Dec. 11, 2024

Healing Trauma using MDMA with Rebecca Huntley

Healing Trauma using MDMA with Rebecca Huntley
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Healing Trauma using MDMA with Rebecca Huntley
Healing Trauma using MDMA with Rebecca Huntley
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Season 13 Psychology & Neuroscience Personal Growth & Healing

This week, Cass talks with author and social researcher, Rebecca Huntley, who shares her experience of childhood trauma, traditional therapy, and how she ultimately found herself seeking MDMA therapy from an underground healer. The conversation delves into her experiences with MDMA therapy, the profound emotional shift she experienced and how as a result, for the first time, she felt safe in her body. Cass and Rebecca discuss the future of MDMA therapy in Australia as it is now an authorised treatment for PTSD, emphasising the need for proper support and preparation for those considering this therapeutic approach.Rebecca's book, "Sassafras" is out now.Order it HERE from Booktopia, Australia.Connect with Cass:www.crappytohappypod.comhello@crappytohappypod.com 
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Transcript
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Before we get into the episode, I want you to

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know that Crappita Happy is now a fully independent production, created, edited,

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produced and funded entirely by me. If you enjoy the show,

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I would love to extend an invitation to you to

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join a brand new community I am creating in twenty

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twenty five, which will feature exclusive subscriber only content for

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a very low monthly subscription fee. I want to be

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able to share more content, answer more questions, offer more

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exclusive access, and in turn, your support will help me

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to continue growing the show that I absolutely love. Stay

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tuned to hear more about the brand new Beyond Happy

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subscriber podcast launching in twenty twenty five. This is Crappita

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Happy and I am your host, Cas Done. I'm a

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clinical and coaching psychologist. I'm mindfulness meditation teacher and of

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course author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show,

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I bring you conversations with interesting, inspired, ring intelligent people

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who are experts in their field and who have something

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of value to share that will help you feel less

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crappy and more happy. Today I'm talking to Rebecca Huntley,

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a renowned author and social researcher in Australia. Who, after

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being in and out of traditional therapy her whole adult life, finally,

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at the age of fifty, turned to an underground healer

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for MDMA therapy to heal from the childhood trauma that

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she'd experienced, which continued to impact her mental health and

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that she feared would impact her own children. MDMA is

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of course known as a party drug. You may know

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it as ecstasy or molly, but it's also been authorized

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for use in Australia as a treatment for PTSD. After

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three sessions of MDMA, Rebecca's life and view of the

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world had changed. She now experiences greater wisdom and compassion,

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and of feeling of safety in her body that she

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had never experienced before. This is the story of a

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woman determined to confront her past head on, and she's

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sharing her story for the benefit of us all. Rebecca,

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Welcome to the Crappy to Happy Podcast.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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I am a psychologist and I love, love, loved your book, Sassafras,

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Thank you. I honestly devoured it, which we'll obviously get into.

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But this.

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Whole area of you know, psychedelic therapies and is so

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fascinating to me, So I was really riveted to your

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whole story, and I'm sure listeners will be as well that.

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I'm very pleased, And I'm particularly pleased when mental health

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professionals or jpas or psychologists or people who are who

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do this for a living, because obviously mental health is

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not my air of expertise.

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When it resonates with them, it means a lot. It

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means I got something right.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Rebecca, Just to go from the beginning,

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you describe your upbringing. You know, as you know, every

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family has their issues. You never really considered yourself to

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be a person who would experience quote trauma. So what

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were you experiencing and what was it that kind of

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led you to start thinking that maybe there was something

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a bit more going on here that you needed to

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get some help with.

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Yeah.

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I look growing up as a teenager in my twenties

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and onwoods when I would sometimes when I would tell

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a story, I hadn't told everybody the story of violence

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and abuse, but when I would say stories about my parents,

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sometimes it would be met with silence, and would I

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thought I'd be telling like a funny story, like isn't

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this funny or kind of and then you would kind

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of people would look at you.

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So I knew.

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That perhaps it wasn't you know, there was some extreme

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things that had happened, perhaps weren't a universal experience, but

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I and there were lots of things I hid. The

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extent of the abuse.

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And the violence.

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I hid from a lot of people really out of shame,

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which is not uncommon for children who grow up in

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violent households, because in so many ways you feel it's

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your fault, and even when even when intellectually you know

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it isn't your fault, you don't want anyone's pity, or

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you don't want people to think of you as damaged goods,

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because sometimes you feel that way. And then and then

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on top of that, you also have been told while

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I was my sister and I were told all our

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life by both our parents that we had nothing to

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complain about. So you also didn't want to talk about

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it because so there was shame, There was not wanting

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to be pitied, and also there was a sense of, well,

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what have I got to complain about? Get a middle

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class you know, a young woman, and you know I've

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got all the privilege of the world, so why should

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I mean, you know, I'm not feel like I've come

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back from Vietnam or it's not you know, it's not

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like I'm in as all those kinds of things. You know,

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so all of that stuff isn't it. But really for me,

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at about fifty I found, after you know, i'd been

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in psychiatric care and off for thirty years, I had,

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I think, a really very very good mental health regime.

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You know, if when you google you know what should

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you do for your mental health? You know that I

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like tick tick tick.

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You know, lots of exercise, lots of wonderful friends, lots

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of time in nature, you know, yoga, meditation, eat well, sleep,

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for all those kinds of things.

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But at fifty I was really angry. I'd been angry.

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My whole life is kind of you know, churning anger, hypervigilance,

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and you know, I would sometimes snap where it would

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all boil over into stress through a lot of things,

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through a television and.

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You know, through cakes, through all these not at people, but.

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Just you know, at you know, I wasn't a through

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stuff at people necessarily, but really could be quite explosive.

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And at fifty I thought, I don't how long is

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this going to be inside me? How long am I

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going to be angry? And I felt really taught in

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some ways. I felt really tired, and I felt like

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I put so many decades of work into trying to

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process all of this, and I didn't feel like I

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was getting far enough. I felt that the efficacy of

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all of this was slowing down in a way that

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was very kind of frightening for me. So I felt

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like I'd kind of been keeping a little on it.

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So fifty was a bit of an inflection point for

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me in that respect, and I was looking for something different.

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And you mentioned that you had been kind of in

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and out of therapy like you were quite you know,

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in and out of therapy through your whole adult life,

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dipping in getting support when you needed it. How was

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that helpful? And in hindsight, like what were the shortcomings?

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It was really helpful. I mean, I'd write it as

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you know, I write about it in the book. I

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took myself off to therapy at about nineteen twenty, which

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when I look back at it now, is really quite

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an extraordinary thing because that was thirty over thirty years ago.

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And this we know that there's a mental health stigma now,

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a stigma around mental health I didn't tell anybody that

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I had gone to seek sychatric care. And I met

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a fantastic woman. She was a professor of psychiatry at

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one of the hospitals. She had kind of seen me

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briefly for eating disorder when I was in my teens,

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and I went back to her and I thought, Okay,

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there must be something really wrong with me, Like I'm

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not talking to my mother and like I'm just like

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really socially isolated and isolated for my father, I'd never

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feel like I had any family.

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And I had internalized.

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A lot of the thing that my parents had told

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me my whole life, which is that I was not

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a good person, not a lovable person. And I thought, Okay, well,

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I don't want I want to be a good person

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and I want to be a lovable person, and so

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I'm going to go to this psychiatrist, and this psychiatrist

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is going to fix me and tell me what's wrong.

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And maybe I'm there to go and like some kind

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of drug for a while. But I didn't want to

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be a direct so you know, I was pretty naive

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about what psychiatric care involved.

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So I went to her and we.

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Had a numerous sessions and then I said, okay, Doc,

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tell me what's wrong with me and how are you

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going to fix it? And said, oh, there's probably nothing

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really wrong with you, except you've had, you know, a

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very dysfunctional upbringing. And she said, but it's unlikely that

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your parents will ever seek psychiatric care, so you'll probably

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be in care for the rest on and off for

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the rest of your life. And I remember just being

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so confronted. But why that was so important, and I

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don't think I was fully ready to absorb the message

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at the time. Was that was important because she said

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there was nothing wrong with me. It was the first

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adult that I trusted who said you're not a bad person.

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Your reaction, the anger that you feel against your parents,

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essentially you're saying, is understandable. But you also, I think,

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tried to tried to tell me that this is not

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something you fix over night when you have grown up

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in a family where neither parent is attuned to you

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and they themselves, certainly my mother had a childhood of violence.

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But she was trying to say, this is hard to break.

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Intergenerational trauma is hard to break, is what she was saying.

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And then at.

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Different times, you know, I had gone back to different

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psychiatrists at a different time. I was really open to

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doing it, but I often didn't tell people that I

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was doing it. And what has been so useful is

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really is a partner in the lifelong journey of self

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knowledge that you need to take, and the right therapist,

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So psychologists, psychiatrists, regardless, the right therapist you know, is

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a disinterested, informed partner in your own self guided journey.

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And I'd like to overuse that word, but it really

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is commitment. I suppose, lifelong commitment to understanding yourself, understanding

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where you've come from, and the kind of person you

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want to be. And even more important, you know, you

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need to be a good person in the world to

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everybody you interact with. But you've got kind of an

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extra level of responsibility if you have children.

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Yeah, so they're a partner in ensuring that you're the

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best possible human being you can be.

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Better, so the best possible parent you can be, if

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that's what you've chosen to do.

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Yeah.

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At some point though, and I thought this was worth

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mentioning that somebody you met casually suggested to you too.

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Particular books, Yes, and one was The Body Keeps a

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Score by Besil Vander Kolk and What Happened to You

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Yes by Oprah Wimfrey and Doctor, which the two books

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are I love and recommend it as well. So how

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did they kind of open your eyes?

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Like?

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What was the impact that reading those had on you?

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Yeah?

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I mean, look I look back at it now, you know,

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I had just the person who recommended those to me

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is a friend of a friend who's a psychologist, and

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I had just come back from a short walk on

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the Camino, which I'd always wanted to do at fifty

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and the Kamino is a place that gets a pilgrimage,

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like lots of people go on the Camino to kind

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of find themselves. You know, there's lots and lots of

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lots and lots of literature and books and everything you

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know from Millennaire about people doing that. I just really

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I've just found walking one of my kind of self important,

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self regulating activities. But I was still so angry and

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so like worked up even after I'd done all of

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this walking. So anyway, so she we went to dinner

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at the end of the walk, and she wasn't on

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the walk with me, but we met, you know, met

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in Madrid and she said to me, read these books

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and they're really good on trauma. This is the first

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time anybody had ever said I know a little bit.

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She said, I know a little bit about what you're

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going through with your mother and what she went through

228
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with your father. I'd like you to read these books

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on trauma. And I had never had anybody talk about

230
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what happened in terms of trauma. And I was a

231
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bit taken aback, which is like, how these books are

232
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going to be relevant to me? But something made me

233
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buy them. You know, everybody's always recommending books to you

234
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and me by them, and I ordered them so that

235
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they were there when I came back to Australia, and

236
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it was it was a very like I started with

237
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what Happened to You and I had to keep stopping

238
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because I was like, oh wow, it really it felt

239
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like a yuser manual to me myself and my family,

240
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Like I almost felt like there should be ature of

241
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my family.

242
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Is the cover.

243
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And I think that the most important things about those

244
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two books is it opens your eyes too. We kind

245
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of imagine certain kinds of people have trauma, and those

246
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people are over there.

247
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And everybody else has problems.

248
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But that's trauma and even and so what it really

249
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opened my eyes to was the prevalence of complex childal trauma.

250
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And in some ways, I think both of those books said,

251
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if you've had that, and you know, if you have

252
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that complex total trauma, it can sometimes be harder to

253
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deal with that than if you actually had quite a safe,

254
00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:45.440
secure and attuned childhood, you know, with the kind of

255
00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:50.440
that loving relationship between a parent or parents, and then

256
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go on to have a traumatic experience. Yes, yes, that

257
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can still be awful and you can still find it

258
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hard to recover. But what it showed me was that

259
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kind of that that fundamental lack of safety, yeah, and

260
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attunement as a child was showing up and had shown

261
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up throughout my life without me being in a war

262
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zone or going you know what I mean, or being

263
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in combat or all those kinds of things I associate,

264
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or being in a car accident, all those kinds of

265
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extreme events. I thought that was trauma and I think

266
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that was very important.

267
00:14:23.799 --> 00:14:27.919
Yeah, let's talk about how you came to be exploring

268
00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:31.159
alternative approaches to therapy.

269
00:14:31.639 --> 00:14:34.159
Yeah, oh, well, you're ass surprised, as you kas.

270
00:14:36.080 --> 00:14:39.159
It was just fascinating. So, yeah, how did you come

271
00:14:39.159 --> 00:14:42.679
across MDMA as an option even.

272
00:14:43.240 --> 00:14:45.799
Yeah, well, look, I mean, and sometimes people find it

273
00:14:45.799 --> 00:14:49.840
hard to believe I'd never taken MDMA recreationally. I'd taken

274
00:14:49.879 --> 00:14:52.759
other recreational drugs in my twenties, but it just there

275
00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:56.200
had been a really bad incident of somebody dying in

276
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my twenties that not somebody I knew, but it was

277
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in all the newspapers. I don't want that, so I

278
00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:06.039
had never even actually I hadn't. People hadn't offered it

279
00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:07.960
to me, So I'd never had it, So I had

280
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no point of reference about it. In a lot of

281
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those classic books on trauma that you talked about, there

282
00:15:15.519 --> 00:15:19.879
is mention of some of the early work and some

283
00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:23.480
of the now clinical trials around MDMAY and that was

284
00:15:23.559 --> 00:15:26.399
kind of intellectually interesting to me when I read about it,

285
00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:28.960
But it wasn't like, oh, maybe this is an option

286
00:15:29.039 --> 00:15:29.279
for me.

287
00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:30.399
At that stage. I was just.

288
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Getting my head around some of the theory and language

289
00:15:34.200 --> 00:15:36.960
around trauma and the kind of this this concept that

290
00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:38.679
was a bit mind blowing for me, and so I

291
00:15:38.759 --> 00:15:42.679
was kind of working through that. So not last Christmas.

292
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Of Christmas before I kind of had lunch with a

293
00:15:47.080 --> 00:15:49.279
friend it wasn't something something that popped up in the

294
00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:54.320
last moment. And I had been thinking for months really

295
00:15:54.360 --> 00:15:59.120
deeply about what had happened to me throughout my life,

296
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and I felt like I was really at a turning point.

297
00:16:01.559 --> 00:16:04.120
So this friend of mine said to me, how are you?

298
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And in that moment I made a choice to be

299
00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:08.600
really honest with her in a way that I'm not

300
00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:11.159
often honest when people ask me how I am, you know,

301
00:16:11.159 --> 00:16:13.360
because oh, I'm fine, I'm doing you. I talk about

302
00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:16.879
what I'm doing rather than how I'm feeling doing.

303
00:16:16.639 --> 00:16:18.279
This work is good, blah blah blah.

304
00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:21.480
I looked at her and I said, oh, I decided

305
00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:25.000
I'm just not going to see my mother anymore. And

306
00:16:25.039 --> 00:16:28.200
there was a moment where I thought, oh, she's going

307
00:16:28.240 --> 00:16:31.000
to judge me too, because we were friendly and closed

308
00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:33.799
but not really really close. I hadn't told her much

309
00:16:33.799 --> 00:16:35.200
about my childhood, and there was a moment where I

310
00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:36.879
thought she's going to look at me like what a

311
00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:37.759
terrible person?

312
00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:38.960
Or why are you doing that?

313
00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:40.720
Or you know, she's going to try and talk me

314
00:16:40.720 --> 00:16:44.200
out of it, and I never forget, like almost like

315
00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:46.679
her eyes started to whirl with tears, and she said,

316
00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:48.440
how wonderful.

317
00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:49.600
I wish I could do that.

318
00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:53.120
Too, and I was like, really, And we just had

319
00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:56.519
a very long conversation about Ian even though in some

320
00:16:56.559 --> 00:17:02.480
ways different families similar things. And then she said I've

321
00:17:02.519 --> 00:17:05.839
done this. She dug one session, and she said I

322
00:17:05.880 --> 00:17:08.440
did this session, and I think you'd find it interesting.

323
00:17:08.480 --> 00:17:12.480
And she talked about what had happened in that session,

324
00:17:12.519 --> 00:17:15.160
it sounded really profound. And I think, had she not

325
00:17:15.400 --> 00:17:17.720
had that experience and been able to talk to me

326
00:17:17.759 --> 00:17:20.960
about it, and had I not known her very She's

327
00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:23.880
not an alternative medicine person, she's not a drug person,

328
00:17:24.039 --> 00:17:27.200
like she won't even take a pactual barely take a panadole.

329
00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:29.559
We both have law.

330
00:17:29.400 --> 00:17:31.839
Degrees in a very evidence based that we both consider

331
00:17:31.880 --> 00:17:36.200
ourselves to be very kind of sensible. You are sensible

332
00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:39.160
people who do And the fact that she'd had this

333
00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:43.880
really profound experience and recommended it to me, so I thought, oh,

334
00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:44.720
we'll just give it a go.

335
00:17:45.559 --> 00:17:47.400
So I was open at that stage.

336
00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:53.480
I was concerned enough interested in perhaps trying to find

337
00:17:53.519 --> 00:17:56.839
something that would break through the kind of sense of

338
00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:00.319
malaise that I was where I was at in terms

339
00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:04.079
of my own mental health, and I was thinking Oh, well,

340
00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:05.960
you know, she had a good experience.

341
00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:08.440
Maybe maybe maybe I should try it.

342
00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:13.119
Did this woman who obviously she's not a registered mental

343
00:18:13.160 --> 00:18:18.519
health professional, she's no so unregulated, but she's like a

344
00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:23.599
healer essentially. Yeah, living in Byron as they do.

345
00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:27.319
Yes, she travels the world, but when she's in when

346
00:18:27.319 --> 00:18:28.720
she's in Australia.

347
00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:31.039
She's so she's in high demand, she is.

348
00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:33.799
We talked to her, and she's always in some different

349
00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:35.519
port in some other part of the world.

350
00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:36.880
Yes, so she travels around.

351
00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:40.319
Fascinating. Did you have a website? What sort of research

352
00:18:40.359 --> 00:18:42.440
did you do or did you just like take your

353
00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:45.279
friend's recommendation and say, I'm going to give this a go.

354
00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:53.599
So I think my friend's recommendation was important for sure. Julia,

355
00:18:53.640 --> 00:18:56.279
which is a fake name talk in the book, was

356
00:18:56.319 --> 00:18:58.519
a friend of a very very good friend of hers

357
00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:04.319
that she also trusted and liked. And Julius worked with

358
00:19:04.400 --> 00:19:07.279
what she's had worked with plant medicine, but not necessarily

359
00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:10.319
MDMA for a very very long time and has done

360
00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:16.240
certainly some university degrees, but obviously this is very different.

361
00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:20.480
But she's worked almost exclusively with MDMA and to some

362
00:19:20.519 --> 00:19:25.240
extent psilocybin for the last five years and trained with

363
00:19:25.359 --> 00:19:29.480
people around the world, including formally trained with a particular

364
00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:33.200
protocol through MAPS, which is the one of the global

365
00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:38.039
organization looking at psychedelic therapy. But she's not a psychologist

366
00:19:38.119 --> 00:19:40.240
or a GEEP, and she doesn't pretend that she's very

367
00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:44.240
clear about it. Yeah, what I think engendered some confidence

368
00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:49.839
was just the barriers that I needed to get over

369
00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:53.400
for her to even consider talking to me. And she was.

370
00:19:54.359 --> 00:19:58.599
I filled in one of the most comprehensive questionnaires about

371
00:19:58.599 --> 00:20:01.119
my entire life before she's ready to talk to me,

372
00:20:01.319 --> 00:20:04.400
and clearly what she's trying to work out is that

373
00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:08.440
she will will not treat people in crisis. She's very

374
00:20:08.519 --> 00:20:12.519
very clear about that this works for people with PTSD,

375
00:20:12.759 --> 00:20:13.119
So the.

376
00:20:13.160 --> 00:20:14.920
Post part is very important.

377
00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:19.319
And she's really quite visual about trying to work with

378
00:20:19.400 --> 00:20:23.000
people who are in a safe and supported environment, so

379
00:20:23.079 --> 00:20:26.759
that can be like including where they live, who surrounds them,

380
00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:30.839
what's their physical health like, what's their financial situation like,

381
00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:35.359
because the effort, you know, you don't start to open

382
00:20:35.480 --> 00:20:38.200
up things and stir up things if people are already

383
00:20:38.200 --> 00:20:38.599
stirred up.

384
00:20:38.599 --> 00:20:40.359
So it's very vigilant about that.

385
00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:42.839
And I think the other thing I really liked is

386
00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:45.160
there was no like you're going to take this and

387
00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:49.799
be fine kind of she was like, this is It

388
00:20:49.880 --> 00:20:53.640
was very much about the intention, like why are you

389
00:20:53.799 --> 00:20:56.880
doing this, and very much about the work that you

390
00:20:56.880 --> 00:20:59.160
were going to put around it. So in some ways,

391
00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:03.599
the session themselves and then where's the easiest thing, because

392
00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:06.160
you've got this beautiful drug that makes you feel happy

393
00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:09.160
and you're you know, you're on a couch and all the.

394
00:21:09.079 --> 00:21:10.200
Rest of it.

395
00:21:10.200 --> 00:21:14.079
It's what happens after that, is in the weeks and

396
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:19.640
months after it and the integration, And she's very insistent

397
00:21:19.720 --> 00:21:22.519
on the integration being part of that.

398
00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:24.599
Your puppy is really.

399
00:21:26.599 --> 00:21:31.039
Yes, thank you. So I think that was really important.

400
00:21:31.039 --> 00:21:33.160
If she'd been a bit of a I think a

401
00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:35.799
snake or salesman, like, wow, are you're going to take

402
00:21:35.839 --> 00:21:37.680
these and everything's going to be fine, I'd be like,

403
00:21:39.319 --> 00:21:41.960
And we had a couple of meanings before she said

404
00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:45.720
let before she gave me a date, and I really

405
00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:47.799
feel I felt the time like we were just feeling

406
00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:51.200
each other out. So I really I liked that about her,

407
00:21:51.319 --> 00:21:54.400
and I liked also just the amount of information and

408
00:21:55.240 --> 00:21:58.000
you know, the therapy is only as good as the therapist.

409
00:21:58.440 --> 00:22:02.920
Exactly, yeah, exactly. Can you kind of walk through what

410
00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:06.160
you experienced during I mean, you had more than one session,

411
00:22:06.200 --> 00:22:08.400
but I think listeners would be really interested. What do

412
00:22:08.440 --> 00:22:10.839
you experience in an MDMA session?

413
00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:14.000
Yeah, So the way I describe it in the book

414
00:22:14.519 --> 00:22:20.359
is that it's like kind of floating on the top

415
00:22:20.759 --> 00:22:27.119
of a kind of immense, warm ocean of memory and feeling,

416
00:22:27.880 --> 00:22:31.559
and you're kind of moving through that ocean in a

417
00:22:31.599 --> 00:22:34.799
way that could actually be a bit terrifying, but it's

418
00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:37.599
not because what you've got, and this is the other

419
00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:40.240
thing that's really important, you know, really really good practitioners

420
00:22:40.359 --> 00:22:43.599
use a very high grade quality of MDMA, so it's

421
00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:46.200
not cut with anything. I mean, my understanding is sometimes

422
00:22:46.279 --> 00:22:49.519
ecstasy can be cut with a other stuff. This is

423
00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:53.200
pure grade MDMA. So what it does is it cloaks

424
00:22:53.480 --> 00:22:57.319
amigdala in serotonin. You know, it gets the serotonin from

425
00:22:57.400 --> 00:23:00.319
inside do so a couple of days later, you feeling

426
00:23:00.319 --> 00:23:02.039
a bit low. But there's a whole lot of stuff

427
00:23:02.079 --> 00:23:04.480
you can do before it to kind of prepare yourself

428
00:23:04.519 --> 00:23:08.559
for that kind of you know, inundation of those beautiful foremonths.

429
00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:11.720
So you feel very safe and secure while this happens.

430
00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:15.880
So that's that's the metaphor I use. You're given a

431
00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:18.400
really big, quite big dose of it to start, so

432
00:23:18.519 --> 00:23:22.079
it's kind of a seven to eight hour process where

433
00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:25.000
most of the time you're not really moving. I mean

434
00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:27.839
most people just lie there. Some people I just didn't

435
00:23:27.880 --> 00:23:29.920
really move from the couch except to go to the lure.

436
00:23:29.960 --> 00:23:32.200
I think in the middle of it.

437
00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:34.359
Some people walk around a bit, but it's not very

438
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:40.440
energetic experience. It's quite a quite an internal experience with

439
00:23:40.519 --> 00:23:44.440
this drug. And what it does is that it allows

440
00:23:45.079 --> 00:23:47.880
with your amig DEALOC, which is your fight or flight response,

441
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:51.880
kind of offline for me, potentially for the first real

442
00:23:51.920 --> 00:23:54.039
time in my life, you know, because I.

443
00:23:53.920 --> 00:23:56.640
Was always so I was living.

444
00:23:56.359 --> 00:24:02.480
In this constant state of hyper a lure, hypervigilance. Then

445
00:24:02.519 --> 00:24:05.559
stuff starts to tumble out, not the stuff that you think,

446
00:24:05.839 --> 00:24:08.400
my tumble. And that's the thing, like I thought, Okay,

447
00:24:08.519 --> 00:24:10.440
well this is going to happen, and you get the

448
00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:15.079
trauma list to go tick. The memories that it surfaced

449
00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:20.440
resurfaced made me think differently, maybe say, we're not ones

450
00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:22.519
that I expected, But now when I look back at it,

451
00:24:22.519 --> 00:24:26.359
make a lot of sense. And what was happening was

452
00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:29.039
physically what's happening. I mean, different things happen. You actually

453
00:24:29.039 --> 00:24:31.880
get quite cold, and you don't have a lot of appetite,

454
00:24:32.359 --> 00:24:34.680
But it's not a kind of it's not I didn't

455
00:24:34.680 --> 00:24:40.279
find it particularly physically jarring. But what was interesting in

456
00:24:40.279 --> 00:24:43.079
that eight hours was the anger that I talked to

457
00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:45.079
you about that I'd had my whole life.

458
00:24:45.319 --> 00:24:48.799
I felt it like a.

459
00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:50.240
Well, I kind of felt that at one stage I

460
00:24:50.359 --> 00:24:55.240
kind of almost like pry to part these floorboards.

461
00:24:55.880 --> 00:24:56.839
That was the anger.

462
00:24:57.039 --> 00:25:01.319
And underneath it was and I was staring in it

463
00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:08.359
was a kind of endless, bottomless whirlpool of gray sand,

464
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:13.079
which was grief and sadness. And it was like inside

465
00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:17.920
me was that this endless, deep pit of sadness and

466
00:25:17.960 --> 00:25:23.160
grief underneath the kind of veneer of anger, which and

467
00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:27.960
that sadness and grief was interestingly not necessarily for myself,

468
00:25:28.039 --> 00:25:31.680
but for my parents interesting.

469
00:25:31.240 --> 00:25:33.839
And for my I mean, and for our family unit.

470
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:38.319
This kind of sadness that for all of it, And

471
00:25:38.359 --> 00:25:42.680
that is a very common experience for people on MGMA,

472
00:25:42.799 --> 00:25:44.880
having been now at lots of events, is.

473
00:25:44.839 --> 00:25:46.319
That they go in.

474
00:25:47.960 --> 00:25:51.000
Being very upset or angry about the people that had

475
00:25:51.039 --> 00:25:53.839
hurt them and come out with a sense of connection

476
00:25:53.960 --> 00:25:58.400
and empathy with the very people with them, which is

477
00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:01.079
often very surprising. And that's what I got in that

478
00:26:01.119 --> 00:26:04.880
first session, and the whole time of the session, just

479
00:26:05.039 --> 00:26:07.640
like my tears were coming.

480
00:26:07.400 --> 00:26:07.920
Out of my eyes.

481
00:26:08.039 --> 00:26:11.400
I wasn't crying, but it was just like just coming

482
00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:14.079
and coming and coming, and at once I didn't even

483
00:26:14.079 --> 00:26:16.039
realize what it was. I was like, oh, my sweat,

484
00:26:16.920 --> 00:26:20.079
what's happening anyway? So this, I think, this kind of

485
00:26:20.519 --> 00:26:24.960
release of emotion, but mainly of sadness and grief which

486
00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:28.680
I probably had never allowed I know, which I'd never

487
00:26:28.799 --> 00:26:30.400
allowed myself to express.

488
00:26:30.759 --> 00:26:34.279
And of course Julia she's not just there to administer

489
00:26:34.359 --> 00:26:37.240
the pill, but she's holding the space the entire time, right,

490
00:26:37.240 --> 00:26:40.519
so she asking questions, is she what's her role through

491
00:26:40.519 --> 00:26:41.160
that process?

492
00:26:41.240 --> 00:26:41.599
Yeah?

493
00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:45.119
I mean, look, they often call Julia in this context

494
00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:49.000
often called sitters, those that it's very important that somebody sits,

495
00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:51.440
but it's also very important for that person to realize

496
00:26:51.480 --> 00:26:55.480
that in that open state, they have to be an anchor.

497
00:26:56.000 --> 00:26:57.440
But she's very careful about it.

498
00:26:57.480 --> 00:27:00.519
One stage, when I was really, really really weeping, she

499
00:27:00.599 --> 00:27:02.839
was like, can I come and sit beside you and

500
00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:04.400
put my hand on your shoulder.

501
00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:06.079
So there was really.

502
00:27:05.839 --> 00:27:10.039
Really a therapist are very very careful about the amount

503
00:27:10.160 --> 00:27:13.240
of physical touch they do with you in that session.

504
00:27:13.799 --> 00:27:16.039
So that is the interesting thing.

505
00:27:16.079 --> 00:27:18.920
She didn't really say anything, So when it started I

506
00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:20.400
was a bit worried that she was going to be

507
00:27:20.440 --> 00:27:25.599
bored because and she does is that with some people

508
00:27:25.960 --> 00:27:30.279
it's such an internal process that they say nothing in

509
00:27:30.319 --> 00:27:34.279
the whole eight hours, and all she'll do they're really silent,

510
00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:37.440
is every hour she'll go, can you tell me that

511
00:27:37.519 --> 00:27:38.039
you're okay?

512
00:27:38.079 --> 00:27:39.359
And can you put your thumbs up?

513
00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:41.559
So some people will just lie there for eight hours

514
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:43.160
and she'll just check in on them.

515
00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:47.279
But she really didn't ask me many questions. She just listened.

516
00:27:47.319 --> 00:27:49.720
She wrote down everything that I said in order to

517
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:52.880
then give it to me afterwards. In the certainly in

518
00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:55.920
the first session, she didn't say much except to say

519
00:27:56.839 --> 00:27:59.359
she was very sorry that these things happened to me.

520
00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:02.000
In the other sessions, she would.

521
00:28:01.759 --> 00:28:05.440
Occasionally, certainly when we're at the tail end of it,

522
00:28:05.519 --> 00:28:09.440
sometimes just invite me to see things in a slightly

523
00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:12.599
different way. But really she was just there to observe.

524
00:28:12.680 --> 00:28:15.799
I mean, she almost explains it a little bit like.

525
00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:16.920
A trauma, a duella.

526
00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:20.880
In that y R, A process is happening, and they're

527
00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:23.240
there to keep you safe, secure.

528
00:28:23.240 --> 00:28:25.119
You know, if something goes wrong, you know. So they're

529
00:28:25.160 --> 00:28:28.000
there to kind of facilitate a process.

530
00:28:28.359 --> 00:28:30.799
And I think she did it, did it in quite

531
00:28:30.839 --> 00:28:34.079
a deft way, but there was never any time where

532
00:28:34.079 --> 00:28:36.920
I felt she was. She's not guiding you in any direction.

533
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:41.359
It's self guided. Like once the drag is in you,

534
00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:45.559
the body and the brain take over and that's what

535
00:28:45.799 --> 00:28:46.519
the guide is.

536
00:28:47.279 --> 00:28:50.480
It's so interesting, and like I said before, you had

537
00:28:50.519 --> 00:28:53.599
more than one session, so what happens afterwards and then

538
00:28:53.640 --> 00:28:57.000
what's the purpose of follow up sessions? Is it just

539
00:28:57.079 --> 00:29:01.519
more uncovering, more insights, more through integration.

540
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:03.000
Yeah, it's interesting.

541
00:29:03.079 --> 00:29:05.920
I mean at the moment with the clinical trials, particularly

542
00:29:05.960 --> 00:29:12.559
around PTSD and MDMA, the standard protocol that the clinical

543
00:29:12.559 --> 00:29:17.400
trials are using, and indeed some of the legal public

544
00:29:17.559 --> 00:29:22.079
treatment in Australia that's starting is a three session protocol.

545
00:29:22.799 --> 00:29:25.559
So you have integration, so a whole lot of preparation

546
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:30.000
the session itself more integration, and then after about a

547
00:29:30.039 --> 00:29:32.960
month or six weeks you need that integration. Your body

548
00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:37.519
also needs to recover, and Julie is very insistent. Maps

549
00:29:37.559 --> 00:29:41.000
a bit more insistent, very much to you completely need

550
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:44.519
because serotonin has to and your whole body has to help,

551
00:29:44.559 --> 00:29:45.160
and then you do it.

552
00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:46.720
So this idea about three.

553
00:29:46.519 --> 00:29:49.440
Times is the MAPS protocol and the one they're using.

554
00:29:49.559 --> 00:29:53.200
There's nothing magic about it. For me, three worked, and

555
00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:56.960
the last one I really felt like i'd it felt

556
00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:01.559
like there was almost a story that it's way around

557
00:30:01.559 --> 00:30:04.440
the three and the third one I felt like I'd

558
00:30:04.440 --> 00:30:09.079
come to really a kind of particularly, really great level

559
00:30:09.079 --> 00:30:13.400
of understanding about my mother, and.

560
00:30:12.200 --> 00:30:13.200
For me that was enough.

561
00:30:13.759 --> 00:30:16.319
Other people will do three and then in a couple

562
00:30:16.359 --> 00:30:18.839
of years or do another, you know, people do different things.

563
00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:21.359
Is I think kind of magic about it. But the

564
00:30:21.400 --> 00:30:25.279
integration sessions are very important. I did them with Julia,

565
00:30:25.319 --> 00:30:27.880
but also I went back to see my psychiatrist, who

566
00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:30.880
i'd been I wouldn't say avoiding, but i'd been perhaps

567
00:30:31.359 --> 00:30:33.599
hadn't been seeing her for a couple of weeks before

568
00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:35.519
I decided to do it because I didn't want to.

569
00:30:36.319 --> 00:30:37.920
I didn't want to say to her I'm doing this

570
00:30:37.960 --> 00:30:39.720
thing and have her trying to talk me out of it.

571
00:30:39.759 --> 00:30:41.519
And I also didn't want to hurt her feelings.

572
00:30:41.559 --> 00:30:43.119
It's not like it's not you know, it felt like

573
00:30:43.200 --> 00:30:45.359
I was cheating on her a bit like another.

574
00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:49.480
It was nothing that she was doing was wrong at all.

575
00:30:49.880 --> 00:30:53.039
It was like I really felt like I'd got to

576
00:30:53.079 --> 00:30:55.440
a point where I'm wasting my time. I'm wasting this

577
00:30:55.559 --> 00:30:57.960
amazing woman's time and my time sitting here.

578
00:30:58.079 --> 00:30:58.720
I'm just like.

579
00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:01.160
Anyway, So that for me, there was something about the

580
00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:04.680
three and three was enough as well. And I'm still

581
00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:11.240
I'm still unpacking everything that happened in those three sessions.

582
00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:12.720
How long ago was that?

583
00:31:13.279 --> 00:31:17.880
Eighteen months ago? For some time? Hmm, yeah, I think

584
00:31:17.880 --> 00:31:19.960
I will be so sometime. Yeah.

585
00:31:20.039 --> 00:31:21.839
So I guess that's my next question when you say,

586
00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:23.759
you know, that was enough for me? So what was it?

587
00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:26.880
What was the change in you? What have you experienced

588
00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:27.480
since that?

589
00:31:29.440 --> 00:31:31.759
So a couple of things, And I think in some

590
00:31:31.799 --> 00:31:34.680
ways the most profound thing is the impact on the

591
00:31:34.680 --> 00:31:37.359
body in terms of how I feel a my own body.

592
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:40.839
So the day after the first session, because there had

593
00:31:40.880 --> 00:31:42.839
just been this kind of gnaw again, this kind of

594
00:31:43.359 --> 00:31:46.200
recognition of the depth of the grief, and this almost

595
00:31:46.200 --> 00:31:49.599
and almost kind of release through the crying and all

596
00:31:49.599 --> 00:31:52.200
the rest of it, of the grief and the sadness.

597
00:31:52.599 --> 00:31:54.880
I woke up the next morning just without this sense

598
00:31:54.920 --> 00:31:58.920
of relentless pressure to get up running around, you know

599
00:31:58.920 --> 00:32:00.519
what I mean. Like it was almost like the way

600
00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:02.920
I was walking and moving in the world just felt

601
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:06.519
less less kind of here. It's almost like i'd suddenly

602
00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:10.200
I felt like I woke up in a different body. Wow,

603
00:32:10.559 --> 00:32:12.519
I really did feel like that, And it's not like

604
00:32:12.599 --> 00:32:16.720
that stay And I remember at the time thinking, oh, wow,

605
00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:19.720
like I could get if I could take a drug

606
00:32:19.799 --> 00:32:21.599
that would make me feel like this all the time,

607
00:32:21.720 --> 00:32:23.359
like not kind of like that.

608
00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:26.039
I can see why you'd be addicted to it.

609
00:32:26.119 --> 00:32:29.839
Now that feeling came back, But I remember what it's

610
00:32:29.960 --> 00:32:33.279
like to be like, it's okay to rest. You don't

611
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:36.039
have to run around proving yourself every two seconds to

612
00:32:36.119 --> 00:32:40.279
everybody that you deserve to exist. You deserve to just

613
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:45.599
exist and rest and not constantly be doing, constantly be doing.

614
00:32:46.119 --> 00:32:49.799
I know the sounds banal, but it's really profound. It's

615
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:51.960
probably the first time I've ever felt that, even as

616
00:32:51.960 --> 00:32:55.160
a child, I felt like I needed to be doing

617
00:32:55.440 --> 00:33:00.319
proving constantly, worried that my parents had done something to

618
00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:02.960
upset my parents or there we're going to get upset,

619
00:33:03.160 --> 00:33:04.839
or my father was going to burst in the room

620
00:33:04.920 --> 00:33:07.680
and throw me across there, all that kind of stuff,

621
00:33:07.720 --> 00:33:11.599
and it was like, actually, you're safe, it's okay, you're enough,

622
00:33:11.720 --> 00:33:14.359
all that stuff. But it's not that I intellectually knew it.

623
00:33:14.400 --> 00:33:17.079
I felt it in the body, which was really quite profound.

624
00:33:17.920 --> 00:33:20.119
And even though I don't have that all the time,

625
00:33:20.200 --> 00:33:22.880
because it's not magic, I have access to that feeling,

626
00:33:23.880 --> 00:33:29.519
and I'm able when I do start to lose it,

627
00:33:30.200 --> 00:33:34.160
I'm able to bring myself down. I've also, for the

628
00:33:34.200 --> 00:33:41.079
first time really my life, have healthy boundaries in situations

629
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:46.599
which I didn't previously had before, particularly in romantic situations,

630
00:33:46.640 --> 00:33:51.039
which is huge, huge for me, saving me a lot

631
00:33:51.079 --> 00:33:56.119
of heartache and say, yeah, you know, all of those

632
00:33:56.319 --> 00:34:00.839
all of those kinds of things I do, honestly in

633
00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:02.559
many ways in the same way as I kind of

634
00:34:02.599 --> 00:34:05.640
seen my life before I had children and after I

635
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:09.719
had children, think about kind of really fundamental things that

636
00:34:10.360 --> 00:34:11.480
ever before and after.

637
00:34:13.159 --> 00:34:17.039
This is one of them, having my children and doing this.

638
00:34:17.559 --> 00:34:22.760
And I think while I still sometimes feel terribly upset

639
00:34:23.360 --> 00:34:27.119
and angry with my mother in particular, that anger and

640
00:34:27.199 --> 00:34:31.039
sadness is a lot less and my sense of empathy

641
00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:31.719
with her is.

642
00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:33.920
A lot was a lot more kind of much more

643
00:34:34.519 --> 00:34:35.159
in control.

644
00:34:36.679 --> 00:34:40.280
And I also realized that I also you know that

645
00:34:40.519 --> 00:34:43.599
revelations come thick and fast when you start thinking about this,

646
00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:47.519
and I realized one of the triggers for this, you know,

647
00:34:47.679 --> 00:34:52.559
this feeling of really like real anger about her is

648
00:34:52.599 --> 00:34:57.599
whenever I'm feeling tired or hungry or kind of cold,

649
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:03.000
you know, in that kind of very childlike way about

650
00:35:03.440 --> 00:35:08.760
I feel upset or really low, and then suddenly I

651
00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:10.920
think about her and get angry that she's not there

652
00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:14.480
for me, and I realize where that comes from. I

653
00:35:14.519 --> 00:35:17.440
have a lot more knowledge about and understanding about that,

654
00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:21.639
and then are able to get over it quicker. And

655
00:35:21.679 --> 00:35:24.719
I could have appreciated all of that intellectually, because you know,

656
00:35:24.760 --> 00:35:29.360
I've spent thirty years trying to intellectually understand why this

657
00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:32.079
has happened. But I think it's one thing to kind

658
00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:34.800
of know it in your bones, and that's where I'm at.

659
00:35:34.840 --> 00:35:37.679
That's what the that's what the MDMA gave me.

660
00:35:38.079 --> 00:35:40.920
That's the thing, isn't it, Like I think many people

661
00:35:40.920 --> 00:35:42.840
would relate to that. You can get all of the

662
00:35:43.039 --> 00:35:48.639
insights intellectually, but it's actually embodying that that shift in

663
00:35:48.679 --> 00:35:51.119
your body. It is profound. When you say it's banal,

664
00:35:51.119 --> 00:35:52.639
I think there'd be women listening to this going no,

665
00:35:52.679 --> 00:35:53.920
that sounds miraculous to me.

666
00:35:55.840 --> 00:35:56.599
It really does.

667
00:35:57.320 --> 00:36:00.360
Yeah, it's and of course it has a really of

668
00:36:00.400 --> 00:36:02.679
effect the more you are doing it. I mean, really,

669
00:36:02.719 --> 00:36:07.079
you're trying to recalibrate a whole lot of ways that you've.

670
00:36:06.920 --> 00:36:08.800
Been for many, many years.

671
00:36:09.400 --> 00:36:12.599
And yes, you know when we talk about cycles of

672
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:17.639
intergener intergenerational trauma and particularly cycles of violence, whether that

673
00:36:17.719 --> 00:36:20.119
be men or women, but particularly women.

674
00:36:20.239 --> 00:36:24.280
So my mother, her father was incredibly violent towards her.

675
00:36:25.239 --> 00:36:29.760
She grew up in a time of also both racism

676
00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:34.000
and sexism in Australia as an Italian woman in Northern

677
00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:37.079
Quinsan in Theft in the fifty sixties. Sent you really

678
00:36:37.119 --> 00:36:41.599
internalize that shame about being Italian, which I never really understood.

679
00:36:41.639 --> 00:36:43.320
So I thought Italians are cool and it's all a

680
00:36:43.480 --> 00:36:47.599
cappuccinos and everything. But she just remembers, remembers that, and

681
00:36:47.800 --> 00:36:50.360
you know, it's there. I think when I think about

682
00:36:51.719 --> 00:36:55.679
what wasn't available to her, not just what she experienced,

683
00:36:55.679 --> 00:36:59.280
but wasn't available to her in terms of the language

684
00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:03.800
or understanding around mental health, the permission or eat all

685
00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:06.320
of the stigma which they would have been significant. There

686
00:37:06.440 --> 00:37:11.559
was significant stigma in Italian Italian Catholic communities around mental

687
00:37:11.559 --> 00:37:16.400
health as well, and everything that her mother experienced or whatever.

688
00:37:16.440 --> 00:37:20.960
All the women and men down that family tree, I'm

689
00:37:21.199 --> 00:37:22.480
doing the therapy.

690
00:37:22.079 --> 00:37:26.000
For all of them. All of them they couldn't or wouldn't.

691
00:37:25.599 --> 00:37:28.559
Do, and therefore it was never you know, So when

692
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:31.719
I go back to being, you know, nineteen twenty and

693
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:34.920
saying to the professor of psychiatry, all right, well, you know,

694
00:37:35.400 --> 00:37:37.639
let's get this fixed in six months, when she just

695
00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:42.400
was like, no, it's going to take a lifetime. And

696
00:37:43.079 --> 00:37:46.440
what she was trying to say is, in some ways

697
00:37:46.440 --> 00:37:48.440
I don't have to That's what she was trying to say.

698
00:37:48.440 --> 00:37:49.760
But when I look back to think.

699
00:37:49.679 --> 00:37:53.599
You're doing this for everyone, yeah, and you're also doing

700
00:37:53.599 --> 00:37:57.079
it so that your children don't have to also do

701
00:37:57.159 --> 00:38:02.559
all that hard work. So you're doing it for both

702
00:38:02.719 --> 00:38:07.440
ends behind and forward on the family tree, which.

703
00:38:07.559 --> 00:38:08.920
Is actually quite a big job.

704
00:38:09.960 --> 00:38:15.559
Huge, huge, and so important. So just for listeners, MDMA

705
00:38:16.079 --> 00:38:20.119
has been made legal for therapeutic purposes in Australia. This

706
00:38:20.239 --> 00:38:21.599
is right, right, that's.

707
00:38:21.480 --> 00:38:23.400
Right, first in the world for that to happen.

708
00:38:23.559 --> 00:38:26.400
Yes, I remember, as part of my training a few

709
00:38:26.480 --> 00:38:31.000
years ago, watching a video of a MDMA facilitated session.

710
00:38:31.159 --> 00:38:33.039
I don't quite remember the context, but I know that

711
00:38:33.079 --> 00:38:35.719
there were two people sitting in the room with somebody.

712
00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:39.840
As you said, it can take hours. So this I

713
00:38:39.880 --> 00:38:42.599
am imagining, it's still you know, go down the traditional

714
00:38:42.760 --> 00:38:45.320
therapeutic route. It's still very cost prohibitive.

715
00:38:45.519 --> 00:38:48.719
Absolutely, it's cost prohibitive. And in Australia, both of those

716
00:38:48.760 --> 00:38:51.440
people have to be psychiatrists.

717
00:38:51.159 --> 00:38:53.199
Right, So on the one hand, yeah, but on the

718
00:38:53.199 --> 00:38:56.239
other hand, not that helpful for a lot of people

719
00:38:56.320 --> 00:38:59.119
necessarily because also you have to be trained.

720
00:38:59.360 --> 00:39:03.559
Yeah, you have to be what's called an authorized prescriber.

721
00:39:04.199 --> 00:39:07.519
So I just can't be any psychiatrist. At the moment,

722
00:39:09.119 --> 00:39:13.519
there's about twenty authorized prescribers in the whole of Australia

723
00:39:13.679 --> 00:39:15.800
working out of a couple of key clinics. This is

724
00:39:15.840 --> 00:39:19.119
separate to the kind of twenty or so clinical trials

725
00:39:19.599 --> 00:39:21.679
that are happening all around. But of course, you know,

726
00:39:22.039 --> 00:39:24.079
as you would know, the clinical trial there's a lot

727
00:39:24.079 --> 00:39:26.480
of you know, you have to have to be able

728
00:39:26.519 --> 00:39:29.360
to be accepted and you might get the placebo, you

729
00:39:29.360 --> 00:39:32.719
know what I mean. It's a clinical trial, so it's

730
00:39:32.760 --> 00:39:36.719
about twenty prescribers. It's very time consuming to become a

731
00:39:36.840 --> 00:39:40.480
clinical prescriber. There are people who are going through the motion,

732
00:39:40.719 --> 00:39:43.000
are going through the process, so there will be more.

733
00:39:43.400 --> 00:39:46.159
So there are three there are integration sessions, and then

734
00:39:46.840 --> 00:39:49.519
it's all psychiatrist doing so you imagine that's very cost.

735
00:39:49.800 --> 00:39:50.280
It is cost.

736
00:39:50.840 --> 00:39:55.119
The cheapest formal legal way to do this as a

737
00:39:55.159 --> 00:39:58.960
member of the public is about twenty one thousand dollars.

738
00:39:58.960 --> 00:40:02.480
That's the cheapest where they're making almost no margin up

739
00:40:02.519 --> 00:40:07.239
to about thirty k. So it is expensive. I think

740
00:40:07.440 --> 00:40:12.280
that once the evidence base starts to build, and once

741
00:40:13.239 --> 00:40:15.880
there is a real understanding of who this could be

742
00:40:15.960 --> 00:40:18.639
helpful for and under what conditions is it may not

743
00:40:18.719 --> 00:40:23.639
work for everybody. There's everybody, even the most enthusiastic researchers

744
00:40:23.639 --> 00:40:25.760
and psychiatrists who are working on this, So this is

745
00:40:25.800 --> 00:40:29.239
not for everybody. However, if you do fit the criteria,

746
00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:34.920
it can be just profound. It can either really really

747
00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:38.920
reduce your symptoms of PTSD and do a lot to

748
00:40:39.039 --> 00:40:43.599
your connection and wellness afterwards, and in some cases pretty

749
00:40:43.639 --> 00:40:45.920
much diminish it to the point where you don't have

750
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:48.440
to be on medication a whole range thing.

751
00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:51.000
So the results if you get it right, are extraordinary.

752
00:40:51.480 --> 00:40:54.039
One thing that the researchers that I've been connecting to

753
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:57.000
and the psychiatrists who are working with it say to

754
00:40:57.079 --> 00:41:00.519
me is that it can be particularly a five for

755
00:41:00.599 --> 00:41:05.079
people who've sought conventional treatment for a while and then

756
00:41:05.360 --> 00:41:09.880
kind of plateaued or stalled. So if you've never done

757
00:41:09.920 --> 00:41:11.960
any therapy or never done any you know, I never

758
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:15.800
started to address things, going into MGMA therapy might be

759
00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:20.360
a bit like a bit too much. It's often when

760
00:41:20.400 --> 00:41:23.119
you've got all of that stuff behind you and it's

761
00:41:23.159 --> 00:41:26.440
not quite working again. This is like it can provide

762
00:41:26.440 --> 00:41:29.760
this great foundation for this to be a breakthrough. And

763
00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:33.960
I also think there's something about being in the middle

764
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:36.239
of your life and your forties and fifties and you've

765
00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:40.039
starting to really see, like really see the cycles and

766
00:41:40.119 --> 00:41:44.280
really start to see, you know, really make a decision

767
00:41:44.400 --> 00:41:46.800
that you really want to nail this, and you really

768
00:41:46.840 --> 00:41:50.559
want to kind of address the root causes rather than

769
00:41:50.679 --> 00:41:51.960
the symptoms.

770
00:41:51.440 --> 00:41:52.199
Of what's happening.

771
00:41:52.239 --> 00:41:56.039
Exactly, and I think that's where this can be very useful.

772
00:41:56.679 --> 00:42:00.880
So they, I mean interesting, some of them anecdotally said,

773
00:42:00.920 --> 00:42:04.199
there's just something about that it seems to work particularly

774
00:42:04.199 --> 00:42:08.320
well with highly reflective, empathetic women in.

775
00:42:08.280 --> 00:42:09.440
Their forties and fifties.

776
00:42:09.599 --> 00:42:12.440
Seem to be quite you know what I mean, seemed

777
00:42:12.440 --> 00:42:14.719
to be quite a good It's not that it can't

778
00:42:14.719 --> 00:42:17.280
work for men or whatever people at different ages. I

779
00:42:17.320 --> 00:42:21.679
just think it is interesting the determination of perimenopausal and

780
00:42:21.760 --> 00:42:25.079
menopause or women to deal with the heart of issues

781
00:42:25.159 --> 00:42:29.000
that potentially exactly effective with exactly.

782
00:42:29.320 --> 00:42:30.960
And that is a really good point that you make.

783
00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:32.840
And you said at the beginning that you had all

784
00:42:32.840 --> 00:42:36.880
of this this scaffolding around you, you had solid mental health practices,

785
00:42:36.920 --> 00:42:40.000
you'd had therapy, you had the insight intellectually, and this

786
00:42:40.199 --> 00:42:42.679
was just like take all of that and kind of

787
00:42:42.679 --> 00:42:44.239
go to the next level and get to the root

788
00:42:44.239 --> 00:42:44.440
of it.

789
00:42:44.599 --> 00:42:44.800
Yeah.

790
00:42:45.239 --> 00:42:48.719
I think once there starts to become as my understanding is,

791
00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:51.239
after written this book, I've connected with so many of

792
00:42:51.320 --> 00:42:55.360
the great psychiatrists around Australia and researchers who are actually

793
00:42:55.360 --> 00:42:57.639
doing the work. They feel that once they're kind of

794
00:42:57.800 --> 00:43:01.079
in a bit more sense with the evidence space that

795
00:43:01.119 --> 00:43:03.840
they'll start to be able to do things, start to

796
00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:08.840
train psychologists, to start to do the integration, and maybe

797
00:43:08.880 --> 00:43:10.559
sit with the psychiatry, you know what I mean that

798
00:43:10.599 --> 00:43:14.039
then it gets slightly less expensive. One of the things

799
00:43:14.079 --> 00:43:17.239
that Julia has talked to me about is she said,

800
00:43:17.239 --> 00:43:23.840
look for the really professional, seasoned and ethical practitioners in

801
00:43:23.920 --> 00:43:27.400
the underground. There's a lot of knowledge and potentially they

802
00:43:27.400 --> 00:43:31.119
could be part of clinical teams. So she would be

803
00:43:31.239 --> 00:43:34.760
somebody who, having sat with hundreds of people over the

804
00:43:34.840 --> 00:43:37.719
last three is be the person sitting with the psychiatrist.

805
00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:39.639
So I think clinical.

806
00:43:39.199 --> 00:43:42.400
Treams a whole lot of people who are actually trained

807
00:43:42.719 --> 00:43:45.679
would be the way to reduce the costs. I mean,

808
00:43:45.719 --> 00:43:48.079
you don't want it to be so cheap than anybody else.

809
00:43:48.440 --> 00:43:51.039
I mean there's a balance. You would hope that for

810
00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:54.280
the government if they think about, you know where one

811
00:43:54.320 --> 00:43:58.400
group of people where it's been particularly useful some of

812
00:43:58.400 --> 00:44:02.559
the clinical trials are turned soldiers with PTSD, And if

813
00:44:02.599 --> 00:44:06.960
you think about veterans who've really given a lot of

814
00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:10.679
their livelihood to protect their country and to serve their

815
00:44:10.679 --> 00:44:13.679
country and then come back and find real challenges in

816
00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:17.599
terms of mental health, in terms of family, in terms

817
00:44:17.639 --> 00:44:21.159
of keeping a job. You would think if this is

818
00:44:21.159 --> 00:44:24.559
something that could be really useful and helpful for them

819
00:44:24.679 --> 00:44:29.199
in their relationships, in their physical health, in their ability

820
00:44:29.320 --> 00:44:32.760
to kind of get then you think, you know, maybe

821
00:44:33.639 --> 00:44:37.280
this is a pretty good upfront investment about what you

822
00:44:37.320 --> 00:44:41.000
would need that citizen in the long term. So you

823
00:44:41.079 --> 00:44:44.440
want to make sure that we're not cutting corners and

824
00:44:44.440 --> 00:44:45.880
cutting the efficacy of it.

825
00:44:46.519 --> 00:44:48.199
And I think that's where we are.

826
00:44:48.079 --> 00:44:50.599
So at the moment, I kind of feel like the

827
00:44:50.639 --> 00:44:53.559
people who are in the clinical trials and paying the

828
00:44:53.599 --> 00:44:57.519
money are investing in an ongoing understanding of how it's

829
00:44:57.559 --> 00:44:58.320
going to be useful.

830
00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:00.360
Yeah, you would not want this to continue.

831
00:45:00.039 --> 00:45:03.239
Need to be just something that you pay thirty k

832
00:45:03.480 --> 00:45:06.480
out of pocket for that would you know, No, be

833
00:45:06.599 --> 00:45:09.000
really terrible if that's how it remained.

834
00:45:09.280 --> 00:45:12.920
And just before we go, Rebecca, so I know that

835
00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:15.639
there'll be people listening to this going all right, how

836
00:45:15.639 --> 00:45:18.119
do I find myself a Julia, this is what I need?

837
00:45:18.239 --> 00:45:20.119
I guess you know you're not in the position to

838
00:45:20.239 --> 00:45:23.360
give people advice necessarily, but what would you say to

839
00:45:23.400 --> 00:45:24.960
those people? What do they need to be on the

840
00:45:24.960 --> 00:45:27.480
lookout for you? Know what I mean, Like what now,

841
00:45:27.559 --> 00:45:28.119
I know what you mean.

842
00:45:28.320 --> 00:45:31.880
Yeah, look I laughed with it before the book came out.

843
00:45:31.880 --> 00:45:34.440
Of one of my research assistants, I asked to become

844
00:45:34.480 --> 00:45:38.760
my media manager social media manager to kind of manage

845
00:45:38.800 --> 00:45:42.519
the correspondence that would come through people asking and you know,

846
00:45:42.559 --> 00:45:44.840
it's just been a steady stream and stuff which are

847
00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:47.440
called the hugs and drugs, the hugs and drugs crowd,

848
00:45:47.480 --> 00:45:49.000
the people that say I read your book and want

849
00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:51.000
to hug you, and they say, oh, where do I

850
00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:55.119
get the drugs? So look, there are I mean for

851
00:45:55.239 --> 00:45:58.559
people who do want to go around down the legal rouge.

852
00:45:58.639 --> 00:46:02.159
There are some clinic that are starting to you know,

853
00:46:02.320 --> 00:46:04.320
they have that money and want to make that investment.

854
00:46:04.880 --> 00:46:07.400
There are some clinics and I know those people who

855
00:46:07.400 --> 00:46:08.880
are doing a really good job.

856
00:46:09.400 --> 00:46:12.599
The first step really is your GP or GP.

857
00:46:12.559 --> 00:46:15.480
Or your psychologist to kind of actually connect you to

858
00:46:15.519 --> 00:46:16.480
some of those clinics.

859
00:46:16.559 --> 00:46:21.320
I mean, there is a huge underground, not just like

860
00:46:21.440 --> 00:46:22.280
the Northern rivers.

861
00:46:22.519 --> 00:46:25.280
So you know, and I can understand why people would

862
00:46:25.280 --> 00:46:27.480
want to do it because obviously I stumbled into it.

863
00:46:28.119 --> 00:46:31.599
I think the most important thing before you even think

864
00:46:31.639 --> 00:46:34.079
about it is you have to ask yourself some really

865
00:46:34.880 --> 00:46:38.320
searching questions about whether you're ready. Like when people say

866
00:46:38.519 --> 00:46:40.360
this to me, they want to do it. I said,

867
00:46:41.880 --> 00:46:45.480
is everything on your life ready for all the stuff

868
00:46:45.480 --> 00:46:48.280
that you've been blocking out in your head to come

869
00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:52.480
tumbling out, not just for a couple of sessions, but

870
00:46:52.519 --> 00:46:54.800
for the foreseeable future.

871
00:46:55.719 --> 00:46:58.920
So are you set up for that to happen?

872
00:46:59.480 --> 00:47:04.440
Because that happens a lot to me even now, right,

873
00:47:04.880 --> 00:47:11.079
something will happen like smell touch, I'll remember something and

874
00:47:11.280 --> 00:47:14.440
I'll be you know, that's what. Once it starts to unfurl,

875
00:47:14.559 --> 00:47:17.159
it really unfills. So are you ready to slowly and

876
00:47:17.199 --> 00:47:19.760
surely fall apart? Like is your life ready for that?

877
00:47:19.920 --> 00:47:22.559
Do you have the support? What is your intention for

878
00:47:22.719 --> 00:47:26.559
doing this? Do you have expectations that are kind of

879
00:47:26.840 --> 00:47:29.320
like I'll just do it and it'll fix me.

880
00:47:29.960 --> 00:47:34.000
That I'll take these drugs and fix me. Generally, whether

881
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:35.519
they're legal or illegal is.

882
00:47:35.440 --> 00:47:38.760
Not doesn't tend to work out. But I think if

883
00:47:38.800 --> 00:47:41.440
you find somebody you really want to ask, you really

884
00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:43.280
want to go slow and get to know them and

885
00:47:43.320 --> 00:47:46.800
ask questions and see what are they over promising and

886
00:47:46.920 --> 00:47:49.519
what has there been experienced in the past and all

887
00:47:49.559 --> 00:47:52.559
of those other kinds of things you do want to

888
00:47:52.599 --> 00:47:54.519
take in the same way as anything, a kind of

889
00:47:54.559 --> 00:47:58.599
harm minimization approach to it, and if there's any red

890
00:47:58.679 --> 00:48:02.519
flag in dealing with that person, then just walk away

891
00:48:03.480 --> 00:48:06.360
because you're going to put them in. And had there

892
00:48:06.360 --> 00:48:09.679
been any red flag with Julia, had I been like, Oh,

893
00:48:09.719 --> 00:48:11.480
that's a bit weird that they said that or did

894
00:48:11.480 --> 00:48:14.880
that or whatever. There was just I immediately felt, before

895
00:48:14.880 --> 00:48:17.280
I even had taken the drug out a good experience,

896
00:48:17.400 --> 00:48:20.760
I immediately felt, this person knows what they're doing. They're

897
00:48:20.800 --> 00:48:26.480
not here just to make a ton of money. They're thoughtful,

898
00:48:26.920 --> 00:48:29.920
they're reflective, all of those other kinds of things, and

899
00:48:30.559 --> 00:48:32.840
that engendered a lot of trust, and that trust ended

900
00:48:32.920 --> 00:48:36.400
up being you know, we now talk and interact a lot,

901
00:48:36.760 --> 00:48:39.719
and I've met some other people. She's quite a number

902
00:48:39.719 --> 00:48:42.840
of other people she's treated and exactly the same kind

903
00:48:42.920 --> 00:48:46.480
of ethical approach. I don't know how many I've never

904
00:48:46.639 --> 00:48:48.440
worked with anybody else, so I don't know how many

905
00:48:48.440 --> 00:48:48.840
people are.

906
00:48:49.599 --> 00:48:51.159
They're about it, and there's quite.

907
00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:54.880
A lot at the moment online you can read about

908
00:48:54.920 --> 00:48:55.519
it as well.

909
00:48:55.599 --> 00:48:57.519
I mean, it's hard when you're online to know the

910
00:48:57.599 --> 00:48:57.960
right thing.

911
00:48:58.440 --> 00:49:00.719
But that's what I would say, if that's what you

912
00:49:00.800 --> 00:49:05.559
want to and surround yourself. I did confide in a

913
00:49:05.599 --> 00:49:07.840
couple of people that I was doing it and was

914
00:49:07.880 --> 00:49:10.480
continuing to do it, and they were a very good

915
00:49:10.519 --> 00:49:12.559
support network for me throughout the process.

916
00:49:12.599 --> 00:49:16.000
So, yeah, one thing I didn't ask you, which I

917
00:49:16.079 --> 00:49:19.800
just should for comparison, what did it cost you? What

918
00:49:19.880 --> 00:49:22.000
is somebody like Julia? I know it will vary, but

919
00:49:22.039 --> 00:49:23.440
what's the ballpark?

920
00:49:23.559 --> 00:49:26.920
So so for the eight hour sessions, so the full

921
00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:29.480
day sessions and it was everything included and she brought

922
00:49:29.480 --> 00:49:31.880
the drug for example, and did all the other stuff,

923
00:49:32.360 --> 00:49:37.000
was eleven hundred dollars. And then the integration sessions, you know,

924
00:49:37.199 --> 00:49:39.920
an hour like one hundred and twenty. So you know,

925
00:49:40.159 --> 00:49:43.639
I thought, well that's probably what I would pay for

926
00:49:43.679 --> 00:49:45.840
an hour for a massage.

927
00:49:45.920 --> 00:49:46.559
You know what I mean.

928
00:49:48.840 --> 00:49:50.800
I'm not going to be able to get off Medicare,

929
00:49:51.960 --> 00:49:53.679
so it's still a lot of money, but it's no

930
00:49:53.800 --> 00:49:56.239
when you know what I mean. So the whole process

931
00:49:56.800 --> 00:50:00.920
probably cost me about five or six thousand dollars, you know,

932
00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:02.920
a lot for a lot of people, but you know,

933
00:50:03.320 --> 00:50:06.599
kind of something like a third or a quarter of what, yes,

934
00:50:06.880 --> 00:50:10.679
what you would get if you went through the private Yeah.

935
00:50:10.760 --> 00:50:13.960
I so appreciate you writing the book and sharing your experience, Rebecca.

936
00:50:13.960 --> 00:50:17.159
I know lots of people will as well. It's really

937
00:50:17.320 --> 00:50:21.800
well written. It's so vulnerable to You've really brought all

938
00:50:21.800 --> 00:50:23.920
the skeletons out of the closet. Let's face it, haven't you,

939
00:50:24.239 --> 00:50:26.559
but for the benefit. I think of a lot of

940
00:50:26.719 --> 00:50:30.679
people who will thank you, really resonate with your story.

941
00:50:30.760 --> 00:50:32.719
So thank you so much for your time today. I

942
00:50:32.880 --> 00:50:34.920
have really really enjoyed this conversation.

943
00:50:35.199 --> 00:50:37.840
I've loved it, and I'm apologies for the dogs and

944
00:50:37.840 --> 00:50:38.400
the children.

945
00:50:40.079 --> 00:50:43.000
Dogs and kids are standard these days. It's just part

946
00:50:43.079 --> 00:50:43.719
of the gods.

947
00:50:44.039 --> 00:50:45.920
They are wonderful and they could have Can I tell

948
00:50:45.920 --> 00:50:47.400
you they could have been a lot worse.

949
00:50:49.199 --> 00:50:51.599
If you enjoy this episode, please do share it with

950
00:50:51.639 --> 00:50:53.679
a friend. Make sure you leave us a writing and review.

951
00:50:53.719 --> 00:50:56.440
Subscribe to the internom as an episode. Come and connect

952
00:50:56.440 --> 00:50:59.880
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953
00:51:00.039 --> 00:51:03.840
Happy Pod my website castone dot com. Always happy to

954
00:51:03.840 --> 00:51:06.440
hear from you and I can't wait to catch you

955
00:51:06.440 --> 00:51:10.280
next week for another fabulous episode of Crappy to Happy