Podcast episode in which Dr. Aaron Hartman discusses the therapeutic potential and risks of psychedelic medicines (psilocybin, ketamine, ibogaine, ayahuasca) for treating trauma, PTSD, dissociation, and related ‘trauma brains’. He reviews evidence that some psychedelics show strong efficacy compared with current drugs, emphasizes the need for trained guidance and safety, notes regulatory status, and references his book Uncurable as a related resource.
Chapters
We got a lot of stuff going on in the culture right now. And so what happens is when you get these trauma brains, your brain gets stuck in fight or flight. Now if you had bad things happen to you when you're super young, you can have disassociation and you can't really remember stuff. And so it's almost like you have this mind body split. And that's where psychedelics can be helpful. But psychedelic medication, if you look at the literature and how well they actually work, they work better than most drugs in the market. Hopefully in the near future. It looks like we have some in the pipeline, will be approved soon. Until then, these are not FDA approved, which means you're not supposed to use them, obviously foreign. I want to talk briefly about psychedelics. My mental health, which is a big topic right now. There's a lot of. There's actually training through American Academy of Anti Aging and Regenerative Medicine, which is where I did one of my board certification trainings through in psychedelic dental medicine. It's a big deal. I think part of the reason why it's a big deal is because so many people have trauma. So many people have limbic kindling issues, have vagal nerve dysfunction. It's basically trauma brains. We have trauma brains. Whether it's from the pandemic or from. I think the numbers right now are something like 20% of women have been sexually abused and 10% of men have. So that's a lot of people that have had stuff happen to them. Then you throw like life on top of that. Medical illness, medical trauma. We got a lot of stuff going on in the culture right now. And so what happens is when you get these trauma brains, your brain gets stuck in fight or flight. Now if you had bad things happen to you when you're super young, you can have disassociation and you can't really remember stuff. And so it's almost like you have this mind body split. Other people, they're older, they just get stuck in these, these panic cycles they can't get out of. And so how do you get out of these things? And that's where psychedelics can be helpful. But caveat I want to start with is1, these are not FDA approved. You should never try these without actually you should never try these based on the fda, the government. So you should always listen to your government, the fda, of course, I would never recommend you doing that because you should never do anything your government and the FDA says you shouldn't do. And now we keep on moving on. So the Psilocybin is one that's been researched a ton. And actually I think Timothy Leary back at Harvard back in the 60s maybe was one of the original pioneers in this. There's been a lot of interesting research actually with this benefit and even microdosing. There's one interesting study looking at microdosing of psilocybin like 500 milligram with actually using brain tap with some pretty significant impact on people. But the thing with is like the psychedelics allow you almost like one of my patients described it, with one journey you can get the equivalent of like two years of psychotherapy and a journey. And that's kind of when you kind of reset your brain. That's kind of what happens. Psilocybin is one of the more common ones people know about youasca. Ketamine actually is the only FDA approved psychedelic right now. And you can get the actually do the iv. There's IV clinics to do it. And basically, you know, ketamine actually causes a split. You actually go have a dissociation associated state. When it comes back together, it affects your brain's neural networks. There's this thing called the relay mode network in your head and you're placed in your brain where stuff kind of integrates.
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And when you use the psychedelic, it actually helps reset these centers. The issues with psychedelics can be however that you can't have pretty crazy experiences, particularly with some of the ones like Ivergine or Iasca. You have to be careful. You have to if you do it. My patients experience have been that when they do that. You need to be in the right situation with the right like guide because if you do it, you don't have that. You can actually have a horrible experience that can make your trauma worse. That's the one thing you don't hear people talk about a whole lot is people who go do this kind of willy nilly do ICA and they have a horrible experience doing the psychedelics trip with lsd, whatever. And the thing about these, all these are laced as well and there are certain ones that actually have caused people to have Parkinson's like stuff. So we really need to make sure that you're working with someone who's experienced in the usage of these things. There are, there are practitioners that are trained in and you also use the safest thing you can use possible. I did one of these little short things before talking about medical errors, the third most common cause of death in our country. And so some things have been around forever like psilocybin, means mushroom. Ketamines has a lot of research behind it. They're ones that are safer and there are ones that are more available. But the thing about it is you need to make sure if you decide that you're working with a trained practitioner, God psychologist who can deal with someone if you have an event. Because when those happen, they can be traumatic on their own. But psychedelic medication, if you look at the literature and how well they actually work, they work better than most drugs in the market we have. We don't have drugs that work as well as for PTSD as psilocybin and ketamine and ibogaine and some of these other really potent psychedelics. So that's something to keep in mind as well. Hopefully in the near future. It looks like we have some in the in the pipeline, will be approved soon. Until then, these are not FDA approved, which means you're not supposed to use them. Obviously having said that, a lot of people have had great results with them, particularly military people with ptsd, concussions and so things to think about and some of my patients that I've used them have had pretty profound responses with. So hopefully I answer some of your questions. This was actually posted to us, asked by someone. So I decided to take a little deep dive into this. If this is helpful, please share. If you have other questions, things you like to talk about, show those as well and we'll take another deep dive this topic with you. Take care, we'll talk to you soon.
