Psychedelic Medicine Podcast

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Psychedelic Medicine Podcast

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Our mission is to demystify and de-stigmatize psychedelic medicines by providing education on the latest research and current best-practice administration of these substances.

12/06/2025

In this episode, Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD joins to elucidate the intersection of psychedelics and neuroplasticity. Dr. Carhart-Harris begins by discussing the impact of psychedelics on neuroplasticity and mental health. He explains neuroplasticity as the brain's ability to change, emphasizing its role in mood disorders and substance use and describes how stress atrophies the brain, leading to mental illness.

Dr. Carhart-Harris differentiates between neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, noting that while neurogenesis is limited in adults, neuroplasticity can be influenced by psychedelics like ketamine, psilocybin, and M**A. In closing, he also discusses the entropic brain hypothesis, suggesting that increased brain entropy leads to richer subjective experiences.

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28/05/2025

In this episode, Dori Lewis, MA, MEd, LPC-S discusses the common myths and misconceptions surrounding psilocybin for healing.

The first myth that Dori addresses in this conversation is the idea that it is the psilocybin mushroom itself that does all the healing work. Contrary to this common misconception, Dori suggests that it is the client’s own initiative working in tandem with the mushroom that really spurs healing. She also emphasizes that there are not any set protocols for how often psilocybin should be taken for healing, instead suggesting that clients should be guided to attune to their own internal intuition to determine when a psilocybin journey may be particularly helpful.

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14/05/2025

In this episode, Jodie NewDelman, PsyD joins to discuss the benefits and risks of leveraging psychedelics for professional growth. Dr. NewDelman discusses the typical struggles people experience in their professional lives and where psychedelic experiences may provide insight and empowerment to become more aligned with one’s work. She unpacks the psychological experience of being “stuck,” something that psychedelics may specifically help overcome.

Beyond individualistic approaches to professional growth, Dr. NewDelman also discusses the importance of humanizing the workforce and how conscious leadership is crucial to achieve this goal. In closing, Dr. NewDelman warns against the danger of trying to implement radical changes after a psychedelic experience without sufficient integration, emphasizing the importance of a holistic approach to this work.

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30/04/2025

In this episode, Tracy Kim Townsend, MD, joins to discuss the potential efficacy of psilocybin therapy for addressing burnout, particularly in healthcare professionals.

Dr. Townsend gives an overview of burnout and discusses its prevalence amongst healthcare professionals due to the intense nature of these professions. She mentions the relevance of the wounded healer archetype for many physicians and how this identity can intersect with experiences of burnout.

Turning to psilocybin therapy, Dr. Townsend discusses how these psychedelic treatments can help address burnout through promoting neuroplasticity and facilitating effective emotional processing. Following these experiences, patients are often much better poised to make well-considered life changes to help stave off burnout. Dr. Townsend concludes by emphasizing the importance of integration following psychedelic journeys to ensure maximal benefit and effectiveness of these treatments.

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16/04/2025

In this episode, Christina P. Kantzavelos, LCSW, MSW, MLIS joins to discuss the use of psychedelics to address chronic illness. Christina overviews the complex mental and physical health impacts of chronic pain conditions and shares her expertise on psychedelic and non-psychedelic treatments for these conditions. Christina mentions that chronic pain can put one’s body in a state that encourages fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses which can disempower the patient’s efforts to address their condition.

She also explores the intersection of identity and chronic pain conditions, discussing how that while receiving a particular diagnosis can be helpful and affirming, taking this as a core part of one’s identity can also be a major roadblock to healing. In closing, Christina emphasizes that pain starts in the brain, so leveraging neuroplasticity through psychedelics and other means can be a particularly powerful way to address both physical and mental health aspects of chronic pain conditions.

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02/04/2025

In this episode, Jerónimo Mazarrasa joins to discuss how to interpret visions and insights disclosed during ayahuasca journeys more effectively. To start, Jerónimo emphasizes that answering the question of whether ayahuasca visions originate in the plant medicine itself or if these are just disclosures of one’s own subconscious is actually not what's most important. Instead, he suggests that in either case, what is crucial is spending time carefully considering how one should respond to these disclosures.

Jerónimo shares insights from expert facilitators on how one can best go about interpreting and responding to such experiences, suggesting that an important aspect of this process is that participants feel comfortable taking personal responsibility for whatever decisions they eventually decide to make rather than thinking of these major life changes as necessary consequences of the psychedelic experience itself. In closing, Jerónimo discusses the tension between externalization and psychologization of psychedelic experiences and why both of these can lead to issues.

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19/03/2025

In this episode, Hugh McGovern, PhD joins to discuss his research on the impact of psychedelics on beliefs. Dr. McGovern is a Research Fellow at the School of Medicine, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

To start, Dr. McGovern introduces the inference or predictive processing framework utilized in his paper “An Integrated theory of false insights and beliefs under psychedelics”. He explains the role of prediction in cognition, showing how insights occur when our existing perspectives are unable to make sense of our experience.

In this vein, Dr. McGovern discusses how the psychedelic experience disrupts our normal modes of prediction and perception, leaving room for greater influence of environmental factors on insight production. In closing, Dr. McGovern shares ideas on further clinical directions for this research that could give guidance for helping patients more effectively integrate insight experiences.

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05/03/2025

In this episode, Heather A. Lee, LCSW joins to discuss the topic of psychedelic healing for grief and loss. Heather explains that we live in a culture that doesn’t have a good understanding of grief, how to navigate it, or how to support others who are grieving, so it can be a difficult issue to address.

She discusses the neuroplasticity-promoting effects of psychedelics and elucidates the ways this can be helpful for processing grief, especially by allowing the person grieving the opportunity to hold their grief in new, productive ways alongside other healthy emotions. In closing, Heather emphasizes how psychedelics can also provide healing for existential distress brought on by the many planetary crises humanity is now facing through providing a broader, life-affirming viewpoint on these issues.

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19/02/2025

In this episode, Thomas Kim, MD joins to discuss ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety. Dr. Kim shares his journey of working in early telehealth contexts to now working with ketamine. He discusses the research on ketamine treatments for anxiety and explains the significant comorbidity of anxiety, depression, and PTSD, stressing that anxiety is best understood from a more holistic perspective that considers the social determinants of health.

Dr. Kim also emphasizes the importance of psychotherapy alongside ketamine dosing sessions, explaining that therapists have a window of opportunity in the days following the ketamine dose to best take advantage of the state of ketamine-induced neuroplasticity the patient is experiencing. In closing, Dr. Kim shares his philosophy of prescribing the least amount of medicine which produces the largest impact for the patient to ensure that side effects are mitigated and financial burdens are reduced.

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05/02/2025

In this episode, Joseph Holcomb Adams joins to discuss the important topic of guruism and cult dynamics in psychedelic communities. Joseph is an ethicist who specializes in issues related to psychedelics, altered states, and transformative experiences.

In this conversation, Joseph introduces the concepts of a guru, guruism, and cult dynamics. He describes the social-psychological mechanisms behind the devotee-guru relationship and the development of ideological conformity in cults, explaining how the heightened states induced by psychedelics can contribute to these dynamics if participants and facilitators are not aware of these dangers and vigilant in guarding against them.

Joseph explains that psychedelic experiences can lead to “experiential verification,” where the participant’s sense of the facilitator as a wise spiritual guide can seem to be confirmed through the intense mystical nature of the experience, which in turn can feed into a guru-disciple power dynamic where the participant feels reliant on the facilitator for their healing. In closing, Joseph focuses on the profound importance of education on these topics. He emphasizes that these potentially harmful dynamics will always be present, so raising awareness is crucial as psychedelic healing continues to become more mainstream.

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22/01/2025

In this encore episode of the Psychedelic Medicine Podcast, Adam Aronovich discusses issues of psychedelic self-absorption—and how to avoid these traps.

Adam revisits the discussion of psychedelic narcissism and explains why he’s now somewhat more critical of the term. However, he still sees issues around cultivating epistemic humility and acknowledging the political dimensions of healing in psychedelic contexts. Adam explains the issues he takes with forms of New Age, Neoliberal spiritual perspectives he sees as pervasive and typically unacknowledged amongst many engaging with psychedelics. He also discusses how some pop psychology terms have worked their way into the psychedelic realm and what impacts that has had.

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09/01/2025

In this episode, Sorcha O'Connor, PhD(c) joins to discuss the research into the use of psilocybin to address obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Sorcha introduces obsessive-compulsive disorder and discusses the ways medical professionals are currently thinking about this and other related conditions. She mentions that current therapies for OCD often only minimally improve symptoms, emphasizing the need for better treatment options.

This led to studies exploring psilocybin as a treatment for OCD - and Sorcha emphasizes that the early trials have shown positive results, often with significant decreases in OCD symptoms. In conclusion, Sorcha discusses the protocol for the PsilOCD study at Imperial College London, with results from this study soon to be published.

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