They Show You You: Myriam Barthes on Integration and Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy

Travis Heath (00:10)

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Therapist Confidential Podcast. I’m your host, Travis Heath, and today I’m joined by Myriam Barthes, co-founder of Journey Clinical, which is a network supporting therapists providing ketamine assisted psychotherapy. Now, Myriam came to this work in an interesting way. Like her background is in strategy consulting and artificial intelligence. I don’t even know what that means. I mean, I know artificial intelligence, so she’s smarter than me with all that stuff, but. Her own experience with ketamine assisted therapy really helped shift the direction of her life and work.

So today we get to talk about psychedelics and psychotherapy. And I’m sure many of you out there are hearing more and more about this. Just the other day with a client I’m working with, I heard, this person’s considering psychedelic treatment. so. Gosh, 10 years ago I heard very little about this and now I seem to be hearing about it weekly if not daily. So maybe we’ll consider what these medicines might make possible. Is there hype around this that’s getting ahead of the science? I don’t know. And what psychedelics might be able to teach us about people and change? Myriam, welcome to the podcast.

Myriam Barthes (01:21)

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Travis Heath (01:25)

Yeah, I’m wondering if you could start, I mean, I gave a quick bio there, but I’m wondering if you could start by telling folks a little bit more about you and your background.

Myriam Barthes (01:34)

Yeah, I think you were kind of spot on. So, you know, my my career really started. I actually started in in finance, believe it or not, in finance and then management consulting for many, many years, where I would say what I learned there was solving problems and then applying that to AI before AI became what it is today. But it it wasn’t so different than consulting. It was still solving problem simply with different tools. And so in my personal journey with psychedelic medicines and and why I ended up building that is that while I was having that career, I also had a pretty serious car accident and first had to do a lot of physical rehabilitation and and recovery simply to have a normal range of movement.

And after that, I realized that I still had like quite a lot of trauma. from the car accident and from, you know, especially the metal sounds. and so this is how psychedelic medicines were really introduced to me. It was through my journey of healing that trauma. And it was so incredible and beautiful because it worked. And it worked so quickly. And I couldn’t

Travis Heath (02:47)

.

Myriam Barthes (02:54)

believe it. You know, I was I was like, what? Like Yeah, how is it possible? Like six sessions and it’s all gone. and then from there really became this this journey of understanding what that was, understanding the benefits, understanding the risks, understanding what it could do. And I kind of started to speak to both doctors and psychotherapists to understand why these treatments were not widely available. We had ketamine, it’s been FD approved since the 70s, and so.

Travis Heath (03:14)

Uh-huh.

Myriam Barthes (03:30)

I what became very interesting, and this is really the journey of journey at this point, was that when we started having conversation with therapists, what we understood is that they needed to partner with a psychiatrist to deliver these treatments because these are really treatments that include both psychiatry and psychotherapy. This is a medication and psychotherapy. And so we started to build this collaborative care model, including both providers to help clients really feel better. And then after that it took us, you know, of course, a a little bit of time, but we build training and education for therapists. We actually added commercial insurance

Travis Heath (04:13)

you

Myriam Barthes (04:13)

and we’re adding Medicare as well as resource and community. Something that we learned very early on was that therapists were pretty lonely and that this work, especially as you enter pretty sensitive spaces,

Travis Heath (04:23)

Okay.

Myriam Barthes (04:28)

and there’s a lot of material and content that comes up is that therapists need not only training to start, but training and education in an ongoing way. So peer consultation groups became a really important part of Journey Clinical and talking through the experiences that come up for the therapists and their clients. And so here we are today with you know, we have been working with ketamine assist at psychotherapy for about five years, sprovado as well, more recently.

Travis Heath (05:07)

Okay.

Myriam Barthes (04:55)

And we’re expecting an FD approval of comp 360 psilocybin in about 60 days. So before the end of the year is really the manufacturer’s timeline, Q4. And what that means is you now we’re gonna have psilocybin, and that’s going to be another psychedelic that we can work with, probably followed by, you know, there are about a hundred clinical trials. for psychedelic drugs. So there is MDMA, there is DMT, there is also actually another form of psilocybin for different indication. And so what we’re seeing is only the very, very beginning of a field that’s so helpful for clinicians and for patients, for clinicians because it gives them one more modality that they can integrate into their practice.

And for patients, the research has is quite overwhelming around the efficacy. of these treatments and at Journey Clinical, eighty seven percent of patient reporting c improvement in clinical outcomes and forty percent report full remission, which is quite beautiful.

Travis Heath (06:05)

Now, if I’m probing in a direction that feels uncomfortable, just tell me and I’ll stop. But

Myriam Barthes (06:09)

Yeah.

Travis Heath (06:09)

I’m curious, you were talking about your own experience with this. And I think you mentioned six sessions and it sounds like there was like this profound impact for you. And I’m wondering if you could share a little deeper about like what specifically happened and what felt so profound about the treatments for you.

Myriam Barthes (06:32)

Such a good question, and it’s it’s hard because a word that is commonly used with psychedelics is ineffable. The the experiences are very hard to describe in and of themselves. And so that’s why for us it’s so important to pair the psychedelic experience and the psychedelic medicine with psychotherapy, because it can take When you’re trying to create meaning out of these experiences, when you’re trying to integrate insights into the the daily life, it’s actually not a linear path. It’s very much we all we often say it gets worse before it gets better, but I think there’s some truth to that.

And so when I think about the psychedelic experience, I can’t just think about it. As a standalone experience, it is very much this preparation dosing integration framework that we work with at Journey Clinical. And that is so important because what are your intentions? Why are you doing this? Then you have these subjective experiences. And then from there, you you with your therapist, you actually try to create meaning and insights. And that meaning evolves over time. So something that meant something at the beginning. through your life and through your own interpretation changes. and that’s why I use this word ineffable because you

Travis Heath (08:05)

you

Myriam Barthes (08:05)

can talk about perceptions and bodily sensations and visions, but at the end of the day, it really about how do we serve humans to be whole? and how can we integrate different parts of ourselves that’s the psychedelic medicine show us. I think psychedelic, and this is actually an interesting concept, are neutral. I think there is a neutrality to them and they amplify. They amplify people. They amplify our psyche. They amplify what exists within us. They and and because they lower defenses, they allow us to see and feel into parts of the parts of ourselves that we often have spent many, many years avoiding or repressing or you know w not loving like these parts of us that we’ve kind of put to the side and and so they simply show us who we are, who

Travis Heath (09:06)

Thanks.

Myriam Barthes (09:10)

we already were all along. And and then this is this is the work with the psychotherapy of how do we integrate all of this material and this content and these insights that come up and How do we help people live better lives?

Travis Heath (09:25)

Yeah, it’s interesting because I’ve had a number of folks I’ve worked with over years who, they didn’t use the word ineffable, but this is what they meant. Like they couldn’t put words to their experience, right? But they would know something profound. occurred, but it was just, it was hard to speak about it. So that makes me curious about the integration of the psychotherapy part. So can you talk more about like these experiences that can often feel ineffable and then the psychotherapy part, which often I would assume involves talking like the sort of marriage between those two, if that makes sense. I’m curious about.

Myriam Barthes (10:07)

Yeah, it’s a it’s a great question. And what we see is the psychedelic journey itself is typically an inward experience. So it’s it’s you with yourself. Some people wear eye mask, there is often during a dosing experience music. it’s also like set and setting is really important for the experience. So The relationship and the rapport between the therapist and the client and creating safety for the client is really important. the the light is dimmed, the people have eye masks, there is a music that the client chooses that could be meaningful to them.

Some people even sometimes bring objects that are meaningful to them for that experience. So this very much an inward journey, and we’re all unique. So everybody has a as has a different journey. You hear themes across different people,

Travis Heath (11:04)

Mm-hmm.

Myriam Barthes (11:10)

but again, this is a subjective experience. So I think that sometimes putting words and trying to describe reduces that experience and and we don’t want to reduce the experience. and then that is contrasted with preparation

Travis Heath (11:23)

Mm-hmm.

Myriam Barthes (11:33)

and integration, which is very much being in active talk therapy with your therapist. and so you go from being really silent and inward to then engaging with the therapist and sharing

Travis Heath (11:47)

So,

Myriam Barthes (11:49)

Sharing insights, emotional insights, relational insights, fears, you know, often again fear, fears come up, shame comes up, guilt comes up. And so you can have this dense content that comes through these experiences. And what we’ve also learned is that creating the safety to feel those. deep feeling of shame and guilt and the fears and the sadness and the sorrow and the rage. Like really creating a a container where all of that can be felt without judgments is so important because then you can you can move through it.

For for the client, then they can actually move through it, then they can talk about it. And what’s so beautiful if you you know, follow clients over, I don’t know, let’s say a period of a year, you actually see like quite tangible changes in their lives. Like they’re in a relationship, or they ended a relationship, or they changed careers, or there there’s actually change that happens because people can move through places within themselves that have been quite blocked. And we actually often hear

Travis Heath (13:00)

Okay.

Myriam Barthes (13:11)

from therapists that When you know, because it’s always a question, when do I bring it up to my client? When do I not bring it up? And a kind of opening window is always somebody who repeats, I’m stuck, I feel really stuck. and that is a place where we know that this these treatments, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, can really help and can help people feel unstuck. And also with the therapist, when we actually started, I remember some therapists feel really burnt.

Travis Heath (13:23)

So

Myriam Barthes (13:42)

out because when you’re tr you’re you’re working with a client, the client is stuck in the same place. It’s it’s also you have compassion fatigue and it’s also hard for the therapist. so this modality helps both the client and the therapist in practice.

Travis Heath (14:03)

Yeah, I’m wondering because, well, I guess it depends where you live, but depending on where you live, psychedelics are pretty widely available, right, in a lot of places. And I’m wondering if you could talk some about the difference between psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and someone who maybe is keen to some of this and wants some of the same benefits, but just sort of… does it at home on their couch sort of thing. I’m wondering if you can talk about some of the differences and maybe you’ve mentioned the efficacy of it. mean, is there something about psychedelic assisted psychotherapy that’s more efficacious than a person going on their own journey on their couch at home?

Myriam Barthes (14:49)

Yeah, it’s it’s an interest interesting question and highly debated one too.

Travis Heath (14:56)

Mm-hmm.

Myriam Barthes (14:57)

there was a conference at Horizons last week and because the the n the neurochemical effects of psychedelic medicines are very powerful and with ketamine, for example, we see clients having rapid relief within twenty four hours, and that is that’s why it’s also used in the emergency room. as a and it’s a safe, it’s a quite it has a safe profile

Travis Heath (15:24)

Thanks.

Myriam Barthes (15:26)

as a as a drug. And so there are the effects of the drug themselves. And what we believe at Journey Clinical, and this is very much our ethos, this is why we created the company, is that when you pair them with psychotherapy, then you have people that are more engaged in psychotherapy, that are more engaged in their own healing process, that You know, you could have

Travis Heath (15:51)

you

Myriam Barthes (15:53)

one ego death after another, after another, after another, after another. Your life is not going to improve if you’re not integrating that into yourself, if you’re not if you’re not actually making changes. And so that that’s why for us the the integration of psychotherapy with the medicine is is really at at at the heart of it is the question of how do we help people live fuller lives, more integrated lives. How do we help people feel whole? and Of course, as you said, these medicines are widely available in many different places through different regulatory pathways.

You even have state state pathways, you have FDA pathway, you have international locations where the legality is also different. but I think when we are intentional, and this is again why we work with preparation, dosing,

Travis Heath (16:52)

Mm-hmm.

Myriam Barthes (17:00)

integration, when we’re intentional about the use. The therapeutic cues of psychedelic medicine, what you bring to it is something different. You you you want to change, you want to feel better, you don’t want to be stuck anymore. And so it we know that the your your own the desire to feel better is actually such a strong indicator of actu of actually getting better. And I don’t know how the world is gonna evolve and and all the ways in which psychedelics will be available in the world.

But I I think this is a the therapeutic use of psychedelic medicine is one specific application of the potential of these medicines. But truly, I think, for example, there might be other applications that we don’t know yet. If you actually look at the research, especially, for example, with iboga or ayahuasca or some other of these compounds, we don’t entirely understand them. We don’t entirely how understand how they operate. And so we might find in a couple of years that these are very effective with inflammation, or we might find that they have other properties.

So I actually believe we’re at the beginning of understanding the depth of the meta of these medicines and what are the many different applications that can exist with them.

Travis Heath (18:24)

You used a phrase there ego death it was just in in the process of explaining something and I hear this phrase tossed around more and more right and even people Who are considering? Psychedelic treatments will say that and I’m not even sure if they know what it is that they’re saying or if Mental health professionals are exactly sure what that means, but yet that term seems to come up so often When talking about psychedelics, I’m wondering if you could talk more about your understanding of that term and maybe why it’s.

Myriam Barthes (18:59)

Yeah, and maybe I can talk about a few different things that are related to that because it’s it’s

Travis Heath (19:04)

Mm-hmm.

Myriam Barthes (19:05)

not the ego death in itself that’s important, it’s expectation that I think is is more interesting to work with.

Travis Heath (19:11)

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Myriam Barthes (19:15)

So what we see, and this is actually quite important in the contact in the context of psychotherapy, is in you know this with transference and counter-transference, we we see a lot of Both the hype and the fear exist around psychedelic medicine. And the fear

Travis Heath (19:42)

Hmph.

Myriam Barthes (19:42)

is this is demonic, I will never be doing this, this is horrible. And then the hype is I will take this pill and my life is gonna magically be wonderful. And neither of these perspectives are true.

Travis Heath (19:56)

Mmm, mhm.

Myriam Barthes (19:57)

It really all psychedelic medicines do is they show you you and they bring you back to you. And so when we And we this is so much of the work that our therapist and our medical team does is working with expectations. So when people come in, they say, I want to have a big experience, I want to have an ego death. They could say the reverse. They could say, I’m terrified. I just mean like I I just want to have the smallest experience. And then this is where the material becomes interesting in psychotherapy, because if you want a big experience and you don’t have a big experience.

Travis Heath (20:32)

Hmm.

Myriam Barthes (20:33)

And they’re like, well, because the dose wasn’t high enough, but the dose was fine. The dose was dosed appropriately. And then that’s exactly what you want to work on. Why did you want to why did you want more? Why did you want an ego death? And to your point, ego death can can mean something different. What does ego death mean to you? Why do you think that’s

Travis Heath (20:53)

Hmm?

Myriam Barthes (20:56)

relevant or that’s important? And this is, I think, the therapeutic work where you can really enter into. People’s intentions and motivations and aspirations and fears. And so we really work with that a lot. And there is so much work that can be done simply around expectations. Because ultimately, when you

Travis Heath (21:18)

.

Myriam Barthes (21:19)

come into that experience, it’s simply, I am open to receive the experience that will come.

Travis Heath (21:27)

Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. I appreciate the binary there that you’re challenging, you know, this idea of the hype around it, but also the extreme skepticism. I’m wondering, this is my experience. It’s anecdotal, but it seems like in our field, at least in this is true. Usually the people that are most vocal are on the edges of the, you know, the conversation, right? But. I’ve heard some very vocal skeptics, psychotherapists, you mental health professionals who are skeptical about this. And then I’ve heard others who are seen closer to the side of like, this is a wonder drug or these sets of drugs are wonder drugs.

And I’m wondering if you could speak more first to therapists, mental health professionals who might be skeptical about this. And I wonder, I wonder, If one reason why they’re skeptical and I’m more than wonder because I’ve heard people allude to this. Well, if these drugs are really good at what they do, then what what the hell’s the point of a psychotherapist anymore? Maybe the drug does what it needs to do and psychotherapists become obsolete. I suspect that that is a fear that some therapists have that lead to skepticism.

Now, there could be other reasons for skepticism. We have a long history, at least in the United States. I’m sure this happens other places, but I grew up in the United States of moralizing chemicals and things of that nature. But I’m wondering if you could speak some to this skepticism that certainly some therapists, mental health professionals seem to have around these treatments.

Myriam Barthes (23:04)

Was skeptical. I

Travis Heath (23:06)

Mmm.

Myriam Barthes (23:07)

was skeptical. I was like, really? Until I experienced it myself. But I was very skeptical. And I want to say to the people who are skeptical: skepticism can be quite healthy. Skepticism is also a way to build your own safety and to do the research that you need, to read the paper that you need, to return to attend the conference that you need, to speak to. your peers that have done this and have had their own experience, the peers that are practicing, skepticism I think it is healthy, is and is certainly part of a human condition.

And so it’s actually skepticism, I think, can give us a really good path, and we each have our own unique path to build safety, to see what do you need to be comfortable with this. And sometimes that path can be fast, sometimes that path can be slow. And I think all of it needs to be honored as as it is. And you know, not all therapists in America need to adopt and integrate psychedelic therapy into their own practice

Travis Heath (24:15)

you

Myriam Barthes (24:17)

because this is one more tool in their toolkit, truly. And so I think what’s one thing that I could imagine this will evolve into is There will be in a journey clinical, we already have 3,000 therapists that practice psychedelic therapy today. but I could imagine that there are the therapists that do practice, and then the therapists that say, I have another specialty, I work on with other tools, and I’m going to refer into my colleagues that are experts and that practice that for this treatment.

So I could I could totally see just. You know, just like EMDR or or IFS or other modalities, where not every therapist has to be practicing every modality, but truly do what feels right for their own practice, also the their their clients. It depends which type of clients you see.

Travis Heath (25:12)

Well, this is interesting because I was going to ask you about the most efficacious ways to assess whether people are good candidates. for psychedelic assisted psychotherapy? Like are there folks who maybe are better candidates that have a certain profile and other folks that aren’t as good? What’s your sense of that?

Myriam Barthes (25:34)

Yeah, I actually wrote a blog about it on our website

Travis Heath (25:37)

Okay.

Myriam Barthes (25:37)

with our clinical director who is a good candidate and who isn’t. and this is where the medical team is really important. So the medical team will do a full medical intake consultation with clients to assess and they will go over medical history, psychiatric history, medication history, family history to assess eligibility. And not everybody’s eligible. sometimes people are not eligible for medical reasons, and sometimes people are not eligible for psychiatric reasons, and some other times there is also is the person’s environment, there’s their question of the the right having a support system, because as we know, this is integrated into people’s lives. So the medical team truly before you start treatment, you need to be seen by a medical professional

Travis Heath (26:27)

.

Myriam Barthes (26:30)

to assess eligibility. Typically, so for ketamine access to psychotherapy, I would say depression, treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, PTSD, CPTSD tend to be again. This I’m making a very broad and and comment. Like I would encourage everybody to one like read more information. Again, I’ve we wrote a blog about it, and they need to be seen by a medical professional. I’m just trying to give you a l a landscape.

Travis Heath (26:34)

Mm-hmm.

Myriam Barthes (27:03)

so that’s for ketamine psychotherapy. Now for sprovato, for example, it’s treatment resistant depression as well as MDD with suicidal ideation. What we know of COMP 360, which is the salicebin that will be FDA approved this year, is going to be also for treatment resistant depression. and the another there there are a couple again, all of the the companies that are in clinical trial phase two, phase three. are typically applying for one indication. So what you’ll end up seeing is different compounds for slightly different indication that will come through the the pipeline.

Again, this like I’m stuck, like for a therapist, like the hearing the I’m stuck tends to be a really good doorway into at least bringing this up as a treatment option. Right. I think that’s an important thing is this exists. This is available. It may or may not be appropriate for everybody, but it’s there and we want and we need people to to know about it. Because also, like what I’ve seen is people who go 15 years and they try psychotherapy and they try medication and they try lifestyle and yoga, and really they’ll try anything for 15 years.

And they and then they wait 15 years and then they hear about psychedelic therapy. And then they do it. I think we don’t need to wait so long and be stuck for so long in life before exploring if this treatment could be appropriate for the client.

Travis Heath (28:46)

I’m gonna move back just a little because you had used the word integration earlier in something you were saying, which is another word that I hear a lot around these treatments. I’m wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about what that means for folks who may not know when you’re talking about integration within the treatment, like what it actually looks like and help us understand like why that’s an important part of the process.

Myriam Barthes (29:15)

So when you have these ineffable experiences and you see something, you feel something, you have an insight that comes up. Then the the question is okay what what what is it? What does this mean? What does this mean to me? Like exploring the meaning of that insight. Exploring it really is actually it’s a it really is an exploration. I think integration is is the exploration of of that experience once you’re out of the experience and also like what stays with you.

Travis Heath (29:59)

.

Myriam Barthes (30:01)

Like something in that experience that could have felt really profound and something that could have felt very simple. At the end of the day, those things might might be in reverse where the really simple insight actually becomes something quite important to your life. So I think it’s the the attempt to translate insight into meaning. And translate meaning into change. And that again, as I said before, is absolutely not a straightforward path. So for example, we had and I’ll talk about two two stories, two two patients that have been public about their their experiences with Journey Clinical.

One is an artist, and she did ketamine acid psychotherapy with her therapist. And then over the period of a year, she started to paint her experiences, what she saw in these experiences. And then over time, she kind of went back saying, like, I I realize I always loved painting. And so that

Travis Heath (31:14)

you

Myriam Barthes (31:15)

became a meaning on its own. And now she’s hosting her art in a gallery in a show. And and

Travis Heath (31:22)

.

Myriam Barthes (31:24)

Guarantee you that will continue to evolve. Like what that actually means to her will continue to evolve. But what I’ve heard from her is I’m now in charge of my own life. and and that was like a quite quite a big deal because she didn’t trust herself earlier on. And then she went into

Travis Heath (31:35)

Hmm.

Myriam Barthes (31:41)

this exploration through arts in integration. And and today she said, Okay, I’m I’m having this gallery with my art, and I feel really in charge of my life. And That is what integration can look like for one person. We had another person, it was a veteran and somebody with history of of PTSD who couldn’t get out of his house. And so for him, integration

Travis Heath (32:01)

Thank

Myriam Barthes (32:09)

actually meant I was able to leave my house. And the most beautiful moment that he shared was I was able to walk my daughter down the aisle. And that that is integration. And so for every one of us, integration can translate into different actions into our lives. But it’s it’s simply what what it’s trying to do is not leave the psychedelic experience in the realm of simply the experience for the beauty and the

Travis Heath (32:42)

you

Myriam Barthes (32:43)

pain that it can be, but bringing it into the body, bringing it into tangible. daily life and what you actually see, which I’m always I always think this is interesting. People always talk about breakthrough therapy, breakthrough therapy. And I’m like, this is

Travis Heath (33:05)

and

Myriam Barthes (33:06)

not about breakthrough therapy. This is about finding awe in in the ordinary moment. Somebody who now has a cup of coffee in the morning and really delights in that experience or somebody who that didn’t feel safe in their own body and and kind of can just walk around without looking left and right to see if if there’s danger. so it’s a lot more subtle and it’s a lot more

Travis Heath (33:34)

Thanks.

Myriam Barthes (33:36)

ordinary, but this is this is what we want to remember, is that it is all in like ordinary life and that’s where the the magic really is.

Travis Heath (33:49)

I think one of the fears that some folks have, maybe some of these folks are clinicians, maybe some aren’t, but is this idea of like the bad trip, right? Like, so what happens when this doesn’t go well and it isn’t magical? I mean, I’m wondering if you can speak some to the actual risks of that and to like, when they actually occur, like how that’s dealt with in this setting.

Myriam Barthes (34:18)

This is so important and I think is these are the cat like difficult experiences are catalysts for change in many, many, many ways. And so what a difficult experience typically is is resisting the experience itself. And this is why I was talking about expectations before, because there is an element to we set intention, but then we release them and we accept to receive the experience as it is. And that again, the difficult the difficult experience will likely emerge from the resistance to the experience. Because the experience isn’t

Travis Heath (35:03)

Hmm.

Myriam Barthes (35:07)

all magical. It’s like life. It’s the dark and the light. And so you see the pain and you see the joy and you see the sorrow and you see the beauty and you see we live in this world. And so all again, psychedelics are neutral. And so they simply amplify the reality and the world in which we live. And so when somebody has a difficult experience, this is off long term, these are the most potent therapeutic Openings because tr like a tremendous amount of fear, terror, like these things that emerge, they emerge in life too. And so then this is that’s why I often say it gets worse before it gets better, because whether it’s in the dosing

Travis Heath (35:58)

you

Myriam Barthes (35:59)

session itself or after the dosing session or before the dosing session, right? There’s the anticipation of the experience and the fear. And so Then this is actually one of the big reason why it was very important in the journey clinical to empower the therapist to do this work is because is the is recognizing that these are very potent moments and that if you make the client feel very, very, very safe and health and the container is strong, then you can actually work with that in therapy.

and so Yeah, I think these are very put potent moments that n require skill. Right. This is why we have men licensed mental health professionals. You went to school for a long time, you’re trained to handle the the difficult aspects of our humanity.

Travis Heath (36:56)

Hmm.

Myriam Barthes (36:59)

And so Yeah, we we had, you know, one time therapist reported a a client with sexual trauma and they years of of shame and guilt, years, ten years, fifteen years of shame and guilt and hiding. And the preparation they they work through revisiting that experience in this really safe container. And the client was able to feel all the shame and all the guilt and it wasn’t an easy experience. It was because that experience was was horrible. And so after that, and you hear that often, something lifted.

Something lifted, something that I’ve been carrying in me for so long, lifted. And and that is, and then they work through therapy around like for for years. Again, what this means, how how you want to change your life. And I believe that person over time actually Walked away from a relationship, got a new job,

Travis Heath (38:05)

you

Myriam Barthes (38:06)

moved like there were so many changes that actually came out of that experience. But because the therapist was really skilled and knew that, you know, we’re humans, there’s the dark and the lights, and they and they both come up in decision.

Travis Heath (38:24)

Yeah, it’s interesting because in a lot of ways these drugs are considered counterculture, right? And now I think they still might be counterculture. mean, who gets to decide when it crosses over that threshold, right? But there’s certainly, outside of counterculture, it seems that there’s more conversation about them or access to them. And so I’m wondering about that shift, you know, because I think one area where people get skeptical too. I mean, there are people in our field skeptical of counterculture drugs, but there are also people skeptical of when those drugs.

become part of the machine. Do know what I mean? And now psychedelics, you know, are being commercialized and, you know, people worry about the FDA and this sort of when these drugs get tangled up in these systems. And so I’m wondering if you can talk some about that tension of like counterculture to almost like commercialization of psychedelics.

Myriam Barthes (39:34)

I think it’s such an important tension, and I will say I believe the entire field of psychedelic medicine is full of tensions. This is only one of the many tensions that exist. So we can explore that tension, but there are many others. and I I think the reason why these medicines are are becoming more and more talked about is that people are suffering. I think there’s there’s there are a lot of people suffering. And we also know that there’s been quite little innovation and in in many cases for a number of conditions, there they’re very few treatment options.

And so I believe that what Secretary will give us is one potential options for people where you don’t have to either travel or do this underground or where you can simply go to your therapist and do that like you would do any other kind of treatment. And so I think we’re we’re in a place in our world where people are suffering and and need options. And I think that’s why psychedelic medicines are now being talked about much, much more than they were.

I think people are are recognizing that Life can be painful and and and difficult. And I’m actually curious because psychotherapy too took some time, right, to to adopt. And so I believe like

Travis Heath (41:03)

you

Myriam Barthes (41:04)

every time we have a new options, you’re gonna go through this adoption of like and and the the the arguments and the debates on both sides. And perhaps I would even say, that’s part of integrating it. Like you need to have this dialogue. That in itself is is is what we want. We want to have the dialogues. We want to have the disagreement. We want to to accept that there are many different perspectives and that in many cases they can coexist and they can both be true.

And and I think maybe that’s part of what psychedelic medicines can help us with too, is having dialogue, being engaged in conversation, especially in an age where there is, you know, you’re engaged with chat GPT and AI, like we can actually have conversations and completely disagree and be completely fine about it and be friends and go for dinner.

Travis Heath (42:02)

Okay, you read my mind because I had just written something down a few minutes ago about AI and this is not a fully formed thought yet. Although how can we come up with fully formed thoughts about AI in this age? Because as soon as we have one, it changes. I’ve noticed this tension with a lot of people in the world and people I’m working with where, you like you can take someone who maybe like in mathematics, for example, they spent their whole life pursuing solving some of these unsolvable equations and now AI is doing it.

And on one hand, you could say, well, that’s great for society. On the other hand, I mean, what grief for people that were pursuing this to just see their life’s work now sort of completed by a computer, know? like, it’s not like they haven’t used computers for other things, but to solve the whole thing. And so I think AI is, you’re talking about suffering. It’s really interesting. the ways that AI might make people feel obsolete and the kind of existential dread that it brings to people’s lives.

I say all that to say, I’m wondering about the role of psychedelics and psychedelic assisted therapies in this new world that we’re in of AI. And maybe there isn’t a good answer to this, but it’s just something that popped into my mind.

Myriam Barthes (43:25)

I think it’s more of there are many questions and more than answers to your

Travis Heath (43:30)

Yes.

Myriam Barthes (43:31)

points. one one thing that I’ve reflected on, and you know, take it or leave it, this is like a personal reflection.

Travis Heath (43:40)

We’ll take it.

Myriam Barthes (43:45)

And I and I’ve worked in AI. So I I saw again, I saw how things were done because I was interested. I was like, this is gonna be the future. I wanna understand it. And I think AI is really good with optimizing what we already do. Excellent. At at that. But instead of spending a week preparing a presentation, you will spend three hours and do it with Claude or Gemini or Chad GPT. So I think that is the power of AI, is optimization.

However, I think the power of psychedelic medicine, especially in the context of psychotherapy, is And I there’s a quote that says, like, you don’t solve the problem from the same level of consciousness that you created the problem. There’s a quote to that extent.

Travis Heath (44:40)

Yes

Myriam Barthes (44:43)

And and I think that’s what psychedelic medicine and enable us to do. They enable to us to see reality from a different perspective that was not necessarily available to us prior. And then from there, what you will create will be different. be by by the nature of the perspective shift that has happened. And so I actually think that they they serve different things. AI will sit will be an optimization prob question problem. And psychedelic medicines will allow us to shift perspective over and over again so that we can expend what we create in the first place. At least again this is my personal Ongoing, ever evolving, shifting perspective on this.

Travis Heath (45:35)

No, it’s really interesting, especially given your history with AI as well. All right. In closing, I would love to get your perspective on if therapists want to learn more about this sort of thing, or maybe they’re interested in, you know, even engaging in psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, like what direction would you point them and any, sort of. maybe cautions for folks that are interested in doing this. Like if someone’s listening, can they just go sign up for a class or something and do this in a few weeks? Like what does the process look like? Where would you, what direction would you send them?

Myriam Barthes (46:16)

Yeah, of course. So they can come to Journey Clinical to our website, JourneyClinical dot com. And they we have basically a membership. And so the membership allows therapists to start by doing education with us, didactic, practicum, talking and meeting our medical team as well, so that we can help them if and where they’re ready to start seeing clients for these treatments. Alternatively, if they want to learn but they don’t necessarily want to practice, they can also come do the education with us and then refer to other therapists that are actually doing this work.

Travis Heath (46:59)

Very helpful. Myriam Barthes, thank you so much. This has been a really interesting conversation and I hope that our paths will cross again soon.

Myriam Barthes (47:10)

Same here. Thank you. It was a great discussion.