The Dr. Hyman Show - The Reemerging Field of Psychedelic Research

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

The Reemerging Field of Psychedelic Research | This episode is brought to you by Perfect Keto Hallucinogens like lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin (a compound derived from certain species of mushrooms) were being researched in medicine as therapeutic agents before their recreational popularity boomed in the 1960s. Unfortunately, that era gave them a negative connotation and since then the research in medical psychedelics dramatically declined. Now, we are seeing a resurgence in interest for these types of therapies, and the research points to some positive benefits. One of the most astounding things about using various compounds, like psilocybin, as medicine is the long-lasting and powerful benefits of a single dose. Dr. Hyman sits down for a conversation with Dr. Anthony Bossis, where he shares about his experience conducting psychedelic research. Anthony P. Bossis, Ph.D. conducts FDA-approved clinical trials in the reemerging field of psychedelic research. He is a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine investigating the effects of psilocybin, a naturally occurring compound found in specific species of mushrooms. Dr. Bossis was director of palliative care research, co-principal investigator, co-author, and session guide on the 2016 landmark study showing a significant reduction in emotional distress along with enhanced existential well being from a single psilocybin-generated mystical experience in persons with cancer. Dr. Bossis is a supervisor of psychotherapy at Bellevue Hospital and co-founder and former co-director of the Bellevue Hospital Palliative Care Service and maintains a private psychotherapy practice in NYC. This episode is brought to you by Perfect Keto. Right now, Perfect Keto is offering Doctor’s Farmacy listeners 20% off plus free shipping with the code DRMARK. Just go to perfectketo.com/drmark, and make sure you try their Nut Butters and Keto Cookies. Find Dr. Hyman’s full-length conversation with Dr. Anthony Bossis, “Are Psychedelics the New Wonder Drug for Mental Illness and the Fear of Death?” here: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/AnthonyBossis

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and make sure you try their nut butters and keto cookies. Now let's get back to this week episode of The Doctors Pharmacy. Hi, I'm Kea Perot at one of the producers of The Doctors Pharmacy. There has been a resurgence in research on psychedelic medicine in the last several years, and the research points to some positive benefits. Dr. Hyman explored this re-emerging field of study with FDA-approved clinical researcher Dr. Anthony Bosses, and together they discussed how this class of drugs could change the future of medicine.

It's fascinating to look at the work you've done because you have been researching, to start with, how we can help people with the anxiety of death and the fear of death and the transition in palliative care. And you've done some remarkable studies on this. You're the co-principal investigator and co-author of this amazing study, which we'll talk about. And you showed significant emotional distress along with sort of an enhanced existential well-being in these patients who were dying of cancer,

just with a single psilocybin, which is magic mushrooms for those who don't know what that is. Psilocybin generated mystical experience with cancer. Now, first of all, science and mysticism seem like they never should come together, but you are bringing together in this fascinating way, which is disruptive in the scientific paradigm. It's not like, you know, going to a party or going to the Grateful Dead concert and taking some mushrooms. You're actually in a very specific therapeutic setting. And I'd love for you to share some stories

and the experience of what people go through and how you set it up. You call it the set and the setting and why that's important and what people actually experience. That's great. And I'm glad you brought that up. It's important for the viewer to know that there's a certain way we do this.

Because a lot of people take these drugs and they don't have those experiences. They might be at a party or, you know, it's like you're not necessarily having that. No, they may have panic experiences. Panic is the most common adverse effect. So importantly, we're so indebted to the prior researchers. The way we do the research now is the same as was done back in the 1960s.

We have better research methods and statistical analyses, right? But the method builds upon these early pioneers. So, an important distinction, most medicines people take, blood pressure, anti-anxiety, pain medicines, whatever they're taking, they take every day to maintain the desired effect, right? These studies, this medicine is used once. One dose. One dose, out of your short half-life.

So out of your system by the end of the day, before the day is over, actually. And the experience can generate changes, significant changes, for a period of time going out. I mean, there were people from the 60s who have followed up decades later, and they still report it as the single most meaningful or spiritually significant experience of my life so it's more like an experience study versus a drug study yeah drug is a catalyst for that experience then the experience just seems to change us when we

when it recalibrates what what we are ourselves sense of nature in terms of the day it's um so we meet let's say the cancer study we meet them and we spend four weeks getting to know them like meeting once a week uh preparing them for the session and the most important preparation is to uh let them know that the most important position to take during the experience is to let go into the unfolding changes in consciousness don't try to control it don't try to control or. Don't try to control it or avoid something. Sort of like a Vipassana meditation, mindfulness, we stay with the unfolding

changes. And no matter what comes up, even something frightening, these people are dying, some of them. So death itself, dark images, difficult memories, move into it. Stay with it. You'll be safe.

Go into the experience. And I've never seen an experience where it didn't change to a teachable or transformational moment. So by staying with it, it changes to something more an insight, which in itself is remarkable. If they avoid it,

it can create kind of panic or anxiety. So we spend four weeks getting to know them. Trust and rapport is the single most buffer against an adverse effect. So they feel safe in the room. They feel safe with us. Because you're with them. We're right there. Yeah, I'll describe it.

It's like a living room. It's a gorgeous setting. Nice rug and art and blinding. And so they're prepared for four weeks. Then the day of the session, they come in early. Again, their recommendation is trust yourself, trust wisdom, trust consciousness, trust the medicine, trust the guides you're working with.

So trust is really kind of cultivated. They take the capsule, which in this study was double blind, meaning the researchers nor the patient knew was it placebo or psilocybin. Yeah. And if it's psilocybin, within an hour or so, it'll begin to have its

effects. They spend the day lying on a couch, made into kind of a bed for the day, wearing headphones that play a gorgeous playlist of music, mostly classical. Grateful Dead. No, Grateful Dead.

It would be nice, but it's mostly classical and strings and kind of background instrumental music to serve as a trajectory for the experience in a way. And there were eye shades. And both are there to encourage going within. They're not talking to you. You're not talking. Now, if they like, they could take them off, of course, and sit up and talk if they need to.

They have to go to the restroom often, so we take them out for the bathroom. But on ideal days, they're saying very little. And part of the prep was, don't feel a need to report to us what's happening. Go into the experience. We're here watching your body, and you're safe. But go into the experience, and we'll talk tonight and more so the next day. So if we can, we turn off the intellect for the day and have them go into the experience. If they need to, we're there for reassurance.

We're right there the entire time providing assurance. That may mean holding a hand during a rough stretch or to reassure them they're safe. The peak stretch of this is about three hours where a lot happens for them internally. You don't always see it from observing them. They just got the eye shades and the headphones on. So you may see tears. You may hear they may be laughing. It's because it's joyful in many parts of it.

It's glorious glorious they would say it's also difficult at times uh they may speak and i write down what they're telling me so i could tell them later what they said and remind them what was that stretch about it's moving mark to see um to hear the stories so what happens after then you you meet with them and then at four or five o'clock they're coming out of the state of awareness back into ordinary consciousness. Do some question and answer for us, of course, it's research.

And they go home at 5, 6 o'clock back in ordinary consciousness. Then we have a series of meetings, it's called integration meetings, where we talk about the experience. What do you hear? Well, we hear remarkable stuff. So in the cancer study, we hear,

often you hear that consciousness may not stop at the body. So I'm not this body. So that's obviously profoundly mitigating. Yeah, if this is all there is, then it's kind of bleak. However, some say that happens. When I die, I die, but they accept it. We spoke earlier about love comes up a lot, which is striking to hear.

So we're scientists. And throughout this research, the contemporary studies at johns hopkins ucla nyu going back to the you know half a century ago this notion of love being spoken about so frequently it's remarkable and we hear that that was part of the the experience that recalibrated their thoughts about death and it's not just love for each other. So we have three kinds of love, the way I try to categorize it. One is they have a kind of a pronounced loving kindness towards themselves, so they're dying. So forgiveness towards themselves, towards others,

a loving kindness to accept how they live their life, a loving kindness towards others in their life, including throughout their lifespan, even difficult relationships, revisiting those relationships, offering forgiveness internally. And then what I find remarkable is this greater love that you hear in religion or meditation research, that love is the ground of being.

It's a substance of existence. I like to use the word Greek word agape right yeah and they use this over and from within that framework there's a sense that I'm okay no matter what happens I'm fine as dark as it gets they live in

a bigger world than just the small S self the big S connected I like to say it pulls a lens back experience so here we are in you know steve charlton's song i mean mine though and everything exists around the ego like you talked about the beatles got it right love is all there is right beatles got it right love is all you need um and then it pulls it back where they see themselves in a much broader landscape and people see solar systems. People see the universe unfolding.

And they see themselves in a much larger kind of fabric. Yeah. And it really recalibrates the sense of self in terms of what else you might be connected to. And also people have a lot of biographical experiences, autobiographical or psychodynamic in nature, revisiting past relationships that were conflictual or traumas

and those being resolved by moving into those unfinished business. So there's just so many vignettes that come our way and it's remarkable. It's powerful. So the people change their relationship

from death to themselves to their view of what matters. What matters. And it's a single dose that drives sort of long-lasting change, which is pretty powerful. Often people, as a legacy of the 60s, have heard about the bad trip. Right. The triggering psychosis, triggering anxiety, freaking out, having to go be talked down. I mean, in the context of the work you're doing, I mean, I understand that if you're in some, you know, the Woodstock and it's a zoo and you got like everybody's energy and lights and craziness that you could have a bad trip. But what's the data show really about the reality of this fear that people have about losing their mind or having a bad trip or becoming psychotic?

So it's a great question. And it led to the fear of these medicines, right? But I do want to be clear, you could have panic. And people do have so-called bad trips. It's not a great term. I'll try to redefine it. When they do it on their own, right? So it can be quite anxiety producing.

But right, there was that folklore that if you took it, you would lose your mind. Which may or may not really have been true. I don't know how much evidence there was to that effect. It was amplified and distorted somewhat. But we screen carefully. You know, we screen for medical disorders

and psychiatric histories. So if you're so voices in your head before you take the mushroom you can't bring this so people this year's schizophrenia or psychotic spectrum disorders or various you know psychiatric disorders would be screened out of the study because that might be there'll be a contraindication and might provide the ground for someone to have so-called a psychotic experience right or an anxiety provoking experience but in our research while there are anxiety provoking stretches in the session again anything can come up autobiographical throughout your lifespan recover traumas

images of death all types of archetypal and visionary experiences. Many could be challenging, but by moving into it in the safe setting, we see them become teachable moments. Psychedelics are also being researched for a potential role in overcoming alcoholism and addiction and for treating post-traumatic stress syndrome. If you'd like to learn more about the history of psychedelic research or Dr. Anthony Boses' work, I'd encourage you to check out his full-length interview with Dr. Hyman. If you enjoyed this conversation, please consider

leaving us a comment and sharing the episode. Thanks for tuning in. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes,

especially when it comes to your health.