The Tim Ferriss Show - #396: Marcela Ot’alora — How to Become a Psychedelic Therapist

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

"The only way to not be afraid of someone's suffering is if you're not afraid of your own." — Marcela Ot'alora G.Marcela Ot'alora G. is a psychotherapist and an installation artist. Her interest and focus on trauma has led her to understand the healing process as an intimate reconnection with one's essence through love, integrity, acceptance, and honoring of the human spirit. In addition to working with trauma and PTSD, she has dedicated her professional life to teaching and research. She uses art as a vehicle for deepening the relationship to self, others, and the natural world.Marcela worked as a co-therapist in MAPS' very first government regulated MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study in Madrid, Spain. She served as the principal investigator for MAPS' phase two MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study, and is currently in the MDMDA healthy volunteer study and phase three in Boulder, Colorado.She is also a trainer and supervisor for therapists working on MAPS studies for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.You can find additional resources from this episode in the show notes below. They are also separately curated on this page: tim.blog/therapyresourcesThis episode is brought to you by Ring. You might already know about its smart video doorbells and cameras that protect millions of people everywhere. Ring helps you stay connected to your home from anywhere in the world. So if there's a package delivery or a surprise visitor, you'll get an alert and be able to see, hear, and speak to whoever is at your door—all from your phone. Ring's core mission is to make neighborhoods safer.I've used Ring for years now. It catches and records all the regular stuff like deliveries and so on, but it's also saved my ass a few times, catching weirdos and weird things. Ring is key to my peace of mind, and as a listener of The Tim Ferriss Show, you can get a special rate for your own Ring Welcome Kit — which includes a video doorbell and a Chime Pro — by going to Ring.com/Tim. (U.S. only).This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. I recently moved into a new home and needed new beds, and I purchased mattresses from Helix Sleep. It offers mattresses personalized to your preferences and sleeping style without costing thousands of dollars. Visit HelixSleep.com/TIM and take the simple 2-3 minute sleep quiz to get started, and the team there will build a mattress you’ll love.Their customer service makes all the difference. The mattress arrives within a week, and the shipping is completely free. You can try the mattress for 100 nights, and if you’re not happy, it’ll pick it up and offer a full refund. To personalize your sleep experience, visit HelixSleep.com/TIM and you’ll receive up to $125 off your custom mattress.***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests.For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would have seemed the perfect time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by Ring. Ring's mission is to make neighborhoods safer. You might already know about their smart video doorbells and cameras that protect millions of people

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providing individual support needs and feel preferences for each side. They have a 10-year warranty, and you can test drive your mattress for 100 nights risk-free. Right now, Helix is offering up to $125 off of all mattress orders. So check it out. Get up to $125 off at helixsleep.com forward slash Tim. That's helixsleep.com forward slash Tim for $125 off your mattress order. Take a look. helixsleep.com forward slash Tim. Well, hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers of all

different types, and this is going to be a different one, to tease out the mental models, favorite books, and so on that you can test and apply in your own life. This episode features the amazing Marcela Otalora, O-T-A-L-O-R-A. You might not recognize that name, but you'll get her bio after this intro and understand exactly why I so wanted to sit down with her. This interview was recorded live at the Psychedelic Science Summit here in Austin, Texas, which you can learn more about at psychedelicscience.org. It was organized by MAPS, all caps, M-A-P-S, standing for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and featured presentations from founder of MAPS, Rick Doblin, mycologist Paul Stamets, addiction expert Dr. Carl Hart, and many, many more. You can learn

more about MAPS and their training for aspiring psychedelic therapists, that is above-ground legal psychedelic therapists, at maps.org forward slash training. Also, we compiled extensive resources for this episode, and to make them easily accessible, links to everything, further reading, next possible steps, et cetera, you can go to tim.blog slash therapist, and it will take you straight to where you want to go. So tim.blog forward slash therapist will take you directly to the blog post for this podcast episode. And you can scroll down to the show notes for links to everything that we mentioned and everything you could possibly want. So be sure to check that out.

Tim.blog forward slash therapist. There were a few small glitches in my audio at the very beginning of the interview, but my microphone was very quickly replaced. So thank you for your patience for the first few minutes. It's intelligible and it improves after the first few minutes. So all that said, without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging interview with Marcela Otalora. I'm so excited about this interview. I know a lot of you are too. Tim Ferris and Marcella Otalora, who is a MAPS person. Tim Ferris is a supporter of MAPS and the psychedelic research and shifting the beliefs about psychedelic medicine in our culture. And for that, we are very grateful. He has been called a cross between Jack Welsh and a Buddhist monk by the New York

Times. He is one of past company's most innovative business people and an early stage tech investor. He is the author of five number one New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, including the 4-Hour Workweek. The Observer and other media have named him the Oprah of audio due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 400 million downloads. His latest book is Tribe of Mentors, short life advice from the best in the world, and he is one of the world's most popular podcasters.

We are so thrilled to have him. Marcella is a psychotherapist and an installation artist. Her interest and focus on trauma has led her to understand the healing process as an intimate reconnection with one's essence through love, integrity, acceptance, and honoring of the human spirit. In addition to working with trauma and PTSD, she has dedicated her professional life to teaching and research. She uses art as a vehicle for deepening the relationship to self, others, and the natural world. Marcela worked as a co-therapist in MAPS' very first government-regulated MDMA-assisted

psychotherapy study in Madrid, Spain. And she has served as the principal investigator for MAPS Phase II MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study in Boulder, Colorado, and currently in the MDMA Healthy Volunteer Study and Phase 3 site, also in Colorado. Additionally, she is a trainer and supervisor for therapists working on MAPS studies for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. I would say one of the things that I think of when I think of Marcella is if there was one person that I would want to put the things that I think of when I think of Marcella is if there was one person that I would want to put

my future training in the hands of or my psyche or my soul in the hands of she would certainly be maybe one of the top two people in the world so I have great respect for the work that she does on behalf of MAPS please welcome Tim and Marcella to the stage

to discuss Marcella's work as a psychedelic therapist and MAPS therapist trainer. There you go. Thanks. Thank you. Hi, Butch. Sit. Good day, everyone. Thank you for coming.

This is the third participant, Molly the dog, not named after any particular molecules. And this session we have lots of time for. We have 90 minutes. It is a good stretch. We may not go that long. We will see. We're going to surf the waves, and I'm thrilled to be here. After that intro, please give me time to disappoint. It's all downhill after that bio. I'm very good at writing them in third person. And I really just want to jump in. Molly, are you going to sit at sentry duty? A little less sphinx for this topic, I think, is a good idea. And, Marcela, I think we could just start at the beginning. If you could tell us a little bit about where you're from, where you grew up, just to give us a little bit of context.

Sure. I grew up, I was born in Colombia. And I was raised there. I came to the States when I was 20. And when you were in your childhood or early teens, you can pick, what did you think you wanted to be when you grew up or what you would be? This is kind of like a edgy story because what I wanted to be was a fire truck. You wanted to be a fire truck? Yeah, I wanted to be a fire truck. Wow. That's incredible. I think we should dig into this. So this was not an enhanced vision of what you wanted to be. This was a decision you came to as a little girl. How did you decide on Fire Truck?

What was the appeal of the Fire Truck? They were very shiny and red, and they had ladders, which I love, and hoses. All true. Usually like dogs were part of the team, and it was just like you could literally block a road. Like you had that much power. Like you could literally block a road. Like you had that much power. Like you could just block a road. And what was interesting is that a lot of people, when I told them that, they would say,

do you mean a fire person? I said, no, a fire truck. And everybody thought it was either like, oh, poor thing, you know, like, oh, my God. Or like I hope somebody tells her or something like that. But my mother worked at the mental health hospital. And I used to love going there and playing cards with all the inmates. It was something that I really, where I felt safe, actually. And so there was this man, his nickname was Fosforito, which means little match. He was a

paramedic. And he asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I told them, and he was the first person ever who said, wow, do you mean like one of those red fire trucks? It was fabulous. Fosforito, got it. You totally got it. Why did you feel safe in that environment? Why do you feel comfortable in that environment, in the hospital? And how old were you, roughly? When I decided to be a fighter? No, when you were playing cards with Fosforito. Yeah, I started maybe when I was around 12. And it's kind of like what I asked for my birthday every year,

to go spend time there and play cards and talk to people. And I think it was where I felt seen. I think I came, you know, I grew up in a country where civil wars started when I was born, practically, and it wasn't safe and I saw a lot of things happen because of the war on drugs and just the danger of the city where I grew up and my family of origin wasn't safe there was a lot of abuse and so it was like I could be with people who didn't care about that yeah there's a I suppose a purity in a way yeah like an insulation yeah so the the feeling scene I think will probably be a perhaps a theme that carries through uh the conversation but if we flash forward,

where did interest in psychedelic therapy or exposure to that begin? How did you end up finding your way to that subject or path? So I ran away from home when I was 17 and ended up in the streets and so I was homeless for a while which was probably one of the hardest experiences um I ended up with like the wrong crowd after that and um spend a year in a really abusive situation. And then I decided to kind of like find a way to escape. So my escape was to come to the United States. I had been here when I was 12 and I loved it. It was one of those experiences where, you know, like when you have all these expectations of a place and you think, oh, it's going to look like this or it's going to be like this

and it never quite matches. Well, it matched. And it was when reading Dick and Jane books. You're too young for it. No, I remember Dick and Jane. It was like Dick and Jane and Spot. Yeah. It made me want to come to the States.

They had like back doors where you didn't have to lock it and they had cookie jars and it was great. And so it just matched the town that I ended up in. Where were you? Where in the US? I was in Boston. Boston. For a little while, outside of Boston.

So I really wanted to come back and I came back. It was really hard. I was alone, didn't have money, didn't, you know, had this little scholarship to go to college. And so I started, I think part of it was that I thought if I left, the traumas would go away, like that I somehow would surpass it. And if I could forget about it, it would be gone. And so I think that was my thinking. And of course, that doesn't happen. And I lived six years with a very restricted life,

didn't really talk to people. It was just really difficult, and my world was pretty small. And then I had never done any kind of drug ever. I had not even smoked pot. And I took MDMA recreationally for the first time. And what it did was it brought back everything, and I wasn't ready for that. I thought it was just going to be, oh, this is going to be something great. It's going to feel good.

You're going to feel good, and it was the opposite. It was really challenging, and I was not in a safe environment. I wasn't with people who could really hold that, who could understand that, and it was more like fear. Oh no, what is happening to this person? And so I knew that, like I knew that it wasn't safe. So it made it worse. And I ended up in the hospital. And then a friend. Ended up in the hospital because the people around you thought you were having a panic attack or you self-administered. Yes. So then a mutual friend of Rick's and I asked Rick if he would do MDMA with me. And I think what it was too was that even though it

was a really traumatic experience i also knew that there was something really powerful about the fact that i couldn't lie anymore so it had unlocked all of that yeah so um so i did mdma with rick and uh a couple of other people, and they held the container. And it was like I saw myself for the first time. The self that you had lost. Yeah. What did Rick or other people involved, and it doesn't have to be exact phrasing

but say to you or do to make you feel comfortable going back into that experience what was the lead-up I suppose to the session what did that look like it was about totally being okay with whatever came up like I couldn't do it wrong. You know? And I think, you know, you said that to me in the green room. You're like, you can't do this wrong. And it was just, like, so helpful of it's okay to be you, right?

It's okay to be who you are. And so I felt that. And it was like, wow, there's this person that has rights. I felt like all my rights had been taken away, so I had rights for the first time in my life. I had an inkling of it, that I had rights, and that I mattered, and that there was somebody in there

that actually didn't have trauma somewhere in there so you have this experience what happens in the days and weeks after that experience that's a good question um I think I did it three times, maybe two, within the course of a month or two. I was very fortunate because I was able to stay in Rick's house. So it was sort of like a secluded place for me to be before I had to return to my life.

And I was able, I read a lot, I wrote a lot, and I read and I tried to capture what had happened. Sort of like this idea of a lack of self-consciousness that had happened. And I think up to that point, my self-consciousness was all about fear and not belonging. And here was like, wow, there is this lack of self-consciousness. It's okay. It's okay if you cry. It's okay if you laugh.

It's okay. And I think that Rick provided that too. I could be alone. I could dance around. I could eat. I could not eat. I could just be. So it allowed me to just begin a process of understanding what was going on.

And I think some of what was going on was that I looked at, that for the first time I could look at it, I wasn't looking at trying to make sense of the trauma. I was, my symptoms were completely appropriate for what had happened in my life. It wasn't crazy. It was completely appropriate. And I, you know, it gave me freedom.

It gave me freedom to explore some other things and to think like, wow, maybe I do have a say in how I live my life. And I started, you know, I started trying like little things of testing that while I was in those days those days afterwards so I started this a day without learning like I wanted a whole day without learning anything could I do that and a day where I said no to everything so testing this ability to have some say about my life so

that's what's what it was like, you know, the days after that. What did the space look like, or the journey, I suppose, from that personal experience to wanting to be more involved as a facilitator or a therapist? Mm-hmm. I think because of my own suffering and having had quite a bit of therapy before then, I did have therapy before that experience. And it just didn't work that much. It wasn't very helpful. I had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. That was like the first diagnosis I had and I think it was

you know that I realized that so many people could not understand trauma could not understand like the symptoms of trauma so I thought like wow like it actually saved my life you know I felt like it was just something that was giving me this opportunity.

And I was an art teacher at the time. And I just thought, I really want to do this. I want to do this for other people. I want to be able to help other people. Rick started MAPS a couple of years after that. So he and I did our work the year before MDMA was criminalized. And in 1984, I was 25, 26. And so I thought we're really far away from that.

Like I couldn't imagine that it would ever happen, that you could be, that there was a potential of being a psychedelic psychotherapist. But I was determined that I wanted to work towards that. And it took me a few years. I went to graduate school for art and taught some more and then went back to school so that I could become a psychotherapist and be ready. You're paddling for the wave early. And you've done so much good work and helped so many people. Who are some of the influences outside or what are some of the influences outside of Rick who have shaped how you've approached becoming the therapist you are today? Claud Naranjo who died recently um he was definitely I I was I resonated a lot with the

way he did the work and so he was one of my heroes and um I I tend to look for books and writings, not through psychotherapy so much. I read those sometimes, but they feel like work. And so I think a lot of the inspiration comes from Aruaco Indians in the mountains of Colombia, the way that they approach life through psychedelics and their healing, the way that they approach life through psychedelics and their healing, the way they heal. So their stories are very powerful to me. I lived very close to them for a year before

I came to the States. And I read a lot about artists. So there's different artists that have written about how to be an artist. And I think what it is is that they're very genuine and they talk about themselves in a way of, this is where I come from, this is the struggles that I've had as an artist, this is where I go. And so it's so informative to do this work, I think. Agnes Martin is one of my favorite artists,

and she wrote extensively about how she came to her work. And she was very private and introvert. I tend to be the same way. So there was a lot of things that resonated with me about her. And she had this idea that, about perfection, that was really beautiful. Like she said, you know, perfection doesn't exist in the world, but the reason why we're so attached to it is because we can imagine it. And so those kinds of information are really great for when you work with somebody with trauma. So I would say

that that has influenced me the most. And for those people who are here or listening who don't recognize Claudio's name, there's a fantastic book. It's either The Healing Journey or A Healing Journey about much of his work, which is very well written. I mean, the introduction alone is worth the price of admission with the book. I'd never thought of it quite this way before, but as you're talking about art, it really made me think. I've been taking

art classes for the last few months. All right. What kind? Mostly drawing charcoal, working with pastels, different types of tools with the ultimate goal of getting to, at least as a next step,

painting and working with color. But the point that was made to me over and over again by my teacher is, in effect, you're not learning to draw, you're learning to see. You have to learn to see first. And you need to draw what you see and not what you know. Because you might look at a chair and then look down at your paper and draw your concept of a chair, but you've stopped seeing.

And I can see how that could apply to listening and hearing and really translate to a lot of the work that you do. And if we look at your beginnings, there really wasn't an established path to become what you wanted to become, or at least I would imagine not. There were resources, but very scattered, and certainly scattered resources also exist today. But things have changed quite a lot, and things are developing very quickly. For people who are listening, and this has been a challenge for me to decipher as well, because I have many in my audience, many friends who come to me and ask the question of how to become a psychedelic therapist. And I don't have a really straightforward answer for them. And I know it's

sort of a process that is evolving. But as it stands right now, if someone listening is interested in becoming a, I was going to say a psychotherapist, a psychedelic therapist of some type, how would you suggest they think about it? And I suppose there are at least two buckets. You have people who are starting from scratch in the sense that they don't have any of the credentials or academic qualifications that might help. And then you have the folks who maybe are already on second base and just have to kind of round the corner. But if someone were starting from scratch, because we're looking forward, we're recording this in late 2019, hopefully in the next few years, at least MDMA, hopefully also psilocybin,

will have completed successful phase three trials and been reclassified, meaning the legal status will have changed to enable some degree of prescription. For people who want to start preparing for that, where do they start? What do they need to know? I think the first part is do your work, do your own work. Really understand who you are, how your experiences have shaped you, how comfortable you feel with your own suffering. When I do trainings, I tell people the only way to not be afraid of someone's suffering is if you're not afraid of your own. And to do that, we have to know and have done our own work. So I would say that that would be a really important one

because psychedelic work is not easy and we do experience a lot of trauma in the room that comes out in various ways and also to pay attention to therapies or modalities that honor the person as the expert of who they are. Because no matter what, you know, you can be poor and you can be uneducated. You're still the expert of your experiences and who you are. So no matter who you are, and I say that just because so many people take away those rights of people who are marginalized. And so to really be able to study and be around and read about honoring the human being as they know more about their healing

than anybody does. And can we respect that and approach that? One of the principles for our training is that we believe in their capacity for self-direction and for their own development. And that we also believe that they have a healing intelligence that will show up and that we can work with that and we can honor that. So it's not like this hierarchical model. It's more like can we meet somebody at this level together and collaborate and create trust and and empower them to be able to understand and to know where

their path is and to to really respect that path and to feel that our our own experience of ourself, that there is room, our reality makes room for the reality of another human being, that there is room to accept that reality. So I would say that you can start there. So there's some therapies that are good, you know, humanistic therapies and client-centered therapies that you could study, but also that there's a lot of work that you can do on your own. So it seems like we could almost separate the preparation and development into skill set, on one hand, which is sometimes then overlapping with qualifications to be a legal psychedelic therapist. So let's talk more about the skill set for a bit, because I think that's what we're talking about. There are certain

modalities, and I've had the good fortune to sit through some trainings through MAPS, even though I am effectively auditing. I'm not currently preparing to be a psychotherapist, but I really wanted to get a better understanding of the training that exists because one of the big questions for me is how do we ensure an acceptable level of quality as the number of therapists is scaled through different training approaches, and it's time sensitive, right? So I sat in on the training approaches and it's time sensitive right so i sat in in the training and just to underscore a few things that you said the protocol seems to really take as a base assumption that there's a lot of self-directed healing that there's some type of inner healing intelligence and i remember sitting in the training, and in this case, it was with Michael and Annie Midhofer,

and Michael said, it's always challenging to do these trainings because we're showing you video clips of the interventions or when we interact, but the vast majority of the time we are doing nothing. I mean, we're present paying attention, but the patient is doing their work. And I took a lot of notes in the process of sitting through multiple days of learning, and I remember one thing that stuck out, which was from the founder of IFS, and I always mispronounce.

Is it Internal Family Systems? And I can't remember the gentleman's name, but there's this acronym. Dick Schwartz. What was his name? Dick Schwartz. And it seems to be a really valuable framework for some therapists,

and people can look into this on their own, but he had an acronym, WAIT for therapists to remember, and it stands for why am I Talking? Yes. Which I thought was just genius. And are there any other modalities that you think are particularly helpful and translate well into the MDMA-assisted psychotherapy? Of course, not just the session, there's the pre and the post, but for instance, Hakomi is one that comes up quite a lot. Could you describe that and your thoughts on Hakomi?

Yeah, and I'm not a Hakomi therapist, but I think Hakomi, when I have seen people who have studied Hakomi, they are following, they are tracking what is it that is coming from the participant, what is it that they are needing, and how do I trust them to really give me the information to be able to support them.

So I think Hakomi is one of them. Internal family systems is too. Mostly because I see it every single time that especially in MDMA sessions that parts come out. And it happens really naturally. And I think we all have parts. And people always say,

oh, where does that come from? But we all have parts and people always say like oh like you know where does that come from but we all have parts you know people always say like oh a part of me wants to go to that party and a part of me doesn't want to go that's a part and not necessarily that you need to study internal family systems but have knowledge of multiplicity of parts show up. The inner healer is a part. And when do they show up and how are we really present with that? Maybe the part that shows up is five years old. And if it's five years old, we don't want to talk to them like they're 40. We want to be able to be sensitive to the fact that this is a five-year-old part. What do I need to do to connect to this part? So I think parts work is really important. Familiarity with non-ordinary states.

It's hard for me to think of being able to do this work without having had some experience yourself of a non-ordinary state. Because it's hard to explain, right? It's hard to explain what it does. Very difficult to explain. Are there certain tools that you've found helpful? Of course, we could talk about the things that are gray or gray area or not so gray area in terms of molecules that can help with this. And just for people who are wondering on spelling, Hakomia is H-A-K-O-M-I, if you want to look it up. Are there any tools

that you have found particularly helpful, whether that's holotropic breathwork or other breathwork or other legal means to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness for people who recognize and agree that it would be important to have the first-person experience before presuming to know how to handle someone else going through that experience. Yeah. Well, I wanted to say a couple of things about that. So, we do have a study currently called MT1, which Rick mentioned briefly this morning. Was that this morning? Yes. He said, he talked a little bit about MT1. So MT1 is a study designed for the therapists themselves to have the experience of MDMA. So it's a five-day process. They come for a preparatory session,

then they have a treatment session, an integrative session, a treatment session, an integrative session. And one of those two treatment sessions is a placebo, and the other one is full MDMA. And so the therapists get the experience,

not only, you know, some of them have had MDMA before in a different context, sometimes even recreationally. But this feels different because it's exactly the setting that they're going to be in. There's two therapists, there's music that goes on the whole day. There's times for them to go inside and times for them to connect and relate. And so many of them have said, this has really solidified my training. Now I really do feel

ready to go and do it. So that's great. And we have the other part of that, MT2, which is what we want to continue when we do trainings with people to give them. And it's in the FDA right now. It's in negotiations with the FDA for that study. So I think that is great. And I hope we can. You know, we are able to continue that work. But holotropic breathwork is one way to really get into a non-ordinary state in a way that is legal. Ketamine is another way, you know, like ketamine work does create that.

I think meditation does that. Sometimes certain yoga does that as well so it's like really being able to say what is it what does this actually feel like when my ego is not the most important part when I'm when I'm starting to connect to kind of like I studied transpersonal so it's this idea of that we are in relationship to our our non-ord states, that it is beyond the ego, and how can we go there? So to have that experience, I think it's really, really important. And participants ask, you know, they always say, have you done this? You know, and they, there's just a sense of calm for them when you say, yes, I have. What are the, as things stand right now, legal checkbox or qualification checkbox, checkboxes needed if one wants to be a psychedelic therapist a few years from now or five years from now?

And I don't know the answer, to be perfectly honest. And it's part of the reason I'm so excited about having this conversation is that to satisfy the demand safely and adeptly that the reclassification of some of these compounds will bring, there needs to be quite a large funnel of people who are interested in understanding at least what the roadmap might look like. And we'll talk about other maybe realities that people should be aware

of before they sign up. We'll get to that. But first, what does the training process look like? Is there an educational requirement? Do you have to have gone to college? Are there things you can do in two years? What does the path look like? So some of that is in the negotiation right now with the FDA in terms of who our therapy pairs can be. You know, one thought is that one of them needs to be a PhD, which I'm totally opposed to because I don't have a PhD. So then I still want to be able to do this work and I think it's really based on psychotherapy experience

not necessarily if you're a PhD and MD or not so hopefully that won't be the case right now we have it that one clinician is licensed and the other one doesn't have to be licensed, but they still need to have done at least three years of work in a mental health profession. So it could be a nurse, it could be an MD, it could be a psychiatrist, it could be a chaplain. There was a question about chaplaincy early on, and that could be another one.

And then psychotherapists and different clinicians. But they don't have to be licensed. And so they... Just for clarity, what type of license are we talking about? So like having a license to be a psychotherapist, to be able to say that you're a psychotherapist. And different states have different requirements for that. So that's what we've done and what we hope to continue doing.

To do their own work, to have experience with working with trauma with adults. It's a really important one. And then also, if they're affiliated with an existing site, then there's more probability

because the sites, when people apply, they apply as a site. So there's at least two therapists or two clinicians who are going to sit. And you do need to have an MD to hold a Schedule I license. And then a facility. A facility where you can actually do this safely.

Set-in setting is so important. So a place that really feels comfortable where they can be and everybody can feel safe and the participants can feel safe. So those are some of the requirements that we have. We've trained about 500 therapists so far, and about 150 of them have gone through the whole certificate program. Our program is a five-part. So, the first part, part A, is online. It's an online course. And then Part B is a one-week in-person course,

which is the one that you did, right? I did the online as well. So I did the Part 1 and Part 2. Okay, great. And so a lot of people have done those, like the people that have trained have done those two parts. And then a Part C is when they do, they either have, they do a training that they think would be really valuable to do this work. Somatic is something that I didn't

mention. Somatic work is really important because trauma is definitely held in the body and MDMA is very somatic. So sometimes people do those kinds of trainings and that fulfills that part C. And another, the way that we want to do it is through this MT1 or MT2 where the therapist can come and take MDMA in a safe place the same way they're going to do it and so where they maybe can sit for another person doing it as well with one

of us. And then so you get this really nice experience, right? That is right hands on. And then the next part is within their sites, they do role plays that are then, that they can then let us know and they have to write about them. And we give them supervision

based on what happened in the role plays. And the role plays are based on real life experiences and questions come up and things, you know, like, oh, I didn't know how to do this. Or they just get more and more help because they're doing this kind of role-playing role-playing and then we would also supervise their first participant that they work with so one of our supervisors would be watching their videos and like really extensively as part of our training we've that, where we looked at their videos and given them feedback.

And we're talking about like eight-hour session videos. So for people who are listening who do not have academic or medical credentials currently, but they want to explore the first few steps of putting themselves into a position where they could perhaps sit in the room with someone else who is licensed. If you want to become a licensed psychotherapist, you can figure that out on your own. But let's assume that that is not in the cards for people who are listening, but they want to be that second person or put themselves in a position where the

odds are increased that they'll be able to do that what what are some first steps that you might suggest to them aside from the experiential the first-hand experiential pieces but the actual prerequisites for moving in that direction um i'm not sure if I, I hope I understand your question correctly, but in order for them to get to that place of being able to really sit, then they need to have had these things that I've mentioned. You know, they need to have some experience working with trauma and that they're working towards either licensure or that they're in the process, they're registered or, you know, that they're in the process of it.

And if just, we can make it specific, that was a terribly worded question that I gave you and a very long one. It was like a paragraph. You can ask it in Spanish. Brain vomit. Ah, por favor. Anyway, I could.

You speak Spanish really well. I could, I could. I think it would be even more confusing, por favor. Anyway. He speaks Spanish really well. I could. I think it would be even more confusing, but we'll see. We'll see how well my caffeine kicks in. Soy porteño trucho. Te digo la verdad. Entonces. You should do it in English. So,

the, now my brain's running off on this completely other tangent, but I'll try to reel in the Marlon here for a second. Back, Tim, Thread, Maps, Training. Oh, yes. So, if someone were listening, they're sitting in Chicago, and they have an undergrad degree but no advanced degree. Would you suggest they go to the MAPS website first to gain the experience that you're talking about? What are some of the less intimidating experiences that people could test for a week or two or three?

Are there any particular suggestions that you might have? I see what you're saying. You know, we don't have any of the scheduled trainings for next year yet, but we will by the end of this year. So I would suggest, and I'll put some at the end of the session, I'll have the website,

the website's up, to apply for the newsletter, and then to get information and to keep getting updates about when the trainings are and what is required and what are the changes that have happened. But there's also a space where there's other people from different parts of the country and the world that really want to get a site together or are really interested in this work too. And so we've had people that even though we don't know when it's going to get approved, we don't know those things yet. People still want the training and they want to connect with each other. So they get together and they, I've heard people like meeting once a

month and then they go through the protocol and they go through the treatment manual and they start talking with each other and saying, what would it take for me to do this and feel comfortable? I'm going to do preliminary work until I can get into a training or until it becomes something I can do in the future.

So there's a lot of things to do in the meantime in community, in connection with other people who are wanting the same thing. And since we have those things online, we have our protocols online, we have our treatment manual online. And so they can do a lot of work to begin with. Yeah. You can effectively simulate the first part of the training by become, of course, there are going to be major gaps, but by becoming very familiar with the treatment manual and so on, maps.org, everybody here probably knows that URL, but people listening

might not. The conversation brings up some memories that I have of gathering some firsthand experience of my own by volunteering with Zendo. And I bring this up because Liana, who's part of the team here at MAPS, had mentioned to me that perhaps one question people should ask themselves before asking, do I want to be a psychedelic therapist, is do I want to be a therapist? And that psychedelics have this very sexy sheen. Yes. It puts a very nice paint job on that Corvette of a therapy job that you might not have taken otherwise.

But volunteering at Zendo, and for people who don't know, is, and I know the tagline has changed, so forgive me if I screw this up, but it's peer-based harm reduction in effect. And what that means is people go through trainings at a place where it is likely that some attendees to, say, a festival or Burning Man will have what they would consider a bad trip. and you're then trained to hold space and sit with that person. And I recommend this to anyone in part because it highlights just how unsexy it can be, if that makes sense, right?

Because people think like, yeah, I'm going to sit there and I'm going to walk them through their trauma and heal their soul and like demons be gone I'm gonna be this awesome shaman. It's gonna be great. And then you're like no actually there's vomit on your pants and you need to go get some napkins because they snotted all over your like back your hand and then they're asleep and you're just sitting there for six hours cuz they're asleep like yeah, that's also the job And I remember sitting there at Zendo's kind of hilarious

I was sitting there because Zendo's kind of hilarious I was sitting there because I did a lot of shifts I basically the only reason I went to these festivals was to do as many shifts as possible so unlike me and I remember this guy next to me had he pulled out his like contraband laminated page that he had with all his like secret techniques that he was gonna use in his session like completely outside of the protocol. And then his person was just like, I don't want to listen to your words and like went to sleep. And this guy was like, but my art, my art. And I was like, oh, this doesn't bode very well for this guy. So what are some other maybe just realities that people should be aware of

if they think they want to commit to doing this? I'm so glad you mentioned Sando because from so many people I've heard, people that we've trained, I've heard, this is where I got my best training because it's in the moment and you need to be present for that. You don't know what they took. So it's even, you know, the safety piece is not the same as if you know, like, this is MDMA, you took it an hour and a half ago in this setting. You know, so it really amps that up.

And so I think it's the best training, because then you're not rope laying, right? Like you're training with somebody right there live and you're doing that work. So sometimes people do get like, wow, this is really hard work. And I always tell people if they get the message when they take a psychedelic that they should be a shaman, it's a lie. Yeah. And pro tip, if you meet anyone who's running around calling themselves a shaman, probably also a fair indicator that they're not anything near being a shaman. That's a whole separate diatribe. So yeah, don't find your shamans on Craigslist or Facebook. Recommendation number one. I think one of the also valuable things that I took from not just Zendo, but watching,

for instance, a documentary called Trip of Compassion, which I recommend to everyone, everyone considering becoming a psychedelic therapist or psychotherapist utilizing MDMA as an assisting molecule should watch Trip of Compassion because it makes the case, at least for me, very strongly with lots of session footage that if you're not willing to sit for someone with what we might consider the classic psychedelics, LSD, psilocybin, et cetera,

of course I'm not recommending doing anything in an illegal setting, but if you're not willing to do that, you probably shouldn't sit, you shouldn't guide at a high level or facilitate an MDMA session in the sense that they can be very, very, very difficult. Yeah.

Like your experience recreationally where all this trauma was unlocked. And to be good in that setting really requires proper training and a high degree of sensitivity. And it can be really hard. I mean, you can have someone who, let's say, was abused by their father and suddenly they project that onto you as the male in the dyad and you need to have hopefully some type of training or experience that enables you to handle that in a way that doesn't create more damage yeah yeah i i think you know i've i've heard it many times when people say like oh i want to become MDMA therapist. And I worry about people practicing outside their

competency because they think, oh, the medicine will carry it, will carry the session. And I've seen the harm caused by that many times. I've had a lot of referrals into my own private practice where people had a really traumatic experience on a psychedelic because their sitter, somebody who was sitting for them, could not hold that space. And it just created more harm. Being in a non-ordinary state, being in a vulnerable state, you're going to pick up on that and want to know that you're with people that can hold that and that can be there for you. And I think that that movie is so great that we have that access to show what people can do.

Yeah. Yeah, also showcases some very gifted therapists. Yes. Some very gifted, Ido and Karen and other people, very, very gifted therapists. And it shows you how tough it can be. In a way, I would even argue that, say, in my Zendo experience, this guy came in. Fortunately, in this one case, we knew what he'd taken, which was 400 micrograms of LSD, which, for those who don't know,

is a healthy dose, or maybe using a different adjective, it's a dose, capital D. And he was losing his mind, swinging at people. So I ended up with him in the crisis tent for eight hours. And it was fine, and it was actually in a way, I think, easier flailing and swinging and trying to hit you aside

than MDMA because he was just on like a 45-second loop talking about Seinfeld and like Chia Pets. It was just like Seinfeld, Chia Pets, blah, blah, blah. And then it was just like repeat every, whatever, 47 seconds. And you're like, all right, this guy's just on rerun. Fine. Like sit him down. Don't let him run into anything. But with the MDMA experience, there really is a tradecraft that is, I don't think I'll do justice by trying to emphasize how technical it can be, which is one piece of the puzzle.

And then there's that sensitivity that you talked about and that awareness that really comes from probably some degree of hardwiring, but then spending time in that environment. And if the patient senses that you are uneasy, which they will, then it changes the entire dynamic. What are other things besides people

practicing outside of their competency, right? Sort of bunny slope skiers who are like, I can do a black diamond, besides those people. What other things concern you? What other worries do you have looking forward as things continue to become more popular and more people hope to become involved in some capacity? Yeah, I think, you know, changing...

Our model is our model. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's, like, the best model, right? You mean the MAPS model. Right, the MAPS model. And people might do something else, and it might be fine, you know. I think one thing that concerns me is the cost. So we're really looking into that and thinking about

what is this going to be that we can actually, that this can be cost-effective? How are we going to treat marginalized people? How are we going to not leave people behind? What is it going to take? And so I think there is room to change the model for that. And how do we do it safely? Do we have some group sessions?

Do we have somewhere as practitioners who are training, but they are like students, and so maybe they don't cost as much if they're working under somebody who is trained and has more experience? And what are some of the things that can be done without losing the integrity of the whole program? And so I think, you know, that is a concern.

But it's also a concern if somebody takes that and changes it completely in a way that maybe it's not safe anymore. You know, so there's a concern about what can happen there. But for us, I think the concern about how are we going to make this affordable and how are we going to continue training people that want to be ready and want that kind of knowledge in terms of like hands-on. Our training shows a lot of videos that are live videos of what happens in sessions. And sometimes it's very exciting. And like you said, you know, that Michael was saying, we're showing this parts where we're actually doing

something. There's times when people don't say anything for eight hours. For the entire session? Yeah. And nonetheless, just this is so important, nonetheless, if you look at, say, I suppose the CAHPS-5 is the current rankings, the assessment tool for symptoms of PTSD, nonetheless, you have somebody who goes from extreme symptoms, unable to hold a job, and this isn't every person, but to asymptomatic, even though there was no talking, there was no, right, there was no sort of, you know, Raphael Michelangelo level, like therapy magic happening there was a therapeutic effect in the session with the container with the prep yeah and didn't require talking in the session yeah i think insights when people go inside and really are not they're both really important um a lot of trauma caused

by another person happened in relationship right there? There was, we relate to the world through relationship is the way we understand the world. So healing also happens in relationship and happens through relating instead of in isolation. So those pieces are really important. And it's also really important when they can go inside, our model, we say it's inner directed it's what comes up for them that is here for a reason and for the purpose of healing and maybe it's something

that they never told you before and you think it doesn't have anything to do with their trauma or they think it doesn't have anything to do with the trauma but it does and so we treat it as though it does and that it is important for them to be with it. And if they're inside, they get these amazing insights. They come out and say, wow, I just realized this or I just thought about this. And we notice that when they go to the bathroom, and we call it the bathroom insight, but it's really when they're not talking. It's like the the shower aha the bathroom they either like see themselves in the mirror but they're also like with themselves you know

they're not talking and and they're getting powerful information that is about them that is like here we are like maybe we knew this but now it's becoming clearer when you look back at your first x number i don't know what number to pick but first few dozen experiences as a facilitator as a therapist what were your hardest sessions for you and why what made them difficult if you think back to just say the first few years of your experience um one of the very first sessions that i did was in the study in spain and um that study was working with women from sexual assault. So it was very close to mine, my experience. So it was like, how do I work with this? How do I, how am I present? How am I, how do I not bring my things in? How do I not dissociate? How do I really honor that I am here for this person and my stuff is not

spilling out into them? So that was a challenge, you know, and I think hearing their stories was so amazing. It's so, like, when people are in pain and are suffering, they're so real. There's nothing, you know, they're not thinking about what their hair looks like. They're not worried if snot's coming out of their nose. And they're just so

incredibly real in that moment and in that experience. So it's beautiful in that sense. And it's also like so painful, you know, to hold the experiences of people that have suffered greatly and to really be able to say, I am here completely for you. This is your day and it's about you. What does good preparation look like for a session like this? Or a session in the MAPS protocol, we could certainly talk about it within that context, but in your mind, what are the hallmarks or the characteristics of good preparation for someone who has never used MDMA before,

who's going into their first MDMA-assisted psychotherapy session as a patient? How do you work with them to prepare well? Oh, okay. What do we do to prepare them? Yeah. That's what I should have asked. Yeah. So, so we do three preparatory sessions and during those sessions, it's to, for them to get to be more comfortable with the therapy team and for them, for us to also know, like, how did they,

how did they cope with their experience? What are the things that they have been able to, what got them here in relationship to the fact that they have all this trauma? How is it that they actually got here? And what are their skills? What are they using? So to be really curious about them. Their skills, like coping mechanisms.

Their coping mechanisms. What are the stigmas that follow them that then creates this place of, I see them as a certain person because they have these stigmas attached to them. And how do I take that away and really see this person in front of me? What is their vision, even if they don't know what it is?

What do I imagine is their vision, even if they don't know what it is? What do I imagine that their vision is? So it's a really a time to get to know them fully as an individual, as a person, and then to answer their questions and to try to bring as much comfort as possible to explain everything that can be explained. This is where you're going to lay down. You can bring a pillow. You can bring your own stuff. You know, we're going to lay down. You can bring a pillow. You can bring your own stuff. Is it okay if we light a candle? We're going to have flowers. This is what we can do. These are the options. We listen to music. You can say you don't want to hear the music. It's up to you. These are the things that you don't have a choice about. People with PTSD, we're not

giving choices. Choices were taken away. So it's really important to give choice as much as we possibly can. And there's some things that we don't have a choice about because this is research. And so one of them is once they take it, they can't leave the room for eight hours. And how are we going to work with that if you do want to leave the room? Because it's not about you hiding that, but it's about us working with that. How can we work together if you feel like you just want to run away? Or if you want to go outside and hug that tree, and unfortunately, we can't let you go outside and hug that tree.

Just imagining that in the summary table at the end of the research report, like number of trees hugged. On average, three and a half standard deviation. Right. Makes it more complicated. No, I kept thinking like we could go out there with a little chainsaw and cut part of the tree and bring it in. That's one solution. So what would be an example of what you might say to someone who goes,

I can't do this. I got to get out of here. I really need to be outside. Do you first remind them of the commitment that they made earlier and the rule they agreed to? How do you handle a situation like that where someone just wants to escape? They're like, I don't like this. I'm ready for this to be over. I want to go outside. How do you handle that? Really remind them of the commitment. I mean, at some point, maybe you do need to say, well, you know, we're not going to be able to leave, but we're really here with you in this process of you feeling what you're feeling, your legs wanting to move and wanting to run,

and we're, you know, can I hold your hand? Can I sit beside you? Can we stay with this experience? It will pass. This experience will pass. What can we do in the meantime? What are some of their coping strategies if they really get to a place where they feel like, oh, I need to breathe. Can we breathe into that experience and just really be with it and know that it is going to shift and that we're right here with you. So it's about, it's totally

okay. And it usually leads to a profound experience of wanting to have run away before, right? It's like a connection to this piece of, oh, it was then that I wanted to run away. Not so much now. I'm going to keep teasing on this thread because you're so good at this. And the specifics, I think, really help to paint a picture of what a session might look like. What do you do if someone, or what might you do, or say, if someone gets very judgmental about themselves? Like, I fucking hate when I die. God, that's so stupid. I always fucking bad. And then becomes very judgmental about themselves as a whole or a part. I hate that part of myself who's da-da-da. Something they've really shut down and judged. What might you say to someone who's going through

a period of expressing that? So one part of our model and the way that we train is to say it's not never to get rid of anything it's like alchemy you don't you don't get rid of it you transmute it right that it gets transmuted and so it's not about getting rid of anything at all even that part of you that is judgmental so it's not like at least like i wouldn't say oh but you know you don't have to judge yourself or anything it's just like this is the part that is here now, this judgmental part and being really curious about that part. And why is there like, wow, like this part is existing here right now. How has it helped you survive?

How have you worked around it? Let's explore why it's here and what it's bringing up in your body and what it's making you feel in this very moment. This is why you're so much better at this than I am. So good. You've done so much good work. It's really, it's a big deal. It's a really big deal. And so thrilled to have you on stage to have a chance to talk about this. What separates in your mind, if you look back at all the people you've worked with, a good psychedelic therapist, let's focus on MDMA specifically, versus a great psychedelic therapist? The good people versus the great. Because I feel like

you can check a bunch of boxes and kind of get a passing grade, get somebody out the door safely, and then there's really good. Then there's a great therapist. And I'm not sure I would even necessarily know how to describe what separates those two, because I don't have the canvas that you have.

I mean, you have such a perspective on this. So if you think back on your experiences with different people, are there any examples you could give of what makes someone in your mind great, or stories that come to mind, anything? Well, I think the most that we can offer is ourselves. So I think it's when we can enter, I think what makes a psychedelic therapist great is if we can enter into their frame of reference.

And in order to enter into somebody's frame of reference, I have to leave my interpretations behind. I have to leave my own story behind. I have to leave my own knowledge behind and have it right there and understand that I can use it, but not letting my knowledge blur my vision, for it not to narrow what is really happening here. So in order to really step into somebody's experience, it's more than empathy. Empathy is part of it, but it's really about, I am not at all. I have like this disciplined ignorance of I'm stepping in and I'm fully here with you without any judgment.

And who are you in there? And how do I begin to know that I can hold that and that it doesn't mean, oh, I know how you feel because I felt that. It's not that. I can have my own feelings of, I think I know what this feels like because I've had it, but it has nothing to do with what they're feeling,

and to put that aside and to know that that's my stuff. And so I think in part is that, and the other pieces that, which maybe relates to that is if I don't spill over any of my stuff, like they, they see me and I, they get me, but they don't have to take care of me. And I can even cry and say, I'm so moved by this, and it's okay. So we had a participant that said to me, he was a little bit worried that some of the things that he would share would be too much for me.

And he said, so what are you going to do? What are you going to feel like? What are you going to, what are you going to do? What are you going to feel like? What are you going to think of me if I tell you these really awful things that happened in war? And if I tell you these things about myself, like, what are you going to do? Like, are you going to be okay? Like, are you going to be able to just be okay and not be faced by that? And I thought I might have a really strong feeling about that. It might be really challenging and really hard.

And I can take care of myself. It's okay. I can take care of myself. But it might be really, really hard. We're going to talk about post as well, because I don't want to neglect that. But to dig a little bit deeper on the not making the session about you, right? Having all of these narratives about your own experience spill over.

Is there a place for sharing pieces of your own experience in a showing of vulnerability in the preparation? Or is it just like, I am a doctor authority figure and need to know basis as far as background. Is there a value in the preparatory sessions of sharing what has brought you there in addition to hearing what brought them there. Is there a value in that or does that contaminate the process in some fashion? In our phase two study, every time a participant came in,

you know, we didn't have a lot of media at the time. There wasn't a lot of stories that had been written about MDMA. Maps was not necessarily known by a lot of people, including some of the participants. They had never even heard of MAPS. They were just referred by somebody else. And they would come into the room and they would go,

wait, you're Marcela? Like, they were expecting me to be wearing, like, a white lab coat. And it was, like, it was really, like, interesting, you know, what they were expecting. And I think self-disclosure is very valuable and it also needs to be done with a lot of care so that it doesn't become about you. And when do you self-disclose and why are you self-disclosing? You know, are you doing it in service of you because you're uncomfortable and you need to do something with this? Or am I doing it in service of my participant

to normalize something and to share with them an experience that I'm having? And so I'm definitely not this kind of therapist. I think, I don't know which is better, but I'm just not. And I do self-disclose a lot. My clients know that I'm married, my kids. My co-therapist is my husband, and I, we talk about it sometimes, and we say, you know, we're married, and things come up in the session sometimes, like, oh, I disagree with you, and we talk through it, and they go, like, this is so

great that we're getting this experience of this reality. You mean you and your husband disagree in the session? Yeah. Oh, all right. What are the rules of engagement for that? Well, I'm still his boss. Like, no elbows, I'm guessing. Got to box, clean boxing. What would be an example of something you might disagree on? This is really interesting to me. On so many levels. It's just like levels upon levels of interesting. I don't remember the specifics, but one time I said something to the participant. I'm trying to think what it was.

Do you remember? No. And I was going in a direction. I didn't think I was going in a direction. Like, I didn't think I was going in a direction, but I was, even though, like, that's what I check myself with. It's like, why am I going in this direction? Like, are they taking me in this direction? And I thought the participant was taking me in this direction. And he thought the participant was taking us in a different direction. And he was able to say, well, I see this a little bit differently. I'm seeing this differently. And actually the participant went like, what? And then we had a

conversation about it. And he said his piece. And I said, well, I don't know. Like, I don't know about that. I wasn't convinced. And we worked with it and we worked with her. It wasn't like we got stuck on it. But later on, she was having an interview. Somebody was interviewing her and she talked about it. And she said, that was so great because it was like seeing these two people who clearly love each other and respect each other disagree and be okay and continue and still support each other and respect each other is something that I never saw growing up.

So it's like so valuable for her if it was done in this way that was genuine. Yeah, I can definitely see that. What does the post look like? And if we, just to tag, to put some hours on it, the three preparatory sessions are how long each? 90 minutes. 90 minutes. All right. So we got 90, 90, and then how many post or integration sessions are there? Three. Three, also 90 minutes each? Okay. so someone else can add that all up, but I just want to say one thing, which is if you are not willing to put that type of prep and post into anyone you sit for, you shouldn't be sitting for anyone. If it's like, oh, it's so

much time, oh, it's busy, look at my, this is a school night, blah, blah. If you have any excuses around it, you shouldn't be sitting for anybody. That's just my perspective. It's true. Because that's a hurdle that I think you should at least be able to clear before even considering this. And that's putting aside all of the homework and training and certification and so on. And you're still on call. Like that night, the evening of their sessions, you're on call And you're still on call. That night, the evening of their sessions, you're on call. You still make phone calls after their session for seven days. They can call you and say, I need an extra session or I'm struggling and you need to be present and go there. So it's a lot more than just the scheduled one sometimes. Right. That's the scheduled time. And I think it's worth pointing out also that if you are knowingly or unknowingly, and it could be unknowingly, working with someone who has

a history of trauma and possibly suicidal ideation, you could end up in some very challenging situations. And it is not always the case that people have, say, an MDMA-assisted psychotherapy session and then it's just smooth sailing for the next week. Most of the time it's not. It's not, right?

So could you talk to that? Because I think this is an aspect of the experience that is not discussed as often as it should. Yeah. And I do think, you know, I really appreciate stories that go out that the media does about MDMA. And one of the services is that a lot of times

they hook on these little words like it healed me or it was, you know, I got what I needed and I got cured. And so then people think like it's really easy or that MDMA is like this magic pill that's going to like really take this trauma away, which is not true. And a lot of times during training, trainees will say, wow, like, here's the integrative session after the treatment and people are suffering and people are really struggling. And they can feel a lot of activation.

And they can even feel like, even like sometimes their partners say to us, what are you doing to my partner? You know, what are you doing? She's in so much pain. He's in so much pain. And it's, if you think about trauma, like no matter how much you heal from trauma, if I think about my trauma, it's going to be painful. It's not going to be joyous and easy.

It's going to be painful. So bringing up the trauma, really experiencing, sometimes even getting, I think part of the healing that happens with MDMA is people no longer questioning that it happened and that it happened as violently as it did. And that they have sort of tried to question that, try to change the story. And all of a sudden the story can be changed. Here's your story. You know, that's what happened to me that first time. Here's your story actually. So, so then how could you possibly, like, if you're going through all that, it's, it's not going to be that the next day you're, oh, I'm fine. And it's great. It's that it is a process of holding, of really integrating what has happened in the session of getting to some place where they can begin to hold that experience and be able to hold their feelings and be able to, I mean, healing is about, I'm never, it's not about, I'm never going to be triggered. Healing is, I can get triggered and I can move through it. And maybe it's going to take me less time.

And maybe I'm not going to dissociate. And I can hold all of that experience and still have enough space to live a beautiful life. Yeah. Thank you. Where can people learn more about the resources that are available, the options that are available for exploring this work. Not necessarily deciding ahead of time

that this is what they should do or will do, but to better educate themselves to understand what's involved, to learn more. Yeah. You know, MAPS has a good library, right? Like reading a lot of the books there, but also there's some great articles that have been written

that you can look through, that you can see people's experiences. People have done beautiful work talking about their own experience and have really shared with others about their process. I know a lot of our participants have done that. And, you know, it's such an honor for them to share of themselves in this really, really vulnerable places. So I would say really read. Read about experiences that people have had.

Read about researchers writing about it. Educate yourself as much as you possibly can about the treatment that you want to do, about being a psychedelic therapist. And even though, you know, we don't have that now, I know CIIS, the Californian Institute, has a certificate program for research in psychedelics now. And I'm sure that that's going to grow. And I get a lot of emails of people asking me, where do I do, where do I go? And I explore it a little bit with them of what interests them. Maybe I think transpersonal psychology is a great way into it. But I also say

take a lot of, read articles, find out where the people who wrote those articles are from. If you really like those articles, if you feel like, oh, it's like-minded people, where are they? Are they, some of them are professors at universities where, oh, I can go and study with them instead of just going to a university where nobody is knowing about it, but yet you want to be a psychedelic therapist. So where there's other people who are already, you don't have to invent it. You're not alone. There's plenty. And there's a lot of support to learn and to really, you know, there's a new generation coming on, and I feel

like they're a little bit in a hurry, and I keep reminding them, like, I've done this for 35 years. I've waited 35 years. You can wait. It's okay. You can wait one more year. And since you mentioned transpersonal psychology, I'll just quote Stan Groff, whose advice at one point, people are like, what should we do next? What should we do next? This was recently, and he goes,

don't fuck it up. Yes. It's fine to move with purpose. It's generally not a good idea, and certainly not a good idea with these compounds to rush. No. The movie's not going to end

as a romantic comedy. It's going to end really poorly if people rush. And maps, people can find at maps.org. Yeah, I think, is it up there? Maybe Bryce can put it up.

Yeah, we'll also, for those people who are listening to this in audio, put all of the links and many additional resources on the website at tim.blog forward slash podcast. So if you go to tim.blog forward slash podcast, search Marcella,

M-A-R-C-E-L-L-A, probably easier than the last name, then it'll pop right up and I will gather resources that can act as starting points. Yeah. That's on the MAPS website, links to studies for those who want to become more familiar with study design, some of the results, the tools that are used for measurement and so on. There are a lot of very easy ways to get started. Yeah, I think maps.org forward slash training. And even

though we don't have the training set up yet for next year, you can still apply and we'll consider those applications. We'll keep them on file and we'll consider those applications. And like I said, by the end of this year, we'll have the list for next year and where there will be. And our trainings are roughly around 54, 55 trainees at a time. And then people will start knowing a little bit better. And in the meantime, gather your team. Or really look into the Maps website and see if there's an existing team that is wanting more people and that, you know, you don't want to have five sites in your city. You want to be able to consolidate and be able to say, let's work together if we have a common ground. And what I'll work with you and the MAPS team on afterwards is brainstorming options, like you mentioned, possible.

Chaplain A, B, having experiential options where people can take the boat out on the harbor and just do a couple of circles before they try to cross the Atlantic to make sure that they're okay with their sea legs and that it's actually something that when it's unsexy and when it's hard... Do you still want to do it?

They still want to do it. Kind of like marriage. Kind of like marriage. Yes. Molly, yeah, I got you. I'm still there. Yeah, Molly's still very attentive. She's in it with us.

Are there any books that have had an impact on your thinking in this space? And I'm just going to leave it very broad. Could be about anything. Could be art, could be Claudio Naranjo. We talked about that book a bit earlier, which I personally found very, very interesting. Which one?

The Healing Journey. Yes. And looks at some very, very interesting compounds. Not only the compounds, but the session content, including the dead ends, including challenges, right? It's not just the highlight reel, which I really appreciate about that book. Are there any books that have really influenced your thinking or your trajectory as it relates to the work? I have dyslexia, so I'm really bad with names. So I don't know if I'm going to remember, but I know Bruce Tift. He is in Boulder, Colorado, and he wrote a book called Already Free.

Already Free. Yes. Bruce Tift? Uh-huh. Tift. And he combines Buddhism and psychotherapy. And it's really a wonderful combination of being able to marry these two of being present. You know, how are we present with what's happening in the moment? So I think his book is really, really good. And I'm trying to think in terms of, I mean, I think, you know, I notice every time that we show, we do trainings or we do workshops, we always put up poetry that really speaks to what we're trying to say.

So like when we're talking about the inner healer, we put up poetry about that kind of speaks to that. And I think poetry is so important because it really does actually talk about some of these experiences about, about, um, doing, uh, being inner directed about your inner healer, about your compassion, about your love, about where to come from that. So I think it's doing the work. I think Stan Grof's work is amazing and his books are very powerful and so helpful, right? That we can really refer to some of his modality

and what he's done in his trajectory of life I think is incredible. And so people like that, I'm trying to think Do you have any favorite poets? I do Let's

tell me more Octavio Paz Octavio Paz He's a favorite, Pablo Neruda is a favorite I really like Isabel Allende I mean she's a writer What's really like Isabella Allende. I mean, she's a writer, but... What's her last name? Allende. Allende. Uh-huh.

Double L. Yes. Allende. Two L's. A-L-L. Uh-huh. She's incredible, and she really is this, you know, powerful, powerful woman who can really speak to honoring people's experience and doing it through,

you know, I'm a Colombian, so I really do see things through images and fantasy. And those fantasies are actually true. Like my husband doesn't believe me, but some of those things are true, even though they sound like really fantastic, they're actually true. And so not just reading about psychology. That's, I just think that's not my path. I just think that there's so many other places. Science. I can't remember who said, was so helpful for me in doing research. Because, you know, holding research and holding a person, it's a real balance. This is the research part. This is the part that I need to do, that I need to treat them all the same. And this is the part that is an individual, right?

And it's this balance. And I was having a really hard time with that. I didn't know quite how to manage it. And I read a scientific journal that said, he said, science is an organized kind of wonder. And that made so much sense to marry these two, right? That's a great quote. And it's also very helpful for people who may be on the non-clinical path currently

to at least understand the vocabulary of a scientific study. It's really helpful. And there's a book called Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, which has a number of chapters that are really helpful for becoming scientifically literate in an unintimidating way and a very practical way. You can use it immediately in reading any newspaper, any article that makes any claims related to health. And then Peter Atiyah, M-D-A-T-I-A, Peter Atiyah, M-D, his website's same, petertiamdi.com, has a series of articles called,

I believe it's Studying the Studies, which teaches you how to read studies. And it's an exceptional series of articles that you can find for free, which helps you to realize if you may have, through your own experience, developed perhaps an anti, what you might call western scientific angle

that science is not shouldn't be a set of dogma right as you said it's sort of an organized way to wonder and scratch that itch yeah in a way that can then be replicated and tested so that you know what you know when you know it, if that makes any sense. So you have a certainty of knowing, which is very challenging in this space. There's so many possible variables. It really, really matters that you pay attention to the details and follow protocol, but it can be incredibly challenging when you have the science and the art, which in fact do not need to be at odds. And then you can, I mean, it's important to read about science and the research about psychedelics, but I think science about something else. I've learned so much about science through people who have done studies with certain animals or certain species or plants,

and they've done these studies, and it's so fascinating to really incorporate that and to really bring it. It just brings some freshness into it that you can say, oh, that makes perfect sense. I'm going to utilize that to understand this psychedelic research. Yeah, and what's so fun about this conversation conversation and we're we're out of time so

we'll wrap up for me is is seeing the the micro and the macro and the macro and the micro in the sense that you're describing how you develop the skills that you have which was borrowing liberally and and traveling these indirect but highly relevant paths, incorporating different techniques from different areas. And in a sense, in a given session, you also have to be good at coming at things from different angles and looking at them from different perspectives.

So you see it in both. And you're incredibly gifted and more than incredibly gifted at what you do. You're very well practiced and deliberate with what you do. And through your own pain and suffering, I found a way to transmute, as you said, that into something really valuable and powerful for other people who are in pain. And there are a lot of people. I think that's pretty much everyone who is born a human.

And you're putting a real positive dent in the world. So thank you very much. And I really appreciate you taking the time on stage with me and Molly. I didn't throw up on you. Thank you very much. Muchas gracias. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found

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