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Mindbloom is Helping Us Heal with Mike Petegorsky · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Trauma Thepist Podcast Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
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Speaker 1: and ad free right now. Become a Plus listener by
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Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts searching for the Trauma Thepist podcast
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Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Nevers Podcast,
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Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
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Speaker 1: who experienced trauma. My name is Got macpherson, and my
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Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us. All right,
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Speaker 1: five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome back
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Speaker 1: to the podcast. Very excited to hap us. Mike guest today,
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Speaker 1: Mike Pettigworski. Mike, welcome, Thank you so much.
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Speaker 2: Guy.
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Speaker 3: It's really a pleasure to be here with you.
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Speaker 2: Awesome.
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Speaker 1: So. Mike is the chief Strategy Officer of mind Bloom,
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Speaker 1: the largest provider of psychedelic therapy. Mind Bloom is the
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Speaker 1: first and largest national provider of psychedelic therapy. They facilitated
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Speaker 1: over five hundred thousand at home Kedeman therapy sessions in
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Speaker 1: thirty eight states. Their mission is to make at home
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Speaker 1: Kedemin therapy a mainstream mental health treatment for everybody. Mike
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Speaker 1: is passionate about creating my Bloom's legacy as the most
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Speaker 1: trusted name in psychedelics. LL Mike before we get in here,
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Speaker 1: before we dive in, and I know you're ready, share
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Speaker 1: with the listeners where you're from originally and where you
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Speaker 1: are currently.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm from a small town called Northampton, Massachusetts.
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Speaker 4: It's in western mass about two hours west of Boston,
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Speaker 4: but before you hit the Berkshire's if you're driving.
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Speaker 3: East to west.
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Speaker 4: I went to college in Philly, spent a decade in
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Speaker 4: New York City, and have been in Austin, Texas for
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Speaker 4: the past three years.
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Speaker 2: And cool.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah.
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Speaker 4: It was really a big transition that happened around COVID
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Speaker 4: where I had been a big law firm, lawyer in
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Speaker 4: one of those international firms with a thousand lawyers, you know,
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Speaker 4: midtown skyscraper kind of like that shows suits, and I
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Speaker 4: thought that was where life was headed. And a mixture
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Speaker 4: of psychedelic medicine and really kind of taking my life
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Speaker 4: more seriously than maybe I had in the past caused
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Speaker 4: me to rethink all that left big law, left New York,
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Speaker 4: came to mind Bloom to help advance psychedelic therapy, and
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Speaker 4: came out to Austin to build a family.
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Speaker 1: Okay, that's that's the thumbnail. Let's let's go back. First
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Speaker 1: of all, you're hitting a lot of great places in
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Speaker 1: the States. I know, Northampton very coz.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Where'd you go school in Philly?
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Speaker 3: I was at Penn University of Pennsylvania.
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Speaker 2: Okay, awesome, So did were you?
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Speaker 1: Well?
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Speaker 2: You must have been.
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Speaker 1: You must have been in that pipeline getting into law. Right,
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Speaker 1: this is where I'm going Penn and everything.
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Speaker 3: Talk a little bit about exactly right. That's exactly right.
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Speaker 4: You know, growing up in a kind of hippie town,
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Speaker 4: I think most timelines for me would have led to
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Speaker 4: political organizing or teaching or something more kind of liberal arts,
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Speaker 4: more human focused in some ways. And when I was
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Speaker 4: a plan of college, so I got into Penn and
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Speaker 4: it was the best school on my list, and I
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Speaker 4: was excited to go there.
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Speaker 3: So I went.
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Speaker 4: And Penn is a school where most people go into finance,
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Speaker 4: and there's really this kind of business world focus and
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Speaker 4: intense pressure on joining kind of that corporate ladder world,
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Speaker 4: whether it's consulting or investment, banking or law or something else.
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Speaker 4: I never found finance interesting, but law seemed at the
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Speaker 4: time like a way to do something intellectually stimulating and
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Speaker 4: challenging and help people along the way.
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Speaker 3: And I had visions of.
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Speaker 4: Being an environmental lawyer or doing other things that really
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Speaker 4: served the world and the people. But then you get
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Speaker 4: to law school and these big firms come for recruiting
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Speaker 4: and they tell you that first year salary and you say, oh, well,
4:01
Speaker 4: that's interesting, right.
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Speaker 2: Right, and climate what climate? Yeah?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, And so then you tell yourself a story that
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Speaker 4: you'll make some money, set it aside, do that work,
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Speaker 4: get the experience, and then eventually you'll go do that
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Speaker 4: good thing somewhere else, right, And then you start doing it,
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Speaker 4: and you know, they raise the salary every year. They
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Speaker 4: always kind of dangle the carrot a little farther, and
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Speaker 4: so you just keep going. And so what I was
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Speaker 4: doing was patent litigation. I represented Fortune fifty companies in
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Speaker 4: patent cases around high tech stuff, whether it's dental nanocomposits
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Speaker 4: or shielded electrical ribbon cables or antibodies.
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Speaker 3: And it's fun, but it was like gladiators for nerds.
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Speaker 4: You know, it's really hard, it's really intense, and I'm
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Speaker 4: a big nerd, so I like to argue about what
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Speaker 4: words mean, or how the technology works. But eventually you
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Speaker 4: just realize, holy cow, this isn't really helping people. This
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Speaker 4: is moving money around for some big corporations. And at
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Speaker 4: the end of the day, I don't know that anyone's
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Speaker 4: lives were made any better.
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Speaker 3: By doing it.
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Speaker 1: And so, well, mean, for a second, that's that's a
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Speaker 1: big realization, right, I mean, it's it's a simple realization,
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Speaker 1: but it's huge.
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Speaker 2: How did you get to there?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think for me, the realization was
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Speaker 4: at a certain point, you can either have work. Is
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Speaker 4: this really interesting concept in this country. You know, it's
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Speaker 4: a means to an end and that it lets you
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Speaker 4: have a house, in food and maybe enjoy yourself, but
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Speaker 4: it also is really a source of meaning for a
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Speaker 4: lot of people. And I realized, like, you can either
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Speaker 4: do work that gives you meaning or work that enables
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Speaker 4: you to do other things that give you meaning, and
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Speaker 4: that's kind of the means to an end there. And
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Speaker 4: I actually realized I was over too. I was working
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Speaker 4: so much I didn't have time to do anything else,
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Speaker 4: and it actually didn't give me meaning to help a
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Speaker 4: big fortune fifty company save a few million or one
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Speaker 4: hundred million or a billion dollars, so just I didn't
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Speaker 4: I didn't care. And the way I was able to
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Speaker 4: get there was actually through psychedelics. And this is obviously
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Speaker 4: before I worked at mind Bloom. I you know, I
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Speaker 4: had been a mind Bloom client actually before I worked
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Speaker 4: here and got Ketymine therapy, and I had used other
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Speaker 4: psychedelic medicines as well, and they helped me get this perspective,
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Speaker 4: you know, I think, and I'm sure you've kind of
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Speaker 4: experienced this. Most of us live, our lives right here
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Speaker 4: where it's right in front of our eyes, and our
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Speaker 4: whole existence is right.
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Speaker 3: At that level where the world meets your eyes.
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Speaker 4: And then psychedelics let you step back a little bit
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Speaker 4: or get a bird's eye view, a different perspective on it.
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Speaker 3: And you see these ways in which you.
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Speaker 4: Move about your job, move about the world kind of
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Speaker 4: following some script or pattern, and you say, when's the
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Speaker 4: fun part, when's the meaning, when's the value, When's.
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Speaker 3: The part where I'm really gonna do something that helps people?
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Speaker 3: And that was.
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Speaker 4: Really Psychedelic medicine was really what let me realize that
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Speaker 4: I was on a path to nowhere.
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Speaker 2: Excuse me? What led you to psychedelix in the first place.
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Speaker 4: Well, I had struggled with anxiety for my whole life,
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Speaker 4: and it was something it was mostly in a social context.
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Speaker 4: I mean, so the short answer question was other things
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Speaker 4: didn't help me and I needed to try something new.
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Speaker 4: The longer story is, I startled with social anxiety really
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Speaker 4: kind of as far back as I can remember. I mean,
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Speaker 4: it's this is kind of sound kind of odd that
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Speaker 4: it started with sweating.
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Speaker 3: I would get sweaty. I was made fun of. You know,
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Speaker 3: trauma is a word that I.
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Speaker 4: Try to use carefully because I think, you know, I'm
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Speaker 4: not a clinician, I'm not a mental health provider, and
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Speaker 4: I think it has you know, it has real meaning.
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Speaker 4: But after a certain amount of kind of ridicule by
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Speaker 4: my peers and other things, I internalized some of that,
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Speaker 4: and I internalized some broader social anxiety. And I cannot
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Speaker 4: tell you, guy, how many times I walked out of prom,
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Speaker 4: my high school, graduation, later, job interview meetings, dates because
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Speaker 4: I would get this fight or flight response, this intense panic.
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Speaker 3: My chest would seize up.
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Speaker 4: It was basically a panic attack, usually triggered by sweating
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Speaker 4: or heat, or that some discomfort in a physically because you.
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Speaker 1: Felt you were sweating too much, and oh my god,
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Speaker 1: I don't want to sweat too much in these pop
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna.
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Speaker 4: Get too I will be projected and I will be
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Speaker 4: gross whatever it is, right ye. And I was otherwise
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Speaker 4: a really social guid and like a lot of people do,
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Speaker 4: I compensated by building up a lot of social skills
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Speaker 4: to try to hide.
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Speaker 3: That or get around that.
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Speaker 4: But it never went away, and as it got worse
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Speaker 4: as I got older, I was medicating with klonapin, with
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Speaker 4: beta blockers. I tried psychotherapy. Nothing really worked over the
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Speaker 4: long term, but the pills did in acute settings. So
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Speaker 4: I could take clonapin and beta blockers and get through something,
8:48
Speaker 4: but it would wipe my memory. And so I had
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Speaker 4: this real devil's bargain where I said, Okay, I can
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Speaker 4: get through this event. I know I'll get through, but
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Speaker 4: I won't remember it later and it's horrible, And so,
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Speaker 4: you know, I had that struggle. I was introduced to
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Speaker 4: psychedelics actually in college in kind of a recreational setting,
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Speaker 4: and it was, you know, plant medicine, and it stunned
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Speaker 4: me because it showed me a sense of self compassion,
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Speaker 4: self love, self acceptance that I had never felt before,
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Speaker 4: and I said, this is different, This has real power.
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Speaker 4: And I started researching and oh my god, there were
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Speaker 4: decades of studies showing that these things could really transform
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Speaker 4: me mental health, but they.
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Speaker 3: Were locked up. They were locked on the shelf because
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Speaker 3: of crazy regulation. And the founder of mind Bloom actually
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Speaker 3: is one of my best friends from college, going back
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Speaker 3: to my freshman year, and he started this company. He
9:44
Speaker 3: told me what he was doing, and I said, as
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Speaker 3: a lawyer, a lot of people are going to call
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Speaker 3: you crazy. I think there's a way to do this.
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Speaker 4: Most psychedelics are legal, but I think there's a way
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Speaker 4: you can with ketamine therapy. And as he started building
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Speaker 4: this and psychedelics, including mind Bloom, unlocked more from me,
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Speaker 4: said I have to go join this.
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Speaker 3: I have to go help.
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Speaker 4: I have to bring this to other people and give
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Speaker 4: them this thing that helped me so much.
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Speaker 1: Talk a little bit more about and when we say
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Speaker 1: it helped you, what are we talking about specifically that
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Speaker 1: helps you?
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Speaker 4: I guess really in the end, it was ketemine therapy,
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Speaker 4: and I can I mean, I I'll tell you about
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Speaker 4: my experience with it because it was so profound, and
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Speaker 4: I think a lot of people wonder like, what's it?
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Speaker 3: Like, what can I actually for?
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Speaker 2: First of all, what is ketamine?
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Speaker 4: For those who are listening, Ketamine is a medicine. It's
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Speaker 4: made in a lab and it is Historically it's been
10:38
Speaker 4: considered a dissociative anesthetic, and what that means is that
10:42
Speaker 4: it has both physical effects. It kind of can block
10:44
Speaker 4: or suppress physical pain in really high doses. It can
10:47
Speaker 4: siderate you kind of help you go to sleep, but
10:50
Speaker 4: it also causes dissociation, which is a sense of separation
10:54
Speaker 4: from your normal thoughts or feelings. It's like you're still
10:57
Speaker 4: conscious in viewing the world, but you're not through the
10:59
Speaker 4: viewing them through your own eyes. It's like you borrowed
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Speaker 4: a pair of objective eyes that don't have a person
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Speaker 4: behind them, and you just get to see the world
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Speaker 4: not through the lens of all your past experiences and memories,
11:08
Speaker 4: but just like what is And it was synthesized first
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Speaker 4: and approved by the FDA in nineteen seventy for use
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Speaker 4: as an anesthetic, and so it's actually been on the
11:20
Speaker 4: World Health Organization's list of Essential medicine since nineteen eighty five.
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Speaker 4: It's in almost every ambulance you see driving down the street.
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Speaker 4: It's in dental offices and surgery rooms to help people
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Speaker 4: with medical procedures. But after decades of use, doctors started
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Speaker 4: noticing some patients who got ketamine for medical procedures started
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Speaker 4: reporting that they felt better mentally afterwards, that depression lifted,
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Speaker 4: that anxiety lifted, and doctor said, what's going on. And
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Speaker 4: it wasn't until two thousand that the first study was
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Speaker 4: published actually showing in a randomized controlled trial that ketamine
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Speaker 4: is incredibly effective in treating depression. And what's from remark
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Speaker 4: a little about it is not just how effective it is,
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Speaker 4: but how fast acting it is. A lot of the
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Speaker 4: studies are showing significant improvements in hours or days after treatment,
12:09
Speaker 4: whereas other antidepressant drugs can take weeks or months to
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Speaker 4: start working. And so in two thousand you had that first,
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Speaker 4: you know, ironclad scientific study by professors and researchers at Yale.
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Speaker 4: And over the past twenty five years there have been
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Speaker 4: one hundred more more than one hundred studies published on
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Speaker 4: catamene for depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ANAREXCA I mean any
12:31
Speaker 4: number of mental health issues. And this is done in
12:35
Speaker 4: a much lower dose than in an anesthetic context. So
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Speaker 4: what you're talking about is about ten percent of the
12:42
Speaker 4: dose you might use in a physical medical procedure. You're
12:45
Speaker 4: using a tiny fraction of that. So you stay awake,
12:48
Speaker 4: you're conscious when you're having the experience, but it does
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Speaker 4: alter your consciousness a little bit, and I can.
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Speaker 3: Tell you a little how that actually feels when you're
12:55
Speaker 3: doing it.
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Speaker 2: So, okay, so that's what is talk about your experience.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, particularly so I'll give you the kind of I'll
13:06
Speaker 4: give you both the how it set up and how
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Speaker 4: it actually feels. Because when Kennymine was used for anesthesia,
13:14
Speaker 4: it was administered intravenously that you know, in a hospital setting,
13:17
Speaker 4: you'd get an IV during a procedure. And when it
13:20
Speaker 4: was discovered that Kenymine could help with mental health, it
13:25
Speaker 4: was kind of done the same way doctors would administer
13:27
Speaker 4: an IV. And that's really effective. But the problem is
13:30
Speaker 4: it's pretty expensive and it's not that accessible. You had
13:33
Speaker 4: to basically have a few hours to go sit in
13:35
Speaker 4: a clinic if you were lucky enough to live near one,
13:38
Speaker 4: and the price was often about a thousand dollars a session,
13:41
Speaker 4: and so you had to be lucky enough to live
13:43
Speaker 4: near a clinic to have the time to go sit
13:45
Speaker 4: there for a few hours and have the money to
13:48
Speaker 4: afford it. And what mind Bloom set out to do
13:52
Speaker 4: was actually make that way more accessible and affordable for regular,
13:55
Speaker 4: everyday folks. And so the way we operate, I can
13:57
Speaker 4: tell you more about this later, is we do at
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Speaker 4: home ketamine therapy with sublingual tablets, and so there's no
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Speaker 4: IV we.
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Speaker 3: Have this sublingual tablet.
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Speaker 4: And when I was a client before I actually worked here,
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Speaker 4: so I was doing my sessions in my apartment in
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Speaker 4: New York City. Medicines delivered to your door, along with
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Speaker 4: a journal and imass blood pressure, cough, heart rate monitor,
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Speaker 4: things like this to kind of just help with the treatment.
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Speaker 4: You have a guide who is a coach of sorts
14:27
Speaker 4: to really support you throughout the treatment. But when you
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Speaker 4: take the medicine, you're basically taking it under your tongue,
14:33
Speaker 4: putting on an imask in headphones, and turning inward. And
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Speaker 4: so I can tell you a little bit more later
14:37
Speaker 4: about the whole program itself, but I want to tell
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Speaker 4: you the experience. The first time I did it, guy,
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Speaker 4: it was like noise canceling headphones for my brain. It
14:48
Speaker 4: was like I don't know if you've ever done this.
14:50
Speaker 4: I had this great pair of bos headphones and you
14:52
Speaker 4: would click them on and would go whoosh, and it
14:56
Speaker 4: was like being in the woods when they're full of
14:59
Speaker 4: snow and damp.
15:00
Speaker 3: Is all the sound. But that's your thoughts, right, everything just.
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Speaker 4: And I you immediately realize the contrast, right, You're like,
15:07
Speaker 4: oh my gosh. I normally have eight thousand thoughts rotating
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Speaker 4: around per second, and that's kind of my anxiety, my rubidation.
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Speaker 4: I'm always how do I look? How do I feel?
15:17
Speaker 4: Am I standing right? What is this thing done? Am
15:19
Speaker 4: I going to miss this deadline?
15:21
Speaker 2: You know?
15:21
Speaker 4: I'm an erotic lawyer, Like it's how it's how we're
15:24
Speaker 4: we're programmed. A lot of us have those two yeah,
15:27
Speaker 4: But all of a sudden, and I could have one
15:30
Speaker 4: thought or no thoughts at a time.
15:33
Speaker 3: I'd just be and I.
15:35
Speaker 4: Had this sensation. I had this feeling. I'm getting chills
15:38
Speaker 4: thinking about it. I was in an igloo. I think
15:44
Speaker 4: the igloo is important because it's cold in an igloo
15:46
Speaker 4: and sweating.
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Speaker 3: And heat rois part of my thing.
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Speaker 4: But I'm in this igloo and in it there are doors,
15:56
Speaker 4: and each of the doors leads to a different situation
16:01
Speaker 4: that fills me with anxiety. And so that might be
16:05
Speaker 4: a date or a presentation or job interview, whatever it is, and.
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Speaker 3: I could be in that setting.
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Speaker 4: I could be in the physical place experiencing what was happening,
16:16
Speaker 4: but not with.
16:17
Speaker 3: The same physical sensations.
16:18
Speaker 4: I didn't have the type chest, I didn't have the sweating,
16:20
Speaker 4: I didn't have all that stuff. And it was the
16:23
Speaker 4: first time I realized that those weren't inextricably linked, that
16:28
Speaker 4: you just because you had the trigger didn't mean you
16:30
Speaker 4: had to have the response. And so I would spend
16:35
Speaker 4: time in one room and I would go out and
16:36
Speaker 4: spend time in the next and just experience being in
16:39
Speaker 4: these settings not feeling that way, and it was unbelievably powerful.
16:44
Speaker 3: And I was there for a bit.
16:47
Speaker 4: You know, you feel the medicine for about an hour,
16:49
Speaker 4: and then you come back to baseline and you journal
16:53
Speaker 4: for a little bit, and then you get back on
16:55
Speaker 4: zoom with your guide and talk about it. But for me,
16:57
Speaker 4: it was like that holy cow moment. It was just
17:01
Speaker 4: like this is different. And so for me, Step one
17:05
Speaker 4: was really working on that anxiety. And once I worked
17:07
Speaker 4: on that for a while, then it was like, well,
17:09
Speaker 4: what else do I want to work on? And it
17:10
Speaker 4: was really meaning and purpose. It was what am I doing?
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Speaker 3: Is this right?
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Speaker 4: Is this how I want to devote my energy, my
17:17
Speaker 4: my value to the world in my career? And the
17:20
Speaker 4: answer was no. And that's why I went from client
17:22
Speaker 4: to employee.
17:23
Speaker 3: Here.
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Speaker 1: That's incredible, that's inspiring. I mean that experience is really
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Speaker 1: what in a sense, a certain form of trauma healing
17:33
Speaker 1: is like understanding that the trigger is not happening right
17:37
Speaker 1: now now? Was that something that was that an.
17:40
Speaker 2: Intention for you? Before you did this? You setting a
17:44
Speaker 2: touch on.
17:44
Speaker 4: My anxiety, But I didn't really have more specifics than that.
17:49
Speaker 4: It was because I didn't know, you know, I didn't
17:52
Speaker 4: know what to expect. And I think, you know, looking
17:55
Speaker 4: back on it now, I think there's this odd thing
18:00
Speaker 4: that happens with psychedelics where it kind of gives you
18:04
Speaker 4: what you need, but it's not always what you thought
18:07
Speaker 4: you needed going in.
18:08
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, one of.
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Speaker 4: My lessons for mental health is like, we're not very
18:14
Speaker 4: good at predicting things. We overestimate our ability to predict things.
18:18
Speaker 4: We often overestimate how much other people are thinking about us,
18:22
Speaker 4: or how much they care about what we're doing. We overestimate,
18:26
Speaker 4: you know, how big of a problem something might be
18:28
Speaker 4: in our lives, but we also might overestimate our ability
18:31
Speaker 4: to like fix ourselves and heal ourselves. And I think
18:33
Speaker 4: sometimes what you have to do with psychedelics is just
18:36
Speaker 4: surrendered to the medicine and not necessarily say I'm going
18:39
Speaker 4: to go in and think about this for the whole time,
18:41
Speaker 4: or I'm going to solve this problem. You kind of
18:43
Speaker 4: go in with something broader that says like I would
18:47
Speaker 4: like to be free from this social anxiety, and then
18:52
Speaker 4: in the session, rather than holding really tightly to that thought,
18:56
Speaker 4: you set the intention and then you kind of release
18:58
Speaker 4: it and you see what comes up. And sometimes it
19:00
Speaker 4: might be that sometimes it might be an older trauma
19:03
Speaker 4: or memory or something else. But usually I find that
19:06
Speaker 4: something in your brain cues up the thing that you need.
19:09
Speaker 3: To work on.
19:11
Speaker 1: So let's talk more specifically about mind bloom, Yeah, what
19:15
Speaker 1: it is.
19:18
Speaker 2: And who it's for.
19:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
19:21
Speaker 4: Ultimately this is at home psychedelic therapy. We are trying
19:26
Speaker 4: to make this treatment, starting with ketamine therapy, more accessible, affordable,
19:33
Speaker 4: and approachable for people in need. And so when we
19:35
Speaker 4: talk about people in need. I mean, it's almost become
19:39
Speaker 4: a cliche that we're in a mental health crisis, but
19:42
Speaker 4: I think the stat's bear repeating is you know, last year,
19:47
Speaker 4: fifty five thousand Americans committed suicide, two million attempted it,
19:53
Speaker 4: one hundred and ten thousand.
19:55
Speaker 3: Died of drug overdoses.
19:56
Speaker 4: There are forty seven million Americans taking as anti depressants
20:01
Speaker 4: this year.
20:02
Speaker 3: I mean, those are.
20:03
Speaker 4: Staggering numbers, right, And when you look at the first
20:07
Speaker 4: line treatments, you know, the first line treatments are ssri
20:11
Speaker 4: or you know, anti depressant pills.
20:13
Speaker 3: What we think of was like prozac.
20:16
Speaker 4: And psychotherapy, and those help a lot of people, they
20:19
Speaker 4: really do, you know, I want to be clear that
20:21
Speaker 4: those medicines have helped. Those medicines and psychotherapy have helped
20:24
Speaker 4: millions of people, but they don't help everyone. If they did,
20:28
Speaker 4: we wouldn't be in this mental health crisis. If those
20:30
Speaker 4: treatments were all you needed to feel better, the country
20:34
Speaker 4: would look different right now. But instead you have people
20:37
Speaker 4: that are really suffering. And what we see so often
20:40
Speaker 4: as people who kind of bounce back and forth from
20:42
Speaker 4: one treatment to another, hoping something works and maybe they
20:45
Speaker 4: get relief for a bit maybe they don't, and psychedelic
20:50
Speaker 4: medicine really offers something different. I think it offers a
20:52
Speaker 4: way to address the root causes of suffering by not
20:58
Speaker 4: just kind of adjusting chemical in the brain that mask symptoms,
21:03
Speaker 4: but helping us really get to the bottom of what's
21:06
Speaker 4: causing us depression or anxiety or sadness, grief, whatever that
21:10
Speaker 4: thing is, you know, getting to understand our trauma and
21:12
Speaker 4: how our trauma affects us today and actually like work
21:15
Speaker 4: past it or resolve those issues in our heads. And so,
21:18
Speaker 4: you know, I think what we're really trying to do
21:22
Speaker 4: is give people a chance to really heal. And you know,
21:30
Speaker 4: we started with ketamine therapy because it's the only psychedelic
21:35
Speaker 4: that's legal today. And this is kind of heartbreaking because
21:40
Speaker 4: we have this crisis. I mean, I just shared these numbers.
21:44
Speaker 4: You know. The other number that I have a hard
21:46
Speaker 4: time wrapping my head around is that twenty two veterans
21:48
Speaker 4: commit suicide every single day, and most of those are
21:52
Speaker 4: people with PTSD from their service.
21:55
Speaker 3: And when you.
22:00
Speaker 4: Work with psychedelics, they really work in two ways. There's
22:05
Speaker 4: kind of a chemical level and then there's also a
22:07
Speaker 4: conscious level. And I think the conscious levels it's undersold
22:12
Speaker 4: in some ways. You know, there are some researchers out
22:14
Speaker 4: there who say, oh, it's just the chemical thing, the
22:16
Speaker 4: trip doesn't matter, And I think anybody who's really worked
22:20
Speaker 4: with these medicines knows that's not true, because yes, there
22:24
Speaker 4: is something that happens in your brain, and I can
22:25
Speaker 4: talk about what that is with ken mean, but for me,
22:27
Speaker 4: I think that the healing experience of revisiting some of
22:30
Speaker 4: these memories, understanding things, and having the support to actually
22:33
Speaker 4: work through them is what lets you not just address
22:35
Speaker 4: symptoms but actually like get past these issues. And so,
22:40
Speaker 4: you know, talking about the scope of this problem and
22:43
Speaker 4: the psychedelics that aren't legal today, I mean MDMA therapy, right,
22:47
Speaker 4: people think of MDMA as ecstasy party drug. It's the
22:51
Speaker 4: most effective PTSD treatment that's ever been studied. So the
22:57
Speaker 4: trials that were presented to the FDA this year showed
23:01
Speaker 4: that if people with PTSD who got MDMA assistant therapy
23:06
Speaker 4: and that's MDMA with psychotherapy after only three medicine sessions
23:10
Speaker 4: and twelve psychotherapy sessions, eighty seven percent of patients has
23:16
Speaker 4: significant improvements and sixty seven percent no.
23:19
Speaker 3: Longer met the criteria for PTSD.
23:21
Speaker 4: They were essentially few, and as anyone who's worked in
23:25
Speaker 4: the field knows, those numbers are bretting. But it's illegal,
23:29
Speaker 4: and it's illegal because of decades of overregulation and stigma attached.
23:33
Speaker 4: And so we started with kettemine therapy first because it's legal,
23:37
Speaker 4: but second because it is incredibly effective and.
23:41
Speaker 3: Safe to use. I mean, we've.
23:43
Speaker 4: Seen not just with our programs but with all the
23:45
Speaker 4: research out there that it's incredibly effective and fast acting
23:49
Speaker 4: and side effects are incredibly rare.
23:51
Speaker 3: In our study, about five percent of people experienced them
23:53
Speaker 3: side effect, and.
23:54
Speaker 4: So it's a really safe and effective and fast acting
23:57
Speaker 4: medicine's use. You know, the way it works is so
24:02
Speaker 4: interesting because there's this chemical effect. You know, it works
24:06
Speaker 4: on the default mode network, which is the part of
24:09
Speaker 4: the brain that kind of is self referential and regulating
24:13
Speaker 4: kind of how am I doing, how am I looking, how.
24:15
Speaker 3: Am I feeling? Kind of that's where a lot of
24:16
Speaker 3: rumination happens, and it quiets that down.
24:19
Speaker 4: I only learned this after I took it, but my
24:20
Speaker 4: experience of kind of the noise canceling headphones like that
24:23
Speaker 4: has a real basis in the brain, and it also
24:27
Speaker 4: stimulates the production of something called brain derived neurotrophic factor BDNF.
24:31
Speaker 3: They call that fertilizer for the brain.
24:34
Speaker 4: And what the studies show is that in people with
24:36
Speaker 4: chronic depression, the neural connections the signaling in the brain
24:41
Speaker 4: in the areas associated with mood and emotional regulation, those
24:45
Speaker 4: connections are damaged. There are fewer of them, they're weaker,
24:48
Speaker 4: they break apart, and when you stimulate production in BDNF,
24:52
Speaker 4: you actually regrow those neural connections.
24:54
Speaker 3: You actually are rewiring your brain.
24:57
Speaker 4: And other psychedelics do that too, but their work at
25:00
Speaker 4: this incredible level to quiet some of that rumination and
25:02
Speaker 4: actually let you grow the neural connections you need to
25:06
Speaker 4: think and feel better. And then it gives you that
25:09
Speaker 4: psychedelic experience of actually altering your consciousness, your perception, and
25:14
Speaker 4: viewing your life or your memories through a different lens
25:17
Speaker 4: that could be so powerful for healings. So it's an
25:19
Speaker 4: absolutely incredible medicine.
25:22
Speaker 2: Who are some of the people that this is not for?
25:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry you asked that question, and I kind of
25:29
Speaker 4: went off on a tangent there. In terms of who
25:32
Speaker 4: it's for. We currently treat people with depression, anxiety and PTSD.
25:37
Speaker 4: There are other studies of you know INAREXI and OCD,
25:40
Speaker 4: which I mentioned. I think those are areas we're really
25:43
Speaker 4: curious about, but do not currently offer treatment for those
25:46
Speaker 4: directly today.
25:47
Speaker 3: The people it's not for, I'll mentioned a few things.
25:51
Speaker 4: You know. First off, everyone should work with a psychiatric
25:55
Speaker 4: clinician to use this medicine. You know, mind Bloom works
25:58
Speaker 4: with psychiatrists, practitioners, and physician assistants who do the clinical evaluation, prescribing, treatment, etc.
26:06
Speaker 3: It's really important not to try to do this on
26:07
Speaker 3: your own.
26:08
Speaker 4: And they have a list of criteria that they use
26:11
Speaker 4: to evaluate, you know, who's a good candidate, who's.
26:13
Speaker 3: Not some people who might not be.
26:16
Speaker 4: If you have certain free existing conditions, certain heart conditions,
26:19
Speaker 4: certain respiratory conditions can make you a poor candidate.
26:23
Speaker 3: Substance use is interesting.
26:25
Speaker 4: They don't interact with medicines like SSRIs ketemine doesn't, so
26:29
Speaker 4: you can keep taking other mental health medications. But if
26:33
Speaker 4: you have severe substance addiction, maybe you know, taking a.
26:38
Speaker 3: Mind altering substance might not be appropriate.
26:40
Speaker 4: But it really depends because the studies have also shown
26:42
Speaker 4: it can be really effective in substance use disorder, and
26:46
Speaker 4: so it's kind of a paradox. If you're working with
26:48
Speaker 4: the right clinician and you're doing it, you know, in
26:50
Speaker 4: part to help those substance issues, it can be really helpful,
26:53
Speaker 4: but it may not be appropriate if you haven't started
26:56
Speaker 4: to work on your substance use and if that's not
26:57
Speaker 4: what you're there for. And with trauma, I think it
27:02
Speaker 4: can be really helpful for people with you know, serious trauma,
27:05
Speaker 4: but you need to have the right support in place.
27:07
Speaker 3: And so this is where I think the type of
27:10
Speaker 3: program really matters.
27:12
Speaker 4: There are some Keemine therapy programs that are basically medicine only.
27:16
Speaker 4: You get you know, the IV or you get a pill,
27:19
Speaker 4: and that's kind of the treatment.
27:22
Speaker 3: What ours does is different.
27:23
Speaker 4: It's medicine plus coaching, content and community. What that means
27:28
Speaker 4: is you have the medicine, you have coaching not just
27:31
Speaker 4: from your clinician, but from a guide who's there to
27:33
Speaker 4: meet with you before and after your sessions to help
27:36
Speaker 4: you prepare for the session, integrate the experience afterwards, Recommend
27:40
Speaker 4: meditations or exercises, things you can do really help you
27:43
Speaker 4: unpack the experience.
27:45
Speaker 3: The content is stuff you do in our mobile app.
27:48
Speaker 4: It's audio for the session, but also journaling and other exercises.
27:51
Speaker 3: In between and the community. We have these group integration
27:55
Speaker 3: circles where people who are going through treatment can meet
27:58
Speaker 3: with others and share their experiences, you know, psychedelics. It's
28:01
Speaker 3: like seeing a new color.
28:02
Speaker 4: Once you see it, you're like, oh my god, I
28:04
Speaker 4: want to tell people about this, But if nobody else
28:06
Speaker 4: has seeing the color, they're going to be like, whatever, dude,
28:08
Speaker 4: new color. So having other people who are doing it
28:11
Speaker 4: also is really valuable. And I think having that support,
28:14
Speaker 4: having the coach and having the community is what let's
28:17
Speaker 4: especially people with kind of more severe trauma, do it
28:20
Speaker 4: in a really you know, in a way that's safe
28:22
Speaker 4: and conduce it to healing.
28:24
Speaker 1: So prior to the actual taking of the medicine, how
28:31
Speaker 1: many meetings are there and lead up to it.
28:34
Speaker 4: So you come to our website and you can fill
28:37
Speaker 4: out an initial survey with some threshold questions about, you know,
28:40
Speaker 4: what you're experiencing.
28:41
Speaker 3: Is this right for you?
28:43
Speaker 4: If it is, you can sign up to have a
28:45
Speaker 4: consultation with a clinician, which is between forty five and
28:47
Speaker 4: sixty minutes, and that's kind of like any normal, you know,
28:51
Speaker 4: psychiatrist visit. You're doing a medical history and evaluation, what
28:54
Speaker 4: are you experiencing for how long, what are your symptoms?
28:57
Speaker 4: All that, and if treatment is appropriate, they will submit
29:02
Speaker 4: a prescription that's.
29:02
Speaker 3: Sent to your home.
29:04
Speaker 4: Before that first session, you get on zoom with your guide,
29:08
Speaker 4: and you also have a pure treatment monitor who's home
29:11
Speaker 4: with you. That's usually a friend or family member, someone
29:14
Speaker 4: who's home with you during the treatment session. And that
29:17
Speaker 4: person's really there to create a comfortable environment. You know,
29:21
Speaker 4: it's not I personally don't think of it as a
29:24
Speaker 4: safety thing. I think of it as like someone the
29:26
Speaker 4: doorbell rings, the phone rings. Maybe you want, you know,
29:28
Speaker 4: someone to walk you to the bathroom and get you
29:30
Speaker 4: a glass of water or whatever it is.
29:31
Speaker 3: It's really like, let me be comfortable and.
29:33
Speaker 4: Let go in this session rather than having to think
29:36
Speaker 4: about the house or the dog.
29:37
Speaker 3: Or whatever else is going on.
29:39
Speaker 4: So before that first session, you've met with your clinician
29:42
Speaker 4: already and now you are meeting on the zoom with
29:44
Speaker 4: your guide and that could be thirty to sixty minutes
29:47
Speaker 4: and it's really you know, basically like going over how
29:50
Speaker 4: to take the medicine, what to expect, but also preparing
29:54
Speaker 4: and setting intentions and so an intention is kind of
29:57
Speaker 4: like what I described before, where you're you know, you're
30:01
Speaker 4: not rigidly holding onto some goal something specific, but you know,
30:04
Speaker 4: I want to relate better to my mom or I
30:07
Speaker 4: want to let go of my social anxiety, and you
30:09
Speaker 4: kind of set an intention that guides are journey and
30:12
Speaker 4: so that Zoom session takes place right before the session,
30:16
Speaker 4: you take the medicine. At about ninety minutes later, you
30:18
Speaker 4: get back on Zoom with your guide to start unpacking it.
30:22
Speaker 2: Very cool.
30:23
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about what I feel a lot of
30:27
Speaker 1: people might have concerns about.
30:28
Speaker 2: Is this is not regulated.
30:33
Speaker 1: Some might say it's a wild West of psychedelics. Right,
30:37
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what's going to happen. Yeah, things
30:41
Speaker 1: do happen. Where does all that fit in? What do
30:47
Speaker 1: you say?
30:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's a great question, guy.
30:50
Speaker 4: I mean, if you read the news, there are a
30:53
Speaker 4: lot of stories out there that speak negatively of ketamine
30:58
Speaker 4: and other psychedelics.
30:58
Speaker 3: Their frameman is dangerous or untested or unproven.
31:04
Speaker 4: The science says otherwise, the science is really clear that
31:09
Speaker 4: ketamine is safe and effective and fast acting, and other
31:14
Speaker 4: psychedelics are coming along and kind of building evidence to
31:16
Speaker 4: get to that level.
31:17
Speaker 3: But let's talk about ketemine. It is regulated, maybe more
31:22
Speaker 3: than people think.
31:24
Speaker 4: You know, it is prescribed by doctors and nurses and
31:27
Speaker 4: pas who are regulated by medical boards and nursing boards,
31:32
Speaker 4: and they sometimes set guidelines around ketamine therapy and other treatments.
31:36
Speaker 4: They certainly can review prescriptions and prescribing practices and treatment
31:41
Speaker 4: plans and all those things.
31:43
Speaker 3: You know.
31:43
Speaker 4: The DEA does regulate the prescription of controlled substances. They
31:47
Speaker 4: keep tabs on where prescriptions are going out. Providers have
31:50
Speaker 4: to register with them.
31:52
Speaker 3: You know.
31:52
Speaker 4: The FDA regulates how medicines are manufactured and marketed, and
31:58
Speaker 4: so I think there's actually more regulation of this of
32:01
Speaker 4: kennemine therapy specifically than some people might think.
32:04
Speaker 3: I think when people describe the wild.
32:08
Speaker 4: West, I think some of where that comes from is
32:14
Speaker 4: that there's not just one way to do ketemine therapy.
32:17
Speaker 3: You know, usually when something is approved.
32:19
Speaker 4: By the FDA, they there's one way. Okay, it's this dose,
32:24
Speaker 4: it's this amount. You know, you take fifty milligrams for
32:26
Speaker 4: this one hundred million into Kenymine can be done through
32:31
Speaker 4: IV and a clinic. It can be done through tablets
32:34
Speaker 4: at home or a nasal spray or an oral you know,
32:37
Speaker 4: it's it's kind of evolved through different paths and with
32:41
Speaker 4: different ways of providing it. So again there's medicine only
32:44
Speaker 4: you can do it with psychotherapy, you can do it
32:46
Speaker 4: with coaching like we do.
32:48
Speaker 3: You know, there's just there's.
32:50
Speaker 4: Enough variety in it that I think people say, oh,
32:53
Speaker 4: you know, how do I get my arms around this?
32:54
Speaker 4: How do I know what's the right way to do
32:57
Speaker 4: it and what's the wrong way to do it? And
33:00
Speaker 4: my antique to that is usually, let's look at the evidence.
33:02
Speaker 3: And so when it comes to.
33:03
Speaker 4: Mind bloom, we've actually provided our treatment data to independent
33:10
Speaker 4: researchers and published the two largest studies in the history
33:13
Speaker 4: of ketemine therapy. The first one was the largest ever
33:16
Speaker 4: with I think it was one two hundred and forty
33:19
Speaker 4: seven patients, and then the second one was almost ten
33:24
Speaker 4: times larger at eleven thousand and four forty seven patients,
33:27
Speaker 4: And that over that sample size, what you saw, you know,
33:31
Speaker 4: is that sixty three percent of clients have really significant
33:35
Speaker 4: improvements and symptoms, eighty nine percent have some improvement overall,
33:39
Speaker 4: and less than five percent are reporting any side effects,
33:42
Speaker 4: which usually are really short lived.
33:43
Speaker 3: In mild, maybe headachere nausea.
33:45
Speaker 4: But you know, we've now built up so much data
33:49
Speaker 4: that we can confidently say at home kenemene therapy when
33:52
Speaker 4: done in this way with medicine plus coaching content community,
33:56
Speaker 4: is really.
33:56
Speaker 3: Helping people and it's really safe. And it's really sad
34:01
Speaker 3: to me when I see some of these headlines out there.
34:03
Speaker 3: And I'll give you a specific example. You may be
34:08
Speaker 3: familiar with.
34:09
Speaker 4: Matthew Perry's death last year, and ketamine played a role
34:12
Speaker 4: in his death. And you know that was a situation
34:19
Speaker 4: where he took insane amounts, massive amounts of recreational ketamine
34:26
Speaker 4: that he got illegally and then went to the hot tub.
34:29
Speaker 4: He was also taking opiates and drinking alcohol. And that's
34:34
Speaker 4: a tragedy. His death is a tragedy, but it's not
34:37
Speaker 4: to say that someone took medically supervised ketamine in an
34:41
Speaker 4: appropriate dose and had a bad outcome. And so you know,
34:45
Speaker 4: when I look at the big picture with this mental
34:47
Speaker 4: health crisis, there are five hundred people that die every
34:50
Speaker 4: year from taking too much tailano. I'm not aware of
34:53
Speaker 4: anyone anyone who has died from taking too much ketamine.
34:58
Speaker 3: It's really when people drugs and misuse things.
35:01
Speaker 4: And so to me, the really important thing is working
35:05
Speaker 4: with good providers, taking the medicine as directed, just like
35:08
Speaker 4: anything else, just like tie it all, and following a
35:11
Speaker 4: treatment program that's established and has been shown to be
35:13
Speaker 4: safe and effective, and taking this seriously like any treatment,
35:16
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, I think the sad truth is
35:20
Speaker 4: people are really struggling and looking for ways to self medicate.
35:23
Speaker 4: But the people who know best are the providers who
35:25
Speaker 4: are trained in this, who have gone to school, and
35:27
Speaker 4: who have worked for decades to learn how to do
35:30
Speaker 4: this safely and effectively.
35:33
Speaker 1: I love what you're saying about the content community and coaching.
35:37
Speaker 1: The community part to me really stands out. I think
35:41
Speaker 1: it's going to kind of resonate with a lot of
35:43
Speaker 1: our listeners. All Right, So how do people learn more
35:47
Speaker 1: about what you're doing? And maybe if they're interested in
35:51
Speaker 1: moving forward with this, where do they go?
35:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, the best way to do it is to come
35:55
Speaker 4: to mind bloom dot com. That's DLM. We have a
36:02
Speaker 4: bunch of information on the website about what ketamine is,
36:06
Speaker 4: how it works. We have different pathways for issues, whether
36:09
Speaker 4: it's grief or anxiety or more nuanced things like burnout,
36:13
Speaker 4: or getting unstuck.
36:16
Speaker 3: We have safety information.
36:18
Speaker 4: We have a blog where we post all kinds of information,
36:22
Speaker 4: not just about ketemine therapy but other psychedelics. And it's
36:25
Speaker 4: also where people can take that initial survey and sign up.
36:29
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have that link up here at the show
36:31
Speaker 1: notes page at the Trauma Therapists podcast dot com. Mike,
36:36
Speaker 1: super inspiring, and I really appreciate you sharing your own story.
36:41
Speaker 1: I think that helps people understand your journey and how
36:45
Speaker 1: the heck you got into this well, not.
36:47
Speaker 3: Just that guy.
36:48
Speaker 4: I hope it helps them understand how, you know, ketemine
36:51
Speaker 4: therapy and psychedelic medicine can help them too. You know,
36:54
Speaker 4: I was one of those people who said, well, this
36:58
Speaker 4: is just my life, this is what this is. My
37:00
Speaker 4: destiny is to struggle with this forever. This is my
37:02
Speaker 4: cross to bear, whatever you want to say, because I've
37:06
Speaker 4: tried these treatments for twenty years and nothing worked, you know,
37:09
Speaker 4: and then something did, and if nothing else, I want
37:13
Speaker 4: people to know that, you know, maybe this can work
37:15
Speaker 4: for them too, that this is different from the other
37:18
Speaker 4: medicines they've tried, of the other things they've done to
37:20
Speaker 4: try to improve their mental health. This is different, it's unique,
37:23
Speaker 4: and it's incredibly effective and it can work for them too,
37:27
Speaker 4: if they have the right providers, the.
37:30
Speaker 3: Right team behind them, and the support of a comprehensive program.
37:34
Speaker 2: Awesome all Mike will be in touch. Thanks so much
37:36
Speaker 2: for being here.
37:37
Speaker 3: Thank you guy, I really appreciate it, though had to
38:04
Speaker 3: come to s