, is the relationship still functioning well?
1:03:59
Speaker 1: Right. That's true. I mean, the therapist should be the
1:04:03
one saying, hey, we're kind of stuck here. If there's
1:04:06
that relational, you know, if you're.
1:04:08
Speaker 2: The only one thinking you're stuck.
1:04:10
Speaker 1: You know what? In my experience, that has never happened.
1:04:14
Speaker 2: And I've seen a lot of therapists.
1:04:17
Speaker 1: That the therapist had said, hey, we're kind of... Yeah.
1:04:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:04:23
Speaker 1: Interesting. Interesting. Have you ever done... I mean, so psychedelic
1:04:29
is close. Have you ever done any other healing modalities?
1:04:33
Have you ever... You mentioned IFS. That's still clinical. Have
1:04:36
you ever done any of the alternative healing?
1:04:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I also have a background in Tantra and, and, um,
1:04:42
you know, I'm very familiar with a lot of the
1:04:45
kind of sexual energy healing approaches and, um, holotropic breath work.
1:04:50
I've done, you know, I've, I've done a whole lot
1:04:52
of different things. Yeah.
1:04:57
Speaker 1: That's interesting. I just thought I'd do it. Well, I,
1:04:59
I have one more question to ask you, but before
1:05:02
we do, Where can people find you? What should they
1:05:05
read first?
1:05:07
Speaker 2: My website is marketingmichaels.com and the paper is currently available
1:05:13
as a preprint. And so what I'd like people to
1:05:16
do is go to my site and click on the
1:05:19
link and actually read the paper. It is now, I
1:05:24
just got over the first hurdle in the peer review process.
1:05:29
So I'm hoping that it will be publishes a peer-reviewed
1:05:32
paper within the year. We'll see. But it's under review now,
1:05:37
and so I'm very hopeful about that.
1:05:43
Speaker 1: Oh, good. Good. Well, we'll make sure to put the
1:05:45
link in the show notes for everyone to get right
1:05:48
to it, and we appreciate you being here. But the
1:05:51
question we always ask everyone is, coming from your perspective...
1:05:56
however you want to define it, how would you define
1:06:00
or explore or what comes to your mind when you
1:06:04
hear the word or experience the idea of wholeness?
1:06:07
Speaker 2: I think what I've learned and come to through the
1:06:11
work and writing the paper is narrative coherence. That your
1:06:20
story makes sense to you and hangs together. And that
1:06:26
your sense of self has some measure of continuity in
1:06:31
that story. That doesn't negate multiplicity by any stretch. But
1:06:42
some measure of coherence is really what I've come to
1:06:46
feel is central.
1:06:52
Speaker 1: Before you go... If this episode resonated with you and
1:06:55
you're craving a place to go deeper, I want to
1:06:58
invite you into the Wholeness Library. It is our membership
1:07:01
community where we do this work together. Resources, support, and
1:07:06
a space where we don't have to figure things out alone.
1:07:08
You can find a link in the show notes, and
1:07:11
I'd love to see you there.