Psychedelic experiences can be quite powerful and life-changing, but there are also other forms of consciousness-expanding experiences that may challenge one’s old paradigm. Sometimes even taking a big leap with a significant life-decision can challenge one’s psyche.
So what is integration? It may well be the act of weaving together new levels of understanding that arise with new experiences into our evolving life stories. It is to provide the framework for ourselves so that we may benefit from new insights, something like a psychedelic experience can be a fleeting moment or a new milestone. Without integration, our psyche may be susceptible to so many things, be it splitting from one’s reality or ego inflation. The path of consciousness expansion beckons us to harness wisdom and discernment.
On this episode, we explore psychedelic harm reduction, preparation, and integration with Dr. Susan Scharf and Rebecca Hendrix. Dr. Scharf and Rebecca founded One Integration to raise awareness around the mindful and safe use of psychedelics for the purposes of personal growth and healing. They offer individual as well as group integration for in NYC.
Dr. Scharf is a Board Certified Internal Medicine Physician and has also received advanced trained in Functional Medicine and Mind-Body Medicine. She has completed the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) therapist training and is the study physician for the phase 3 clinical trials for MDMA therapy for PTSD in New York. She has also trained with the Psychedelic Education and Continuing Care Program and the Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy Program from the Center for Optimal Living.
Rebecca is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She completed her Master of Spiritual Psychology and her Master of Counseling Psychology from the University of Santa Monica She has a coaching degree from The Coaches Training Institute (CTI). She is a certified Imago Therapist and has advanced training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). She is trained in Energy Psychology by Henry Grayson. She has completed the Center for Optimal Living’s Psychedelic Education Program’s 101/102 workshops and is in a clinician group for harm reduction and psychedelic integration.
Highlights:
- Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Preparation
- Role of Community Integration
- Ketamine Therapy, MDMA-Assisted Couples Therapy
Resources:
- One Integration
- Dr. Gabor Maté
- How To Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan
- Erowid
- https://chacruna.net/
- Psychedelics Today
- https://www.psychedelicprogram.com/
- Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
- Heffter Research Institute
- Beckley Foundation
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Full Transcript
Thal:
Welcome Susan and Rebecca to Soulspace Podcast.
Susan Scharf:
Thank you. We are happy to be here!
Rebecca Hendrix:
Yeah. Thank you for having us. We’re so excited.
Thal:
Thank you for coming on. I guess a place where we want to start from is what got you interested in psychedelic psychotherapy and why?
Susan Scharf:
Oh, should I start?
Rebecca Hendrix:
Well, do you want me to start?
Susan Scharf:
Go ahead.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Okay. Um, I’m a traditionally trained psychotherapist, but within that I also have a specialization in spiritual psychology, which is helping people to look at their unfilled issues as a means of growing spiritually. And in doing that, um, I’ve noticed over the past few years, especially with my clients that are on medication and taking the traditional medications, they don’t always work for everybody. For the people that they work with they are a godsend. But for the people that, um, don’t find success, it’s really, really hard. And some people that are going on them have a lot of side effects even in increased thoughts of suicide going on them and coming off of them can be a lot harder than expected for some people. And I guess it was (?) years ago or so, um, I’ve been a fan of Gabor Maté for a long time with the work that he’s done with addiction and looking at all addiction as rooted in trauma. And in following him and going to some of his talks, he talks about, uh, sometimes doing Ayahuasca and leading some Ayahuasca trips. And so, um, an opportunity came up in New York where I work to do a training for clinicians called Psychedelics101 and 102 with the Center for Optimal Living. And so I did that last year and was just fascinated by all the information that they provided about how these medicines can be used and are being used in clinical trials to help people heal from things like OCD and depression and PTSD in ways that the psychopharmacological industry just aren’t. Often by using them once or twice or three times. So, um, that’s how I became interested just by kind of seeing what’s going on in my practice. Having some personal experience. One of my best friends committed suicide a number a number of years ago right when she was coming off some psychiatric medications. Um, so I’ve always just been kind of had a feeling inside that we just don’t have enough to offer and that our mental health system is a bit broke. We need mass mental health and we need more options for people that are in pain. And so that’s kind of what got me interested.
Adrian:
And just for listeners, I wanted to point out that that was Rebecca because we haven’t done a four way conversation. So people are only hearing your voices. I want it to match the voice with a name. So that was Rebecca and thank you.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Thank you. I’m Rebecca and I’m a holistic psychotherapist.
Susan Scharf:
And you guys can hear okay. Yes. Okay, good. So I’m Susan and how I got interested… I really just the process of my… it’s a longer process because I trained in internal medicine and really somehow had an awareness of other ways that we can heal, which is not really being offered to us in our traditional training, whether that’s psychological training, um, psychiatric training, medical training. And I just started exploring these other ways of approaching things and I learned about functional medicine and I was like, oh, great. Okay. That feels right. Let me go to that as fast as I can and see what that offers me, in terms of helping people. And it really opened my eyes to other ways of healing and thinking about our body, our system, and the connectedness of all of our parts and systems and how they affect each other. So I’ve kind of been approaching ever since I started medical school, just approaching everything from that. It’s all connected. So, uh, so I do practice holistic medicine as well and it’s really the mind, body, spirit, soul. It is all connected and it might sound a bit cheesy, but all these parts affect each other and things that we go through and just thinking that, um, especially the things like stress and anxiety and trauma and, um, these are not just things you take a pill for and expect it to fix a problem that has affected your life in all these areas. And although, you know, natural and holistic medicine might be geared toward non-medicine type things, a lot of these substances medicines we talk about are plants. And even then there’s, it’s just, um, it really touches upon all the aspects of a whole person to me. And that allows that person true healing, deep, healing, connected healing, and support. And when you see people getting better, you can be with people getting better from these modalities, it’s just undeniable, the help that it offers.
Thal:
Absolutely. I mean, it’s like you have this amazing role, um, of like bridging between sort of western medicine and holistic medicine. And in many ways too Rebecca, you shared like, you know, as a spiritual psychotherapist, mainstream psychotherapy tends to maybe not look at the spiritual aspects of things, but, you know, it’s like there has to be more bridging more conversation between different parts of sort of medicine, psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy and holistic approaches to things. So, you know, that’s, um, an interesting space that you both occupy.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Thank you.
Susan Scharf:
Yeah. Thank you.
Adrian:
Can you guys share with us the, maybe the origin story for One Integration, that you guys both founded this company and it seems like you’re now offering services that are within the psychedelic integration space. Can you talk about what inspired that and tell us a little bit about One Integration?
Rebecca Hendrix:
Sure. Actually, we met in a clinician’s group, a clinicians consultation group for other therapists that have had some advanced training in working with patients who are interested in psychedelic healing through the use of psychedelics, um, through that Center for Optimal Living training. And so when we met we started chatting and we realize that, well, a lot of what we do in our clinician group is talk about integrating these experiences and different clinicians will bring forward case studies about, um, patients that are having challenges in integrating. And we will all brainstorm about the best way to help that patient to maybe integrate the experience into their life. And so we realized that, um, that there’s a real need to have a service available for people to integrate. There’s a lot of integration, well, within specialized communities. There’s some integration circles.
Susan Scharf:
There are some.
Rebecca Hendrix:
There are some that exist, but we didn’t, um, we didn’t know of another group per se that is formulated by a psychotherapist and a doctor that, because there’s a little bit of like a middle ground, the integration circles, um, the ones that I’ve been to anyway tend to have a lot of people that are quite experienced in psychedelics. Um, and that have used a good many of them. And, um, it didn’t seem like there’s a lot available for people that were curious or who might have had a recent experience in Costa Rica or someplace, people that were experimenting on their own. I started to see in my practice, um, people that are flying to different countries to use Ayahuasca or things like that, um, but weren’t necessarily integrating when they came back. And so jointly we just decided it would be a great add on to our existing businesses to make something like that available. And so we just, it was, it’s also fun and exciting because we both have a passion for this work. And so we wanted to figure out a way that we could work together and also help people.
Susan Scharf:
Yes. That was Rebecca. And this is Susan, just to keep with that. Um, I also want to add to that because that’s exactly right, that, um, two things we both I think really want to provide this, uh, service to people as a real safe place to really, uh, expand upon either these experiences or, we also talk about peak experiences. It doesn’t have to be with a specific substance, but a peak experience and really bring whatever shows up to the light and learn from it and grow from it. Um, but also, uh, as in many communities, there’s not always therapeutically, and I’m not saying there’s only one way and I’m not saying, um, I’ll finish my sentence and I’m not, there’s not always therapeutically trained people there available to support people through difficult times. And not that you have to have a certain type of training or that you need to, you know, have a psychoanalysis background, but some people that are going through these underground communities may need a lot more support than that community can provide. And, and, and we do have the training to provide that kind of support.
Rebecca Hendrix:
And I think we also feel like, you know, fingers crossed, this is the future. This, this could happen, you know, in the next five years.
Susan Scharf:
This is happening!
Rebecca Hendrix:
This is happening! And so we want to be prepared and there’s still so much stigma attached to, um, the use of psychedelics for healing. Um, even with ketamine, which is perfectly legal, there’s stigma attached. And so we wanted to, you know, kind of even proactively start to educate people or talk about it in a normal way so that people will start to see this as a possibility to help their loved ones or just to suggest to a loved one that really needs help and is struggling.
Thal:
Hmm. I mean clearly we are talking about very powerful substances and people might go through, you know, powerful experiences. And so what does integration mean? How can we integrate? Like if someone goes through something that’s so, um, either traumatic or you know, something from the past, how does integration look like?
Rebecca Hendrix:
Integration. I mean, basically what it is, is using the information you’ve learned and consciously incorporating it into your life to make changes to help you create your best life. Um, but integration in general is being really mindful of your use of it and then inquiry afterwards and doing anything that you can do to make your life better because of it. Um, you know, for people that just use these medicines recreationally, they may laugh about the fact that, you know, they saw a dinosaur, you know, in one night when they were out partying. Um, but if you’re trying to integrate an experience, you’re more being curious about that dinosaur or what that dinosaur means to you or you know, how that dinosaur, what it represents, you know, may help to heal something that is keeping you stuck in a place in your life. So it’s, it’s using, um, the experience and any information you got to be really curious and ask yourself questions and give yourself time and space and patience in order for any answers or help to come through you and to use certain tools that may assist you to do that.
Susan Scharf:
And again, I think it’s bringing mindfulness, mindful awareness to the process. Consciousness to more consciousness. Giving more space for consciousness, more consciousness to happen. Um, and of course that’s going to be still defined by the person going through it. So, uh, for example, if someone has, I mean, I’m just going to use Ayahuasca for an example because it’s one of the most powerful, um, mind expanders or consciousness expanders out there, um, in on our planet as a natural product. Um, but there are people that, um, have ceremonies with Ayahuasca that are legal when they go abroad, um, in certain areas. But some people, it could be months before they’re even able to begin the processing and maybe even a year or longer before there’s even some awareness of some of the subtleties from the experience. So every, every person’s experience is different with these medicines. And the processing of that experience can be very different as well. So it’s very much guided by the person going through the experience. And um, and like Rebecca was saying, taking the time, even finding the ability to, to allow for time and processing and openness to the process.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Yeah. It’s really just giving, you’re giving yourself the gift of time, um, and intention to get as much out of this type of experience that you, that you can and that doing the actual experience is just the beginning of it.
Susan Scharf:
Yes!
Rebecca Hendrix:
It’s the journey that you take afterwards. Um, and how you can make your life better, to be a better person, to be more loving, to heal whatever it is that you know, may be keeping you stuck.
Adrian:
Yeah. I wanted to ask, uh, perhaps what does dis-integration look like in your experience working with people? What might be some signs that, oh, someone might not be integrating? Well, what would that look like? Um, in a real case scenario,
Rebecca Hendrix:
A sign that somebody may not be integrating well, um, maybe not being able to function in their daily life. I’m finding it really hard to, you know, go back into their job, go back into their life, go back into their relationships, um, showing some signs of depression or increased anxiety..
Susan Scharf:
Isolation.
Rebecca Hendrix:
…isolation, you know, but to the extent that it really interferes with their peace and serenity. Um, and then going back to maybe old coping mechanisms, you know, which could be self medicating in one form or another. Um, isolating, shutting down, um, or throwing themselves into work or exercise or just something where they’re just, you know, instead of being with what might need to come up or getting support, they just kind of go into…
Susan Scharf:
Filling the time.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Autopilot to fill in the time, or become affected in such a way that a really can’t go about their day to day. Does that make sense?
Thal:
Yes. Yeah. It’s an interesting way to think about integration to think about dis-integration because also, um, we do have discussions around integration ourselves as psychotherapy students also interested in the work of psychedelics. And just, you know, I’m thinking about ego inflation or ego deflation. That can happen too with, um, with psychedelics and within the psychedelic community as well.
Susan Scharf:
Yeah, that’s a good point.
Adrian:
What’s coming to my mind is just that there’s such a huge potential for people to experience spiritual emergence right? Or you can even call a spiritual emergency depending on how rapid the changes are happening and that, that coincides with this potential for inflation possibly for somebody to come out of a peak experience thinking they’ve had more insight than they really had or more more healing than, than what actually happened. And so I think at one point you mentioned, you know, it could take a long time, it could be months perhaps for some folks after peak experience to begin to notice even that things are starting to shift. And, you know, um, I wanted to ask you about the role of practice, you know, because the thing, you know, most people when they seek these experiences are not doing it every day. And so they’re filling most of their life with just the regular, mundane activities. So what’s the role of having daily practices perhaps to come back to?
Susan Scharf:
Yeah, that’s good. Because that’s what we would talk about anyway. So that’s excellent way to segway into that. Um, yeah, I think even just when we talk about creating space and time and space in your life, it’s that, that’s the way to do that is to have that daily time for time with yourself, time for processing, whether that’s sitting and not actually processing, but just being quiet or time for meditation, um, or being out in nature. Um, that beingness with what is, is actually some of the ripest time for processing to happen on its own without efforting even. Um, that is the best time. Um, and we even have, we even created a little list here, we have our little notes in front of us of some of the things that people could do.
Rebecca Hendrix:
So we have a long list of integration tools that we find that we’ve compiled just from talking to a lot of people that have integrated successfully. Um, but things on it are things like working with the psychedelic friendly therapists and in terms of what you’re talking about a minute ago it, it’s really important I think to work with somebody before you go and then after you go, because before you go you can talk about what you want to get out of the experience? Why you’re thinking about doing it now? You know, for example, if you are somebody that’s working on um, a core issue of not feeling good enough and then you set that as your attention when you go into your experience and you come out of it thinking like, “wow, I’m done with that. I’m totally done with that. I know it now! I feel it in every cell of my body”. But maybe the therapist that’s working with you could help point out that. Like I know that got a lot of information on that in your experience, but maybe you still are struggling with it a little bit because you just told me about how you acted or felt when you didn’t get the promotion that you wanted. So, you know, having that continuation with somebody that knows you before and after, um, could be really supportive in terms of maybe helping to manage expectations or even point out possible realities about what has actually occurred versus what their real world experience is. Um, but we have found and encourage everybody to find the right modality that works for them to intentionally carve out time and space so that anything that can come up, you know, has a space to do so. You know, as Susan was saying earlier, doing a plant medicine or a psychedelic is not at all the only means to grow spiritually or to get information that can help you move along a path. It tends to be something that makes some of these things happen a good bit quicker, um, for some people. Um, but slowing down your life in general. For most people, especially people that we know, living in New York City is a really good idea because it is often when we’re running or when we’re meditating or when we’re communing with nature that we do get insights or information or downloads, so to speak, the same type of information that people report getting when having these experiences. So if you can have a spiritual practice that you’re practicing, preferably before you go, um, meditation, or breath work, um, journaling, um, you know, any of those, chi gong. Um, just being in nature, chanting any of those types of things, just yoga would be good because then you have that to get back to. Um, it’s almost like you’ve started it and then it’s like, ah, yes, those are my things that helped me to expand my mind. Or you know, when I do those things I tend to get information. So doing those things after a ceremony might also be that way that your, you know, inner counselor, your inner self can make a connection with you to give you that information that’s somehow been stored back away as you come back online to real life.
Susan Scharf:
And on that, just on that same note, even though we’re not, it’s not really what you brought up. You know, there’s the talk about, um, is it the medicine? Is it you? And I know we both feel quite strongly that all that information is in there. And in fact, some say these medicines help you remember yourself, get back in touch with yourself and, um, we do feel that it’s, it’s all you and it’s enhancing you. It’s helping you find those parts of yourself or remember those parts of yourself or reconnect to those parts of yourself.
Thal:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That is important to mention because, you know, um, you know, some people might hear this, especially people who haven’t tried psychedelics and like, “Oh, really? Like, really psychedelics is going to solve everything?” But just knowing that it’s just a tool or an amplifier of your own consciousness is an important reminder. Yeah.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Yeah. I mean, they tend to be, you know, I was listening to somebody talk the other day and they were saying, they interviewed somebody, I think it was Michael Pollan said that he interviewed somebody that had been in the smoking cessation trial using psilocybin. And the woman said that she got this very kind of banal, you know, information, which is like, “wow, I should really stop smoking. It’s not good for you and I shouldn’t kill myself that way. And there’s a lot of other things to see in the world”. And it’s, those are the types of information that you get and you know, this kind of going into it, but coming out of an experience, you know, it in a really authoritative type of way. And so then it’s, you know, okay, now that I know this, not just thought it, I like have, feel it almost in a lot of the cells in my body. What tools would support me to anchor it in and live from that place.
Thal:
Yeah, yeah.
Adrian:
Yeah. What I also notice is that there’s a real hunger for community, you know, for people who have come out of these experiences and not knowing where to turn to because perhaps their friend group isn’t friendly, you know, to talk about this stuff or their family, um, can you maybe touch on that because I see that’s one of the goals you have for One Integration is to build community and to do sort of group processing.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Yeah. Yeah.
Susan Scharf:
She’s a good talker. She should talk [laughing].
Rebecca Hendrix:
That’s a great point because that is one of the reasons why we got together to do this because especially living in a city like New York, community is just becoming more and more important with everything that’s going on in the world. Um, with everything that’s going on politically, like people need a place to call home. The biggest gift you can ever give anybody is the gift of attention. Yeah. So being able to, um, provide a space for people to talk about these experiences, um, to feel safe. Um, to know that that’s something that they can get back to. I mean, if you just take psychotherapy alone, a lot of the reasons why it works is because somebody has a safe space, um, to be listened to. And most of the time people in life, when we’re speaking, we’re thinking about the next thing we’re going to say when the other person stops. And so, in so doing, we’re not necessarily listening and being there for somebody else, giving them that gift of attention and to do it in community, um, in a group is just, it just makes it for the people that are open and benefit from that just makes it so much more supportive and can help their process, exponentially.
Susan Scharf:
Yes, completely agree. And um, I think also one of those important aspects of integration and integration in groups is being able to hear other people that may be going through similar but different things. Or hearing someone express something about themselves that really resonates with you and you feel a kinship there or that you’re all souls searching for things and, and creating, I will say it, a loving and safe place and we, I think we really all do want that and need that in our society has not been constructed around those values. So we do need to find a way to create them for ourselves. And I think, again, safe is key. You know, you can still have a community of people like in these underground settings that are trying to do that and they’re not always creating the safest place either. So it’s again, being mindful of safety and um, yeah, having that community is key because to try to do this on one zone, um, that’s just, it’s really difficult.
Thal:
Yeah. Um, I mean, speaking of safety, um, another thing that we’d like to know about, and I, I don’t know if you guys do work around that, is the harm reduction model.
Susan Scharf:
Yeah.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Could you speak to that, please?
Rebecca Hendrix:
Yeah. Yeah. Love to speak to that. Other than integration, that’s one of the things that we love to talk about, that we think everybody could benefit by knowing about.
Susan Scharf:
I actually think that the, um, there, I mean, there’s a harm reduction model. Well, the Center for Optimal Living is one of the places near us that takes this approach, um, for the integrative harm reduction psychotherapy. And I think that can really be applied to everything in every aspect of your life. It’s not just putting things in boxes, it’s considering the whole picture. Um, so I mean, we’re calling it Mindful Engagement, as an easier way to kind of make it make sense when we’re talking about it because not everybody wants to hear about integrative harm reduction as a term, but you know, it’s starting, uh, I hope this makes sense. But, you know, when we start to talk with people about, um, you know, even why, if they’ve never had a psychedelic experience or a peak experience, you know, start from the beginning. What are your motivations? We have actually a whole process that we’ve thought about through, of understanding one thing is, um, understanding your motivation, um, choosing a facilitator, a guide, thinking about the environment you’re going to be in, the people that you’re going to be around you. Um, your own… You guys paused, you’re still good… Your own physical and mental health. Um, it’s thinking way in advance of, well, first of all, what do I, what do I want to get out of this? If I do get out of this, what I want to get out of this, what is that going to mean for my life? How will that feel? And if I don’t, what will that mean? Or how will that feel? Um, and that’s just even the beginning. Rebecca, do you want to continue? Yeah.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Um, so I think one thing that we like to tell people is that there’s a, there’s a lot of positive talk that is going on around using these substances. Um, and it can get, it can get really easy to just get wrapped up on that and say, oh, I want to do it too.
Thal:
Absolutely.
Rebecca Hendrix:
But one of our main messages is like, stop and pause and think and focus and ask yourself why it’s not. It’s not for everybody any more than going on psychiatric medication is for everybody. Um, but you know, you have to know yourself well enough to know that you’re doing it for the right reasons and to know and to do your homework. And in terms of, you know, what could happen, considering your set and your setting, your mindset is so important. What you’re feeling as you’re going into an experience and knowing, um, you know, for example, if you’ve recently gone through a longterm relationship breakup and you’re at that stage in the very beginning where you’re just flooded with emotions and you’re crying and you’re even having trouble, like knowing which emotions you’re feeling, it may not be the best time to do one of these experiences. If you’re somebody that had been grieving your relationship for quite a while. And, you know, were not being flooded with emotions and it actually could be a good time to get some information that would help you heal. And and move forward. But it’s the process of just slowing down, doing research. There’s a lot of amazing resources online. We have a great comprehensive list on our website at www.one-integration.com, to be able to just look at all the different scenarios, look at, you know, things to consider about medication interactions, which Dr. Scharf can speak to a little bit, but there’s just a lot to consider. And harm reduction is about just that, like it considering all these possible things to reduce harm as much as possible.
Thal:
Hmm. Um, speaking of medications, like if someone is on anxiety medication or you know, depression medication and they really want to try psychedelics, what kind of advice would you give them, Susan?
Susan Scharf:
Well, of course it depends on the um, medicine that they’re using in the medicine that they want to take. Um, many of the psychedelics are not compatible with antidepressants and can be quite dangerous if combined with, uh, with antidepressants. Ketamine can be combined with antidepressants. And although I mean, Ketamine is a different, it’s very different from Ayahuasca or MDMA. Um, it is something that is legal and it’s able to be monitored. You’re able to be safely monitored by a doctor. Um, and it does provide support and relief for many people for depression. And it’s being used for some other things. It’s been studied the most in depression, but, so that is a possibility. Um, but in terms of advice, uh, we always say, you know, find a psychedelic literate practitioner who can really help you tease through the details before you go off and consider something. Because of course it is not without risk to use any of these substances or medicines that they, although they’re, they are heavy, beautiful place for healing. For many people, they, they have risks and things can happen and have happened and for various different reasons. And, um, and those, all those aspects need to, I mean, you have to consider for as a person yourself, all the aspects of what you need to know know know. You have to have the knowledge and be very judicious and aware before you participate in anything like this.
Rebecca Hendrix:
And because ketamine is already legal, it’s prescribed by a doctor. And so you could potentially even meet with a doctor that prescribes ketamine in order to talk about how you may be effected if Ketamine’s for you or they could even be knowledgeable about the other medicines perhaps. Perhaps. I mean, it’s no guarantee, but you know, yeah.
Adrian:
Because you brought up ketamine, I wanted to ask because, so it’s legal and supervised under medical context. I noticed you guys offer integration for Ketamine therapy. So there’s a group coming up on your website. Can you talk about what that would look like, the structure of it, I’m just curious, you know, to get a glimpse of, um, other forms of integration groups that might be drug-specific or experience-specific.
Susan Scharf:
Yeah, we really wanted to make this kind of, uh, modeled after a group therapy experience. We want it to be a closed group that everyone has. Uh, we’ve spoken with each person individually, um, before they enter this group. And it’s not just for people that are already involved with ketamine therapy, but even people who are interested in want to learn more. And, um, as you say, psychedelic curious. Um, so that by having this closed group of people that are committed to a certain period of time and a certain number of sessions that in fact that has its own container and safety to it so that everybody there we know is committed and, um, as much as possible. Right, to be present and hold space for each other.
Rebecca Hendrix:
And, uh, in terms of structure, what we plan to do is to have like each session somebody, will be part of the time focused on them and so they can share what they want to about their experience. And again, everybody that experiences ketamine just like the other medications may have a different experience. Some people don’t really remember much of their experience at all. Some people, you know, have a lot of of memory. So, and a lot of people that are going to see psychiatrist or the anaesthesiologist or the ER doctors that have set up ketamine clinics might not also have a psychotherapist or you know, they may just have a psychiatrist. And so it’s a space for them to add that piece of it in as well. And so as for structure, it’ll, you know, it would be everybody sharing a little bit, but each time there’s one person in particular that we can go deeper with during the eight week process and then that person also can get input from the group. Um, reflective listening, um, you know, that kind of thing.
Susan Scharf:
Yeah. About what Rebecca is saying. We’ve, we’ve found that ketamine is definitely, it’s happening in a lot of places now and it’s being, it’s very helpful for a lot of people, but it’s not generally provided, uh, from those practitioners who provide ketamine with any or very little space for any kind of integration. Although that might be with someone’s private psychotherapist, uh, we’re not finding that’s being combined often, if at all with the ketamine therapy.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Yeah, we’ve even spoke to a doctor recently who said that he feels that a lot of people are looking at it as just another drug. You know, you go into the office, you said you get your IV, the doctor could leave the room often no music, no blind fold, I mean no mask. And so that can, you know, that can affect somebody’s experience.
Susan Scharf:
Even the depth of their experience. Yeah.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Yeah. So, so making sure that, you know, providing a space that if somebody is considering using this, that they have as much information as possible on how to make that experience a good one for them. And if they have had one but they’re not quite sure how else they could be anchoring it in or even what happened to them, providing space for them to do that.
Susan Scharf:
And giving more space for transformation to occur.
Thal:
Yes.
Susan Scharf:
Transformation rather than just a receptor drug phenomenon.
Thal:
Hmm. I mean just you mentioning that I would think like what a waste to go and take, you know, and sit in a place and go through the experience and not be able to, um, go deep. It would be a shame. So yeah. Thank you for raising awareness.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Exactly. Yeah. And especially like, cause I know you guys are in the field and studying to do more of this, but, um, maybe a lot and I think a lot of the people that, I don’t know, some people anyway that are going to do ketamine may never even had a therapy experience. So, and I don’t know, Dr. Scharf or Susan, tell me what you think, but I think of the psychedelics, it might be one that, um, some people could have more of a dissociative reaction to then a, um, maybe classic psychedelic experience. And so for, for, for those people that could be even more challenging, but even maybe even more necessary, I don’t know about more necessary, but definitely, um, a tool that they could use to try to, you know, just how does it feel to have taken it? What was that like for you? What does, what does it like if it isn’t, or what if it, like what is it like if it is working, right. Um, just to have a place to talk about the experience. Just as if somebody were taking, uh, getting a prescription for Zoloft. You unpack that with your therapist, you know, what are the side effects and how are you feeling and what are you do?
Susan Scharf:
You know, honestly, we know that that doesn’t happen a lot either. We want it to, but yeah.
Thal:
Ideally.
Susan Scharf:
Yeah. Right. And setting expectations and moving through those and being with them. Yeah. Being with those feelings. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that ideally with, even as Rebecca was saying, um, an SSRI, you might start a Zoloft medication and ideally you would process how you’re doing on that medication with your therapist or maybe even your psychiatrist, and how you’re feeling and what that’s like as much as we’d like to think that’s happening and would like that to be happening. That’s not necessarily happening everywhere either.
Thal:
I think I, yes, I think, um, I’ll see you guys brought up an important point that not a lot of people that experienced psychedelics have had a therapy session or don’t know how a therapy session looks like. And that’s important because sometimes that whole psychedelic experiences literally like five hours of therapy, it has that potential. So yeah.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean the more that we are doing talks just to try to, you know, kind of psychedelic literacy talks just to help people to understand what these medications are. Yes. Um, the more that we’re realizing that a lot of people don’t really know much about them at all, a lot of times we have to even say what a shaman is or what a shaman does or you know, why, who would be a candidate for this type of medication and why would they ever do it and how to explain that it’s not, they’re not addictive medications. I mean, anything could be addictive, but they’re not normally after you have one of these experiences, you don’t wake up saying, where can I get more? I want to do it again because it’s just such a powerful experience that that doesn’t happen. But a lot of it, a lot of just some real, you know, amazingly smart, well educated, successful people just, it’s nothing is in their awareness about it.
Susan Scharf:
And also this, I don’t know how this will land, so you’re welcome to um, cut this out. But I was just thinking how, you know, integration, just like therapy, you know, therapy is practicing practicing how you think about things and practice and practice and integration also provides some of that practice and it’s a practice to, it’s a, it’s a practice to find ourselves again after whatever this growing up in our society or going through trauma or whatnot. But it’s a practice just as mindfulness is, it’s all kind of one in the same as is giving yourself time and space, giving yourself time to be with things, looking, being a, hopefully a nonjudgmental observer of your experience and being with that. And it’s all a place for practice.
Thal:
Yeah. I can see where the name One Integration comes from. Love it. Also another thing that I’m curious about is the relational aspect of psychedelics to like, even during the experience of Psychedelic, like, um, Rebecca, I think you’re an Imago, certified therapist and um, I’ve heard about couples therapy and ketamine. Like can you talk about that? Like what’s the potential?
Adrian:
And I just want to throw in there also, um, cause I know Susan you are, you’re involved with the MDMA trials, phase three, and some of those studies were conducted with couples. Yeah. I mean, so by design they had couples go through experiences. And this is something I actually last night I was, I was thinking about is, is realizing how potentially how useful that can be for integration that your partner, your perhaps your spouse, your life partner actually goes and does it with you. Yeah. So you don’t have to go home and actually feel…
Susan Scharf:
Explain it to them.
Adrian:
Be disconnected. Yeah.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Explain as if you could.
Thal:
Yes. Hello, stranger! [laughing]
Rebecca Hendrix:
Um, I mean, I would love, I mean, I can’t wait to get to the point where, um, we can do MDMA assisted psychotherapy for couples because so, oh, many of the couples that I work with, you know, either, you know, mostly one is more of a pursuer and very open with their feelings and wanting to talk and poke at the other person, they’re much more shut down and withdraws, you know, when there’s an argument. And so to have, um, a psychedelic assisted psychotherapy session, you know, and the more trauma a couple has either one or both of them, everything gets exponentially harder to the thousandth degree because they’re also feeling issues around emotional safety that often it has nothing to do with their partner, but it’s very hard for them to block and to not act out on, in ways that make them feel very disconnected to their partner. So, you know, having a situation where MDMA could be used to basically get everybody in their loving essence, which is my main goal anyway, but when I’m working with individuals or with couples is to get them into their heart-centered self and then to speak to your partner from that place and feeling the emotions from that place versus the hard side of, you know, most of the time people might be speaking in the more defensive hard side of a feeling like anger, but underneath that there’s hurt and to get them to speak from that place. Okay. It’s in that place, that a corrective emotional experience could happen that they then could start to do at home. And that’s where healing occurs when people are relating from that space versus just the surface. I’m so upset because you’re five minutes late to our movie and you don’t care about my time and all of that. So I would love that. I’m not familiar with the ketamine assisted couple’s therapy. Um, I’ve been more familiar in and or imagining what it would look like with the MDMA. Do you know anything? Have you heard anything about..
Susan Scharf:
I know of people that have tried things, but I actually haven’t heard much on that. I would love to hear about it. Um, yeah. What’s happening with that? I know about the couple’s study I think isn’t Anne [Wagner] even part of that? Um, yeah. Or was part of that, but I don’t know the actual findings, although, um
Thal:
I guess my question was more like, it’s not about the actual medicine, but the potential of psychedelics and..
Susan Scharf:
Oh, my intuition and yeah. I mean I have a dream of also providing this to perhaps adult families, um, for, you know, for healing, all of those things that happen. Oh, such a place for, I mean, just, just even with the PTSD study. I think what it allows that, that layer to be peeled off of having to react of the, of such, the, what comes up with all the, the PTSD symptoms and experiences and flashbacks and the gamut of things. It allows the system to almost like take that layer off off and not have to be constantly reacting and protecting so that the inner, the feelings, the knowledge, the other things are gone. Just like Rebecca is talking about instead of being that defensive mode, um, from the feeling hurt by being defensive and see me and you’re just being able to be in that place, feeling those, those hurt feelings or, I mean, there’s so many different things that can happen in those instances, but, um, I think of course the study in order to move things forward in our society had to be focused on a thing. So PTSD was chosen and I think it’s a very good choice, but the implications of MDMA use for so many things are very obvious to the both of us. Yeah. It sounds like to you guys as well, and we feel that it can be beneficial in so many different areas for healing. No doubt. Absolutely. With, with the couples, with families, with, um, yeah, so many places.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Mother, daughter…
Thal:
Yeah. I was just thinking mother, daughter, father son. Siblings, right. Yeah. There’ll be no wars in the world!
Rebecca Hendrix:
Can you imagine?
Adrian:
It’s amazing, reimagine “family trips” and take it to a whole other definition.
Susan Scharf:
Like a new Disney. Yeah. Okay. I didn’t mean to make it into.. it’s not a toy! But yeah, that’s kind of something in my heart that I think about is being able to do these for sure. Relational connective experiences.
Thal:
Yeah. Sort of coming from that heart space versus Ego space.
Adrian:
Just as we, as we bring things to a close, could you guys share resources that might be helpful for people who are listening? Either they are curious. Uh, pre-experience, we mentioned maybe peri-experience, they’re really close to doing something or, post, they’re still integrating. Any helpful resources you can point to?
Rebecca Hendrix:
Gosh, um..
Susan Scharf:
Well you think, well of course Michael Pollan’s book is very helpful. Um, he’s, he’s so good at what he does and so we definitely, that is a, a place for resources. Um, we refer to that a lot. Rebecca mentioned our website for resources. I mean there are, um…
Rebecca Hendrix:
There’s one called Erowid.
Susan Scharf:
I was going to say, Erowid.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Another amazing one, just chockfull of information.
Susan Scharf:
The one thing about Erowid is that you know, you, it’s a, it’s, it’s anything, right? So you have to know that you’re coming to it. Um, that one person’s experience again may not be yours and that this is information gathered from a number of people and is not, it can’t be taken one piece at a time. It’s kind of looking at the whole so you’re not getting… I guess they kind of do have a a lot of good resources in there, but it’s not been combined into one little nugget that you can just bite. It’s a larger if that makes sense.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Yeah Chacruna.net is an amazing one and started by Bia Labate. Psychedelics Today. Um, all the Center for Optimal Living. They have a psychedelicprogram.com. MAPS.org which is one of the nonprofits that is doing a lot of the MDMA research, you know, these nonprofits are the ones that are moving these drugs forward into getting them license because they’re not being funded by the FDA or you know, a lot of bigger companies aren’t necessarily interested in getting involved in something that you’re going to take once or twice or three times. Traditionally the bigger companies are invested in something you’re going to take every day for the rest of your life. So all of the reasons why these are moving forward is because of, um, private donations and then the, um, trials that are being done by MAPS by the Hefner Haffner Institute by um, or, um, yeah.
Adrian:
Awesome. Amazing. Thank you so much for your time ladies. That was a lot of fun.
Thal:
Thank you.
Susan Scharf:
Thank you so much. Such a pleasure.
Rebecca Hendrix:
Thank you for having us. It was great to meet both of you and we will look forward to continuing to follow you as well and see where you go on this journey as you become professionals in the industry.
Thal:
Awesome.
Susan Scharf:
We broadened our community.
Thal:
Ah, yeah.
Adrian:
Definitely.