Chris welcomes back licensed professional counselor Maura Nolan, who is pursuing her passions in nature-based and wilderness therapy and working towards licensure as a psychedelic-assisted therapist and facilitator in Colorado. This conversation centers on the many facets of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy: What exactly is it? How does it work? What are the pros and cons? How do you find a provider? and more. This is an incredibly fascinating discussion that helps shed light on this new form of therapy and the overwhelmingly positive results following its recent research and implementation.

Links:

Autism Learning Lab Website: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/

Email: chris@autismlearninglab.com

Connect with Maura: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/maura-r-nolan-durango-co/369024

Resources Mentioned:

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies – MAPS – Psychedelic Research for Psychological Healing

Integrative Psychiatry Institute

Board of Psychedelic Medicine & Therapies

American Psychedelic Practitioners Association

Quotes:

[8:27 - 9:08] Maura: You know, something that I, I do want to say in going into this question and something I’m really passionate about when it comes to psychedelic-assisted therapy, is that the brain does all of the healing. So, in that way, it can be so incredibly self-empowering to know that the individual is going into the experience and honestly the facilitator isn’t, isn’t really hands-on. So, the individual, their brain is unlocking the trauma, doing the healing - so that I think is one of the most profound things about the experience as a whole, is that it just, it falls back on the individual's brain to do the healing.

[14:43 - 15:22] Maura: While the research specifically to Autism and psilocybin and ketamine is fairly new, there is a lot of research already around ketamine and psilocybin for co-occurring mental health issues, right, that a lot of folks with individual, or, that a lot of folks with Autism, right, may have. Anxiety, depression, PTSD, CPTSD, trauma, right? So, an individual with Autism might also really benefit from having a psychedelic experience and being able to process some of the trauma, right, that is at the root, right, and core of some of their experiences.

[28:00 - 29:13] Maura: Clinical trials with psilocybin, two sessions: significant reduction in depressive and anxiety symptoms - this is actually a study done out of John Hopkins that found with two doses of psilocybin, significant decrease in depressive symptoms. MDMA, three sessions: 98% reduction in symptoms of depression and PTSD, okay? So you look at three MDMA sessions, two psilocybin sessions compared to, that’s something that might take 3 months when I do EMDR with somebody and like, 3-5 years in talk therapy. So, this works and it’s also new and edgy and I encourage people to like, do your own research. Be skeptical about it, question it all, see what you come up with. But the results can be astounding and healing - like truly healing. Getting to the root of symptoms and trauma and it changes people’s lives and it totally relies on you, your brain to do the healing.